Hardy on.

  Hardy on. 
(Hardy’s The Return of the Native, pt. 2)

Though disrecommended by the Chlidonia College English Department,* the correspondence continues.

                                                                                    One day

Dear Ted,

As I press on with The Return of the Native, I begin to wonder who the “villain of the piece” may be. It can’t be Eustacia Vye, she is too transparent: she doesn’t hide what she wants, she doesn’t hide her faults – especially her “luxurious,” longing nature and her inconstancy: what will happen if she falls out of love with Clym? – she’s fallen into and out of love before. I know Wildeve is lurking in the background. I’m to Book III, the beginning of Chapter 6, and I can see his name in that chapter; he is about to step back into the action. And he is a selfish and secretive man. But about him, I shall have to see. Right now, it is Mrs. Yeobright whose haughty inflexibility, whose overreaching conventionality, is driving the plot by her trying to inhibit Clym as she inhibited Thomasin. I didn’t say that very well, but you understand what I’m getting at, right? She represents an understanding of respectability that focuses on doing well (getting ahead financially) and cares nothing about either doing good or loving. She doesn’t seem to understand love at all. At all! (So, why did she marry beneath her? Not for love, it seems, but only so that she could regret it the rest of her life, could chafe against her loss of status and try to regain it through her son and her niece.)
     What do you think? And tell me why your sister doesn’t like me. It has to do with your mother, right?

Please! Trudy

                                                                                   the next

Dear Ted,

How are you getting on with The Return of the Native? I am trying to be patient with “The Aftercourses,” that serialization forced on Hardy because the story couldn’t end with all the central characters either dead or in mourning. Wildeve and Eustacia cannot be raised from the dead, granted; but, for God’s sake, let Thomasin marry Diggory Venn and give poor Clym some measure of comfort.
     Poor Thomasin – maybe she does deserve a measure of happiness. But Clym, still under the influence of – unwilling to shake off the influence of – his mule-headed mother and give her (Thomasin) his blessing, how can he become the gentle Jesus of the heath? That’s the implication, isn’t it? (He is in his thirty-third year, Hardy is at pains to tell us!) But Jesus preached forgiveness of sin, did he not? And love of the least? And Mrs. Yeobright personifies forgiveness of none and dismissal of anyone even vaguely lesser. Finally (back to Clym), what do we say of the man that visits her (his mother’s) grave by day and Eustacia’s only by night? Well, maybe that he has the sort of common-sense wisdom – or careful cravenness – that residents of the heath will appreciate. I don’t think we cay he is a brave man. (I would say he is the live dog to her – Eustacia’s – dead lioness.)
     I remember learning that Hardy had classical and Renaissance tragedy in mind as he plotted the novel. Is that right, do you know? My impression, though, is sadly of a Restoration comedy – chance meetings or appointments missed, the “hero” falling asleep precisely when he needs to be alert, the “villain” hiding behind a door then escorted out the back, the poor “heroine” missing her cue, letters miscarrying, characters stumbling into each other in the dark, etc., etc. Coincidence after unbelievable coincidence – only Hardy, being Hardy, the consequences aren’t funny but dire: nothing can be played for laughs.
     My final complaint: who among the characters, besides that witch Mrs. Yeobright, has any blood in him or her? We’re led to believe that Eustacia does, but marriage seems to leech it out of her. Mrs. Y’s “blood” for that matter is of a viscous gentility that cannot love, only judge (nose in the air!). I'm repeating myself, sorry!
     So again, because you don’t answer my letters, I am growing impatient with you, too. And my question – I’ll ask it again even if it is the reason why: What’s with your sister? Why didn’t your mother like me?

Please! Trudy

11.02.20

_______________
* (Go Marsh Terns!) The department’s statement: Our knowledge of the individuals involved, based on their transcripts and other records, suggests that any exchange between them will be long on opinion and short on understanding, long on emotion and short on sophistication.