middling ledge; they are either famous or unknown.”
Egbert moved slowly away amongst the laurestines. Holding the light above her bright head she smiled upon him, as if it were unknown to her that she wept at the same time.
He left the park precincts, and followed the turnpike road to Melport. In spite of the misery of parting he felt relieved of a certain oppressiveness, now that his presence at Tollamore could no longer bring disgrace upon her. The threatening rain passed off by the time that he reached the ridge dividing the inland districts from the coast. It began to get light, but his journey was still very lonely. Ultimately the yellow shore-line of pebbles grew visible, and the distant horizon of water spreading like a grey upland against the sky, till he could soon hear the measured flounce of the waves.
He entered the town at sunrise, just as the lamps were extinguished, and went to a tavern to breakfast. At half past eight o’clock the boat steamed out of the harbor, and reached London after a passage of five-and-forty hours.
DESPERATE REMEDIES
This is Hardy’s first printed work, published anonymously in 1871 and written in an epistolary style. It is a tale of ‘mystery, entanglement, surprise, and moral obliquity’, in which Cytherea Graye, beloved by a young architect, Edward Springrove, is forced by poverty to accept a post as lady’s maid to the eccentric Miss Aldclyffe, the woman whom her father had loved but had been unable to marry. Miss Adclyffe’s schemes, the discovery that Edward is already engaged to a woman whom he does not love, and the urgent need to support a sick brother drive Cytherea to accept the hand of Aeneas Manston, Miss Adclyffe’s illegitimate son, a passionate villain, whose first wife is believed to have died in a fire. The consequences of this union and the remarkable denouement make this one of Hardy’s most readable and gripping novels.
The original titlepage
I. THE EVENTS OF THIRTY YEARS
1. DECEMBER AND JANUARY, 1835-36
In the long and intricately inwrought chain of circumstance which renders worthy of record some experiences of Cytherea Graye, Edward Springrove, and others, the first event directly influencing the issue was a Christmas visit.
In the above-mentioned year, 1835, Ambrose Graye, a young architect who had just begun the practice of his profession in the midland town of Hocbridge, to the north of Christminster, went to London to spend the Christmas holidays with a friend who lived in Bloomsbury. They had gone up to Cambridge in the same year, and, after graduating together, Huntway, the friend, had taken orders.
Graye was handsome, frank, and gentle. He had a quality of thought which, exercised on homeliness, was humour; on nature, picturesqueness; on abstractions, poetry. Being, as a rule, broadcast, it was all three.
Of the wickedness of the world he was too forgetful. To discover evil in a new friend is to most people only an additional experience: to him it was ever a surprise.
While in London he became acquainted with a retired officer in the Navy named Bradleigh, who, with his wife and their daughter, lived in a street not far from Russell Square. Though they were in no more than comfortable circumstances, the captain’s wife came of an ancient family whose genealogical tree was interlaced with some of the most illustrious and well-known in the kingdom.
The young lady, their daughter, seemed to Graye by far the most beautiful and queenly being he had ever beheld. She was about nineteen or twenty, and her name was Cytherea. In truth she was not so very unlike country girls of that type of beauty, except in one respect. She was perfect in her manner and bearing, and they were not. A mere distinguishing peculiarity, by catching the eye, is often read as the pervading characteristic, and she appeared to him no less than perfection throughout — transcending her rural rivals in very nature. Graye did a thing the
Egbert moved slowly away amongst the laurestines. Holding the light above her bright head she smiled upon him, as if it were unknown to her that she wept at the same time.
He left the park precincts, and followed the turnpike road to Melport. In spite of the misery of parting he felt relieved of a certain oppressiveness, now that his presence at Tollamore could no longer bring disgrace upon her. The threatening rain passed off by the time that he reached the ridge dividing the inland districts from the coast. It began to get light, but his journey was still very lonely. Ultimately the yellow shore-line of pebbles grew visible, and the distant horizon of water spreading like a grey upland against the sky, till he could soon hear the measured flounce of the waves.
He entered the town at sunrise, just as the lamps were extinguished, and went to a tavern to breakfast. At half past eight o’clock the boat steamed out of the harbor, and reached London after a passage of five-and-forty hours.
DESPERATE REMEDIES
This is Hardy’s first printed work, published anonymously in 1871 and written in an epistolary style. It is a tale of ‘mystery, entanglement, surprise, and moral obliquity’, in which Cytherea Graye, beloved by a young architect, Edward Springrove, is forced by poverty to accept a post as lady’s maid to the eccentric Miss Aldclyffe, the woman whom her father had loved but had been unable to marry. Miss Adclyffe’s schemes, the discovery that Edward is already engaged to a woman whom he does not love, and the urgent need to support a sick brother drive Cytherea to accept the hand of Aeneas Manston, Miss Adclyffe’s illegitimate son, a passionate villain, whose first wife is believed to have died in a fire. The consequences of this union and the remarkable denouement make this one of Hardy’s most readable and gripping novels.
The original titlepage
I. THE EVENTS OF THIRTY YEARS
1. DECEMBER AND JANUARY, 1835-36
In the long and intricately inwrought chain of circumstance which renders worthy of record some experiences of Cytherea Graye, Edward Springrove, and others, the first event directly influencing the issue was a Christmas visit.
In the above-mentioned year, 1835, Ambrose Graye, a young architect who had just begun the practice of his profession in the midland town of Hocbridge, to the north of Christminster, went to London to spend the Christmas holidays with a friend who lived in Bloomsbury. They had gone up to Cambridge in the same year, and, after graduating together, Huntway, the friend, had taken orders.
Graye was handsome, frank, and gentle. He had a quality of thought which, exercised on homeliness, was humour; on nature, picturesqueness; on abstractions, poetry. Being, as a rule, broadcast, it was all three.
Of the wickedness of the world he was too forgetful. To discover evil in a new friend is to most people only an additional experience: to him it was ever a surprise.
While in London he became acquainted with a retired officer in the Navy named Bradleigh, who, with his wife and their daughter, lived in a street not far from Russell Square. Though they were in no more than comfortable circumstances, the captain’s wife came of an ancient family whose genealogical tree was interlaced with some of the most illustrious and well-known in the kingdom.
The young lady, their daughter, seemed to Graye by far the most beautiful and queenly being he had ever beheld. She was about nineteen or twenty, and her name was Cytherea. In truth she was not so very unlike country girls of that type of beauty, except in one respect. She was perfect in her manner and bearing, and they were not. A mere distinguishing peculiarity, by catching the eye, is often read as the pervading characteristic, and she appeared to him no less than perfection throughout — transcending her rural rivals in very nature. Graye did a thing the
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