The Return of the Native

The Return of the Native

by

Thomas Hardy

Damon Wildeve runs the Quiet Woman Inn. The novel begins on what’s supposed to be his wedding to Thomasin, though an issue with the marriage license forces them to postpone the wedding. Although Wildeve publicly maintains that he still wants to marry Thomasin, he is carrying out a secret romance with Eustacia. After his failed wedding, Wildeve regularly visits Eustacia and promises her that he is still interested in her. However, Eustacia eventually decides that prefers Clym instead and so ends her affair with Wildeve. This prompts Wildeve decides to marry Thomasin after all, though he proves to be a bad husband. He spends much of his time away from home and does not give Thomasin any money of her own. Additionally, once Eustacia and Clym’s marriage falls apart, Wildeve once again starts pursuing Eustacia behind his wife’s back. He promises Eustacia that he can take her away from Egdon Heath and fantasizes about making her his mistress. Indeed, Wildeve does try to help Eustacia escape Egdon, but a violent storm breaks out the night they plan to leave, and they drown to death after getting sucked into a pond.

Damon Wildeve Quotes in The Return of the Native

The The Return of the Native quotes below are all either spoken by Damon Wildeve or refer to Damon Wildeve. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Humans vs. Nature Theme Icon
).
Book 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

The only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime of silhouettes was that the woman had no relation to the forms who had taken her place, was sedulously avoiding these, and had come thither for another object than theirs. The imagination of the observer clung by preference to that vanished, solitary figure, as to something more interesting, more important, more likely to have a history worth knowing than these newcomers, and unconsciously regarded them as intruders. But they remained, and established themselves; and the lonely person who hitherto had been queen of the solitude did not at present seem likely to return.

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye, Damon Wildeve, Diggory Venn (The Reddleman)
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Chapter 5 Quotes

“As a matter of justice it is almost due to me,” said Wildeve. “Think what I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is to any man to have the banns forbidden—the double insult to a man unlucky enough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons, and Heaven knows what, as I am. 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.”

Related Characters: Damon Wildeve (speaker), Thomasin Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright
Page Number: 47
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Chapter 7 Quotes

To be loved to madness—such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover.

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye, Clym Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Related Symbols: Paris
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Chapter 3 Quotes

She was dancing to wondrous music, and her partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her through the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being closed. The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came into her ear from under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman in Paradise. Suddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers, dived into one of the pools of the heath, and came out somewhere into an iridescent hollow, arched with rainbows. “It must be here,” said the voice by her side, and blushingly looking up she saw him removing his casque to kiss her. At that moment there was a cracking noise, and his figure fell into fragments like a pack of cards.

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye, Clym Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Related Symbols: Paris
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Chapter 8 Quotes

When Thomasin was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had flung towards Eustacia a glance that said plainly, “I have punished you now.” She had replied in a low tone—and he little thought how truly— “You mistake; it gives me sincerest pleasure to see her your wife today.”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Damon Wildeve (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Thomasin Yeobright
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 4, Chapter 1 Quotes

“You ought to have better opinions of me—I feared you were against me from the first!” exclaimed Eustacia.

“No. I was simply for Clym,” replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much emphasis in her earnestness. “It is the instinct of everyone to look after their own.”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Mrs. Yeobright (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Thomasin Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Page Number: 238-239
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 4, Chapter 4 Quotes

“Sometimes more bitterness is sown in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life; and that may be the case here.”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Page Number: 268
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 4, Chapter 6 Quotes

“There you mistake me. I married him because I loved him, but I won’t say that I didn’t love him partly because I thought I saw a promise of that life in him.”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Related Symbols: Paris
Page Number: 276
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 5, Chapter 1 Quotes

“But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hour after hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of her death, and to know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all, drives me into cold despair. I don’t know what to do. Should I tell him or should I not tell him? I always am asking myself that. O, I want to tell him; and yet I am afraid. If he finds it out he must surely kill me, for nothing else will be in proportion to his feelings now.”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright, Damon Wildeve, Captain Vye
Page Number: 307
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 5, Chapter 2 Quotes

“Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only allowed to hold conversation with the dead—just once, a bare minute, even through a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison—what we might learn! How many who now ride smiling would hide their heads! And this mystery—I should then be at the bottom of it at once. But the grave has forever shut her in; and how shall it be found out now?”

Related Characters: Clym Yeobright (speaker), Eustacia Vye, Mrs. Yeobright, Damon Wildeve, Diggory Venn (The Reddleman)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 5, Chapter 7 Quotes

“How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me! . . . I do not deserve my lot! [. . .] O, the cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no harm to heaven at all!”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 346
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 6, Chapter 1 Quotes

The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout Egdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and months. All the known incidents of their love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and modified, till the original reality bore slight resemblance to the counterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues.

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye, Clym Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Page Number: 371
Explanation and Analysis:
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Damon Wildeve Quotes in The Return of the Native

The The Return of the Native quotes below are all either spoken by Damon Wildeve or refer to Damon Wildeve. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Humans vs. Nature Theme Icon
).
Book 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

The only intelligible meaning in this sky-backed pantomime of silhouettes was that the woman had no relation to the forms who had taken her place, was sedulously avoiding these, and had come thither for another object than theirs. The imagination of the observer clung by preference to that vanished, solitary figure, as to something more interesting, more important, more likely to have a history worth knowing than these newcomers, and unconsciously regarded them as intruders. But they remained, and established themselves; and the lonely person who hitherto had been queen of the solitude did not at present seem likely to return.

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye, Damon Wildeve, Diggory Venn (The Reddleman)
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Chapter 5 Quotes

“As a matter of justice it is almost due to me,” said Wildeve. “Think what I have gone through to win her consent; the insult that it is to any man to have the banns forbidden—the double insult to a man unlucky enough to be cursed with sensitiveness, and blue demons, and Heaven knows what, as I am. 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.”

Related Characters: Damon Wildeve (speaker), Thomasin Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright
Page Number: 47
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 1, Chapter 7 Quotes

To be loved to madness—such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover.

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye, Clym Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Related Symbols: Paris
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Chapter 3 Quotes

She was dancing to wondrous music, and her partner was the man in silver armour who had accompanied her through the previous fantastic changes, the visor of his helmet being closed. The mazes of the dance were ecstatic. Soft whispering came into her ear from under the radiant helmet, and she felt like a woman in Paradise. Suddenly these two wheeled out from the mass of dancers, dived into one of the pools of the heath, and came out somewhere into an iridescent hollow, arched with rainbows. “It must be here,” said the voice by her side, and blushingly looking up she saw him removing his casque to kiss her. At that moment there was a cracking noise, and his figure fell into fragments like a pack of cards.

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye, Clym Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Related Symbols: Paris
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Chapter 8 Quotes

When Thomasin was tremblingly engaged in signing her name Wildeve had flung towards Eustacia a glance that said plainly, “I have punished you now.” She had replied in a low tone—and he little thought how truly— “You mistake; it gives me sincerest pleasure to see her your wife today.”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Damon Wildeve (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Thomasin Yeobright
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 4, Chapter 1 Quotes

“You ought to have better opinions of me—I feared you were against me from the first!” exclaimed Eustacia.

“No. I was simply for Clym,” replied Mrs. Yeobright, with too much emphasis in her earnestness. “It is the instinct of everyone to look after their own.”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Mrs. Yeobright (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Thomasin Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Page Number: 238-239
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 4, Chapter 4 Quotes

“Sometimes more bitterness is sown in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life; and that may be the case here.”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Page Number: 268
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 4, Chapter 6 Quotes

“There you mistake me. I married him because I loved him, but I won’t say that I didn’t love him partly because I thought I saw a promise of that life in him.”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Related Symbols: Paris
Page Number: 276
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 5, Chapter 1 Quotes

“But, Damon, please pray tell me what I must do? To sit by him hour after hour, and hear him reproach himself as being the cause of her death, and to know that I am the sinner, if any human being is at all, drives me into cold despair. I don’t know what to do. Should I tell him or should I not tell him? I always am asking myself that. O, I want to tell him; and yet I am afraid. If he finds it out he must surely kill me, for nothing else will be in proportion to his feelings now.”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright, Damon Wildeve, Captain Vye
Page Number: 307
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 5, Chapter 2 Quotes

“Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only allowed to hold conversation with the dead—just once, a bare minute, even through a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison—what we might learn! How many who now ride smiling would hide their heads! And this mystery—I should then be at the bottom of it at once. But the grave has forever shut her in; and how shall it be found out now?”

Related Characters: Clym Yeobright (speaker), Eustacia Vye, Mrs. Yeobright, Damon Wildeve, Diggory Venn (The Reddleman)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 313
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 5, Chapter 7 Quotes

“How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me! . . . I do not deserve my lot! [. . .] O, the cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no harm to heaven at all!”

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye (speaker), Clym Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 346
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 6, Chapter 1 Quotes

The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout Egdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and months. All the known incidents of their love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and modified, till the original reality bore slight resemblance to the counterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues.

Related Characters: Eustacia Vye, Clym Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright, Damon Wildeve
Page Number: 371
Explanation and Analysis: