![]() ![]() ![]() I read a study somewhere that most people in England still live within 50 miles of where they have for generations. But was it even an accident? Even those on the heath contemplate suicide find their lives unfulfilled yearn for more and fear lest they lose all they have – though to us it might seem paltry. The whole range of human existence, even to the accident that ends it all. You get to know the characters their proclivities and their fears. It is marinated in descriptions, the colors and sounds and smells of Wessex. Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy is about this. Even if the greatest adventure is had by a wayward son who went to Paris for a season but didn’t he even come home? The heath was calling, and that is not a call to be refused. But it can have meaning, even if nobody ever leaves the heath. From the barrow mound to the river and back again, the entire gamut of the human experience. That’s what the old Victorian masters taught us. ![]() A whole lifetime can be lived on the heath. ![]()
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