In the following excerpt, Beach emphasizes the action and reaction ("suggestive of physics and dynamics ") of the feelings of Hardy's characters, and the heath as representative of natural forces that are indifferent or antagonistic to human will.

[With] The Return of the Native, Hardy has taken up a theme which involves a clear-cut issue in the minds of the leading characters, and especially in the mind of Eustacia, which is the main stage of the drama. It is her stifled longing for spiritual expansion which leads her to play with the love of Wildeve, which causes her later to throw him over for the greater promise of Clym, which leads her back again to Wildeve, and at last—with the loss of all hope—to suicide. In every case it requires but the smallest outlay of incident to provoke the most lively play of feeling; and the...