A Pair Of Blue Eyes - Chapter 15
First published in 1873, "A Pair of Blue Eyes" is a tender and atmospheric novel by Thomas Hardy, set amid the wild beauty of the Cornish coast in western England. It tells the story of Elfride Swancourt, a young woman caught between love, social expectations, and the haunting pull of the past. This early Hardy novel is rich with emotional depth and lyrical landscapes, so settle in and let the gentle rhythms of Victorian prose carry you into a quieter time...!
Transcript
Hello there.
Thank you so much for joining me for this continued reading of A Pair of Blue Eyes,
The charming novel from 1873 by English author and poet Thomas Hardy,
The much-loved author of other books such as Far From the Madding Crowd and Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
This is one of his earlier works.
We've been following along with the adventures of a bright,
High-spirited young woman living in the remote far west of England in the Victorian era.
Perhaps you've heard the preceding parts of this book and if you haven't and would like to you can certainly look for the playlist for A Pair of Blue Eyes and you'll find everything there in order.
But for now,
Before we go on further,
Let's just take a moment here to have a nice deep exhale.
Letting go of the day,
Letting go of whichever baggage we might be bringing along with us into this moment.
For right now there's nowhere else we have to go,
Nothing else we have to be doing.
So we can just relax,
Get ourselves comfortable and enjoy the ongoing tale of A Pair of Blue Eyes.
Chapter 15.
A Wandering Voice.
Though sheer and intelligible griefs are not charmed away by being confided to mere acquaintances,
The process is a palliative to certain ill-humours.
Among these,
Perplexed vexation,
Is one.
A species of trouble which,
Like a stream,
Gets shallower by the simple operation of widening it in any quarter.
On the evening of the day succeeding that of the meeting in the park,
Elfrid and Mrs Swancourt were engaged in conversation in the dressing room of the latter.
Such a treatment of such a case was in course of adoption here.
Elfrid had just before received an affectionate letter from Stephen Smith in Bombay,
Which had been forwarded to her from Endelstow.
But since this is not the case referred to,
It is not worthwhile to pry further into the contents of the letter than to discover that,
With rash though pardonable confidence in coming times,
He addressed her in high spirits as his darling future wife.
Probably there cannot be instanced a briefer and surer rule-of-thumb test of a man's temperament,
Sanguine or cautious,
Than this.
Did he,
Or does he,
Antedate the word wife in corresponding with a sweetheart he honestly loves?
She had taken this epistle into her own room,
Read a little of it,
Then saved the rest for tomorrow,
Not wishing to be so extravagant as to consume the pleasure all at once.
Nevertheless,
She could not resist the wish to enjoy yet a little more.
So out came the letter again,
And in spite of misgivings as to prodigality,
The whole was devoured.
The letter was finally re-perused and placed in her pocket.
What was this?
Also a newspaper for Elfrid,
Which she had overlooked in her hurry to open the letter.
It was the old number of the present,
Containing the article upon her book,
Forwarded as had been requested.
Elfrid had hastily read it through,
Shrunk perceptibly smaller,
And had then gone with the paper in her hand to Mrs.
Swancourt's dressing-room,
To lighten,
Or at least modify,
Her vexation by a discriminating estimate from her stepmother.
She was now looking disconsolately out of the window.
"'Never mind,
My child,
' said Mrs.
Swancourt,
After a careful perusal of the matter indicated.
"'I don't see that the review is such a terrible one,
After all.
Besides,
Everybody has forgotten about it by this time.
I'm sure the opening is good enough for any book ever written.
Just listen.
It sounds better read aloud than when you pour over it silently.
The Court of Kellyanne Castle,
A Romance of the Middle Ages by Ernest Field.
In the belief that we were for a while escaping the monotonous repetition of wearisome details in modern social scenery,
Analyses of uninteresting character,
Or the unnatural unfoldings of a sensation plot,
We took this volume into our hands with a feeling of pleasure.
We were disposed to beguile ourselves with the fancy that some new change might possibly be wrung upon donjon keeps,
Chain and plate armour,
Deeply scarred cheeks,
Tender maidens disguised as pages,
To which we had not listened long ago.
"'Now,
That's a very good beginning,
In my opinion,
And one to be proud of having brought out of a man who has never seen you!
' "'Ah,
Yes,
' murmured Elfride woefully.
"'But then see further on.
' "'Well,
The next bit is rather unkind,
I must own,
' said Mrs Swancourt,
And read on.
Instead of this,
We found ourselves in the hands of some young lady,
Hardly arrived at years of discretion to judge by the silly device it has been thought worthwhile to adopt on the title page with the idea of disguising her sex.
"'I am not silly,
' said Elfride indignantly.
"'He might have called me anything but that!
' "'You are not,
Indeed.
Well,
Hands of a young lady whose chapters are simply devoted to impossible tournaments,
Towers,
And escapades,
Which read like flat copies of like scenes in the stories of Mr G.
P.
R.
James,
And the most unreal portions of Ivanhoe.
"'The bait is so palpably artificial that the most credulous Gudgeon turns away.
"'Now,
My dear,
I don't see overmuch to complain of in that.
It proves that you were clever enough to make him think of Sir Walter Scott,
Which is a great deal.
' "'Oh,
Yes.
Though I cannot romance myself,
I am able to remind him of those who can.
' Elfride intended to hurl these words sarcastically at her invisible enemy,
But as she had no more satirical power than a wood pigeon,
They merely fell in a pretty murmur from lips shaped to a pout.
"'Certainly.
And that's something.
Your book is good enough to be "'bad' in an ordinary literary manner,
And doesn't stand by itself in a melancholy position altogether worse than a saleable.
That interest in an historical romance may nowadays have any chance of being sustained.
It is indispensable that the reader find himself under the guidance of some nearly extinct species of legendary who,
In addition to an impulse towards antiquarian research and an unweakened faith in the medieval halo,
Shall possess an inventive faculty in which delicacy of sentiment is far overtopped by a power of welding to stirring incident a spirited variety of the elementary human passions.
Well,
That long-winded effusion doesn't refer to you at all,
Elfride.
Merely something put in to fill up.
Let me see.
When does he come to you again?
Not till the very end,
Actually.
Here you are,
Finally polished off.
But to return to the little work we have used as the text of this article,
We are far from altogether disparaging the author's powers.
She has a certain versatility that enables her to use with effect a style of narration peculiar to herself,
Which may be called a murmuring of delicate emotional trifles,
The particular gift of those to whom the social sympathies of a peaceful time are as daily food.
Hence,
Where matters of domestic experience and the natural touches which make people real can be introduced without anachronisms too striking,
She is occasionally felicitous.
And upon the whole,
We feel justified in saying that the book will bear looking into for the sake of those portions which have nothing whatever to do with the story.
Well,
I suppose it is intended for satire,
But don't think anything more of it now,
My dear.
It is seven o'clock,
And Mrs.
Swancourt rang for her maid.
Attack is more piquant than Concord.
Stephen's letter was concerning nothing but oneness with her.
The review was the very reverse.
And a stranger with neither name nor shape,
Age nor appearance,
But a mighty voice,
Is naturally rather an interesting novelty to a lady he chooses to address.
When Elfride fell asleep that night,
She was loving the writer of the letter,
But thinking of the writer of that article.
