Jude the Obsure

"He do look ill and worn-out, it is true!" said a woman.

Sue's face grew more emotional; but though she stood close to Jude

she was screened.

"I may do some good before I am dead--be a sort of success as a

frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral

story," continued Jude, beginning to grow bitter, though he had

opened serenely enough. "I was, perhaps, after all, a paltry victim

to the spirit of mental and social restlessness that makes so many

unhappy in these days!"

"Don't tell them that!" whispered Sue with tears, at perceiving

Jude's state of mind. "You weren't that. You struggled nobly to

acquire knowledge, and only the meanest souls in the world would

blame you!"

Jude shifted the child into a more easy position on his arm, and

concluded: "And what I appear, a sick and poor man, is not the worst

of me. I am in a chaos of principles--groping in the dark--acting by

instinct and not after example. Eight or nine years ago when I came

here first, I had a neat stock of fixed opinions, but they dropped

away one by one; and the further I get the less sure I am. I doubt

if I have anything more for my present rule of life than following

inclinations which do me and nobody else any harm, and actually give

pleasure to those I love best. There, gentlemen, since you wanted to

know how I was getting on, I have told you. Much good may it do you!

I cannot explain further here. I perceive there is something wrong

somewhere in our social formulas: what it is can only be discovered

by men or women with greater insight than mine--if, indeed, they ever

discover it--at least in our time. 'For who knoweth what is good for

man in this life?--and who can tell a man what shall be after him

under the sun?'"

"Hear, hear," said the populace.

"Well preached!" said Tinker Taylor. And privately to his

neighbours: "Why, one of them jobbing pa'sons swarming about here,

that takes the services when our head reverends want a holiday,

wouldn't ha' discoursed such doctrine for less than a guinea down?

Hey? I'll take my oath not one o' 'em would! And then he must have

had it wrote down for 'n. And this only a working-man!"

As a sort of objective commentary on Jude's remarks there drove up

at this moment with a belated doctor, robed and panting, a cab whose

horse failed to stop at the exact point required for setting down the

hirer, who jumped out and entered the door. The driver, alighting,

began to kick the animal in the belly.