Jude the Obscure (Oxford World's Classics)

PART THIRD
AT MELCHESTER

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‘For there was no other girl, O bridegroom, like her!’*
S
 (H. T. Wharton).

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 
III.–i.
I
 was a new idea; the ecclesiastical and altruistic life as distinct from
the intellectual and emulative life. A man could preach and do good
to his fellow-creatures without taking double-
firsts in the schools of
Christminster, or having anything but ordinary knowledge. The old
fancy which had led on to the culminating vision of the bishopric
had not been an ethical or theological enthusiasm at all, but a mun-
dane ambition masquerading in a surplice. He feared that his whole
scheme had degenerated to, even though it might not have originated
in, a social unrest which had no foundation in the nobler instincts;
which was purely an arti
ficial product of civilization. There were
thousands of young men on the same self-seeking track at the pres-
ent moment. The sensual hind who ate, drank, and lived carelessly
with his wife* through the days of his vanity was a more likable being
than he.
But to enter the Church in such an unscholarly way that he could
not in any probability rise to a higher grade through all his career
than that of the humble curate wearing his life out in an obscure
village or city slum; that might have a touch of goodness and
greatness in it; that might be true religion, and a purgatorial course
worthy of being followed by a remorseful man.
The favourable light in which this new thought showed itself by
contrast with his foregone intentions cheered Jude, as he sat there,
shabby and lonely; and it may be said to have given, during the next
few days, the coup de grâce to his intellectual career––a career which
had extended over the greater part of a dozen years. He did nothing,
however, for some long stagnant time to advance his new desire,
occupying himself with little local jobs in putting up and lettering
headstones about the neighbouring villages, and submitting to be
regarded as a social failure, a returned purchase, by the half-dozen
or so of farmers and other country-people who condescended to nod
to him.
The human interest of the new intention––and a human interest
is indispensable to the most spiritual and self-sacri
ficing––was

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created by a letter from Sue, bearing a fresh postmark. She evidently
wrote with anxiety, and told very little about her own doings, more
than that she had passed some sort of examination for a Queen’s
Scholarship, and was going to enter a Training College at Melches-
ter,* to complete herself for the vocation she had chosen, partly by his
in
fluence. There was a Theological College at Melchester; Melches-
ter was a quiet and soothing place, almost entirely ecclesiastical in its
tone; a spot where worldly learning and intellectual smartness had
no establishment; where the altruistic feeling that he did possess
would perhaps be more highly estimated than a brilliancy which he
did not.
As it would be necessary that he should continue for a time to
work at his trade while reading up Divinity, which he had neglected
at Christminster for the ordinary classical grind, what better course
for him than to get employment at the further city, and pursue this
plan of reading? That his excessive human interest in the new place
was entirely of Sue’s making, while at the same time Sue was to be
regarded even less than formerly as proper to create it, had an ethical
contradictoriness to which he was not blind. But that much he con-
ceded to human frailty, and hoped to learn to love her only as a
friend and kinswoman.
He considered that he might so mark out his coming years as to
begin his ministry at the age of thirty; an age which much attracted
him as being that of his exemplar* when he 
first began to teach in
Galilee. This would allow him plenty of time for deliberate study,
and for acquiring capital by his trade to help his aftercourse of
keeping the necessary terms at a Theological College.
Christmas had come and passed, and Sue had gone to the
Melchester Normal School. The time was just the worst in the year
for Jude to get into new employment, and he had written suggesting
to her that he should postpone his arrival for a month or so, till the
days had lengthened. She had acquiesced so readily that he wished
he had not proposed it––she evidently did not much care about him,
though she had never once reproached him for his strange conduct
in coming to her that night, and his silent disappearance. Neither
had she ever said a word about her relations with Mr. Phillotson.
Suddenly, however, quite a passionate letter arrived from Sue. She
was quite lonely and miserable, she told him. She hated the place she
was in: it was worse than the ecclesiastical designer’s; worse than