Thomas Hardy
A Tragedy of Two Ambitions
Read this today in a volume of Hardy's short stories. An interesting tale of greed, betrayal, with the chilling line near the close: "To have endured the cross, despising the shame" which the younger of two brothers remembers as they reflect on the events in which they played a part which led to the death of their father.
I'm not sure what I think of Hardy as a writer; I really haven't read much before. I read most of Jude the Obscure about five years ago now, over Christmas, and enjoyed (not the right word I suppose, given how gloomy the novels are supposed to be) it. Often he is a writer seen as being somehow 'churchy', perhaps given his fairly extensive (apparently) concern with architecture.

This was a short story concerning two brothers, Joshua and Cornelius Halborough, whose drunken father squanders their inheritance on, well erm, drink. With it goes their chance of gaining entry to university, a major and almost fatal blow to their social and to a lesser extent, intellectual ambitions which had, we learn, been stirred by their late mother before she died when they were young boys.
As the brothers grow older, they struggle manfully with the task of educating themselves with the aim of rising in the church. Joshua is the main focus of the novel's concern with social prestige and advancement; his understanding of the role of the clegyman can be neatly summed up with his criteria for success in the Church given to his brother: " To succeed in the Church, people must believe in you, first of all as a gentleman, secondly as a man of means, thirdly as a scholar, fourthly as a preacher, fifthly, perhaps, as a Christian - but always first as a gentleman. " (P.60)

I suppose the alignment of religious institutions with social class, power and advancement, shorn largely of anything greatly spiritual, is the territory in which the story dwells. It's interesting for that reason - the idea of the church as being some kind of way into society was a very real concern - as shown in the text. The central dilemma comes as their father falls into a weir, and the initial instinct of the younger, less careworn and anxious brother Cornelius to save his father is challenged by his brother's deliberate hesitation. As the brothers watch their father flounder and then give up the fight against the water as he drifts into a culvert (some kind of tunnel or arch under roads) and dies, they must face the fact that their decision has cost him his life, but indirectly preserved the circumstances of their sister, whose impending marriage to a local squire would be jeopardised by the arrival of her disgraced and drunken father.

All interesting stuff!