finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_18_part_0.txt
Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 19
chapter 19
{"name": "Chapter 19", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-19", "summary": "When Boldwood finally called on her, Bathsheba was not in. He had forgotten that, being a serious farmer, she might well need to be out-of-doors. Having put her on a pedestal, he found it difficult to see in her an everyday individual like himself. Their relationship was one of \"visual familiarity, oral strangeness. The smaller human elements were kept out of sight; the pettinesses that enter so largely into all earthly living and doing were disguised by the accident of lover and loved one not being on visiting terms.\" Boldwood resolved to find her. The sheep-washing pool in the blossoming meadow, full of the clearest water, made a pretty spectacle. Several farmhands stood there with Bathsheba, who was in an elegant new riding habit. Two men pushed the sheep into the pool, then Gabriel pushed them under as they swam and, as the heavy wool became saturated, hauled them out with a crutchlike device. Bathsheba bade Boldwood a constrained good-day, momentarily thinking he had come to watch the washing. She withdrew, but he followed her. She sensed his silent emotion. Then, without preamble, he proposed. He stated his age, his background, and declared his need of her. Very formally, Bathsheba declined. He continued, regretting his inarticulateness, and said he would not have spoken, had he not hope. \"You are too dignified for me to suit you sir,\" she said, and blurted out apologies for thoughtlessly sending the valentine. He insisted, however, that it was not thoughtlessness but instinct that promoted it. Again he entreated, until she begged him to stop, asking for time. \"Then she turned away. Boldwood dropped his gaze to the ground, and stood long like a man who did not know where he was. Realities then returned to him like the pain of a wound received in an excitement which eclipses it, and he, too, then went on.\"", "analysis": "Hardy's rendering of the sheep-washing portrays a particularly lovely bit of country life, a seemingly placid performance that contrasts with the intense emotion of Boldwood. In this highly unlikely situation, in the midst of something as earthy as washing sheep, the overwrought gentleman chooses to plead his suit. Bathsheba regrets her \"wanton\" and \"thoughtless\" act, is sympathetic toward Boldwood, and is frightened by the unanticipated consequences of her deed."}


THE SHEEP-WASHING--THE OFFER


Boldwood did eventually call upon her.  She was not at home.  "Of
course not," he murmured.  In contemplating Bathsheba as a woman, he
had forgotten the accidents of her position as an agriculturist--that
being as much of a farmer, and as extensive a farmer, as himself,
her probable whereabouts was out-of-doors at this time of the year.
This, and the other oversights Boldwood was guilty of, were natural
to the mood, and still more natural to the circumstances.  The
great aids to idealization in love were present here: occasional
observation of her from a distance, and the absence of social
intercourse with her--visual familiarity, oral strangeness.  The
smaller human elements were kept out of sight; the pettinesses that
enter so largely into all earthly living and doing were disguised by
the accident of lover and loved-one not being on visiting terms; and
there was hardly awakened a thought in Boldwood that sorry household
realities appertained to her, or that she, like all others, had
moments of commonplace, when to be least plainly seen was to be most
prettily remembered.  Thus a mild sort of apotheosis took place
in his fancy, whilst she still lived and breathed within his own
horizon, a troubled creature like himself.

It was the end of May when the farmer determined to be no longer
repulsed by trivialities or distracted by suspense.  He had by this
time grown used to being in love; the passion now startled him less
even when it tortured him more, and he felt himself adequate to the
situation.  On inquiring for her at her house they had told him she
was at the sheep-washing, and he went off to seek her there.

The sheep-washing pool was a perfectly circular basin of brickwork in
the meadows, full of the clearest water.  To birds on the wing its
glassy surface, reflecting the light sky, must have been visible for
miles around as a glistening Cyclops' eye in a green face.  The grass
about the margin at this season was a sight to remember long--in a
minor sort of way.  Its activity in sucking the moisture from the
rich damp sod was almost a process observable by the eye.  The
outskirts of this level water-meadow were diversified by rounded and
hollow pastures, where just now every flower that was not a buttercup
was a daisy.  The river slid along noiselessly as a shade, the
swelling reeds and sedge forming a flexible palisade upon its moist
brink.  To the north of the mead were trees, the leaves of which
were new, soft, and moist, not yet having stiffened and darkened
under summer sun and drought, their colour being yellow beside a
green--green beside a yellow.  From the recesses of this knot of
foliage the loud notes of three cuckoos were resounding through the
still air.

Boldwood went meditating down the slopes with his eyes on his boots,
which the yellow pollen from the buttercups had bronzed in artistic
gradations.  A tributary of the main stream flowed through the
basin of the pool by an inlet and outlet at opposite points of its
diameter.  Shepherd Oak, Jan Coggan, Moon, Poorgrass, Cain Ball,
and several others were assembled here, all dripping wet to the
very roots of their hair, and Bathsheba was standing by in a new
riding-habit--the most elegant she had ever worn--the reins of her
horse being looped over her arm.  Flagons of cider were rolling about
upon the green.  The meek sheep were pushed into the pool by Coggan
and Matthew Moon, who stood by the lower hatch, immersed to their
waists; then Gabriel, who stood on the brink, thrust them under as
they swam along, with an instrument like a crutch, formed for the
purpose, and also for assisting the exhausted animals when the wool
became saturated and they began to sink.  They were let out against
the stream, and through the upper opening, all impurities flowing
away below.  Cainy Ball and Joseph, who performed this latter
operation, were if possible wetter than the rest; they resembled
dolphins under a fountain, every protuberance and angle of their
clothes dribbling forth a small rill.

Boldwood came close and bade her good morning, with such constraint
that she could not but think he had stepped across to the washing for
its own sake, hoping not to find her there; more, she fancied his
brow severe and his eye slighting.  Bathsheba immediately contrived
to withdraw, and glided along by the river till she was a stone's
throw off.  She heard footsteps brushing the grass, and had a
consciousness that love was encircling her like a perfume.  Instead
of turning or waiting, Bathsheba went further among the high sedges,
but Boldwood seemed determined, and pressed on till they were
completely past the bend of the river. Here, without being seen,
they could hear the splashing and shouts of the washers above.

"Miss Everdene!" said the farmer.

She trembled, turned, and said "Good morning."  His tone was so
utterly removed from all she had expected as a beginning.  It was
lowness and quiet accentuated: an emphasis of deep meanings, their
form, at the same time, being scarcely expressed.  Silence has
sometimes a remarkable power of showing itself as the disembodied
soul of feeling wandering without its carcase, and it is then more
impressive than speech.  In the same way, to say a little is often to
tell more than to say a great deal.  Boldwood told everything in that
word.

As the consciousness expands on learning that what was fancied to
be the rumble of wheels is the reverberation of thunder, so did
Bathsheba's at her intuitive conviction.

"I feel--almost too much--to think," he said, with a solemn
simplicity.  "I have come to speak to you without preface.  My life
is not my own since I have beheld you clearly, Miss Everdene--I come
to make you an offer of marriage."

Bathsheba tried to preserve an absolutely neutral countenance, and
all the motion she made was that of closing lips which had previously
been a little parted.

"I am now forty-one years old," he went on.  "I may have been called
a confirmed bachelor, and I was a confirmed bachelor.  I had never
any views of myself as a husband in my earlier days, nor have I made
any calculation on the subject since I have been older.  But we all
change, and my change, in this matter, came with seeing you.  I have
felt lately, more and more, that my present way of living is bad in
every respect.  Beyond all things, I want you as my wife."

"I feel, Mr. Boldwood, that though I respect you much, I do not
feel--what would justify me to--in accepting your offer," she
stammered.

This giving back of dignity for dignity seemed to open the sluices of
feeling that Boldwood had as yet kept closed.

"My life is a burden without you," he exclaimed, in a low voice.  "I
want you--I want you to let me say I love you again and again!"

Bathsheba answered nothing, and the horse upon her arm seemed so
impressed that instead of cropping the herbage she looked up.

"I think and hope you care enough for me to listen to what I have to
tell!"

Bathsheba's momentary impulse at hearing this was to ask why he
thought that, till she remembered that, far from being a conceited
assumption on Boldwood's part, it was but the natural conclusion of
serious reflection based on deceptive premises of her own offering.

"I wish I could say courteous flatteries to you," the farmer
continued in an easier tone, "and put my rugged feeling into a
graceful shape: but I have neither power nor patience to learn such
things.  I want you for my wife--so wildly that no other feeling can
abide in me; but I should not have spoken out had I not been led to
hope."

"The valentine again!  O that valentine!" she said to herself, but
not a word to him.

"If you can love me say so, Miss Everdene.  If not--don't say no!"

"Mr. Boldwood, it is painful to have to say I am surprised, so that
I don't know how to answer you with propriety and respect--but am
only just able to speak out my feeling--I mean my meaning; that I am
afraid I can't marry you, much as I respect you.  You are too
dignified for me to suit you, sir."

"But, Miss Everdene!"

"I--I didn't--I know I ought never to have dreamt of sending that
valentine--forgive me, sir--it was a wanton thing which no woman with
any self-respect should have done.  If you will only pardon my
thoughtlessness, I promise never to--"

"No, no, no.  Don't say thoughtlessness!  Make me think it was
something more--that it was a sort of prophetic instinct--the
beginning of a feeling that you would like me.  You torture me to say
it was done in thoughtlessness--I never thought of it in that light,
and I can't endure it. Ah!  I wish I knew how to win you! but that I
can't do--I can only ask if I have already got you.  If I have not,
and it is not true that you have come unwittingly to me as I have to
you, I can say no more."

"I have not fallen in love with you, Mr. Boldwood--certainly I must
say that."  She allowed a very small smile to creep for the first
time over her serious face in saying this, and the white row of upper
teeth, and keenly-cut lips already noticed, suggested an idea of
heartlessness, which was immediately contradicted by the pleasant
eyes.

"But you will just think--in kindness and condescension think--if you
cannot bear with me as a husband!  I fear I am too old for you, but
believe me I will take more care of you than would many a man of your
own age.  I will protect and cherish you with all my strength--I will
indeed!  You shall have no cares--be worried by no household affairs,
and live quite at ease, Miss Everdene.  The dairy superintendence
shall be done by a man--I can afford it well--you shall never have
so much as to look out of doors at haymaking time, or to think of
weather in the harvest.  I rather cling to the chaise, because it is
the same my poor father and mother drove, but if you don't like it
I will sell it, and you shall have a pony-carriage of your own.  I
cannot say how far above every other idea and object on earth you
seem to me--nobody knows--God only knows--how much you are to me!"

Bathsheba's heart was young, and it swelled with sympathy for the
deep-natured man who spoke so simply.

"Don't say it! don't!  I cannot bear you to feel so much, and me to
feel nothing.  And I am afraid they will notice us, Mr. Boldwood.
Will you let the matter rest now?  I cannot think collectedly.  I did
not know you were going to say this to me.  Oh, I am wicked to have
made you suffer so!"  She was frightened as well as agitated at his
vehemence.

"Say then, that you don't absolutely refuse.  Do not quite refuse?"

"I can do nothing.  I cannot answer."

"I may speak to you again on the subject?"

"Yes."

"I may think of you?"

"Yes, I suppose you may think of me."

"And hope to obtain you?"

"No--do not hope!  Let us go on."

"I will call upon you again to-morrow."

"No--please not.  Give me time."

"Yes--I will give you any time," he said earnestly and gratefully.
"I am happier now."

"No--I beg you!  Don't be happier if happiness only comes from my
agreeing.  Be neutral, Mr. Boldwood!  I must think."

"I will wait," he said.

And then she turned away.  Boldwood dropped his gaze to the ground,
and stood long like a man who did not know where he was.  Realities
then returned upon him like the pain of a wound received in an
excitement which eclipses it, and he, too, then went on.




Chapter 19
When Boldwood finally called on her, Bathsheba was not in. He had forgotten that, being a serious farmer, she might well need to be out-of-doors. Having put her on a pedestal, he found it difficult to see in her an everyday individual like himself. Their relationship was one of "visual familiarity, oral strangeness. The smaller human elements were kept out of sight; the pettinesses that enter so largely into all earthly living and doing were disguised by the accident of lover and loved one not being on visiting terms." Boldwood resolved to find her. The sheep-washing pool in the blossoming meadow, full of the clearest water, made a pretty spectacle. Several farmhands stood there with Bathsheba, who was in an elegant new riding habit. Two men pushed the sheep into the pool, then Gabriel pushed them under as they swam and, as the heavy wool became saturated, hauled them out with a crutchlike device. Bathsheba bade Boldwood a constrained good-day, momentarily thinking he had come to watch the washing. She withdrew, but he followed her. She sensed his silent emotion. Then, without preamble, he proposed. He stated his age, his background, and declared his need of her. Very formally, Bathsheba declined. He continued, regretting his inarticulateness, and said he would not have spoken, had he not hope. "You are too dignified for me to suit you sir," she said, and blurted out apologies for thoughtlessly sending the valentine. He insisted, however, that it was not thoughtlessness but instinct that promoted it. Again he entreated, until she begged him to stop, asking for time. "Then she turned away. Boldwood dropped his gaze to the ground, and stood long like a man who did not know where he was. Realities then returned to him like the pain of a wound received in an excitement which eclipses it, and he, too, then went on."
Hardy's rendering of the sheep-washing portrays a particularly lovely bit of country life, a seemingly placid performance that contrasts with the intense emotion of Boldwood. In this highly unlikely situation, in the midst of something as earthy as washing sheep, the overwrought gentleman chooses to plead his suit. Bathsheba regrets her "wanton" and "thoughtless" act, is sympathetic toward Boldwood, and is frightened by the unanticipated consequences of her deed.