Tess of the d'Urbervilles: Chapter 25 Summary & Analysis

That evening Angel is still restless, so he goes outside. He is surprised by his own burst of passion, and wonders how they should act before others now. He had planned to come to Talbothays for a brief episode of education and observation, but now the outside world has become dull to him and the farm is transformed by Tess's personality into a wonderful, abundant, homelike place.

Even apart from Tess the dairy has become important to Angel. He realizes that his experiences here are as important as elsewhere, and that Tess is not a doll for his temporary pleasure but a human with her own “precious life.” This life is her only chance in this world, a chance given her by an “unsympathetic First Cause,” so Angel must be careful in dealing with it.

Angel realizes he should probably avoid Tess for a while, but the thought is repulsive to him. He decides to go home and ask his family and acquaintances if it doesn't make sense for a farmer to have a farm-woman for a wife.

At breakfast the four women discover that Angel is gone, and they try to hide their despair. Dairyman Crick blithely discusses his eventual leaving, and guesses that Angel has about four months left at Talbothays.

At that time Angel is riding home to Emminster with some pudding and mead from Mrs. Crick. He watches the road and thinks about his potential future with Tess, and what his family and community would think if he married her.

Angel passes by his father's church and sees some school-girls, and among them is Mercy Chant, the pious woman his parents want him to marry. Angel thinks of the fertile valley and Tess, and tries to avoid Mercy.

Angel has come home on an impulse without warning his family, and he arrives at breakfast. Both his brothers, Felix and Cuthbert, are home from their respective positions. Their father, Reverend Clare, is an “honest, God-fearing man.” He is one of a dying breed of clergymen who is extreme and conservative in his views but wins everyone's admiration for his sincerity and fervency.

Angel imagines his father uncomprehending and condemning of the “aesthetic, sensuous, pagan pleasure in natural life and lush womanhood” that Angel has lately enjoyed. Clare cannot accept his son's skepticism, but his heart is so kind that he feels and acts no differently towards Angel.

Angel sits down and again feels that he has changed while his family remains the same. His brothers notice that he behaves with the passionate freedom of a farmer, and has perhaps “lost culture.” Later Angel walks with them; they are both educated men who wear the glasses that are in fashion, read the poets in fashion, and believe the doctrines in fashion. Angel notices their recent “mental limitations” as they settle into their respective mindframes of the Church and University. Both are somewhat inferior in spirit to their father, and they have little curiosity for life or sense of the wider world beyond.

Felix comments on Angel's farming future and advises him to not drop his morality and thought, as in his latest letters he seemed to be losing intelligence. Angel disparages Felix's fixed ideas of dogma. They return home and Angel is hungry, but neither parent returns until much later.

Angel looks around for his gifts from Mrs. Crick, but his mother has given the puddings to the poor and put the mead in the medicine cabinet, as they never drink alcohol. Angel uses a rural expression and then feels ashamed of his family's stiffness.