by Thomas Hardy
Part Third
AT MELCHESTER
"For there was no other girl, O bridegroom, like her!"--SAPPHO (H. T. Wharton).
I
It was a new idea--the ecclesiastical and altruistic life as distinctfrom the intellectual and emulative life. A man could preach anddo good to his fellow-creatures without taking double-firsts in theschools of Christminster, or having anything but ordinary knowledge.The old fancy which had led on to the culminating vision of thebishopric had not been an ethical or theological enthusiasm at all,but a mundane ambition masquerading in a surplice. He feared thathis whole scheme had degenerated to, even though it might not haveoriginated in, a social unrest which had no foundation in the noblerinstincts; which was purely an artificial product of civilization.There were thousands of young men on the same self-seeking trackat the present moment. The sensual hind who ate, drank, and livedcarelessly with his wife through the days of his vanity was a morelikable being than he.
But to enter the Church in such an unscholarly way that he could notin any probability rise to a higher grade through all his career thanthat of the humble curate wearing his life out in an obscure villageor city slum--that might have a touch of goodness and greatness init; that might be true religion, and a purgatorial course worthy ofbeing followed by a remorseful man.
The favourable light in which this new thought showed itself bycontrast with his foregone intentions cheered Jude, as he sat there,shabby and lonely; and it may be said to have given, during the nextfew days, the _coup de grace_ to his intellectual career--a careerwhich had extended over the greater part of a dozen years. He didnothing, however, for some long stagnant time to advance his newdesire, occupying himself with little local jobs in putting up andlettering headstones about the neighbouring villages, and submittingto be regarded as a social failure, a returned purchase, by thehalf-dozen or so of farmers and other country-people who condescendedto nod to him.
The human interest of the new intention--and a human interest isindispensable to the most spiritual and self-sacrificing--was createdby a letter from Sue, bearing a fresh postmark. She evidentlywrote with anxiety, and told very little about her own doings, morethan that she had passed some sort of examination for a Queen'sScholarship, and was going to enter a training college at Melchesterto complete herself for the vocation she had chosen, partly by hisinfluence. There was a theological college at Melchester; Melchesterwas a quiet and soothing place, almost entirely ecclesiastical in itstone; a spot where worldly learning and intellectual smartness had noestablishment; where the altruistic feeling that he did possess wouldperhaps be more highly estimated than a brilliancy which he did not.
As it would be necessary that he should continue for a time to workat his trade while reading up Divinity, which he had neglected atChristminster for the ordinary classical grind, what better coursefor him than to get employment at the further city, and pursue thisplan of reading? That his excessive human interest in the new placewas entirely of Sue's making, while at the same time Sue was to beregarded even less than formerly as proper to create it, had anethical contradictoriness to which he was not blind. But that muchhe conceded to human frailty, and hoped to learn to love her only asa friend and kinswoman.
He considered that he might so mark out his coming years as to beginhis ministry at the age of thirty--an age which much attracted him asbeing that of his exemplar when he first began to teach in Galilee.This would allow him plenty of time for deliberate study, and foracquiring capital by his trade to help his aftercourse of keeping thenecessary terms at a theological college.