How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"I can never forget those banns. A harsher man would rejoice now in the power I have of turning upon your aunt by going no further in the business." (1.5.48)
We see a lot of different kinds of pride in this book and it doesn't really surprise us that Damon demonstrates a lot of them himself. Here he still manages to come off like an arrogant jerk even while insisting that he isn't full of pride and grudge-holding tendencies (he totally is). Plus, he manages to be rude to Thomasin, which isn't cool at all.
Quote #2
Thomasin coloured a little, and not with love. But whatever the momentary feeling which caused that flush in her, it went as it came, and she humbly said, "I never meant to be, if I can help it." (1.5.47)
Scenes of humility few and far between in this novel, and when they do crop up they're sure worth noting. More than any other character, Thomasin displays a humble streak. What's interesting is that her humility isn't really a sign of weakness. She might sound submissive here, but the detail at the start of the passage, about Thomasin flushing "not with love," reveals a core of strength and a capacity for anger in her character.
Quote #3
The only way to look queenly without realms or hearts to queen it over is to look as if you had lost them; and Eustacia did that to a triumph. In the captain's cottage she could suggest mansions she had never seen. (1.7.12)
The comparisons here emphasize Eustacia's pride – she's linked with words like "queenly" and "mansions." But Eustacia's pride and wannabe queenliness is not so contemptible as much as it is sad. After all, she spends her days dreaming of mansions "she had never seen."
Quote #4
Thus she was a girl of some forwardness of mind, indeed, weighed in relation to her situation among the very rearward of thinkers, very original. Her instincts toward social nonconformity were at the root of this. (1.7.18)
The contrast between Eustacia's "forwardness" of mind and her place with the "rearward" of thinkers is notable. But there's one phrase that's crucial here: "in relation to." Eustacia is essentially only very "original" when compared to the podunk people of Egdon. Hardy has a tendency to build things up only to knock them down throughout the novel, and this is a great example of that.
Quote #5
Hand and person she then withdrew to a distance of several feet, and recovered some of her old dignity. The contract completed, she raised between them a barrier impenetrable as a wall. (2.4.85)
This imagery is very strong and unites ideas of distance (physical and emotional) with dignity and pride. Pride too is likened to a "wall" here.
Quote #6
"I have not injured her: he was mine before he was hers! He came back – because – because he liked me best!" she said wildly. "But I lose all self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way to!" (1.10.46)
This might be one of the most arrogant speeches Eustacia delivers, which is really saying something. Her diction especially reveals the extent of her pride – she uses possessive terms like "mine" and discusses her "self-respect." But we find it interesting that her tone is borderline hysterical – she speaks "wildly," and with exclamation points, and repeats herself, like she's too upset to say things clearly.
Quote #7
What a humiliating victory! He loved her best, she thought; and yet [...] what was the man worth whom a woman inferior to herself did not value? (1.11.67)
Themes of pride and social awareness are linked together here through Eustacia. She cares more about the fact that a "lesser" woman rejected Damon than the fact that Damon "loved her best."
Quote #8
The unreasonable nimbus of romance with which she had encircled that man might be her misery. How could she allow herself to become so infatuated with a stranger? (2.6.75)
Eustacia might be arrogant and prideful, but the flip side of those traits is that she can be pretty harsh with herself, as we see here. She even characterizes her feelings for Clym in negative terms, such as "infatuation."
Quote #9
To lose the two women – he who had been the well-beloved of both – was too ironical an issue to be endured. (2.7.90)
Only Damon could bust out with something this hilariously arrogant.
Quote #10
But men are drawn from their intentions even in the course of carrying them out, and it was extremely doubtful, by the time the twentieth guinea had been reached, whether Wildeve was conscious of any other intention than that of winning for his own personal benefit. (3.7.99)
It's interesting that this sentence starts out in very generalized terms before honing in specifically on Wildeve – in a way, the sentence structure helps to take some judgment and blame off of Wildeve. Men in general are flawed and Wildeve is no exception.
Quote #11
"But the more I see of life the more do I perceive that there is nothing particularly great in its greatest walks, and therefore nothing particularly small in mine of furze-cutting." (4.2.85)
Clym should consider writing fortune cookies for a living. But, really, the ideas he introduces here are major themes in the novel. Egdon might seem like a silly small town at times but it is also a great, dramatic stage – "great" and "small" become pretty relative terms in this book.
Quote #12
"But it is so dreadful – a furze-cutter! and you a man who have lived about the world [...] and who are fit for so much better than this." "I suppose when you first saw me and heard about me I was wrapped in a sort of golden halo to your eyes [...] an adorable, delightful, distracting hero?"
"Yes," she said, sobbing. (4.3.3-5)
Eustacia seems incapable of reconciling a "man of the world" with a "furze-cutter," revealing how her status consciousness dominates her ideas of other people. By stepping down the social ladder, Clym has become a total failure to her. What's really interesting here is how Clym describes Eustacia's image of him in fantasy terms like "hero" and "halo." Clym suggests that Eustacia never had a realistic view of him.
Quote #13
"Indeed I think no such thing," she said haughtily. "I shall accept whose company I choose, for all that may be said by the miserable inhabitants of Egdon." (4.3.65)
This might be Eustacia's snobbiest speech in the entire novel. She also seems to take her hatred of the heath out on the residents of Egdon – or is it the other way around?
Quote #14
"I have thought of your sufferings that morning on which I parted from you; I know they were genuine, and they are as much as you ought to bear. Our love must still continue." (5.6.37)
This might seem like dialogue from Damon, but it's actually from Clym, and he definitely shows a lot of pride and arrogance. Apparently he didn't come across the whole "judge not, lest you be judged" thing since he states that Eustacia "ought to" suffer for contributing to the death of his mom and that she should still "love" him despite his "justified" desire to punish her. Eustacia might want to cut her losses.