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Speaker 1: Chapter twenty six. It was not until the evening after

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family prayers that Angel found opportunity approaching to his father

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one or two subjects near his heart. He had strung

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himself up to the purpose while kneeling behind his brothers

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on the carpet, studying the little nails in the heels

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of their walking boots. When the service was over, they

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went out of the room with their mother, and mister

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Clare and himself were left alone. The young man first

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discussed with the elder his plans for the attainment of

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his position as a farmer on an extensive scale, either

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in England or in the colonies. His father then told

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him that, as he had not been put to the

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expense of sending Angel up to Cambridge, he had felt

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it his duty to set by a sum of money

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every year towards the purchase or lease of land for

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him some day, that he might not feel himself unduly

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slighted as far as worldly wealth goes, continued his father,

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you will no doubt stand far superior to your brothers

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in a few years. This considerateness on old mister Clare's

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part led Angel onward to the other and dearer subject.

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He observed to his father that he was then six

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and twenty, and that when he would start in the

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farming business he would require eyes in the back of

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his head to see to all matters. Some one would

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be necessary to superintend the domestic labors of his establishment

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whilst he was afield. Would it not be well therefore,

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for him to marry? His father seemed to think this

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idea not unreasonable, and then Angel put the question, what

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kind of wife do you think would be best for

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me as a thrifty, hard working farmer, A truly Christian

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woman who would be of help and a comfort to

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you in your goings out and your comings in. Beyond that,

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it really matters little such a one can be found, indeed,

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my earnest minded friend and neighbor, doctor Chant. But ought

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she not primarily be able to milk cows, churn good butter,

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and make immense cheeses, know how to sit hens and

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turkeys and reared chickens, to direct a field of laborers

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in an emergency, and estimate the value of sheep and calves. Yes,

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a farmer's wife, Yes, certainly it would be desirable. Mister

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Clare the elder had plainly never thought of these points

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before I was going to add, he said that for

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a pure and saintly woman, you will not find one

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more to your true advantage, and certainly not more to

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your mother's mind and my own than your friend Mercy,

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whom you used to show a certain interest in. It

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is true that my neighbor chance daughter has lately caught

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up the fashion of the younger clergy round about us

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for decorating the communion table alter as. I was shocked

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to hear her call it one day, with flowers and

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other stuff on festival occasions. But her father, who is

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quite as opposed to such flummery as I, said that

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it can be cured. It is a mere girlish outbreak,

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which I am sure will not be permanent. Yes, yes,

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Mercy is good and devout, I know. But father, don't

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you think that a young woman equally pure and virtuous

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as Mischant, But one who, in place of that lady's

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ecclesiastical accomplishments, understands the duties of farm life as well

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as a farmer himself, would suit me infinitely better. His

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father persisted in his conviction that a knowledge of a

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farmer's wife's duties came second to a poor line view

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of humanity, and the impulsive Angel, wishing to honor his

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father's feelings and to advance the cause of his heart,

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at the same time, grew specious. He said that fate

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or providence had thrown in his way a woman who

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possessed every qualification to be the helpmate of an agriculturist,

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and was decidedly of a serious turn of mind. He

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would not say whether or not she had attached herself

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to the sound low church school of his father, but

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she would probably be open to conviction on that point.

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She was a regular church goer of simple faith, honest hearted, receptive, intelligent,

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graceful to a degree, chaste as a vestal, and in

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personal appearance exceptionally beautiful. Is she of a family such

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that you would care we had to marry into a lady?

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In short, asked his startled mother, who had come softly

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into the study during the conversation. She is not what

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in common parlance is called a lady, said Angel, unflinchingly.

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For she is a cottager's daughter, as I am proud

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to say. But she is a lady. Nevertheless, in feeling

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and nature, mercy Chant is of a very good family.

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Pooh what's the advantage of that, mother, said Angel quickly.

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How is family to avail the wife of a man

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who has to rough it as I have and shall

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have to do. Mercy is accomplished, and accomplishments have their

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charm returned his mother, looking at him through her silver spectacles.

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As to external accomplishments, what will be the use in

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them in the life I am going to lead? While

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as to her reading, I can take that in hand.

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She'll be at pupil enough. As you would say if

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you knew her, she's brim full of poetry, actualized poetry,

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if I may use the expression, she lives what paper

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poets only write. And she's an unimpeachable Christian. I'm sure,

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perhaps of the very tribe, genus, and species you desire

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to propagate. Oh Angel, you are mocking mother. I beg pardon,

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But as she really does attend church almost every Sunday

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morning and is a good Christian girl, I'm sure you

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will tolerate any social shortcomings for the sake of that quality,

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and feel that I may do worse than choose her.

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Angel waxed quite earnest in that rather automatic orthodoxy in

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his beloved Tess, which never dreaming that it might stand

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him in such good stead. He had been prone to

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slight when observing it practiced by her and the other milkmaids,

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because of its obvious unreality amid beliefs essentially natural realistic

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in their sad doubts as to whether their son had

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himself any right whatsoever to the title he claimed for

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the unknown young woman. Mister and Missus Clare began to

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feel it as an advantage not to be overlooked, that

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she at least was sound in her views, especially as

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the conjunction of the pair must have risen by an

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act of providence, for Angel would never have made orthodoxy

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a condition of his choice. They said finally that it

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was better not to act in a hurry, but that

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they would not object to see her. Angel therefore refrained

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from declaring more particulars Now he felt that single minded

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and self sacrificing as his parents were, there yet existed

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certain latent prejudices of theirs as middle class people, which

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would require some tact to overcome. For though legally at

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liberty to do as he choose, and though their daughter

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in law's qualifications could make no practical difference in them

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in the probability of her living far away from them,

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He wished, for affection's sake not to wound their sentiment

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in the most important decision of his life. He observed

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his own inconsistencies in dwelling upon accidents in Tess's life

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as if they were vital features. It was for herself

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that he loved Tess, her soul, her heart, her substance,

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not for her skill in the dairy, her aptness as

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his scholar, and certainly not for her simple formal faith professions.

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Her unsophisticated, open air existence required no varnish of conventionality

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to make it palatable to him. He held that education

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had as yet but little affected the beats of emotion

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and impulse on which domestic happiness depends. It was probable that,

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in the lapse of ages, improved systems of moral and

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intellectual training would appreciably, perhaps considerably, elevate the involuntary and

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even the unconscious instincts of human nature. But up to

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the present day, culture, as far as he can see,

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might be said to have affected only the mental EpiDerm

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of those lives which had been brought under its influence.

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This belief was confirmed by his experience of women, which

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having latterly been extended from the cultivated middle class into

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the rural community, had taught him how much less was

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the intrinsic difference between the good and wise woman of

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one social stratum and the good and wise woman of

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another social stratum, than between the good and bad, the

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wise and the foolish of the same stratum or class.

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It was the morning of his departure. His brothers had

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already left the vicarage to proceed on a walking tour

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in the North, whence one was to return to his

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college and the other to his curacy. Angel might have

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accompanied them, but preferred to rejoin his sweetheart at Halbethays.

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He would have been an awkward member of the party,

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for though the most appreciative humanist, the most ideal religionist,

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even the best versed Christiologist of the three, there was

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alienation in the standing consciousness that his squareness would not

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fit the round hole that had been prepared for him

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to neither Felix nor Cuthbert. Had he ventured to mention

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tess his mother made him sandwiches, had his father accompanied

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him on his own mare a little way along the road,

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Having fairly well advanced his own affairs. Angel listened in

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a willing silence as they jogged on together through the

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shady lanes to his father's account of his parish difficulties

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and the coldness of brother clergyman, whom he loved because

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of his strict interpretations of the New Testament by the

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light of what they deemed a pernicious calvinistic doc doctrine. Pernicious,

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said mister Clare, with genial scorn, and he proceeded to

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recount experiences which would show the absurdity of that idea.

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He told of wondrous conversions of evil livers of which

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he had been the instrument, not only amongst the poor,

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but amongst the rich and well to do, and he

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also candidly admitted many failures. As an instance of the latter,

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he mentioned the case of a young upstart squire named d'urberville,

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living some forty miles off in the neighborhood of Trantridge,

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not one of the ancient d'Urbervilles of Kingsby are in

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other places. Asked his son that curiously historic, worn out

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family with its ghostly legend of the coach and four

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oh no, the original d'urberville's decayed and disappeared sixty or

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eighty years ago, at least I believe. So. This seems

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to be a new family which has taken the name

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for the credit of the former knightly line. I hope

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they are spurious, I am sure, But it is odd

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to hear you express interest in old families. I thought

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you set less store by them, even than I you

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misapprehend me, father, you often do, said Angel, with a

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little impatience. Politically, I am skeptical as to the virtue

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of their being old, some of the wise, even among

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themselves a claim against their own succession, as Hamlet puts it,

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but lyrically, dramatically, and even historically, I am tenderly attached

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to them. This distinction, though by no means a subtle one,

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was yet too subtle for mister Clare the elder, and

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he went on with the story he had been about

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to relate, which was that, after the death of the

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senior so called d'urberville, the young man developed the most

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culpable passions, though he had a blind mother whose can

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should have made him no better. A knowledge of his

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career having come to the ears of mister Clare. When

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he was in that part of the country preaching missionary sermons,

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he boldly took occasion to speak to the delinquent on

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his spiritual state. Though he was a stranger occupying another's pulpit,

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he had felt this to be his duty, and took

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for his text the words from Saint Luke, thou fool

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this night, thy soul shall be required of thee. The

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young man much resented this directness of attack, and in

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the war of words which followed when they met, he

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did not scruple publicly to insult mister Clare without respect

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for his gray hairs. Angel flushed with distress. Dear father,

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he said, sadly, I wish you would not expose yourself

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to such gratuitous pain from scoundrels. Pain, said his father,

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his rugged face shining in the ardor of self abdigation.

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The only pain to me was pain on his account,

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poor foolish young man, Do you supposed his incensed words

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could give me any pain or even his blows be reviled.

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We bless being persecuted, We suffer it being defamed. We

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entreat We are made as the filth of the world,

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and as the off scouring of all things, unto this day,

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those ancient and noble words of the Corinthians are strictly

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true at this present hour, not blows, father, He did

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not proceed to blows. No, he did not. Though I

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have borne blows from men in a mad state of intoxication,

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No a times, my boy, What then I have saved

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them from the guilt of murdering their own flesh and

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blood thereby, and they have lived to thank me and

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praise God. May this young man do the same, said

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angel fervently. But I fear otherwise from what you say.

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We'll hope nevertheless, said mister Clare. And I continue to

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pray for him, though on this side of the grave

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we shall probably never meet again. But after all, one

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of those poor words of mine may spring up in

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his heart as a good seed some day now. As always,

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Claire's father was sanguine as a child, and though the

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younger could not accept his parent's narrow dogma, he revered

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his practice and recognized the hero under the Pietist Perhaps

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he revered his father's practice even more now than ever,

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seeing that in the question of making Tessy his wife,

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his father had not once thought of inquiring whether she

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were well provided or penniless, the same unworldliness with what

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had necessitated Angels getting a living as a farmer, and

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would probably keep his brothers in the position of poor

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parsons for the term of their activities. Yet Angel admired

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it none the less. Indeed, despite his own heterodoxy, Angel

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often felt that he was nearer to his father on

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the human side than was either of his brethren. End

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of Chapter twenty six.