Jude the Obsure

"For there was no other girl, O bridegroom,

like her!"--SAPPHO (H. T. Wharton).

I

It was a new idea--the ecclesiastical and altruistic life as distinct

from the intellectual and emulative life. A man could preach and

do good to his fellow-creatures without taking double-firsts in the

schools of Christminster, or having anything but ordinary knowledge.

The old fancy which had led on to the culminating vision of the

bishopric had not been an ethical or theological enthusiasm at all,

but a mundane ambition masquerading in a surplice. He feared that

his whole scheme had degenerated to, even though it might not have

originated in, a social unrest which had no foundation in the nobler

instincts; which was purely an artificial product of civilization.

There were thousands of young men on the same self-seeking track

at the present moment. The sensual hind who ate, drank, and lived

carelessly with his wife through the days of his vanity was a more

likable being than he.

But to enter the Church in such an unscholarly way that he could not

in any probability rise to a higher grade through all his career than

that of the humble curate wearing his life out in an obscure village

or city slum--that might have a touch of goodness and greatness in

it; that might be true religion, and a purgatorial course worthy of

being followed by a remorseful man.

The favourable light in which this new thought showed itself by

contrast with his foregone intentions cheered Jude, as he sat there,

shabby and lonely; and it may be said to have given, during the next

few days, the _coup de grace_ to his intellectual career--a career

which had extended over the greater part of a dozen years. He did

nothing, however, for some long stagnant time to advance his new

desire, occupying himself with little local jobs in putting up and

lettering headstones about the neighbouring villages, and submitting

to be regarded as a social failure, a returned purchase, by the

half-dozen or so of farmers and other country-people who condescended

to nod to him.

The human interest of the new intention--and a human interest is

indispensable to the most spiritual and self-sacrificing--was created

by a letter from Sue, bearing a fresh postmark. She evidently

wrote with anxiety, and told very little about her own doings, more

than that she had passed some sort of examination for a Queen's

Scholarship, and was going to enter a training college at Melchester

to complete herself for the vocation she had chosen, partly by his

influence. There was a theological college at Melchester; Melchester

was a quiet and soothing place, almost entirely ecclesiastical in its

tone; a spot where worldly learning and intellectual smartness had no

establishment; where the altruistic feeling that he did possess would

perhaps be more highly estimated than a brilliancy which he did not.