The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Well-Beloved, by Thomas Hardy

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Title: The Well-Beloved

Author: Thomas Hardy

Posting Date: March 1, 2009 [EBook #3326]
Release Date: July, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WELL-BELOVED ***

Produced by Les Bowler

THE WELL-BELOVED

A SKETCH OF A TEMPERAMENT

By Thomas Hardy

PREFACE

The peninsula carved by Time out of a single stone, whereon most of the
following scenes are laid, has been for centuries immemorial the home of
a curious and well-nigh distinct people, cherishing strange beliefs
and singular customs, now for the most part obsolescent. Fancies, like
certain soft-wooded plants which cannot bear the silent inland frosts,
but thrive by the sea in the roughest of weather, seem to grow up
naturally here, in particular amongst those natives who have no active
concern in the labours of the 'Isle.' Hence it is a spot apt to generate
a type of personage like the character imperfectly sketched in these
pages--a native of natives--whom some may choose to call a fantast (if
they honour him with their consideration so far), but whom others may
see only as one that gave objective continuity and a name to a delicate
dream which in a vaguer form is more or less common to all men, and is
by no means new to Platonic philosophers.

To those who know the rocky coign of England here depicted--overlooking
the great Channel Highway with all its suggestiveness, and standing out
so far into mid-sea that touches of the Gulf Stream soften the air till
February--it is matter of surprise that the place has not been more
frequently chosen as the retreat of artists and poets in search of
inspiration--for at least a month or two in the year, the tempestuous
rather than the fine seasons by preference. To be sure, one nook therein
is the retreat, at their country's expense, of other geniuses from a
distance; but their presence is hardly discoverable. Yet perhaps it
is as well that the artistic visitors do not come, or no more would be
heard of little freehold houses being bought and sold there for a couple
of hundred pounds--built of solid stone, and d