Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

At Marygreen


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Not forgetting that he was only following up this handicraft as a
prop to lean on while he prepared those greater engines which he
flattered himself would be better fitted for him, he yet was interested
in his pursuit on its own account. He now had lodgings during the
week in the little town, whence he returned to Marygreen village
every Saturday evening. And thus he reached and passed his
nineteenth year.
Jude the Obscure


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I.–vi.
A
 this memorable date of his life he was, one Saturday, returning
from Alfredston to Marygreen about three o’clock in the afternoon.
It was 
fine, warm, and soft summer weather, and he walked with his
tools at his back, his little chisels clinking faintly against the larger
ones in his basket. It being the end of the week he had left work early,
and had come out of the town by a roundabout route which he did
not usually frequent, having promised to call at a 
flour-mill near
Cresscombe to execute a commission for his aunt.
He was in an enthusiastic mood. He seemed to see his way to
living comfortably in Christminster in the course of a year or two,
and knocking at the doors of one of those strongholds of learning of
which he had dreamed so much. He might, of course, have gone
there now in some capacity or other, but he preferred to enter the
city with a little more assurance as to means than he could be said to
feel at present. A warm self-content su
ffused him when he con-
sidered what he had already done. Now and then as he went along he
turned to face the peeps of country on either side of him. But he
hardly saw them; the act was an automatic repetition of what he had
been accustomed to do when less occupied; and the one matter which
really engaged him was the mental estimate of his progress thus far.
‘I have acquired quite an average student’s power to read the
common ancient classics, Latin in particular.’ This was true; Jude
possessing a facility in that language which enabled him with
great ease to himself to beguile his lonely walks by imaginary
conversations therein.
‘I have read* two books of the Iliad, besides being pretty familiar
with passages such as the speech of Phœnix in the ninth book, the
fight of Hector and Ajax in the fourteenth, the appearance of
Achilles unarmed and his heavenly armour in the eighteenth, and
the funeral games in the twenty-third. I have also done some Hesiod;
a little scrap of Thucydides, and a lot of the Greek Testament. . . . I
wish there was only one dialect, all the same.
‘I have done some mathematics, including the 
first six and the
eleventh and twelfth books of Euclid; and Algebra as far as simple
equations.

---

‘I know something of the Fathers; and something of Roman and
English history.
‘These things are only a beginning. But I shall not make much
further advance here, from the di
fficulty of getting books. Hence I
must next concentrate all my energies on settling in Christminster.
Once there I shall so advance, with the assistance I shall there get,
that my present knowledge will appear to me but as childish ignor-
ance. I must save money, and I will; and one of those colleges shall
open its doors to me––shall welcome whom now it would spurn, if I
wait twenty years for the welcome.
‘I’ll be D.D.* before I have done!’
And then he continued to dream, and thought he might become
even a bishop by leading a pure, energetic, wise Christian life. And
what an example he would set! If his income were £
 a year he
would give away £
 in one form and another, and live sumptu-
ously (for him) on the remainder. Well, on second thoughts, a bishop
was absurd. He would draw the line at an archdeacon. Perhaps a man
could be as good and as learned and as useful in the capacity of
archdeacon as in that of bishop. Yet he thought of the bishop
again.
‘Meanwhile I will read, as soon as I am settled in Christminster
the books I have not been able to get hold of here: Livy: Tacitus:
Herodotus: Aeschylus: Sophocles: Aristophanes––’
‘Ha, ha, ha! Hoity-hoity!’ The sounds were expressed in light
voices on the other side of the hedge, but he did not notice them. His
thoughts went on:
‘––Euripides: Plato: Aristotle: Lucretius: Epictetus: Seneca:
Antoninus. Then I must master other things: the Fathers thor-
oughly; Bede and ecclesiastical history generally; a smattering of
Hebrew––I only know the letters as yet––’
‘Hoity-toity!’
‘––but I can work hard. I have staying power in abundance, thank
God; and it is that which tells. . . . Yes, Christminster shall be my
Alma Mater; and I’ll be her beloved son, in whom she shall be well
pleased.’*
In his deep concentration on these transactions of the future,
Jude’s walk had slackened, and he was now standing quite still,
looking at the ground as though the future were thrown thereon by a
magic lantern. On a sudden something smacked him sharply in the
Jude the Obscure


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ear, and he became aware that a soft cold substance had been 
flung at
him, and had fallen at his feet.
A glance told him what it was––a piece of 
flesh, the characteristic