Thomas Hardy: Semiotic Observations, A Pair of Blue Eyes

A passage from A Pair of Blue Eyes:

Mrs. Swancourt: "I have learnt the language of...artificiality; and the fibbing of eyes, the contempt of nose-tips, the indignation of back hair, the laughter of clothes, the cynicism of footsteps, and the various emotions lying in walking-stick twirls, hat-liftings, the elevation of parasols, the carriage of umbrellas, became as A B C to me."

The Swancourts

James Abbott Pasquier's Eleven Plates for "A Pair of Blue Eyes"


Richard Jefferies, Wiltshire Semiotics, from GREENE FERNE FARM:

"Mr Ruck, very big and burly, was shaped something like one of his own mangolds turned
upside-down: that is to say, as the glance ran over his figure, beginning at the head, it had to take in a swelling outline as it proceeded lower. He was clad in a snowy-white smock-frock, breeches and
gaiters, and glossy beaver hat.

This costume had a hieroglyphic meaning. The showy smock-frock intimated that he had risen from lowly estate, and was proud of the fact. The breeches and gaiters gave him an air of respectable antiquity in itself equivalent to a certain standing. Finally the beaver hat--which everybody in the parish knew cost a guinea, and nothing less--bespoke the thousand pounds at the bank to which he so frequently alluded".