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Away from the madding crowd
In
reprinting
this
story
for
a
new
edition
I
am
reminded
that
it
was
in
the
chapters
of
"
Far
from
the
Madding
Crowd
,
"
as
they
appeared
month
by
month
in
a
popular
magazine
,
that
I
first
ventured
to
adopt
the
word
"
Wessex
"
from
the
pages
of
early
English
history
,
and
give
it
a
fictitious
significance
as
the
existing
name
of
the
district
once
included
in
that
extinct
kingdom
.
The
series
of
novels
I
projected
being
mainly
of
the
kind
called
local
,
they
seemed
to
require
a
territorial
definition
of
some
sort
to
lend
unity
to
their
scene
.
Finding
that
the
area
of
a
single
county
did
not
afford
a
canvas
large
enough
for
this
purpose
,
and
that
there
were
objections
to
an
invented
name
,
I
disinterred
the
old
one
.
The
press
and
the
public
were
kind
enough
to
welcome
the
fanciful
plan
,
and
willingly
joined
me
in
the
anachronism
of
imagining
a
Wessex
population
living
under
Queen
Victoria
;
—
a
modern
Wessex
of
railways
,
the
penny
post
,
mowing
and
reaping
machines
,
union
workhouses
,
lucifer
matches
,
labourers
who
could
read
and
write
,
and
National
school
children
.
But
I
believe
I
am
correct
in
stating
that
,
until
the
existence
of
this
contemporaneous
Wessex
was
announced
in
the
present
story
,
in
1874
,
it
had
never
been
heard
of
,
and
that
the
expression
,
"
a
Wessex
peasant
,
"
or
"
a
Wessex
custom
,
"
would
theretofore
have
been
taken
to
refer
to
nothing
later
in
date
than
the
Norman
Conquest
.
I
did
not
anticipate
that
this
application
of
the
word
to
a
modern
use
would
extend
outside
the
chapters
of
my
own
chronicles
.
But
the
name
was
soon
taken
up
elsewhere
as
a
local
designation
.
The
first
to
do
so
was
the
now
defunct
Examiner
,
which
,
in
the
impression
bearing
date
July
15
,
1876
,
entitled
one
of
its
articles
"
The
Wessex
Labourer
,
"
the
article
turning
out
to
be
no
dissertation
on
farming
during
the
Heptarchy
,
but
on
the
modern
peasant
of
the
south
-
west
counties
,
and
his
presentation
in
these
stories
.
Since
then
the
appellation
which
I
had
thought
to
reserve
to
the
horizons
and
landscapes
of
a
merely
realistic
dream
-
country
,
has
become
more
and
more
popular
as
a
practical
definition
;
and
the
dream
-
country
has
,
by
degrees
,
solidified
into
a
utilitarian
region
which
people
can
go
to
,
take
a
house
in
,
and
write
to
the
papers
from
.
But
I
ask
all
good
and
gentle
readers
to
be
so
kind
as
to
forget
this
,
and
to
refuse
steadfastly
to
believe
that
there
are
any
inhabitants
of
a
Victorian
Wessex
outside
the
pages
of
this
and
the
companion
volumes
in
which
they
were
first
discovered
.
Moreover
,
the
village
called
Weatherbury
,
wherein
the
scenes
of
the
present
story
of
the
series
are
for
the
most
part
laid
,
would
perhaps
be
hardly
discernible
by
the
explorer
,
without
help
,
in
any
existing
place
nowadays
;
though
at
the
time
,
comparatively
recent
,
at
which
the
tale
was
written
,
a
sufficient
reality
to
meet
the
descriptions
,
both
of
backgrounds
and
personages
,
might
have
been
traced
easily
enough
.
The
church
remains
,
by
great
good
fortune
,
unrestored
and
intact
,
and
a
few
of
the
old
houses
;
but
the
ancient
malt
-
house
,
which
was
formerly
so
characteristic
of
the
parish
,
has
been
pulled
down
these
twenty
years
;
also
most
of
the
thatched
and
dormered
cottages
that
were
once
lifeholds
The
game
of
prisoner
’
s
base
,
which
not
so
long
ago
seemed
to
enjoy
a
perennial
vitality
in
front
of
the
worn
-
out
stocks
,
may
,
so
far
as
I
can
say
,
be
entirely
unknown
to
the
rising
generation
of
schoolboys
there
.
The
practice
of
divination
by
Bible
and
key
,
the
regarding
of
valentines
as
things
of
serious
import
,
the
shearing
-
supper
,
and
the
harvest
-
home
,
have
,
too
,
nearly
disappeared
in
the
wake
of
the
old
houses
;
and
with
them
have
gone
,
it
is
said
,
much
of
that
love
of
fuddling
to
which
the
village
at
one
time
was
notoriously
prone
.
The
change
at
the
root
of
this
has
been
the
recent
supplanting
of
the
class
of
stationary
cottagers
,
who
carried
on
the
local
traditions
and
humours
,
by
a
population
of
more
or
less
migratory
labourers
,
which
has
led
to
a
break
of
continuity
in
local
history
,
more
fatal
than
any
other
thing
to
the
preservation
of
legend
,
folk
-
lore
,
close
inter
-
social
relations
,
and
eccentric
individualities
.
For
these
the
indispensable
conditions
of
existence
are
attachment
to
the
soil
of
one
particular
spot
by
generation
after
generation
.
T
.
H
.
February
1895
When
Farmer
Oak
smiled
,
the
corners
of
his
mouth
spread
till
they
were
within
an
unimportant
distance
of
his
ears
,
his
eyes
were
reduced
to
chinks
,
and
diverging
wrinkles
appeared
round
them
,
extending
upon
his
countenance
like
the
rays
in
a
rudimentary
sketch
of
the
rising
sun
.
