Nostr notes by

gm there is a high correlation between using claude and using the ...

2026-10-27T10:02:57Z

gm

there is a high correlation between using claude and using the word “shape”

and an inverse correlation of using the proper terms “pattern”, “schema”, “type” or “behavior”

AI is making language stupid

Nostr event nevent1qqs9pzx9kzvyj6vcgsjvs93l7n2hwvl54cnxk5umz8ny5hn2ac5t9dcpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6q3qx8lkjncpg9ckq3v7t83w9qa4g495n8fcs5yjc7f2urtt9hnc88cqazn3pj

2026-10-27T05:23:31Z

#Jesus #WordofGod #Christian #Bible #Scripture #Wisdom #worship #biblestr #bibleverse #Christ #God

Hebrews 13:5 New International Version 5 Keep your lives free ...

2026-10-27T05:23:08Z

Hebrews 13:5

New International Version

5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”

#Jesus #WordofGod #Christian #Bible #Scripture #Wisdom #worship #biblestr #bibleverse #Christ #God

If you look on amazon there are a lot of free kindle books by him ...

2026-10-27T05:20:47Z

In reply to nevent1q…x87n
_________________________

If you look on amazon there are a lot of free kindle books by him that are free.

Nostr event nevent1qqsw3h73ddzwxf8f4c8ld6g9qyfez6h2lg4zx62jnx5s2fdf8lf8szqpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6q3qx8lkjncpg9ckq3v7t83w9qa4g495n8fcs5yjc7f2urtt9hnc88cq085kyp

2026-10-27T02:11:15Z

Nostr event nevent1qqsyfs8cxka0q4ljzhmszf390n6e2ph4cqrvzscr40erdusv4unjs4qpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6q3qx8lkjncpg9ckq3v7t83w9qa4g495n8fcs5yjc7f2urtt9hnc88cqzss6zw

2026-10-27T02:11:06Z

#Jesus #WordofGod #Christian #Bible #Scripture #Wisdom #worship #biblestr #bibleverse #Christ #God

Nostr event nevent1qqszhq00m6ahv92eqfdk5awl2z8jw6jj6ynghuh6s82z2zkgxr2fn2cpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6q3qx8lkjncpg9ckq3v7t83w9qa4g495n8fcs5yjc7f2urtt9hnc88cqfeq2qf

2026-10-27T02:10:57Z

#Jesus #WordofGod #Christian #Bible #Scripture #Wisdom #worship #biblestr #bibleverse #Christ #God

Well, I've got to admit, I've never considered trying ...

2026-10-26T22:01:00Z

Well, I've got to admit, I've never considered trying this before but it might be worth a shot

quoting
nevent1q…mnup
They: "Why you are on #Nostr"
Me: "Shitposting, females love it.."
They: "What?!"
Me:

TIL what a tally is Thank you

2026-10-26T20:10:44Z

In reply to nevent1q…jxx6
_________________________

TIL what a tally is

Thank you

Nope this is directly warranty

2026-10-26T19:52:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…pal8
_________________________

Nope this is directly warranty

Nostr event nevent1qqsdd06pa54vrjz8ef57xtu5482frmjlu3l8zmsqjxy7hyv2mwf65zqpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6q3qncff8m25y0c058xdljmxhpr4lxetzjpea6uq9733qmp4slfts43qlcld7y

2026-10-26T19:49:51Z

The rain is beautiful

I don't consider it a success or failure based on this ...

2026-10-26T19:03:05Z

In reply to nevent1q…xwps
_________________________

I don't consider it a success or failure based on this metric. I consider bitcoin a success every day until it fails, which would be once we fail to prevent demurrage or tail emissions and shit like that.

That is still a cloud coordinator. You can use the underlying ...

2026-10-26T17:39:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…kzed
_________________________

That is still a cloud coordinator. You can use the underlying software Nebula yourself

🐈

2026-10-26T17:03:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…wkew
_________________________

🐈

I will have to check what protocol it uses. But if not supported, ...

2026-10-26T17:03:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…swx0
_________________________

I will have to check what protocol it uses. But if not supported, will add

😑

2026-10-26T17:02:52Z

In reply to nevent1q…k09u
_________________________

😑

gm

2026-10-26T17:02:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…6klq
_________________________

gm

GM

2026-10-26T17:02:29Z

In reply to nevent1q…kpgf
_________________________

GM

gm

2026-10-26T17:02:24Z

In reply to nevent1q…8myw
_________________________

gm

good morning as well

2026-10-26T17:02:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…6xjf
_________________________

good morning as well

Maybe

2026-10-26T17:02:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…h4u4
_________________________

Maybe

good morning

2026-10-26T17:02:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…xghq
_________________________

good morning

Yes but it doesn’t look like morning 🖕☁️

2026-10-26T17:01:55Z

In reply to nevent1q…zrtr
_________________________

Yes but it doesn’t look like morning
🖕☁️

Wireguard

2026-10-26T17:01:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…90um
_________________________

Wireguard

What does he mean ?

2026-10-26T16:28:50Z

In reply to nevent1q…2haf
_________________________

What does he mean ?

If you're looking for the military industrial complex ...

2026-10-26T16:00:28Z

If you're looking for the military industrial complex it's in Reston Virgina lol. Big tech, the banks, and every contractor you've never heard of lol.

If you're interested in corporate real estate there, it's always full and plenty of steady tenants who don't need to look at the price tag.

gm

2026-10-26T15:14:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…cj9m
_________________________

gm

Gosh. I can't imagine.

2026-10-26T15:13:45Z

In reply to nevent1q…4575
_________________________

Gosh. I can't imagine.

Everyone says this until it happens. Not to mention, they could ...

2026-10-26T14:20:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…hdar
_________________________

Everyone says this until it happens. Not to mention, they could be hacked even if they have good intentions

Tailscale always felt weird to me because their control panel ...

2026-10-26T14:18:28Z

Tailscale always felt weird to me because their control panel could always decide to add a malicious node to my network and do whatever.

Same with the SSH access. Like, why?!

This is referring to the 21K NFTs that the Nostrich app wants to ...

2026-10-26T14:17:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…pka8
_________________________

This is referring to the 21K NFTs that the Nostrich app wants to offer

You should run AI in a sandbox and assume everything will leak ...

2026-10-26T14:17:15Z

In reply to nevent1q…5uu7
_________________________

You should run AI in a sandbox and assume everything will leak even if you use local AI (the agent could randomly decide to upload your data somewhere or prompt injection)

Private usage of AI is hard

Nostr event nevent1qqs0drks3zgaxkl4yvh965t82xrfg0cxtnxju7ggut0cyjn8dvqpm0cpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6q3q2262qa4uhw7u8gdwlgmntqtv7aye8vdcmvszkqwgs0zchel6mz7sqsmaz7

2026-10-26T13:15:25Z

🤔 good morning I guess

I don't believe most people know how serious and how bad our ...

2026-10-26T06:04:26Z

I don't believe most people know how serious and how bad our sin is. We are all in dire need of a Savior.

#Jesus #WordofGod #Christian #Bible #Scripture #Wisdom #worship #biblestr #bibleverse #Christ #God

Nostr event nevent1qqsxulxzu0t2xza8dqtma8x0a9v3le6svn3k94trphkc3k3p8euupespz9mhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6q3qx8lkjncpg9ckq3v7t83w9qa4g495n8fcs5yjc7f2urtt9hnc88cq57uq5r

2026-10-26T06:02:49Z

#Jesus #WordofGod #Christian #Bible #Scripture #Wisdom #worship #biblestr #bibleverse #Christ #God

“Spoofing” DKIM is not possible. It means their email ...

2026-10-26T04:08:13Z

In reply to nevent1q…fwwz
_________________________

“Spoofing” DKIM is not possible. It means their email provider got hacked, either by their own fault or a 3rd party.

It is e-signatures for email basically

It appears many people are trying to reinvent Nostr.land, but ...

2026-10-26T03:42:25Z

It appears many people are trying to reinvent Nostr.land, but more expensive.

We have been operating relays since 2022 :)

Nostr event nevent1qqswqeqltl2mnq8gtdgq77mtfarz9t67v2tjatwsuh9jeqwmcrwha8cpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6q3qx8lkjncpg9ckq3v7t83w9qa4g495n8fcs5yjc7f2urtt9hnc88cqfhq07p

2026-10-26T01:18:00Z

#Jesus #WordofGod #Christian #Bible #Scripture #Wisdom #worship #biblestr #bibleverse #Christ #God

Nostr event nevent1qqsgxc9z883ulp942w853sptx4gnp8xn0t6kz30gkjk8943j4gsq52gpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6q3qx8lkjncpg9ckq3v7t83w9qa4g495n8fcs5yjc7f2urtt9hnc88cqlhd0uy

2026-10-26T01:17:48Z

#Jesus #WordofGod #Christian #Bible #Scripture #Wisdom #worship #biblestr #bibleverse #Christ #God

Testing highlights within the books tab on Plume. In theory, this ...

2026-10-25T20:53:15Z

In reply to naddr1qq…xfg7
_________________________

Testing highlights within the books tab on Plume. In theory, this highlight posts as a kind 1, plus a kind 9802 that links to the book and page in question.

“Don’t you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d’Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d’Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?””

— X

quoting
naddr1qq…la5a
Chapter X.

Respecting the sub-title, to which allusion was made above, I may add that it was appended at the last moment, after reading the final proofs, as being the estimate left in a candid mind of the heroine’s character—an estimate that nobody would be likely to dispute. It was disputed more than anything else in the book. _Melius fuerat non scibere._ But there it stands.

The novel was first published complete, in three volumes, in November, 1891.

T.H.

_March_ 1912.

Phase the First:

The Maiden

I

On an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off. Presently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a gray mare, who, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune.

“Good night t’ee,” said the man with the basket.

“Good night, Sir John,” said the parson.

The pedestrian, after another pace or two, halted, and turned round.

“Now, sir, begging your pardon; we met last market-day on this road about this time, and I said ‘Good night,’ and you made reply ‘_Good night, Sir John_,’ as now.”

“I did,” said the parson.

“And once before that—near a month ago.”

“I may have.”

“Then what might your meaning be in calling me ‘Sir John’ these different times, when I be plain Jack Durbeyfield, the haggler?”

The parson rode a step or two nearer.

“It was only my whim,” he said; and, after a moment’s hesitation: “It was on account of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the new county history. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane. Don’t you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d’Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d’Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?”

“Never heard it before, sir!”

“Well it’s true. Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch the profile of your face better. Yes, that’s the d’Urberville nose and chin—a little debased. Your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla in Normandy in his conquest of Glamorganshire. Branches of your family held manors over all this part of England; their names appear in the Pipe Rolls in the time of King Stephen. In the reign of King John one of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights Hospitallers; and in Edward the Second’s time your forefather Brian was summoned to Westminster to attend the great Council there. You declined a little in Oliver Cromwell’s time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles the Second’s reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty. Aye, there have been generations of Sir Johns among you, and if knighthood were hereditary, like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times, when men were knighted from father to son, you would be Sir John now.”

“Ye don’t say so!”

“In short,” concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with his switch, “there’s hardly such another family in England.”

“Daze my eyes, and isn’t there?” said Durbeyfield. “And here have I been knocking about, year after year, from pillar to post, as if I was no more than the commonest feller in the parish.... And how long hev this news about me been knowed, Pa’son Tringham?”

The clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, it had quite died out of knowledge, and could hardly be said to be known at all. His own investigations had begun on a day in the preceding spring when, having been engaged in tracing the vicissitudes of the d’Urberville family, he had observed Durbeyfield’s name on his waggon, and had thereupon been led to make inquiries about his father and grandfather till he had no doubt on the subject.

“At first I resolved not to disturb you with such a useless piece of information,” said he. “However, our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes. I thought you might perhaps know something of it all the while.”

“Well, I have heard once or twice, ’tis true, that my family had seen better days afore they came to Blackmoor. But I took no notice o’t, thinking it to mean that we had once kept two horses where we now keep only one. I’ve got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal at home, too; but, Lord, what’s a spoon and seal?... And to think that I and these noble d’Urbervilles were one flesh all the time. ’Twas said that my gr’t-granfer had secrets, and didn’t care to talk of where he came from.... And where do we raise our smoke, now, parson, if I may make so bold; I mean, where do we d’Urbervilles live?”

“You don’t live anywhere. You are extinct—as a county family.”

“That’s bad.”

“Yes—what the mendacious family chronicles call extinct in the male line—that is, gone down—gone under.”

“Then where do we lie?”

“At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill: rows and rows of you in your vaults, with your effigies under Purbeck-marble canopies.”

“And where be our family mansions and estates?”

“You haven’t any.”

“Oh? No lands neither?”

“None; though you once had ’em in abundance, as I said, for your family consisted of numerous branches. In this county there was a seat of yours at Kingsbere, and another at Sherton, and another in Millpond, and another at Lullstead, and another at Wellbridge.”

“And shall we ever come into our own again?”

“Ah—that I can’t tell!”

“And what had I better do about it, sir?” asked Durbeyfield, after a pause.

“Oh—nothing, nothing; except chasten yourself with the thought of ‘how are the mighty fallen.’ It is a fact of some interest to the local historian and genealogist, nothing more. There are several families among the cottagers of this county of almost equal lustre. Good night.”

“But you’ll turn back and have a quart of beer wi’ me on the strength o’t, Pa’son Tringham? There’s a very pretty brew in tap at The Pure Drop—though, to be sure, not so good as at Rolliver’s.”

“No, thank you—not this evening, Durbeyfield. You’ve had enough already.” Concluding thus, the parson rode on his way, with doubts as to his discretion in retailing this curious bit of lore.

When he was gone, Durbeyfield walked a few steps in a profound reverie, and then sat down upon the grassy bank by the roadside, depositing his basket before him. In a few minutes a youth appeared in the distance, walking in the same direction as that which had been pursued by Durbeyfield. The latter, on seeing him, held up his hand, and the lad quickened his pace and came near.

“Boy, take up that basket! I want ’ee to go on an errand for me.”

The lath-like stripling frowned. “Who be you, then, John Durbeyfield, to order me about and call me ‘boy’? You know my name as well as I know yours!”

“Do you, do you? That’s the secret—that’s the secret! Now obey my orders, and take the message I’m going to charge ’ee wi’... Well, Fred, I don’t mind telling you that the secret is that I’m one of a noble race—it has been just found out by me this present afternoon, p.m.” And as he made the announcement, Durbeyfield, declining from his sitting position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon the bank among the daisies.

The lad stood before Durbeyfield, and contemplated his length from crown to toe.

“Sir John d’Urberville—that’s who I am,” continued the prostrate man. “That is if knights were baronets—which they be. ’Tis recorded in history all about me. Dost know of such a place, lad, as Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill?”

“Ees. I’ve been there to Greenhill Fair.”

“Well, under the church of that city there lie—”

“’Tisn’t a city, the place I mean; leastwise ’twaddn’ when I was there—’twas a little one-eyed, blinking sort o’ place.”

“Never you mind the place, boy, that’s not the question before us. Under the church of that there parish lie my ancestors—hundreds of ’em—in coats of mail and jewels, in gr’t lead coffins weighing tons and tons. There’s not a man in the county o’ South-Wessex that’s got grander and nobler skillentons in his family than I.”

“Oh?”

“Now take up that basket, and goo on to Marlott, and when you’ve come to The Pure Drop Inn, tell ’em to send a horse and carriage to me immed’ately, to carry me hwome. And in the bottom o’ the carriage they be to put a noggin o’ rum in a small bottle, and chalk it up to my account. And when you’ve done that goo on to my house with the basket, and tell my wife to put away that washing, because she needn’t finish it, and wait till I come hwome, as I’ve news to tell her.”

As the lad stood in a dubious attitude, Durbeyfield put his hand in his pocket, and produced a shilling, one of the chronically few that he possessed.

“Here’s for your labour, lad.”

This made a difference in the young man’s estimate of the position.

“Yes, Sir John. Thank ’ee. Anything else I can do for ’ee, Sir John?”

“Tell ’em at hwome that I should like for supper,—well, lamb’s fry if they can get it; and if they can’t, black-pot; and if they can’t get that, well chitterlings will do.”

“Yes, Sir John.”

The boy took up the basket, and as he set out the notes of a brass band were heard from the direction of the village.

“What’s that?” said Durbeyfield. “Not on account o’ I?”

“’Tis the women’s club-walking, Sir John. Why, your da’ter is one o’ the members.”

“To be sure—I’d quite forgot it in my thoughts of greater things! Well, vamp on to Marlott, will ye, and order that carriage, and maybe I’ll drive round and inspect the club.”

The lad departed, and Durbeyfield lay waiting on the grass and daisies in the evening sun. Not a soul passed that way for a long while, and the faint notes of the band were the only human sounds audible within the rim of blue hills.

II

The village of Marlott lay amid the north-eastern undulations of the beautiful Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor, aforesaid, an engirdled and secluded region, for the most part untrodden as yet by tourist or landscape-painter, though within a four hours’ journey from London.

It is a vale whose acquaintance is best made by viewing it from the summits of the hills that surround it—except perhaps during the droughts of summer. An unguided ramble into its recesses in bad weather is apt to engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, tortuous, and miry ways.

This fertile and sheltered tract of country, in which the fields are never brown and the springs never dry, is bounded on the south by the bold chalk ridge that embraces the prominences of Hambledon Hill, Bulbarrow, Nettlecombe-Tout, Dogbury, High Stoy, and Bubb Down. The traveller from the coast, who, after plodding northward for a score of miles over calcareous downs and corn-lands, suddenly reaches the verge of one of these escarpments, is surprised and delighted to behold, extended like a map beneath him, a country differing absolutely from that which he has passed through. Behind him the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give an unenclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges low and plashed, the atmosphere colourless. Here, in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine. Arable lands are few and limited; with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmoor.

The district is of historic, no less than of topographical interest. The Vale was known in former times as the Forest of White Hart, from a curious legend of King Henry III’s reign, in which the killing by a certain Thomas de la Lynd of a beautiful white hart which the king had run down and spared, was made the occasion of a heavy fine. In those days, and till comparatively recent times, the country was densely wooded. Even now, traces of its earlier condition are to be found in the old oak copses and irregular belts of timber that yet survive upon its slopes, and the hollow-trunked trees that shade so many of its pastures.

The forests have departed, but some old customs of their shades remain. Many, however, linger only in a metamorphosed or disguised form. The May-Day dance, for instance, was to be discerned on the afternoon under notice, in the guise of the club revel, or “club-walking,” as it was there called.

It was an interesting event to the younger inhabitants of Marlott, though its real interest was not observed by the participators in the ceremony. Its singularity lay less in the retention of a custom of walking in procession and dancing on each anniversary than in the members being solely women. In men’s clubs such celebrations were, though expiring, less uncommon; but either the natural shyness of the softer sex, or a sarcastic attitude on the part of male relatives, had denuded such women’s clubs as remained (if any other did) of this their glory and consummation. The club of Marlott alone lived to uphold the local Cerealia. It had walked for hundreds of years, if not as benefit-club, as votive sisterhood of some sort; and it walked still.

The banded ones were all dressed in white gowns—a gay survival from Old Style days, when cheerfulness and May-time were synonyms—days before the habit of taking long views had reduced emotions to a monotonous average. Their first exhibition of themselves was in a processional march of two and two round the parish. Ideal and real clashed slightly as the sun lit up their figures against the green hedges and creeper-laced house-fronts; for, though the whole troop wore white garments, no two whites were alike among them. Some approached pure blanching; some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the older characters (which had possibly lain by folded for many a year) inclined to a cadaverous tint, and to a Georgian style.

In addition to the distinction of a white frock, every woman and girl carried in her right hand a peeled willow wand, and in her left a bunch of white flowers. The peeling of the former, and the selection of the latter, had been an operation of personal care.

There were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in the train, their silver-wiry hair and wrinkled faces, scourged by time and trouble, having almost a grotesque, certainly a pathetic, appearance in such a jaunty situation. In a true view, perhaps, there was more to be gathered and told of each anxious and experienced one, to whom the years were drawing nigh when she should say, “I have no pleasure in them,” than of her juvenile comrades. But let the elder be passed over here for those under whose bodices the life throbbed quick and warm.

The young girls formed, indeed, the majority of the band, and their heads of luxuriant hair reflected in the sunshine every tone of gold, and black, and brown. Some had beautiful eyes, others a beautiful nose, others a beautiful mouth and figure: few, if any, had all. A difficulty of arranging their lips in this crude exposure to public scrutiny, an inability to balance their heads, and to dissociate self-consciousness from their features, was apparent in them, and showed that they were genuine country girls, unaccustomed to many eyes.

And as each and all of them were warmed without by the sun, so each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, at least some remote and distant hope which, though perhaps starving to nothing, still lived on, as hopes will. They were all cheerful, and many of them merry.

They came round by The Pure Drop Inn, and were turning out of the high road to pass through a wicket-gate into the meadows, when one of the women said—

“The Load-a-Lord! Why, Tess Durbeyfield, if there isn’t thy father riding hwome in a carriage!”

A young member of the band turned her head at the exclamation. She was a fine and handsome girl—not handsomer than some others, possibly—but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment. As she looked round Durbeyfield was seen moving along the road in a chaise belonging to The Pure Drop, driven by a frizzle-headed brawny damsel with her gown-sleeves rolled above her elbows. This was the cheerful servant of that establishment, who, in her part of factotum, turned groom and ostler at times. Durbeyfield, leaning back, and with his eyes closed luxuriously, was waving his hand above his head, and singing in a slow recitative—

“I’ve-got-a-gr’t-family-vault-at-Kingsbere—and knighted-forefathers-in-lead-coffins-there!”

The clubbists tittered, except the girl called Tess—in whom a slow heat seemed to rise at the sense that her father was making himself foolish in their eyes.

“He’s tired, that’s all,” she said hastily, “and he has got a lift home, because our own horse has to rest to-day.”

“Bless thy simplicity, Tess,” said her companions. “He’s got his market-nitch. Haw-haw!”

“Look here; I won’t walk another inch with you, if you say any jokes about him!” Tess cried, and the colour upon her cheeks spread over her face and neck. In a moment her eyes grew moist, and her glance drooped to the ground. Perceiving that they had really pained her they said no more, and order again prevailed. Tess’s pride would not allow her to turn her head again, to learn what her father’s meaning was, if he had any; and thus she moved on with the whole body to the enclosure where there was to be dancing on the green. By the time the spot was reached she had recovered her equanimity, and tapped her neighbour with her wand and talked as usual.

Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience. The dialect was on her tongue to some extent, despite the village school: the characteristic intonation of that dialect for this district being the voicing approximately rendered by the syllable UR, probably as rich an utterance as any to be found in human speech. The pouted-up deep red mouth to which this syllable was native had hardly as yet settled into its definite shape, and her lower lip had a way of thrusting the middle of her top one upward, when they closed together after a word.

Phases of her childhood lurked in her aspect still. As she walked along to-day, for all her bouncing handsome womanliness, you could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth sparkling from her eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now and then.

Yet few knew, and still fewer considered this. A small minority, mainly strangers, would look long at her in casually passing by, and grow momentarily fascinated by her freshness, and wonder if they would ever see her again: but to almost everybody she was a fine and picturesque country girl, and no more.

Nothing was seen or heard further of Durbeyfield in his triumphal chariot under the conduct of the ostleress, and the club having entered the allotted space, dancing began. As there were no men in the company, the girls danced at first with each other, but when the hour for the close of labour drew on, the masculine inhabitants of the village, together with other idlers and pedestrians, gathered round the spot, and appeared inclined to negotiate for a partner.

Among these on-lookers were three young men of a superior class, carrying small knapsacks strapped to their shoulders, and stout sticks in their hands. Their general likeness to each other, and their consecutive ages, would almost have suggested that they might be, what in fact they were, brothers. The eldest wore the white tie, high waistcoat, and thin-brimmed hat of the regulation curate; the second was the normal undergraduate; the appearance of the third and youngest would hardly have been sufficient to characterize him; there was an uncribbed, uncabined aspect in his eyes and attire, implying that he had hardly as yet found the entrance to his professional groove. That he was a desultory tentative student of something and everything might only have been predicted of him.

These three brethren told casual acquaintance that they were spending their Whitsun holidays in a walking tour through the Vale of Blackmoor, their course being south-westerly from the town of Shaston on the north-east.

They leant over the gate by the highway, and inquired as to the meaning of the dance and the white-frocked maids. The two elder of the brothers were plainly not intending to linger more than a moment, but the spectacle of a bevy of girls dancing without male partners seemed to amuse the third, and make him in no hurry to move on. He unstrapped his knapsack, put it, with his stick, on the hedge-bank, and opened the gate.

“What are you going to do, Angel?” asked the eldest.

“I am inclined to go and have a fling with them. Why not all of us—just for a minute or two—it will not detain us long?”

“No—no; nonsense!” said the first. “Dancing in public with a troop of country hoydens—suppose we should be seen! Come along, or it will be dark before we get to Stourcastle, and there’s no place we can sleep at nearer than that; besides, we must get through another chapter of _A Counterblast to Agnosticism_ before we turn in, now I have taken the trouble to bring the book.”

“All right—I’ll overtake you and Cuthbert in five minutes; don’t stop; I give my word that I will, Felix.”

The two elder reluctantly left him and walked on, taking their brother’s knapsack to relieve him in following, and the youngest entered the field.

“This is a thousand pities,” he said gallantly, to two or three of the girls nearest him, as soon as there was a pause in the dance. “Where are your partners, my dears?”

“They’ve not left off work yet,” answered one of the boldest. “They’ll be here by and by. Till then, will you be one, sir?”

“Certainly. But what’s one among so many!”

“Better than none. ’Tis melancholy work facing and footing it to one of your own sort, and no clipsing and colling at all. Now, pick and choose.”

“’Ssh—don’t be so for’ard!” said a shyer girl.

The young man, thus invited, glanced them over, and attempted some discrimination; but, as the group were all so new to him, he could not very well exercise it. He took almost the first that came to hand, which was not the speaker, as she had expected; nor did it happen to be Tess Durbeyfield. Pedigree, ancestral skeletons, monumental record, the d’Urberville lineaments, did not help Tess in her life’s battle as yet, even to the extent of attracting to her a dancing-partner over the heads of the commonest peasantry. So much for Norman blood unaided by Victorian lucre.

The name of the eclipsing girl, whatever it was, has not been handed down; but she was envied by all as the first who enjoyed the luxury of a masculine partner that evening. Yet such was the force of example that the village young men, who had not hastened to enter the gate while no intruder was in the way, now dropped in quickly, and soon the couples became leavened with rustic youth to a marked extent, till at length the plainest woman in the club was no longer compelled to foot it on the masculine side of the figure.

The church clock struck, when suddenly the student said that he must leave—he had been forgetting himself—he had to join his companions. As he fell out of the dance his eyes lighted on Tess Durbeyfield, whose own large orbs wore, to tell the truth, the faintest aspect of reproach that he had not chosen her. He, too, was sorry then that, owing to her backwardness, he had not observed her; and with that in his mind he left the pasture.

On account of his long delay he started in a flying-run down the lane westward, and had soon passed the hollow and mounted the next rise. He had not yet overtaken his brothers, but he paused to get breath, and looked back. He could see the white figures of the girls in the green enclosure whirling about as they had whirled when he was among them. They seemed to have quite forgotten him already.

All of them, except, perhaps, one. This white shape stood apart by the hedge alone. From her position he knew it to be the pretty maiden with whom he had not danced. Trifling as the matter was, he yet instinctively felt that she was hurt by his oversight. He wished that he had asked her; he wished that he had inquired her name. She was so modest, so expressive, she had looked so soft in her thin white gown that he felt he had acted stupidly.

However, it could not be helped, and turning, and bending himself to a rapid walk, he dismissed the subject from his mind.

III

As for Tess Durbeyfield, she did not so easily dislodge the incident from her consideration. She had no spirit to dance again for a long time, though she might have had plenty of partners; but ah! they did not speak so nicely as the strange young man had done. It was not till the rays of the sun had absorbed the young stranger’s retreating figure on the hill that she shook off her temporary sadness and answered her would-be partner in the affirmative.

She remained with her comrades till dusk, and participated with a certain zest in the dancing; though, being heart-whole as yet, she enjoyed treading a measure purely for its own sake; little divining when she saw “the soft torments, the bitter sweets, the pleasing pains, and the agreeable distresses” of those girls who had been wooed and won, what she herself was capable of in that kind. The struggles and wrangles of the lads for her hand in a jig were an amusement to her—no more; and when they became fierce she rebuked them.

She might have stayed even later, but the incident of her father’s odd appearance and manner returned upon the girl’s mind to make her anxious, and wondering what had become of him she dropped away from the dancers and bent her steps towards the end of the village at which the parental cottage lay.

While yet many score yards off, other rhythmic sounds than those she had quitted became audible to her; sounds that she knew well—so well. They were a regular series of thumpings from the interior of the house, occasioned by the violent rocking of a cradle upon a stone floor, to which movement a feminine voice kept time by singing, in a vigorous gallopade, the favourite ditty of “The Spotted Cow”—

I saw her lie do′-own in yon′-der green gro′-ove;
Come, love!′ and I'll tell′ you where!′

The cradle-rocking and the song would cease simultaneously for a moment, and an exclamation at highest vocal pitch would take the place of the melody.

“God bless thy diment eyes! And thy waxen cheeks! And thy cherry mouth! And thy Cubit’s thighs! And every bit o’ thy blessed body!”

After this invocation the rocking and the singing would recommence, and the “Spotted Cow” proceed as before. So matters stood when Tess opened the door and paused upon the mat within it, surveying the scene.

The interior, in spite of the melody, struck upon the girl’s senses with an unspeakable dreariness. From the holiday gaieties of the field—the white gowns, the nosegays, the willow-wands, the whirling movements on the green, the flash of gentle sentiment towards the stranger—to the yellow melancholy of this one-candled spectacle, what a step! Besides the jar of contrast there came to her a chill self-reproach that she had not returned sooner, to help her mother in these domesticities, instead of indulging herself out-of-doors.

There stood her mother amid the group of children, as Tess had left her, hanging over the Monday washing-tub, which had now, as always, lingered on to the end of the week. Out of that tub had come the day before—Tess felt it with a dreadful sting of remorse—the very white frock upon her back which she had so carelessly greened about the skirt on the damping grass—which had been wrung up and ironed by her mother’s own hands.

As usual, Mrs Durbeyfield was balanced on one foot beside the tub, the other being engaged in the aforesaid business of rocking her youngest child. The cradle-rockers had done hard duty for so many years, under the weight of so many children, on that flagstone floor, that they were worn nearly flat, in consequence of which a huge jerk accompanied each swing of the cot, flinging the baby from side to side like a weaver’s shuttle, as Mrs Durbeyfield, excited by her song, trod the rocker with all the spring that was left in her after a long day’s seething in the suds.

Nick-knock, nick-knock, went the cradle; the candle-flame stretched itself tall, and began jigging up and down; the water dribbled from the matron’s elbows, and the song galloped on to the end of the verse, Mrs Durbeyfield regarding her daughter the while. Even now, when burdened with a young family, Joan Durbeyfield was a passionate lover of tune. No ditty floated into Blackmoor Vale from the outer world but Tess’s mother caught up its notation in a week.

There still faintly beamed from the woman’s features something of the freshness, and even the prettiness, of her youth; rendering it probable that the personal charms which Tess could boast of were in main part her mother’s gift, and therefore unknightly, unhistorical.

“I’ll rock the cradle for ’ee, mother,” said the daughter gently. “Or I’ll take off my best frock and help you wring up? I thought you had finished long ago.”

Her mother bore Tess no ill-will for leaving the housework to her single-handed efforts for so long; indeed, Joan seldom upbraided her thereon at any time, feeling but slightly the lack of Tess’s assistance whilst her instinctive plan for relieving herself of her labours lay in postponing them. To-night, however, she was even in a blither mood than usual. There was a dreaminess, a pre-occupation, an exaltation, in the maternal look which the girl could not understand.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve come,” her mother said, as soon as the last note had passed out of her. “I want to go and fetch your father; but what’s more’n that, I want to tell ’ee what have happened. Y’ll be fess enough, my poppet, when th’st know!” (Mrs Durbeyfield habitually spoke the dialect; her daughter, who had passed the Sixth Standard in the National School under a London-trained mistress, spoke two languages: the dialect at home, more or less; ordinary English abroad and to persons of quality.)

“Since I’ve been away?” Tess asked.

“Ay!”

“Had it anything to do with father’s making such a mommet of himself in thik carriage this afternoon? Why did ’er? I felt inclined to sink into the ground with shame!”

“That wer all a part of the larry! We’ve been found to be the greatest gentlefolk in the whole county—reaching all back long before Oliver Grumble’s time—to the days of the Pagan Turks—with monuments, and vaults, and crests, and ’scutcheons, and the Lord knows what all. In Saint Charles’s days we was made Knights o’ the Royal Oak, our real name being d’Urberville!... Don’t that make your bosom plim? ’Twas on this account that your father rode home in the vlee; not because he’d been drinking, as people supposed.”

“I’m glad of that. Will it do us any good, mother?”

“O yes! ’Tis thoughted that great things may come o’t. No doubt a mampus of volk of our own rank will be down here in their carriages as soon as ’tis known. Your father learnt it on his way hwome from Shaston, and he has been telling me the whole pedigree of the matter.”

“Where is father now?” asked Tess suddenly.

Her mother gave irrelevant information by way of answer: “He called to see the doctor to-day in Shaston. It is not consumption at all, it seems. It is fat round his heart, ’a says. There, it is like this.” Joan Durbeyfield, as she spoke, curved a sodden thumb and forefinger to the shape of the letter C, and used the other forefinger as a pointer. “‘At the present moment,’ he says to your father, ‘your heart is enclosed all round there, and all round there; this space is still open,’ ’a says. ‘As soon as it do meet, so,’”—Mrs Durbeyfield closed her fingers into a circle complete—“‘off you will go like a shadder, Mr Durbeyfield,’ ’a says. ‘You mid last ten years; you mid go off in ten months, or ten days.’”

Tess looked alarmed. Her father possibly to go behind the eternal cloud so soon, notwithstanding this sudden greatness!

“But where _is_ father?” she asked again.

Her mother put on a deprecating look. “Now don’t you be bursting out angry! The poor man—he felt so rafted after his uplifting by the pa’son’s news—that he went up to Rolliver’s half an hour ago. He do want to get up his strength for his journey to-morrow with that load of beehives, which must be delivered, family or no. He’ll have to start shortly after twelve to-night, as the distance is so long.”

“Get up his strength!” said Tess impetuously, the tears welling to her eyes. “O my God! Go to a public-house to get up his strength! And you as well agreed as he, mother!”

Her rebuke and her mood seemed to fill the whole room, and to impart a cowed look to the furniture, and candle, and children playing about, and to her mother’s face.

“No,” said the latter touchily, “I be not agreed. I have been waiting for ’ee to bide and keep house while I go fetch him.”

“I’ll go.”

“O no, Tess. You see, it would be no use.”

Tess did not expostulate. She knew what her mother’s objection meant. Mrs Durbeyfield’s jacket and bonnet were already hanging slily upon a chair by her side, in readiness for this contemplated jaunt, the reason for which the matron deplored more than its necessity.

“And take the _Compleat Fortune-Teller_ to the outhouse,” Joan continued, rapidly wiping her hands, and donning the garments.

The _Compleat Fortune-Teller_ was an old thick volume, which lay on a table at her elbow, so worn by pocketing that the margins had reached the edge of the type. Tess took it up, and her mother started.

This going to hunt up her shiftless husband at the inn was one of Mrs Durbeyfield’s still extant enjoyments in the muck and muddle of rearing children. To discover him at Rolliver’s, to sit there for an hour or two by his side and dismiss all thought and care of the children during the interval, made her happy. A sort of halo, an occidental glow, came over life then. Troubles and other realities took on themselves a metaphysical impalpability, sinking to mere mental phenomena for serene contemplation, and no longer stood as pressing concretions which chafed body and soul. The youngsters, not immediately within sight, seemed rather bright and desirable appurtenances than otherwise; the incidents of daily life were not without humorousness and jollity in their aspect there. She felt a little as she had used to feel when she sat by her now wedded husband in the same spot during his wooing, shutting her eyes to his defects of character, and regarding him only in his ideal presentation as lover.

Tess, being left alone with the younger children, went first to the outhouse with the fortune-telling book, and stuffed it into the thatch. A curious fetishistic fear of this grimy volume on the part of her mother prevented her ever allowing it to stay in the house all night, and hither it was brought back whenever it had been consulted. Between the mother, with her fast-perishing lumber of superstitions, folk-lore, dialect, and orally transmitted ballads, and the daughter, with her trained National teachings and Standard knowledge under an infinitely Revised Code, there was a gap of two hundred years as ordinarily understood. When they were together the Jacobean and the Victorian ages were juxtaposed.

Returning along the garden path Tess mused on what the mother could have wished to ascertain from the book on this particular day. She guessed the recent ancestral discovery to bear upon it, but did not divine that it solely concerned herself. Dismissing this, however, she busied herself with sprinkling the linen dried during the day-time, in company with her nine-year-old brother Abraham, and her sister Eliza-Louisa of twelve and a half, called “’Liza-Lu,” the youngest ones being put to bed. There was an interval of four years and more between Tess and the next of the family, the two who had filled the gap having died in their infancy, and this lent her a deputy-maternal attitude when she was alone with her juniors. Next in juvenility to Abraham came two more girls, Hope and Modesty; then a boy of three, and then the baby, who had just completed his first year.

All these young souls were passengers in the Durbeyfield ship—entirely dependent on the judgement of the two Durbeyfield adults for their pleasures, their necessities, their health, even their existence. If the heads of the Durbeyfield household chose to sail into difficulty, disaster, starvation, disease, degradation, death, thither were these half-dozen little captives under hatches compelled to sail with them—six helpless creatures, who had never been asked if they wished for life on any terms, much less if they wished for it on such hard conditions as were involved in being of the shiftless house of Durbeyfield. Some people would like to know whence the poet whose philosophy is in these days deemed as profound and trustworthy as his song is breezy and pure, gets his authority for speaking of “Nature’s holy plan.”

It grew later, and neither father nor mother reappeared. Tess looked out of the door, and took a mental journey through Marlott. The village was shutting its eyes. Candles and lamps were being put out everywhere: she could inwardly behold the extinguisher and the extended hand.

Her mother’s fetching simply meant one more to fetch. Tess began to perceive that a man in indifferent health, who proposed to start on a journey before one in the morning, ought not to be at an inn at this late hour celebrating his ancient blood.

“Abraham,” she said to her little brother, “do you put on your hat—you bain’t afraid?—and go up to Rolliver’s, and see what has gone wi’ father and mother.”

The boy jumped promptly from his seat, and opened the door, and the night swallowed him up. Half an hour passed yet again; neither man, woman, nor child returned. Abraham, like his parents, seemed to have been limed and caught by the ensnaring inn.

“I must go myself,” she said.

’Liza-Lu then went to bed, and Tess, locking them all in, started on her way up the dark and crooked lane or street not made for hasty progress; a street laid out before inches of land had value, and when one-handed clocks sufficiently subdivided the day.

IV

Rolliver’s inn, the single alehouse at this end of the long and broken village, could only boast of an off-licence; hence, as nobody could legally drink on the premises, the amount of overt accommodation for consumers was strictly limited to a little board about six inches wide and two yards long, fixed to the garden palings by pieces of wire, so as to form a ledge. On this board thirsty strangers deposited their cups as they stood in the road and drank, and threw the dregs on the dusty ground to the pattern of Polynesia, and wished they could have a restful seat inside.

Thus the strangers. But there were also local customers who felt the same wish; and where there’s a will there’s a way.

In summer yah in winter Naah

2026-10-25T20:27:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…a4wl
_________________________

In summer yah in winter Naah

How it started…. How it ended

2026-10-25T17:12:56Z

In reply to nevent1q…mlee
_________________________

How it started….
How it ended

Look what you guys have done to Saylor 😢 Stop with the ai ...

2026-10-25T17:10:02Z

In reply to nevent1q…zjvm
_________________________

Look what you guys have done to Saylor 😢

Stop with the ai slop, please

The problem is that the clanker is lying a shitton in ways that ...

2026-10-25T16:45:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…t5mz
_________________________

The problem is that the clanker is lying a shitton in ways that sound plausible:

- Lottie is a standardized format. And of course, a new format won’t work for clients for a while!
=> It has the benefit that it is like SVG but animated, is much smaller than GIFs, and can be scaled up infinitely
- Of course, migrated packs are signed by someone else. Duh.
- It does not run through Telegram except for imports. Anyone can download a Lottie file or make their own and turn it into a sticker

Instead of overpaying for AI generated ostrich JPEGs, sign up for ...

2026-10-25T16:43:11Z

Instead of overpaying for AI generated ostrich JPEGs, sign up for Nostr.land

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https://gruhn.me/blog/2026-08-03/

2026-10-25T16:38:26Z

In reply to nevent1q…yjw8
_________________________

https://gruhn.me/blog/2026-08-03/

Their sticker format is pretty good! It’s basically lottie

2026-10-25T16:28:07Z

In reply to nevent1q…vgqz
_________________________

Their sticker format is pretty good!

It’s basically lottie

Fact check: RHXO does NOT stand for this It is a ...

2026-10-25T16:20:03Z

Fact check: RHXO does NOT stand for this

It is a single-person-led company that has existed since at least 1995, but has no demonstrable work anywhere

quoting
nevent1q…uqdp
For those who still don't know, even though it's disclosed on our website and in the App Store listings, Nostrich is operated by RHXO. It stands for Reserve Holdings Exclusively Orange, and we're a Bitcoin-native company. We're planning to pursue public quotation, subject to SEC and other applicable regulatory requirements.

We'll continue promoting decentralization, privacy, and open protocols. These are the principles behind everything we're building, and we want every Nostr user to be part of our long-term journey.

We can build a network of 3,000 active users and try to keep everyone happy, or we can bring millions of people into an open, decentralized protocol where they control their own keys, identity, and data, even if that means simplifying onboarding in ways that challenge the traditional Nostr experience. We're choosing the latter.

Nostr event nevent1qqs9uf6u2uc0wscssa9zn9ydw9djlfjceyc4vzuxw0zkjhhp0pz7jdqpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3eryvfwvdhk6q3q2262qa4uhw7u8gdwlgmntqtv7aye8vdcmvszkqwgs0zchel6mz7slay87u

2026-10-25T15:06:30Z

Good morning Nostr

I say this not because America is bad, but because they are too ...

2026-10-25T14:24:27Z

In reply to nevent1q…v98m
_________________________

I say this not because America is bad, but because they are too cheap to not use when your limit runs out