Boldwood is a prosperous farmer of about forty whose ardour Bathsheba unwittingly awakens when – her curiosity piqued because he has never bestowed on her the customary admiring glance – she playfully sends him a valentine sealed with red wax on which she has embossed the words " Marry me ".

She sends an ill-fated valentine to Boldwood on the strength of this reading.

Boldwood becomes aggressive towards Troy and she goes to Bath to prevent Troy returning to Weatherbury, as she fears Troy may be harmed on meeting Boldwood.

A year later, with Troy presumed drowned, Boldwood renews his suit.

Meanwhile, Bathsheba has a new admirer: the lonely and repressed William Boldwood.

On their return, Boldwood offers his rival a large bribe to give up Bathsheba.

When he learns that Boldwood is again courting Bathsheba, he returns to Weatherbury on Christmas Eve to claim his wife.

The title may be ironic: the five main characters – Bathsheba, Troy, Boldwood, Oak, and Fanny Robin – are all passionate beings who find the " vale of life " neither quiet nor cool.

A marriage to the strait-laced Boldwood, to whom she is bound only by feelings of guilt and obligation, would have meant emotional suffocation.

Gabriel observes Bathsheba's interest in the young soldier and tries to discourage it, telling her she would be better off marrying Boldwood.

Boldwood withdraws humiliated and vows revenge.

At this, Boldwood shoots Troy dead and tries unsuccessfully to turn the gun on himself.

Hardy's growing taste for tragedy is also evident in the novel: Fanny, Troy, and Boldwood all come to bad ends.

* In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy briefly mentions two characters from Far from the Madding Crowd – Farmer Everdene and Farmer Boldwood, both in happier days.

Marlborough, realising the only way to ignore Dutch wishes was by the use of secrecy and guile, set out to deceive his Dutch allies by pretending to simply move his troops to the Moselle – a plan approved of by The Hague – but once there, he would slip the Dutch leash and link up with Austrian forces in southern Germany.

Sebastian's ability to bring Pris back to life as a replicant introduces numerous problems: the book implies that Sebastian somehow was able to do this without realising that her original body was human.

Apparently, realising his death was near, Constantius had himself baptised by Euzoius, the Semi-Arian bishop of Antioch, and then declared that Julian was his rightful successor.

After realising the captain of the taken vessel was an Englishman, Kidd tried to persuade his crew to return the ship to its owners, but they refused, claiming that their prey was perfectly legal as Kidd was commissioned to take French ships, and that an Armenian ship counted as French if it had French passes.

About 300 miles west of Land's End, upon realising that the Speedwell was unseaworthy, it returned to Plymouth.

Stephenson was also farsighted in realising that the individual lines being built would eventually join together, and would need to have the same gauge.

Braid soon assimilated Carpenter's observations into his own theory, realising that the effect of focusing attention was to enhance the ideo-motor reflex response.

In 1830 Captain Charles Sturt reached the river after travelling down its tributary the Murrumbidgee River and named it the Murray River in honour of the then British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Sir George Murray, not realising it was the same river that Hume and Hovell had encountered further upstream.

He was originally assigned to design the second Doctor Who serial, The Daleks, which would have entailed realising the famous alien creatures.

Christian however, realising that his stockpile was dwindling and that it would spell doom to his army to keep the siege over the winter.

In 2002, Nespolo was appointed artistic coordinator for the Metropolitana di Torino, with the aim of realising the first " underground museum of modern art ".

The President of the Republic, Éamon de Valera, realising that a republic was not on offer, decided not to be a part of the treaty delegation and so be tainted by more militant republicans as a " sellout ".

During the course of five years of his training under Ramakrishna, Narendra was increasingly ready to renounce everything for the sake of realising God.

When he was ten, his mother and two siblings stayed for a short while in this workhouse, without Stanley realising who they were.

One of them even made the comment " That's not funny " after hearing the first few shots, not realising it was a real gun.

In his memoirs, Michael Caine says producer Harry Saltzman thought up the surname " Palmer ", and Caine innocently remarked that " Harry " was a dull name, not realising his gaffe until seeing Saltzman's stare.

At 10: 34 AM, realising that his situation was hopeless, Admiral Nebogatov ordered the six ships remaining under his command to surrender.

On her first day in the House of Commons, she was called to order for chatting with a fellow House member, not realising that she was the person who was causing the commotion.

He was also in favor of a pragmatic policy in Tibet after realising the mistakes of previous policies.

Spud ends the friendship when Sick Boy tells him he was using him for the purpose of a scam, Nikki becomes disillusioned with him after realising that he really has no caring side and really is the nasty deceitful person that she tried desperately to ignore.

After a barrage of violence, they are narrowly successful, but Jake becomes angry with Ryan after realising his involvement wasn't necessary.

Now seeing that his unjust position has driven his family, even Maneer, away from him, George becomes a broken man, realising that his perceived best intentions have backfired dreadfully and he is no longer the man of the house.

Cal becomes entangled in a magical adventure while also realising his feelings for his companion Suzanna Parish.

The Trustee's job includes notifying creditors of the estate and dealing with creditor inquiries ; ensuring that the bankrupt complies with his or her obligations under the Bankruptcy Act ; investigating the bankrupt's financial affairs ; realising funds to which the estate is entitled under the Bankruptcy Act and distributing dividends to creditors if sufficient funds become available.

In contrast, Stalin and allies proposed that alliances with capitalist political parties were essential to realising a revolution where Communists were too few ; said Stalinist practice failed, especially in the Northern Expedition portion of the Chinese Revolution ( 1925 – 1927 ), wherein it resulted in the right-wing Kuomintang ’ s massacre of the Chinese Communist Party ; nonetheless, despite the failure, Stalin ’ s policy of mixed-ideology political alliances, became Comintern policy.

The term nihilism is sometimes used in association with anomie to explain the general mood of despair at a perceived pointlessness of existence that one may develop upon realising there are no necessary norms, rules, or laws.

Newspapers had a strong bias towards particular parties, with the Courant and the Flying Post supporting the Whigs and the Evening Post in favour of the Tories, leading to politicians from both parties realising the importance of an efficient propaganda machine in influencing the electorate.

Suffering heavy casualties and realising they would be quickly outflanked, the Norman and Flemish divisions retreated with the Bretons.

Through various theatrics, the mark is given the opportunity to make off with money without the stranger realising.

Presented with the task of " realising " Grainer's score, complete with its descriptions of " sweeps ", " swoops ", " wind clouds " and " wind bubbles ", Delia Derbyshire created a piece of musique concrète which has become one of television's most recognisable themes.

One comic moment in the play deals with a servant not realising that poetry featuring references to dildos is vulgar, presumably from not knowing what the word means.

Cú Chulainn, not realising who she is, shoots her down with his sling, and then saves her life by sucking the stone from her side.

But upon hearing this, Malina, realising the devastating effect of the loss of the sun, banded together with Aningan and became an eclipse, so that when Tulok reached the sky he would become trapped.

In later stories in The Second Jungle Book Mowgli finds and then discards an ancient treasure ( The King's Ankus ), not realising that men will kill to own it ; and with the aid of Kaa the python he leads the wolves in a war against the dhole ( Red Dog ).

Devaser ( 1951-1955 ) became the third partner in the Alliance with the Malay-based UMNO and the Malaysian Chinese-based MCA after realising that political alliances were fundamental to success in Malaysian politics of the time.

Lieberman gains insight from Frieda Maloney ( Uta Hagen ), an incarcerated former Nazi guard who worked with the adoption agency, before realising during a meeting with Professor Bruckner ( Bruno Ganz ), an expert on cloning, the terrible truth behind the Nazi plan: Mengele, in the 1960s, had secluded several surrogate mothers in a Brazilian clinic and fertilised them with ova each carrying a sample of Hitler's DNA preserved since World War II.

In the reality of Superman & Batman: Generations, the Guardians revealed that Alan Scott's power ring was actually a Green Lantern ring despite its apparent weakness to wood after Hal Jordan successfully harnessed it against Sinestro, realising that the ring actually had no weaknesses except what the user believed it possessed ; the Green Lantern Corps were vulnerable to yellow only because they believed the Guardians when they were told about this weakness, and Alan's ring's weakness to wood was caused when he was taken by surprise and struck on the back of the head with a wooden block during his first time using the ring.

Although not the first person to conduct tooth transplants between living people, he did advance the state of knowledge in this area by realising that the chances of an ( initially, at least ) successful tooth transplant would be improved if the donor tooth was as fresh as possible and was matched for size with the recipient.

Whatever the case, Hackworth was probably the first of the very few engineers throughout history to fully take into account the role of the blast in automatically realising the " perfect equilibrium between steam production and usage " in a locomotive when fitted with a firetube boiler, and to consider the blastpipe as a distinct device, paying close attention to its proportions, nozzle size, positioning and precise alignment.

The Daily Mail correspondent, realising that Blériot had landed near the castle, set off at speed in a motor-car, and brought Blériot back to the harbour, where he was reunited with his wife.

After realising that the 52 cm tall torch wasn't stable when filled with fuel, he made it slightly smaller in height and added black tape to the top part of the shaft, as it was easier for the runners to pass the torch when held near the top.