of Hardy’s The Return of the Native. I feel myself closer to Clym as my eyesight continues to diminish because of the double cataract situation (to be remedied later this year). Most noticeable on these darker mornings, trying to read the newspaper under the dinette light. I have to change rooms and read under the dining room chandelier. At other times, I have to hold up something I’m reading to see all the words more clearly.
Anyway, the academic and scholarly Clym lost his eyesight and became a common furze-cutter on Egdon Heath. Eventually he recovered some eyesight after the book’s main tragedy and became an itinerant preacher.
I have long been a teacher (elements of this still showing up in my blog) as I write of hope and inspiration as much as Clym preached in his later life. And I am similarly optimistic that I will one day be able to see more clearly and perhaps be able to dispose of full-time glasses becoming more visually sensitive, which may perhaps allow me to have a renewed sense of beauty, awe, and wonder about Nature for starters. I’m optimistic to dream that my feelings and thoughts will become even more sensitive, clearer, and sharper than they are now.