Blighted Stars

Here follows a brief exposition on a paragraph of Hardy's Tess, being a subject which for once has some actual relevance to today's title.

It is the episode in which Tess and her younger brother Abraham are driving the bee-hive filled cart to it's place of delivery, at 1.30am, their father lacking the sobriety to perform this task himself (Obviously, the drink-and-drive campaigns were as prominent then as now). Her brother puts forward a question about stars, asking if they are all different worlds. She answers affirmative, and that some are blighted places, others joyful. She says that their star is a blighted one, proved by the fact of her mother's immaturity and her father's inclination to drunkenness. Subsequently, she falls asleep at the reins and their cart collides with that of the postman, his cart's axle spearing their horse Prince through the breast. She wakes Abraham, who has slept through the entire incident, who profoundly states that this has occurred because they dwell on a blighted star.

A thought struck me as I was reading this; the obviousness to people everywhere, of all religions and shades, that our world is fallen, and in desperate need of redemption.

"He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption"

- Hebrews 9:12