pain of a wound received in an
excitement which eclipses it, and he, too, then went on.

CHAPTER XX

PERPLEXITY--GRINDING THE SHEARS--A QUARREL

"He is so disinterested and kind to offer me all that I can desire,"
Bathsheba mused.

Yet Farmer Boldwood, whether by nature kind or the reverse to kind,
did not exercise kindness, here. The rarest offerings of the purest
loves are but a self-indulgence, and no generosity at all.

Bathsheba, not being the least in love with him, was eventually able
to look calmly at his offer. It was one which many women of her own
station in the neighbourhood, and not a few of higher rank, would
have been wild to accept and proud to publish. In every point of
view, ranging from politic to passionate, it was desirable that she,
a lonely girl, should marry, and marry this earnest, well-to-do,
and respected man. He was close to her doors: his standing was
sufficient: his qualities were even supererogatory. Had she felt,
which she did not, any wish whatever for the married state in the
abstract, she could not reasonably have rejected him, being a woman
who frequently appealed to her understanding for deliverance from
her whims. Boldwood as a means to marriage was unexceptionable: she
esteemed and liked him, yet she did not want him. It appears that
ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without
marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage
is not possible without possession; with totally differing aims the
method is the same on both sides. But the understood incentive on
the woman's part was wanting here. Besides, Bathsheba's position
as absolute mistress of a farm and house was a novel one, and the
novelty had not yet begun to wear off.

But a disquiet filled her which was somewhat to her credit, for it
would have affected few. Beyond the mentioned reasons with which
she combated her objections, she had a strong feeling that, having
been the one who began the game, she ought in honesty to accept the
consequences. Still the reluctance remained. She said in the same
breath that it would be ungenerous not to marry Boldwood, and that
she couldn't do it to save her life.

Bathsheba's was an impulsive nature under a deliberative aspect. An
Elizabeth in brain and a Mary Stuart in spirit, she often performed
actions of the greatest temerity with a manner of extreme discretion.
Many of her thoughts were perfect syllogisms; unluckil