When Pride Costs Everything — Far from the Madding Crowd

Bathsheba examines Boldwood's offer with the cold eye of someone not in love. Hardy notes that the rarest offerings of pure affection can be self-indulgence rather than generosity: Boldwood is kind, wealthy, close at hand, and unexceptionable as a means to marriage, yet she does not want him. She admits it would be ungenerous to refuse after starting the game, and in the same breath says she could not marry him to save her life. Hardy calls her an Elizabeth in brain and a Mary Stuart in spirit: perfect syllogisms that remain thoughts, irrational assumptions that grow into deeds. The next day she finds Gabriel Oak grinding shears at the garden bottom, sends Cainy for the bay mare, and takes the winch herself to ask whether the men noticed her walk with Boldwood. Gabriel reports parish gossip that their names may be read together in church before year's end. She wants him to contradict the rumour; he will not lie, and when she asks his opinion he calls her conduct unworthy of a thoughtful woman. Wounded pride turns the scene vicious: she demands whether his criticism is really about her refusing him, and he coolly says he has long given up wishing that. His blunt sermon on leading on a man she does not care for, especially after the valentine, crosses a line she cannot tolerate. Bathsheba orders him off the farm at week's end. Gabriel accepts with placid dignity, takes his shears, and leaves like Moses leaving Pharaoh while her lower lip trembles. She has dismissed the one opinion in the parish she actually valued.