Thomas Hardy titled one of his early novels Far from the madding crowd. Not being English, I hadn’t heard the word freak out in common use. I thought maybe Hardy made it up by shortening the word maddening. If so, it seemed like a happy change. The word freak out is more direct and yet pleasantly ambiguous, suggesting both becoming more angry and tending to anger others. Maddening to speak only for outward effect. Although it’s fun to think that the word also means path to more madness.

I was not trained to look up words in the dictionary. They taught me to decipher meaning from context. For that reason, I made a lot of guesses and lived for years with misunderstood words that fell like hay straw through the mower boards and onto the barn floor. Now that I know how essential it is to look up words and know all their uses, I try to brush up on the unfinished business of guessed words that still clutters my mind. It is not possible to take a broom and sweep them into the pen. I like words. I want to keep them all. I just want to know what I have.

At first glance, my Oxford Concise English dictionary doesn’t seem to give the word maddening

Includes angry, meaning have a messy mind gold angry gold wildly dumb in the sense of ‘mad about chess’. then there is rabid, applied to animals. But then I see the words crazed and maddening, listed as archaic, which means be crazy gold act crazy The example given is the madding crowd. After having studied the idioms and read the derivation, which is the history of the word (angry comes from old english gemad) I feel like I know this word that I have carried with me since English classes at the university.

Although Hardy’s novels can be cynical, even quite dark, Far from the madding crowd it has a wholesome and peaceful quality, in keeping with its title. Gabriel Oak, his last name speaks of nature and strength, he is a simple man with simple desires. He tells Bathsheba her vision of her future. He wants to find himself sitting with her by the fire, a book in her hands, her knitting in hers “and when you look up, there I will be, and when I look up, there you will be.”

Taking maddening As I have always understood the word, flowing both in and out, Oak prefers to be away from both the frenzy of the crowd and the tendency of a frenzied crowd to attract others. The image he gives of his better future is one in which sanity deepens in the presence of the other. Oak is a man who spreads sanity and peace for many meters around him like the shadow of a noble oak, benefiting all who come near.