Far from the Madding Crowd - 04
A voice came from behind some laurel-bushes into which the cat had run:
"Poor dear! Did a nasty brute of a dog want to kill it;—did he, poor dear!"
"I beg your pardon," said Oak to the voice, "but George was walking on behind me with a temper as mild as milk."
Almost before he had ceased speaking, Oak was seized with a misgiving as to whose ear was the recipient of his answer. Nobody appeared, and he heard the person retreat among the bushes.
Gabriel meditated, and so deeply that he brought small furrows into his forehead by sheer force of reverie. Where the issue of an interview is as likely to be a vast change for the worse as for the better, any initial difference from expectation causes nipping sensations of failure. Oak went up to the door a little abashed: his mental rehearsal and the reality had had no common grounds of opening.
Bathsheba's aunt was indoors. "Will you tell Miss Everdene that somebody would be glad to speak to her?" said Mr. Oak. (Calling one's self merely Somebody, without giving a name, is not to be taken as an example of the ill-breeding of the rural world: it springs from a refined modesty, of which townspeople, with their cards and announcements, have no notion whatever.)
Bathsheba was out. The voice had evidently been hers.
"Will you come in, Mr. Oak?"
"Oh, thank 'ee," said Gabriel, following her to the fireplace. "I've brought a lamb for Miss Everdene. I thought she might like one to rear; girls do."
"She might," said Mrs. Hurst, musingly; "though she's only a visitor here. If you will wait a minute, Bathsheba will be in."
"Yes, I will wait," said Gabriel, sitting down. "The lamb isn't really the business I came about, Mrs. Hurst. In short, I was going to ask her if she'd like to be married."
"And were you indeed?"
"Yes. Because if she would, I should be very glad to marry her. D'ye know if she's got any other young man hanging about her at all?"
"Let me think," said Mrs. Hurst, poking the fire superfluously… "Yes—bless you, ever so many young men. You see, Farmer Oak, she's so good-looking, and an excellent scholar besides—she was going to be a governess once, you know, only she was too wild. Not that her young men ever come here—but, Lord, in the nature of women, she must have a dozen!"
"That's unfortunate," said Farmer Oak, contemplating a crack in the stone floor with sorrow. "I'm only an every-day sort of man, and my only chance was in being the first comer … Well, there's no use in my waiting, for that was all I came about: so I'll take myself off home-along, Mrs. Hurst."
When Gabriel had gone about two hundred yards along the down, he heard a "hoi-hoi!" uttered behind him, in a piping note of more treble quality than that in which the exclamation usually embodies itself when shouted across a field. He looked round, and saw a girl racing after him, waving a white handkerchief.
Oak stood still—and the runner drew nearer. It was Bathsheba Everdene. Gabriel's colour deepened: hers was already deep, not, as it appeared, from emotion, but from running.
"Farmer Oak—I—" she said, pausing for want of breath pulling up in front of him with a slanted face and putting her hand to her side.
"I have just called to see you," said Gabriel, pending her further speech.
"Yes—I know that," she said panting like a robin, her face red and moist from her exertions, like a peony petal before the sun dries off the dew. "I didn't know you had come to ask to have me, or I should have come in from the garden instantly. I ran after you to say—that my aunt made a mistake in sending you away from courting me—"
Gabriel expanded. "I'm sorry to have made you run so fast, my dear," he said, with a grateful sense of favours to come. "Wait a bit till you've found your breath."
"—It was quite a mistake—aunt's telling you I had a young man already," Bathsheba went on. "I haven't a sweetheart at all—and I never had one, and I thought that, as times go with women, it was such a pity to send you away thinking that I had several."
"Really and truly I am glad to hear that!" said Farmer Oak, smiling one of his long special smiles, and blushing with gladness. He held out his hand to take hers, which, when she had eased her side by pressing it there, was prettily extended upon her bosom to still her loud-beating heart. Directly he seized it she put it behind her, so that it slipped through his fingers like an eel.
"I have a nice snug little farm," said Gabriel, with half a degree less assurance than when he had seized her hand.
"Yes; you have."
"A man has advanced me money to begin with, but still, it will soon be paid off, and though I am only an every-day sort of man, I have got on a little since I was a boy." Gabriel uttered "a little" in a tone to show her that it was the complacent form of "a great deal." He continued: "When we be married, I am quite sure I can work twice as hard as I do now."
He went forward and stretched out his arm again. Bathsheba had overtaken him at a point beside which stood a low stunted holly bush, now laden with red berries. Seeing his advance take the form of an attitude threatening a possible enclosure, if not compression, of her person, she edged off round the bush.
"Why, Farmer Oak," she said, over the top, looking at him with rounded eyes, "I never said I was going to marry you."
"Well—that is a tale!" said Oak, with dismay. "To run after anybody like this, and then say you don't want him!"
"What I meant to tell you was only this," she said eagerly, and yet half conscious of the absurdity of the position she had made for herself—"that nobody has got me yet as a sweetheart, instead of my having a dozen, as my aunt said; I hate to be thought men's property in that way, though possibly I shall be had some day. Why, if I'd wanted you I shouldn't have run after you like this; 'twould have been the forwardest thing! But there was no harm in hurrying to correct a piece of false news that had been told you."
"Oh, no—no harm at all." But there is such a thing as being too generous in expressing a judgment impulsively, and Oak added with a more appreciative sense of all the circumstances—"Well, I am not quite certain it was no harm."
"Indeed, I hadn't time to think before starting whether I wanted to marry or not, for you'd have been gone over the hill."
"Come," said Gabriel, freshening again; "think a minute or two. I'll wait a while, Miss Everdene. Will you marry me? Do, Bathsheba. I love you far more than common!"
"I'll try to think," she observed, rather more timorously; "if I can think out of doors; my mind spreads away so."
"But you can give a guess."
"Then give me time." Bathsheba looked thoughtfully into the distance, away from the direction in which Gabriel stood.
"I can make you happy," said he to the back of her head, across the bush. "You shall have a piano in a year or two—farmers' wives are getting to have pianos now—and I'll practise up the flute right well to play with you in the evenings."
"Yes; I should like that."
"And have one of those little ten-pound gigs for market—and nice flowers, and birds—cocks and hens I mean, because they be useful," continued Gabriel, feeling balanced between poetry and practicality.
"I should like it very much."
"And a frame for cucumbers—like a gentleman and lady."
"Yes."
"And when the wedding was over, we'd have it put in the newspaper list of marriages."
"Dearly I should like that!"
"And the babies in the births—every man jack of 'em! And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be—and whenever I look up there will be you."
"Wait, wait, and don't be improper!"
Her countenance fell, and she was silent awhile. He regarded the red berries between them over and over again, to such an extent, that holly seemed in his after life to be a cypher signifying a proposal of marriage. Bathsheba decisively turned to him.
"No; 'tis no use," she said. "I don't want to marry you."
"Try."
"I have tried hard all the time I've been thinking; for a marriage would be very nice in one sense. People would talk about me, and think I had won my battle, and I should feel triumphant, and all that, But a husband—"
"Well!"
"Why, he'd always be there, as you say; whenever I looked up, there he'd be."
"Of course he would—I, that is."
"Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband. But since a woman can't show off in that way by herself, I shan't marry—at least yet."
"That's a terrible wooden story!"
At this criticism of her statement Bathsheba made an addition to her dignity by a slight sweep away from him.
"Upon my heart and soul, I don't know what a maid can say stupider than that," said Oak. "But dearest," he continued in a palliative voice, "don't be like it!" Oak sighed a deep honest sigh—none the less so in that, being like the sigh of a pine plantation, it was rather noticeable as a disturbance of the atmosphere. "Why won't you have me?" he appealed, creeping round the holly to reach her side.
"I cannot," she said, retreating.
"But why?" he persisted, standing still at last in despair of ever reaching her, and facing over the bush.
"Because I don't love you."
"Yes, but—"
She contracted a yawn to an inoffensive smallness, so that it was hardly ill-mannered at all. "I don't love you," she said.
"But I love you—and, as for myself, I am content to be liked."
"Oh Mr. Oak—that's very fine! You'd get to despise me."
"Never," said Mr Oak, so earnestly that he seemed to be coming, by the force of his words, straight through the bush and into her arms. "I shall do one thing in this life—one thing certain—that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die." His voice had a genuine pathos now, and his large brown hands perceptibly trembled.
"It seems dreadfully wrong not to have you when you feel so much!" she said with a little distress, and looking hopelessly around for some means of escape from her moral dilemma. "How I wish I hadn't run after you!" However she seemed to have a short cut for getting back to cheerfulness, and set her face to signify archness. "It wouldn't do, Mr Oak. I want somebody to tame me; I am too independent; and you would never be able to, I know."
Oak cast his eyes down the field in a way implying that it was useless to attempt argument.
"Mr. Oak," she said, with luminous distinctness and common sense, "you are better off than I. I have hardly a penny in the world—I am staying with my aunt for my bare sustenance. I am better educated than you—and I don't love you a bit: that's my side of the case. Now yours: you are a farmer just beginning; and you ought in common prudence, if you marry at all (which you should certainly not think of doing at present), to marry a woman with money, who would stock a larger farm for you than you have now."
Gabriel looked at her with a little surprise and much admiration.
"That's the very thing I had been thinking myself!" he naïvely said.
Farmer Oak had one-and-a-half Christian characteristics too many to succeed with Bathsheba: his humility, and a superfluous moiety of honesty. Bathsheba was decidedly disconcerted.
"Well, then, why did you come and disturb me?" she said, almost angrily, if not quite, an enlarging red spot rising in each cheek.
"I can't do what I think would be—would be—"
"Right?"
"No: wise."
"You have made an admission now, Mr. Oak," she exclaimed, with even more hauteur, and rocking her head disdainfully. "After that, do you think I could marry you? Not if I know it."
He broke in passionately. "But don't mistake me like that! Because I am open enough to own what every man in my shoes would have thought of, you make your colours come up your face, and get crabbed with me. That about your not being good enough for me is nonsense. You speak like a lady—all the parish notice it, and your uncle at Weatherbury is, I have heerd, a large farmer—much larger than ever I shall be. May I call in the evening, or will you walk along with me o' Sundays? I don't want you to make-up your mind at once, if you'd rather not."
"No—no—I cannot. Don't press me any more—don't. I don't love you—so 'twould be ridiculous," she said, with a laugh.
No man likes to see his emotions the sport of a merry-go-round of skittishness. "Very well," said Oak, firmly, with the bearing of one who was going to give his days and nights to Ecclesiastes for ever. "Then I'll ask you no more."
CHAPTER V
DEPARTURE OF BATHSHEBA—A PASTORAL TRAGEDY
The news which one day reached Gabriel, that Bathsheba Everdene had left the neighbourhood, had an influence upon him which might have surprised any who never suspected that the more emphatic the renunciation the less absolute its character.
It may have been observed that there is no regular path for getting out of love as there is for getting in. Some people look upon marriage as a short cut that way, but it has been known to fail. Separation, which was the means that chance offered to Gabriel Oak by Bathsheba's disappearance, though effectual with people of certain humours, is apt to idealize the removed object with others—notably those whose affection, placid and regular as it may be, flows deep and long. Oak belonged to the even-tempered order of humanity, and felt the secret fusion of himself in Bathsheba to be burning with a finer flame now that she was gone—that was all.
His incipient friendship with her aunt had been nipped by the failure of his suit, and all that Oak learnt of Bathsheba's movements was done indirectly. It appeared that she had gone to a place called Weatherbury, more than twenty miles off, but in what capacity—whether as a visitor, or permanently, he could not discover.
Gabriel had two dogs. George, the elder, exhibited an ebony-tipped nose, surrounded by a narrow margin of pink flesh, and a coat marked in random splotches approximating in colour to white and slaty grey; but the grey, after years of sun and rain, had been scorched and washed out of the more prominent locks, leaving them of a reddish-brown, as if the blue component of the grey had faded, like the indigo from the same kind of colour in Turner's pictures. In substance it had originally been hair, but long contact with sheep seemed to be turning it by degrees into wool of a poor quality and staple.
This dog had originally belonged to a shepherd of inferior morals and dreadful temper, and the result was that George knew the exact degrees of condemnation signified by cursing and swearing of all descriptions better than the wickedest old man in the neighbourhood. Long experience had so precisely taught the animal the difference between such exclamations as "Come in!" and "D–––– ye, come in!" that he knew to a hair's breadth the rate of trotting back from the ewes' tails that each call involved, if a staggerer with the sheep crook was to be escaped. Though old, he was clever and trustworthy still.
The young dog, George's son, might possibly have been the image of his mother, for there was not much resemblance between him and George. He was learning the sheep-keeping business, so as to follow on at the flock when the other should die, but had got no further than the rudiments as yet—still finding an insuperable difficulty in distinguishing between doing a thing well enough and doing it too well. So earnest and yet so wrong-headed was this young dog (he had no name in particular, and answered with perfect readiness to any pleasant interjection), that if sent behind the flock to help them on, he did it so thoroughly that he would have chased them across the whole county with the greatest pleasure if not called off or reminded when to stop by the example of old George.
Thus much for the dogs. On the further side of Norcombe Hill was a chalk-pit, from which chalk had been drawn for generations, and spread over adjacent farms. Two hedges converged upon it in the form of a V, but without quite meeting. The narrow opening left, which was immediately over the brow of the pit, was protected by a rough railing.
One night, when Farmer Oak had returned to his house, believing there would be no further necessity for his attendance on the down, he called as usual to the dogs, previously to shutting them up in the outhouse till next morning. Only one responded—old George; the other could not be found, either in the house, lane, or garden. Gabriel then remembered that he had left the two dogs on the hill eating a dead lamb (a kind of meat he usually kept from them, except when other food ran short), and concluding that the young one had not finished his meal, he went indoors to the luxury of a bed, which latterly he had only enjoyed on Sundays.
It was a still, moist night. Just before dawn he was assisted in waking by the abnormal reverberation of familiar music. To the shepherd, the note of the sheep-bell, like the ticking of the clock to other people, is a chronic sound that only makes itself noticed by ceasing or altering in some unusual manner from the well-known idle twinkle which signifies to the accustomed ear, however distant, that all is well in the fold. In the solemn calm of the awakening morn that note was heard by Gabriel, beating with unusual violence and rapidity. This exceptional ringing may be caused in two ways—by the rapid feeding of the sheep bearing the bell, as when the flock breaks into new pasture, which gives it an intermittent rapidity, or by the sheep starting off in a run, when the sound has a regular palpitation. The experienced ear of Oak knew the sound he now heard to be caused by the running of the flock with great velocity.
He jumped out of bed, dressed, tore down the lane through a foggy dawn, and ascended the hill. The forward ewes were kept apart from those among which the fall of lambs would be later, there being two hundred of the latter class in Gabriel's flock. These two hundred seemed to have absolutely vanished from the hill. There were the fifty with their lambs, enclosed at the other end as he had left them, but the rest, forming the bulk of the flock, were nowhere. Gabriel called at the top of his voice the shepherd's call:
"Ovey, ovey, ovey!"
- Parts
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 01Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 2869Total number of unique words is 119246.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.5 of words are in the 5000 most common words75.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 02Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3363Total number of unique words is 125547.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words73.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 03Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3427Total number of unique words is 115454.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words71.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words78.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 04Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3339Total number of unique words is 103658.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words75.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words81.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 05Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3425Total number of unique words is 122351.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words68.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words76.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 06Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3323Total number of unique words is 112253.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words68.0 of words are in the 5000 most common words76.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 07Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3371Total number of unique words is 105457.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words70.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words75.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 08Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3241Total number of unique words is 117552.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words67.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words74.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 09Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3298Total number of unique words is 115755.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words70.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words76.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 10Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3214Total number of unique words is 108256.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words72.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words80.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 11Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3234Total number of unique words is 122852.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words69.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words76.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 12Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3192Total number of unique words is 110155.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words71.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words79.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 13Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3360Total number of unique words is 126348.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words66.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words75.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 14Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3371Total number of unique words is 105158.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words74.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words81.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 15Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3276Total number of unique words is 125749.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words65.6 of words are in the 5000 most common words71.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 16Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3217Total number of unique words is 120549.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words64.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words72.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 17Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3278Total number of unique words is 114455.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words72.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words80.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 18Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3357Total number of unique words is 111556.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words70.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words79.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 19Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3342Total number of unique words is 108255.3 of words are in the 2000 most common words70.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words79.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 20Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3406Total number of unique words is 109057.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words73.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words80.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 21Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3508Total number of unique words is 101562.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words75.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words81.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 22Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3348Total number of unique words is 109956.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words72.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words78.2 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 23Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3405Total number of unique words is 112254.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words69.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words76.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 24Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3318Total number of unique words is 96763.1 of words are in the 2000 most common words77.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words85.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 25Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3319Total number of unique words is 118953.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words71.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words78.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 26Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3399Total number of unique words is 111355.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words71.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words79.5 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 27Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3379Total number of unique words is 115855.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words71.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words79.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 28Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3238Total number of unique words is 104759.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words75.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words82.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 29Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3430Total number of unique words is 113456.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words72.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words78.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 30Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3388Total number of unique words is 108558.9 of words are in the 2000 most common words73.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words79.8 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 31Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3326Total number of unique words is 109256.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words72.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words79.1 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 32Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3327Total number of unique words is 113055.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words72.4 of words are in the 5000 most common words79.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 33Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3248Total number of unique words is 112953.0 of words are in the 2000 most common words68.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words76.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 34Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3428Total number of unique words is 118852.6 of words are in the 2000 most common words71.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words78.7 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 35Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3399Total number of unique words is 126051.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words68.3 of words are in the 5000 most common words76.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 36Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3416Total number of unique words is 113054.8 of words are in the 2000 most common words73.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words80.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 37Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3456Total number of unique words is 98960.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words77.8 of words are in the 5000 most common words84.9 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 38Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3491Total number of unique words is 102160.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words76.7 of words are in the 5000 most common words83.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 39Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3475Total number of unique words is 100664.5 of words are in the 2000 most common words80.1 of words are in the 5000 most common words86.3 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 40Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3381Total number of unique words is 112056.7 of words are in the 2000 most common words75.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words82.4 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 41Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 3409Total number of unique words is 101163.4 of words are in the 2000 most common words79.2 of words are in the 5000 most common words85.0 of words are in the 8000 most common words
- Far from the Madding Crowd - 42Each bar represents the percentage of words per 1000 most common words.Total number of words is 1383Total number of unique words is 59267.2 of words are in the 2000 most common words80.9 of words are in the 5000 most common words84.6 of words are in the 8000 most common words