A Pair of Blue Eyes

The eyes in question belong to Elfride, a literary incarnation of Emma Gifford, Hardy's first wife, and are her 'last and best treasure'. Elfride's vitality and beauty exert a strong fascination and influence over men: firstly Stephen Smith, the ingenuous suitor who fails to win her hand, then Henry Knight, whose obsessive insistence on her purity embodies the double standards of Victorian morality. But Elfride's inability to act, to shape her own future, is the trait which precipitates her tragic destiny; a destiny which is intolerable not only for its victim, but also for those who love her.