"I feel — almost — too much — to think," he said.
Helen Paterson Allingham
April 1874
Wood-engraving
15.9 cm high by 10.5 cm wide (6 ¼ by 4 ⅛ inches), framed, in Chapter XV, facing page 385.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Instalment Four, Chapters 15 ("A Morning Meeting: The Letter Again.") through 20 ("Perplexity: Grinding the Shears: A Quarrel.") in Vol. 29: pages 385 through 408 (24.25 pages in instalment), has two illustrations: the initial-letter vignette "T" (6.2 cm wide by 7.5 cm high) signed "H. P" in lower-right corner, and the full-page realisation of Bathsheba and her wealthy neighbour, Farmer Boldwood (facing page 385), horizontally-mounted, 15.7 cm high by 10.4 cm wide (6 ¼ by 4 inches), frame and signed "H. Paterson" in the lower-right corner.
Passage Realised: The Smitten Middle-aged Bachelor
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.” [Chapter XIX, "The Sheep-Shearing: The Offer," 401]
Commentary: The Illustrator's Symopathy for Bathsheba
Although this is Paterson's first depiction of Boldwood in either plate or vignette, Hardy has already introduced the reader to the moody gentleman-farmer and his social opposite, the Old Maltster, in previous instalments. Boldwood has appeared with Bathsheba in the third (March) instalment (Chapters 9 and 12), and the Old Maltster has appeared with Gabriel Oak in the second (February) instalment (Chapter 8). Thus, the two illustrations, the full-page frontispiece and the initial-letter vignette, complement one another in terms of the novel's chief plot strands so far, the large-scale illustration representing Bathsheba's fortunes in romantic relationships, the small-scale plate reminding us of Gabriel's having to adapt to a new social environment and station. The Old Maltster, Liddy's Grandfather Smallbury, represents not merely the rural peasant chorus of the local drinking hole, but also the last of the stages of life, complementing the upper-middle-class affluence (reflected in the clothing of the land-owners), as well as Bathsheba's youth and Boldwood's middle-age. She trembles in his presence.
The full-page wood-engraving with its woodland backdrop immediately suggests Bathsheba's vulnerability. Patterson deliberately omits the sheep-washers (Shepherd Oak, Jan Coggan, Moon, Poorgrass, Cainy Ball and Joseph Poorgrass) to imply — incorrectly — that she is unaccompanied; however, she is certainly out of sight from her farm labourers. Here, Bathsheba feels constrained and even trapped by the moody middle-aged bachelor who seems fixated upon her. The female illustrator characterizes this as an awkward courtship scene between two prosperous bourgeoisie. But despite their sharing the same social station, they are contrasting rather than comprable figures feeling very different emotions. Bathsheba looks down, embarrassed and uncertain as to how to respond to Boldwood's tentative advances. He seems as rigid as his walking stick, ill-at-ease in the presence of the beautiful lady-agriculturist. This is Boldwood's opportunity to improve his acquaintance with a woman who has the unusual allure of "visual familiarity and oral strangeness" (400), for although he has seen her about the neighbourhood, he has yet to engage her in an actual conversation. Has has paid a formal call at her substantial manse, but she is out on her property, supervising the sheep-washing at the water-meadow. He finds her elegantly attired in a new riding-habit. Hardy's narrator tells us that Bathsheba is uncomfortable in the presence of the gentleman-farmer with the "severe" brow. She interprets his attentions as emanating from a "love [that] was encircling her like a perfume" (401). The illustration captures the precise moment before he makes his formal proposal of marriage.
Above: The initial-letter vignette T and first full page of the fourth instalment of the story.
Bibliography
The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy. Volume One: 1840-1892; Volume Three: 1903-1908, ed. Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978, 1982.
Hardie, Martin. Water-colour Painting in Britain, Vol. 3: The Victorian Period, ed. Dudley Snelgrove, Jonathan Mayne, and Basil Taylor. London: B. T. Batsford, 1968.
Hardy, Thomas. Far From the Madding Crowd. With illustrations by Helen Paterson Allingham. The Cornhill Magazine. Vols. XXIX and XXX. Ed. Leslie Stephen. London: Smith, Elder, January through December, 1874.
Holme, Brian. The Kate Greenaway Book. Toronto: Macmillan Canada, 1976.
Jackson, Arlene M. Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981.
Turner, Paul. The Life of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998, 2001.
Created 12 December 2001 Last updated 7 November 2022