door, the reddleman was
seen no more in or about Egdon Heath for a space of many months. He
vanished entirely. The nook among the brambles where his van had been
standing was as vacant as ever the next morning, and scarcely a sign
remained to show that he had been there, excepting a few straws, and a
little redness on the turf, which was washed away by the next storm of
rain.

The report that Diggory had brought of the wedding, correct as far
as it went, was deficient in one significant particular, which had
escaped him through his being at some distance back in the church.
When Thomasin was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had
flung towards Eustacia a glance that said plainly, "I have punished
you now." She had replied in a low tone--and he little thought how
truly--"You mistake; it gives me sincerest pleasure to see her your
wife today."

BOOK THIRD
THE FASCINATION

I

"My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"

In Clym Yeobright's face could be dimly seen the typical countenance
of the future. Should there be a classic period to art hereafter, its
Pheidias may produce such faces. The view of life as a thing to be
put up with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intense
in early civilizations, must ultimately enter so thoroughly into the
constitution of the advanced races that its facial expression will
become accepted as a new artistic departure. People already feel that
a man who lives without disturbing a curve of feature, or setting
a mark of mental concern anywhere upon himself, is too far removed
from modern perceptiveness to be a modern type. Physically beautiful
men--the glory of the race when it was young--are almost an
anachronism now; and we may wonder whether, at some time or other,
physically beautiful women may not be an anachronism likewise.

The truth seems to be that a long line of disillusive centuries has
permanently displaced the Hellenic idea of life, or whatever it may
be called. What the Greeks only suspected we know well; what their
Aeschylus imagined our nursery children feel. That old-fashioned
revelling in the general situation grows less and less possible as we
uncover the defects of natural laws, and see the quandary that man is
in by their operation.

The lineaments which will get embodied in ideals based upon this
new recognition will probably be akin to those of Yeobright. The
observer's eye was arrested, not by his face as a picture, but by
his face a