This, and the other oversights
Boldwood was guilty of, were natural to the mood, and
still more natural to the circumstances. The great aids
to idealization in love were present here: occasional
observation of her from a distance, and the absence of
social intercourse with her -- visual familiarity, oral
strangeness. The smaller human elements were kept
out of sight; the pettinesses that enter so largely into
all earthly living and doing were disguised by the
accident of lover and loved-one not being on visiting
terms; and there was hardly awakened a thought in
Boldwood that sorry household realities appertained to
her, or that she, like all others, had moments of
commonplace, when to be least plainly seen was to be
most prettily remembered. Thus a mild sort of
apotheosis took place in his fancy, whilst she still lived
and breathed within his own horizon, a troubled creature
like himself.
It was the end of May when the farmer determined
to be no longer repulsed by trivialities or distracted by
suspense. He had by this time grown used to being in
love; the passion now startled him less even when it
tortured him more, and he felt himself adequate to the
situation.
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