I

A Face on Which Time Makes But Little Impression


A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight,
and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned
itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud
shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its
floor.

The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with
the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was
clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of
an instalment of night which had taken up its place before its
astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived
hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky. Looking upwards, a
furze-cutter would have been inclined to continue work; looking down,
he would have decided to finish his faggot and go home. The distant
rims of the world and of the firmament seemed to be a division in time
no less than a division in matter. The face of the heath by its mere
complexion added half an hour to evening; it could in like manner
retard the dawn, sadden noon, anticipate the frowning of storms
scarcely generated, and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight
to a cause of shaking and dread.

In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its nightly roll into
darkness the great and particular glory of the Egdon waste began, and
nobody could be said to understand the heath who had not been there at