BOOK THIRDTHE FASCINATION
I
"My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"
In Clym Yeobright's face could be dimly seen the typical countenanceof the future. Should there be a classic period to art hereafter, itsPheidias may produce such faces. The view of life as a thing to beput up with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intensein early civilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into theconstitution of the advanced races that its facial expression willbecome accepted as a new artistic departure. People already feel thata man who lives without disturbing a curve of feature, or settinga mark of mental concern anywhere upon himself, is too far removedfrom modern perceptiveness to be a modern type. Physically beautifulmen--the glory of the race when it was young--are almost ananachronism now; and we may wonder whether, at some time or other,physically beautiful women may not be an anachronism likewise.
The truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive centuries haspermanently displaced the Hellenic idea of life, or whatever it maybe called. What the Greeks only suspected we know well; what theirAeschylus imagined our nursery children feel. That old-fashionedrevelling in the general situation grows less and less possible as weuncover the defects of natural laws, and see the quandary that man isin by their operation.
The lineaments which will get embodied in ideals based upon thisnew recognition will probably be akin to those of Yeobright. Theobserver's eye was arrested, not by his face as a picture, but byhis face as a page; not by what it was, but by what it recorded.His features were attractive in the light of symbols, as soundsintrinsically common become attractive in language, and as shapesintrinsically simple become interesting in writing.
He had been a lad of whom something was expected. Beyond this all hadbeen chaos. That he would be successful in an original way, or thathe would go to the dogs in an original way, seemed equally probable.The only absolute certainty about him was that he would not standstill in the circumstances amid which he was born.
Hence, when his name was casually mentioned by neighbouring yeomen,the listener said, "Ah, Clym Yeobright: what is he doing now?" Whenthe instinctive question about a person is, What is he doing? it isfelt that he will be found to be, like most of us, doing nothing inparticular. There is an indefinite sense that he must be invadingsome region of singularity, good or bad. The devout hope is that heis doing well. The secret faith is that he is making a mess of it.Half a dozen comfortable marketmen, who were habitual callers at theQuiet Woman as they passed by in their carts, were partial to thetopic. In fact, though they were not Egdon men, they could hardlyavoid it while they sucked their long clay tubes and regarded theheath through the window. Clym had been so inwoven with the heath inhis boyhood that hardly anybody could look upon it without thinking ofhim. So the subject recurred: if he were making a fortune and a name,so much the better for him; if he were making a tragical figure in theworld, so much the better for a narrative.
The fact was that Yeobright's fame had spread to an awkward extentbefore he left home. "It is bad when your fame outruns your means,"said the Spanish Jesuit Gracian. At the age of six he had asked aScripture riddle: "Who was the first man known to wear breeches?"and applause had resounded from the very verge of the heath. Atseven he painted the Battle of Waterloo with tiger-lily pollen andblack-currant juice, in the absence of water-colours. By the timehe reached twelve he had in this manner been heard of as artistand scholar for at least two miles round. An individual whose famespreads three or four thousand yards in the time taken by the fameof others similarly situated to travel six or eight hundred, must ofnecessity have something in him. Possibly Clym's fame, like Homer's,owed something to the accidents of his situation; nevertheless famoushe was.
He grew up and was helped out in life. That waggery of fate whichstarted Clive as a writing clerk, Gay as a linen-draper, Keats as asurgeon, and a thousand others in a thousand other odd ways, banishedthe wild and ascetic heath lad to a trade whose sole concern was withthe especial symbols of self-indulgence and vainglory.
The details of this choice of a business for him it is not necessaryto give. At the death of his father a neighbouring gentleman hadkindly undertaken to give the boy a start, and this assumed the formof sending him to Budmouth. Yeobright did not wish to go there, butit was the only feasible opening. Thence he went to London; andthence, shortly after, to Paris, where he had remained till now.
Something being expected of him, he had not been at home many daysbefore a great curiosity as to why he stayed on so long began toarise in the heath. The natural term of a holiday had passed, yethe still remained. On the Sunday morning following the week ofThomasin's marriage a discussion on this subject was in progress ata hair-cutting before Fairway's house. Here the local barbering wasalways done at this hour on this day, to be followed by the greatSunday wash of the inhabitants at noon, which in its turn was followedby the great Sunday dressing an hour later. On Egdon Heath Sundayproper did not begin till dinner-time, and even then it was a somewhatbattered specimen of the day.
These Sunday-morning hair-cuttings were performed by Fairway; thevictim sitting on a chopping-block in front of the house, without acoat, and the neighbours gossiping around, idly observing the locksof hair as they rose upon the wind after the snip, and flew away outof sight to the four quarters of the heavens. Summer and winter thescene was the same, unless the wind were more than usually blusterous,when the stool was shifted a few feet round the corner. To complainof cold in sitting out of doors, hatless and coatless, while Fairwaytold true stories between the cuts of the scissors, would have beento pronounce yourself no man at once. To flinch, exclaim, or move amuscle of the face at the small stabs under the ear received fromthose instruments, or at scarifications of the neck by the comb, wouldhave been thought a gross breach of good manners, considering thatFairway did it all for nothing. A bleeding about the poll on Sundayafternoons was amply accounted for by the explanation. "I have had myhair cut, you know."
The conversation on Yeobright had been started by a distant view ofthe young man rambling leisurely across the heath before them.
"A man who is doing well elsewhere wouldn't bide here two or threeweeks for nothing," said Fairway. "He's got some project in'shead--depend upon that."
"Well, 'a can't keep a diment shop here," said Sam.
"I don't see why he should have had them two heavy boxes home if hehad not been going to bide; and what there is for him to do here theLord in heaven knows."
Before many more surmises could be indulged in Yeobright had comenear; and seeing the hair-cutting group he turned aside to join them.Marching up, and looking critically at their faces for a moment, hesaid, without introduction, "Now, folks, let me guess what you havebeen talking about."
"Ay, sure, if you will," said Sam.
"About me."
"Now, it is a thing I shouldn't have dreamed of doing, otherwise,"said Fairway in a tone of integrity; "but since you have named it,Master Yeobright, I'll own that we was talking about 'ee. We werewondering what could keep you home here mollyhorning about when youhave made such a world-wide name for yourself in the nick-nacktrade--now, that's the truth o't."
"I'll tell you," said Yeobright, with unexpected earnestness. "I amnot sorry to have the opportunity. I've come home because, all thingsconsidered, I can be a trifle less useless here than anywhere else.But I have only lately found this out. When I first got away fromhome I thought this place was not worth troubling about. I thoughtour life here was contemptible. To oil your boots instead of blackingthem, to dust your coat with a switch instead of a brush: was thereever anything more ridiculous? I said."
"So 'tis; so 'tis!"
"No, no--you are wrong; it isn't."
"Beg your pardon, we thought that was your maning?"
"Well, as my views changed my course became very depressing. I foundthat I was trying to be like people who had hardly anything in commonwith myself. I was endeavouring to put off one sort of life foranother sort of life, which was not better t
han the life I had knownbefore. It was simply different."
"True; a sight different," said Fairway.
"Yes, Paris must be a taking place," said Humphrey. "Grandshop-winders, trumpets, and drums; and here be we out of doors in allwinds and weathers--"
"But you mistake me," pleaded Clym. "All this was very depressing.But not so depressing as something I next perceived--that my businesswas the idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that ever a mancould be put to. That decided me: I would give it up and try tofollow some rational occupation among the people I knew best, andto whom I could be of most use. I have come home; and this is how Imean to carry out my plan. I shall keep a school as near to Egdon aspossible, so as to be able to walk over here and have a night-schoolin my mother's house. But I must study a little at first, to getproperly qualified. Now, neighbours, I must go."
And Clym resumed his walk across the heath.
"He'll never carry it out in the world," said Fairway. "In a few weekshe'll learn to see things otherwise."
"'Tis good-hearted of the young man," said another. "But, for mypart, I think he had better mind his business."