Jude the Obsure

He always remembered the appearance of the afternoon on which he

awoke from his dream. Not quite knowing what to do with himself, he

went up to an octagonal chamber in the lantern of a singularly built

theatre that was set amidst this quaint and singular city. It had

windows all round, from which an outlook over the whole town and

its edifices could be gained. Jude's eyes swept all the views in

succession, meditatively, mournfully, yet sturdily. Those buildings

and their associations and privileges were not for him. From the

looming roof of the great library, into which he hardly ever had time

to enter, his gaze travelled on to the varied spires, halls, gables,

streets, chapels, gardens, quadrangles, which composed the ensemble

of this unrivalled panorama. He saw that his destiny lay not with

these, but among the manual toilers in the shabby purlieu which he

himself occupied, unrecognized as part of the city at all by its

visitors and panegyrists, yet without whose denizens the hard readers

could not read nor the high thinkers live.

He looked over the town into the country beyond, to the trees which

screened her whose presence had at first been the support of his

heart, and whose loss was now a maddening torture. But for this blow

he might have borne with his fate. With Sue as companion he could

have renounced his ambitions with a smile. Without her it was

inevitable that the reaction from the long strain to which he had

subjected himself should affect him disastrously. Phillotson had

no doubt passed through a similar intellectual disappointment to

that which now enveloped him. But the schoolmaster had been since

blest with the consolation of sweet Sue, while for him there was no

consoler.

Descending to the streets, he went listlessly along till he arrived

at an inn, and entered it. Here he drank several glasses of beer in

rapid succession, and when he came out it was night. By the light of

the flickering lamps he rambled home to supper, and had not long been

sitting at table when his landlady brought up a letter that had just

arrived for him. She laid it down as if impressed with a sense of

its possible importance, and on looking at it Jude perceived that it

bore the embossed stamp of one of the colleges whose heads he had

addressed. "ONE--at last!" cried Jude.

The communication was brief, and not exactly what he had expected;

though it really was from the master in person. It ran thus:

BIBLIOLL COLLEGE.

SIR,--I have read your letter with interest; and, judging

from your description of yourself as a working-man, I

venture to think that you will have a much better chance

of success in life by remaining in your own sphere and

sticking to your trade than by adopting any other course.

That, therefore, is what I advise you to do. Yours

faithfully, T. TETUPHENAY.