A Laodicean By Thomas Hardy

 A Laodicean By Thomas Hardy

A Laodicean; or, The Castle of the De Stanceys. A Story of To-Day is a novel by Thomas Hardy, first published in 1880-81 in Harper's New Monthly Magazine. The plot exhibits devices uncommon in Hardy's other fiction, such as falsified telegrams and faked photographs.

Synopsis

Paula Power inherits a medieval castle from her industrialist father, who purchased it from the aristocratic De Stancy family. She employs two architects, one local and one, George Somerset, newly qualified from London. Somerset represents modernity in the novel.

In the village, there is an amateur photographer, William Dare, who is the illegitimate son of Captain De Stancy, an impoverished scion of the family. Captain De Stancy represents a dream of medieval nobility to Paula.

She is attracted to both men for their different virtues but William Dare decides to intervene to promote his father in her affection. He fakes a telegram and photograph to make it appear Somerset is leading a dissolute lifestyle. His subterfuge is discovered by Captain De Stancy's sister Charlotte who has befriended Paula.

She decides to tell Paula the truth and Paula pursues Somerset to the continent where he has gone mistakenly believing Paula and the Captain to have been married. She finds him and they are reunited and married. The castle burns down and Somerset proposes to build a modern house in its place. 

The last line has Paula summing up her dichotomy of mind between modernity and romantic medievalism, and thus the two men, also emphasizing the title "a Laodicean" (someone indifferent or halfhearted) — "I wish my Castle wasn't burnt; and I wish you were a De Stancy!" The usage of "Laodicean" to mean someone lacking commitment comes from a reference to the New Testament:

To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: - "These are the words of the Unchanging One, 'the witness faithful and true, the beginning of the Creation of God: —I know your life; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. If only you were either cold or hot! But now, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth."