lym. "All this was very depressing.
But not so depressing as something I next perceived--that my business
was the idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that ever a man
could be put to. That decided me: I would give it up and try to
follow some rational occupation among the people I knew best, and
to whom I could be of most use. I have come home; and this is how I
mean to carry out my plan. I shall keep a school as near to Egdon as
possible, so as to be able to walk over here and have a night-school
in my mother's house. But I must study a little at first, to get
properly qualified. Now, neighbours, I must go."

And Clym resumed his walk across the heath.

"He'll never carry it out in the world," said Fairway. "In a few weeks
he'll learn to see things otherwise."

"'Tis good-hearted of the young man," said another. "But, for my
part, I think he had better mind his business."

II

The New Course Causes Disappointment

Yeobright loved his kind. He had a conviction that the want of most
men was knowledge of a sort which brings wisdom rather than affluence.
He wished to raise the class at the expense of individuals rather than
individuals at the expense of the class. What was more, he was ready
at once to be the first unit sacrificed.

In passing from the bucolic to the intellectual life the intermediate
stages are usually two at least, frequently many more; and one of
those stages is almost sure to be worldly advance. We can hardly
imagine bucolic placidity quickening to intellectual aims without
imagining social aims as the transitional phase. Yeobright's local
peculiarity was that in striving at high thinking he still cleaved
to plain living--nay, wild and meagre living in many respects, and
brotherliness with clowns.

He was a John the Baptist who took ennoblement rather than repentance
for his text. Mentally he was in a provincial future, that is, he was
in many points abreast with the central town thinkers of his date.
Much of this development he may have owed to his studious life in
Paris, where he had become acquainted with ethical systems popular at
the time.

In consequence of this relatively advanced position, Yeobright might
have been called unfortunate. The rural world was not ripe for him.
A man should be only partially before his time: to be completely to
the vanward in aspirations is fatal to fame. Had Philip's warlike son
been intellectually so far ahead as to have attempted civilizat