Far from the Madding Crowd a frugal life, and a loan, he has leased and stocked a sheep farm. He falls in love with a newcomer eight years his junior, Bathsheba Everdene, a proud beauty who arrives to live with her aunt, Mrs. Hurst. Over time, Bathsheba and Gabriel grow to like each other well enough, and Bathsheba even saves his life once. However, when he makes her an unadorned offer of marriage, she refuses; she values her independence too much, and him too little. Feeling betrayed and embarrassed, Gabriel offers blunt protestations that only foster her haughtiness. After a few days, she moves to
The Frogs Who Desired a King of a new reign", a study of Russia written in 1895 by the political assassin Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, using the pen-name S. Stepniak. The book contrasts the policy of the reactionary Tsar Alexander III with the likely policy under Nicholas II, who had only just succeeded to the throne. There is a passing reference to the fable in the title of Alyse Gregory's feminist novel "King Log and Lady Lea" (1929), whereas one of Margaret Atwood's four short fictions in a 2005 issue of the magazine "Daedalus" engages with it directly. Entitled "King Log in Exile", it features the deposed king