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This edition
is
THE ART OF
THOMAS HARDY
BY LIONEL JOHNSON
WITH A PORTRAIT ETCHED FROM
LIFE BY WILLIAM STRANG
AND
BIBLIOGRAPHY BY
JOHN LANE
1894
PR
75-?
Edinburgh
PREFACE
IT
is
all
upon
held,
in
in
my censure
my praise.
'A man
skilled
literature
in
man
'
evil
kind
Dray ton
of
critic
is
prettily
described
'
by
PREFACE
But there
is another critic,
equally abhorrent a
creature of adulation, prying and familiar, whose
:
criticism
is
To
all
and
be public concerns.
such canaille tcrivante> I would apply these
private
life
verses of
history, to
Cowper
'
hails
And
Be very much
To pardon
be said on
their behalf:
of
criticism
upon
may
told,
published for
its
But reviews,
and
greater pretension to
reply had
writers
be
living
some
force, did
all
vi
lasting value.
The
PREFACE
and
libraries
among
scripta,
in
museums
the volumes of
it
can
old
must remain.
light
magazines
Ephemeral
it
upon
it
litera
may
be, in
it
and
that, if
by the more
careful
little
value, they
may,
and
care.
it
may be
and
in succession, without
to write a
may
book about a
living writer's
new and
write books of so
improbable.
is
critic's
it
vii
he
general positions.
and, certainly, it is
so or not so, when a
possible
But, be
books
fresh a kind, as
PREFACE
no
may
write
as
many
as
works,
is
Mr. Hardy
Sophocles
or
works
for
make no
silly
and
It
place.
amply contents me
to dream, that
towards me.
the
because
little,
we
love to
know how
the great, or
the great, or
living writers
by the
need
let
little,
critics.
and
by
Criticism of
impertinent
of a novice in the tribes of Ben, of Dryden, of
Addison, of Pope, of Johnson he may take heart
;
viii
PREFACE
will
do
well to think
of Criticism
'
:
about
much about
the
'
the
Science of
'
Science
Fiction,'
how
to
feel.'
delicate
thing,
to write about
the works of a
living writer.
LIONEL JOHNSON.
CADGWITH
1892.
IX
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE,
I.
II.
III.
WESSEX,
IV.
COUNTRY FOLK,
V.
VI.
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES,
.
37
89
13 1
l8o
224
ERRATA
Page
,,
162,
,,
31,
,,
252,
,,
21, for
it
was
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
LITERATURE has commonly been
by way of precept and of praise
:
called
if
humane,
that fact be
in
increases
fair
humanities.'
'
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
Emotions
exchanged for fantastic ingenuities.
become entangled with the consciousness of
them and after-thoughts or impressions, laboured
:
of art.
Ages of decay,
seasons of the falling leaf, are studied for love of
their curious fascination, rather than ages of growth
and of maturity
the glory that was Greece,
'
a book,
full
of curious devices,
audacity
but
its
their
all
fellowship
room
is
for
company
comers
from
and
embracing
company
of the classics.
Diversity
3
is
admirable
detestable
is
delicate, but
it
is
may be
and separates, accord-
the distinction
decisive,
vative
backward
tendency
in
my
literature
independence of the artist his unchartered freedom from all traditions, and from all influences
;
'
The
may
fit
him
into their
name
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
in the artist,
At
the least,
position
letters, in
by a saving
Positivist spirit,
disbelief in Positivism.
tempered
The
result of
with due
'
as of all
a duty of reverence, of
of understanding, toward the old, great
masters and a duty of reverence, of fidelity, of
:
fidelity,
understanding, toward
living artist.
when
must put forth all its honest casuistry, and determine the true solution with laborious care. The
law of restraint seems to say one thing and the
:
Am
artistic
it is in
of the past, that the difficulties come
estimates of the present. That the habit and the
:
own age
drift
of our
who
shall assure us
are good,
The
and to be
facts of
life, its
praised,
energies
'
they lived
we
to
old, great
'
yet examine,
*.
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
I pray you, the debt of
Virgil to Homer, the debt
of Dante to Virgil, the debt of Milton to Dante,
'
stars.
some most
private hour
of meditation, all those long years ago
comes
home to us, as though it were our very thought
in
'
wrote
Keats,
'The road
lies
'
in
There
the
artist is
sors.
There
is
great himself.
no other way
for
him
to
become
'
'
go yet to
school,' said
tation,
uncertain fancies.
bid us listen
do they
invite
To what
'
'
lyrical cries
do they
'
psychological moments
our attention
These have no
to
what
'
no
habitual, nor constant, principles of thought
loose sentiment,
test, nor standard, of judgment
;
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
common danger
in
'
but that
these days
is
not a
moved
literature
to
'
I never desire to
exclaim, with Dr. Johnson
converse with a man, who has written more than
;
he has
read.'
science.
say, with
we know,
that
what we try to
of
civility,
men and
innovation
its
dangers of
art,
and
its
ironical revenges
For
Spenser's hapless innovation came of a false deference to antiquity he misapprehended alike the
needs of his own age, and the lessons of the great
:
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
in
whole
issues of the
'
:
The
commending an
masters.
fection
and
is
conscious to
collective observation
is
itself
of
necessary to
how much
fill
the im-
the infinite
to
comprehend
recommend neither
dependence nor plagiarism.' He, who falls
variety, of nature.
self-
into
II
The humanists,
in
any
liberal sense of
life,
human
yet touching, to
each single soul.
all
commonalty
spread,'
imaginable varieties of
It is the
issue,
and of the
itself
means of the
new and
novel, a
lively
convenience
12
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
in the arts
had been
fools
and blind
seems to
history
is
so
upon these
to fine purpose
much
discovering, among
quaintness, repulsion,
or obscurity, the spirit that unites them to the
But
for this
romantic moments,
is
kindly
office
of
art,
in
of scholarship
otherwise, this romantic delight
in subtilties of situation, and in audacities of
:
who
compliment, as
France, appear to hold
in
it
were, to
writers,
republican
free
the greatness, the goodness of them grow wonderful to us, and romantic; fresh and living.
Be
it the Iliad or the Agamemnon, Paradise Lost or
the Ancient Mariner, that we taste, and learn, and
master
still we are left with the one assured
;
become dangerous
In the study
never far away
for
must deal with its
life,
to the critics.
is
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
many a reader against the levity or the seriousness, the sunlight or the twilight, the conflict or
the calm, which distresses him in a novel, is often
an unconscious protest against
own experience and a longing
its
truth
to his
vj>ooks,
books
in
China
Morte
I
spirit
may be
for the
modern
15
lists,
witness to
The
one, so a story be told.
novelist would scarce recognize a brother
or prose,
modern
Ionian
at
artist
all
is
it
festivals,
Oriental
in
bazaars,
beside savage
fires.
his
own
with
with
with
with
So
too,
in all these
vital,
I incline to
you
modern English novelist, bent
upon genealogical research, would do well to
consider the three familiar names of Bunyan,
Call
fertile.
think,
it
fanciful, if
will
that the
It is true, that the Pilgrim's Prolong held low, plebeian, and inelebut its marvellous power
gant, a kitchen book
of direct narration by strong strokes, its living
portraiture and steady movement, forced it upon
Pepys, Defoe.
gress was
for
the attention of
all classes.
Pepys came to
light
too
late,
art,
formation of
by the example of his infinite
16
in the
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
and vivacious
but he is a most
style
notable figure in the history of literature, by virtue
of those qualities and of his use for them.
concuriosity
in so
great a degree.
of Pope: and, though Dr. Johnson ranked Robinson Crusoe with the masterpieces of Cervantes and
of Bunyan, as one of the three books, which their
reader could wish longer than they are ; for the
most part, he has been abandoned to boys, and
pieces,
in
work of such
less
worthy
17
writers, as Mrs.
Behn or
B
passed.
its
selves
upon
their
sound
sense,
and had no
airs
of
superior inspiration.
Experience, verified facts,
the ascertained contents of life, the clear prin-
ciples
18
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
Times
Benefits
of
wisdom
father
economy, Smith
the mixed
Johnson's
the composed and Attic
the Gallicized Scotch
reasonings of Berkeley
the moral
sceptic, Hume
;
of political
Butler, the
own views
ment of
facts
but
in all,
and reasonable
to be sensible
we
note a desire
to present, each
labour from the student of truth yet not exceeding the grasp of any honest and educated
;
man.
breathless heights
German
of
comparatively rare
days.
And
the
in
these
more pretentious
world
continuing,
in
the
measure,
tradi-
to tears,
now
human
thing.
ably in
common life prevailed their lightthat dainty felicity of phrase, witnessing less to any artificial survey of life, than to a
power of seizing upon the main matters in hand,
interest in the
ness of
air,
20
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
form
for
We
to Richardson, to Fielding,
English novelists
and to Smollett now at last, we can delight, as
Mrs. Sarah Battle at her whist delighted, in 'a
clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the
;
now
grossness,
the
grossness
21
mock
scientific
curiosity.
Random :
the
names
is
ment
cry out.
upon
all
If so
books must
lie
this,
we
'
'
it
very miracle of
art's
working.
All the
wayward
in the
matter
of epistolary episode, meditative diversion, irrelevant narrative, seem to have been necessary to
the complete expression of the writer's mind far
:
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
in
still
room and
in oratory, a
Fielding,
sure,
of a vigour
all
its lengthy
his rough
with
you
prelude
Fielding
and ready adventures, you will soon meet with
some incomparable stroke of wit, or wisdom, or
tender thought, all the more affecting by force of
contrast.
These writers determined the course of
the English novel they gave the word of com:
tire
if
mand,
the
new
art
upon
the
23
Cowper, Chatterton, Crabbe, Blake, Burns between all these, we may find a closer similarity,
than the fact that they preceded Wordsworth.
:
As Gray
workmen
in the
same
cause, so
lifeless imitators.
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
24
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
the
'
his
was
affectations.
it
'
'
their
rests
may
26
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
Revolution
in
German reformations
of
our
Eliot/
Among
lesser
novels in virtue of their local or temporal limitations, or are not the chief results of their writers'
genius.
Kingsley, and
Newman,
Disraeli,
as
ing Thackeray,
am
rather
mean, that
in read-
27
decessors
leisurely and,
it
may
way.
At
the Italian
familiar
definitions,
Renaissance, according
there came about a development of the indivi'
dual,' followed
of man.'
impulse of
spirit,
last,
the
imagination.
named, the Revolution acted, like a revelation
Burns, the Ayrshire peasant, felt the prouder for
;
28
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
in
all
The
things.
tendencies of
literature,
events
of the Revolution
possibilities,
way.
all
of man and
'
them.
by
of the world,"
came back
and
in
for
scenes
ness and
'
turned to the
magical
nature of the world, with its rare powers.
shepherd, a beanfield, a spring in the hills, a cottage
tragedy, strange histories of enchaunted seas out
its
fullness,
'
came
of these
poets,
because they
illustrate
29
stir
down
than in
word
'
'
of such
national and
poetical
as
relics
Chevy
Chace
all
smiling upon
30
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
'
the worth of
very
little,
archaeology wrong
Shakespeare
is
not blame-
of
art
Here are
les
it
bans clercs et
les
beau*
du monde.
of
office,
which be-
Goethe he seems to draw into his art a thousand matters of fact and thought and imagination,
which lay loose and scattered before he enlarged
our sense of human life, by enlarging literature
with fresh expressions of the fair humanities.'
To him the novel owes a rank, in the history of
literature, equal to the rank of the epic and of
to
'
the
after his
may
be,
undreamed of by
never
tires,
nor
is
tired
aesthetic questions.
32
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
modern.
In Dickens and
in
life in its
greatness and
in
'
1 promise you
sonal intrusion, of Thackeray
mine about the cheap pathos/ the declamation
:
'
33
let
us give thanks
Newcome,
Beatrix,
for
quite simple.
An
Moral Virtues, each a fair and stately form, unmistakeable and complete there is Fortitude, and that
is Temperance: from a German artist we have, here,
Death the Skeleton, and there, Time the Reaper.
It was a large, sane way of expression
and that
in
in
and
sane
essence, may be
large,
way,
spirit
:
they move
their stories, to
CRITICAL PRELIMINARIES
we
find
detect
it,
it.
silly heroes posture in a fit of male green-sickness,' unwholesome heroines display similar imagi'
life
itself.
It
would be beyond
my
purpose to
35
every week
it is not necessary to my
of
with
what care and precision
purpose
dwelling,
I may, upon the works of an English novelist, who,
critics,
II
established fame.
That
diligent
and accomplished
it is
to fix
37
yet, to
relish.
my own
Upon
claimed Jeremy
a
'
Baintham/ a Solon, a
who
pro-
Plato,
and
Lope de Vega.
for
aught we know, he
may
38
to say
more upon
this
elaborate design
stories.
For
clearness'
sake,
classification
of
the
comic,
confess,
comedy,
idyllic scenes.
'
Tragedy,
cal-pastoral,
tragical-historical,
historical-pastoral'
tragical-comical-
'
40
emotions.
that he mingles
darkness and light together
various proportions of either element, to produce
and this, chiefly in the
various combinations
;
The most
/
L
in
power
airy charm.
place
in
That
literature
The genius
demands a
stricter beauty of
delicate
and
adornments,
has,
of prose
it
graces
times for their introduction but the genius
of prose in general, and the genius of narrative
prose in especial, are averse from luxuriance in
design
and
fit
these delicacies.
hostility to
those affectations in
fine,
himself,
41
deep moral
stillness
that stillness
'
selves, but in the long run tiresome, because distracting he will eschew all matters by the way,
and confine himself to those, which serve his
purpose of exhibiting certain characters, under
:
certain conditions
to certain ends.
He
art,
he
will give
call
a paradox
the ideal
artist,
and not
;
'
least the
know
in the right
artistic
The aim
way.
works,
name
is
of a novel, as of
all
not
is
amusement, although it be
Yet the
for instruction.
great majority of readers 'take up,' and 'glance
look into,' and skim through,' and pass
at,' and
another
for
name
'
'
'
with the
43
being
To crown
painful jest books.
incessant chatter of the theorists
dull, elaborate
all,
;
there
sermo in
is
the
circuits,
all
beneficial effect,
workmen.
have
prove
it,
by detachment from
text.
'
'
44
upon Grace Melbury, that she combined modern nerves with primitive emotions.'
Both examples show a nicety, a felicity, in the \
but MrJtiardy
art of making brief, neat, phrases
prefers to build up his speech upon a statelier
making each word in
plan, and a larger scale
'
his sentence
phrase,
which
you can no more miss
one of
its
orders.
own judgment,
that of
Eustacia is beautiful,
imperious, discontented,
and inexperienced ; she hates the great lonely
heath, and makes an ideal of Budmouth ; and
she has, half in boredom, half from self-deception
fitful,
and love of
bright, the
'
46
Clym
intends, in
and worldliness,
to begin
far greater
by misunderstandings.
Clym,
finding his eyesight fail him, takes to furze-cutting, like a labourer, for his living: he occupies
a small cottage with Eustacia ; who learns to
Venn, Thomasin's
discover
anything,
his wife,
district, alert to
that
much
with labour,
is
in
heat.
Clym,
tired
his wife
room
husband Wildeve, are
his
asleep
Eustacia, and his cousin's
Eustacia sees
discussing affairs, while he sleeps.
their eyes meet
Mrs. Yeobright at the door
:
47
afraid
rouse
Clym
father's house.
The
story
48
upon
his
mind and
and simplicity
bute of genius
scious that he
is
49
pass through the book, noting the various contributions of Mr. Hardy's knowledge and imagination, to Mr. Hardy's purpose and design.
They
are
all
strength
instinct
:
one makes
me forget
its final
end, in
its
immediate
The few
excellence.
elusions,
they so surely
led.
Chiefly,
50
but not
Were
would be
over
profit,
no
than pleasure,
less
in lingering
in
'
Cardinal
Newman
the
many seem
to consider
it
We
them
Let not their frailties be remembered they were very great men
but no
amount of virtue can cancel or transfigure a vice,
no degree of general success can obliterate a
'
forgiven
'
I
dwell upon Mr.
they break away from it.
is an excellence
of
because
it
Hardy's unity
design,
desired
an
and
now,
excellence, which atones
rarely
Mr. Hardy's faults, as I
for a multitude of faults.
seem
and seriousness of
For he
is
raised
is
old,
up by
new and
Hardy's
He dwells, in
a dramatic
the
simplicity,
woods and
work and
all
those
and
self-sacrifice
upon
their
humours and
habits,
tinuance, above
universal laws
And
there
is
lives, of
another side to his
of brain
to note,
how a
leaven of fresh
little
town, in contrast with the staid dignity and cumbrous strength of the gray village, the significance
discernible in the intrusion of the jaunty villa
among barns and dwellings and churches, old as
'
'
the hills
to build up, touch by touch, stroke upon
stroke, the tragedy of such collision, the comedy
of such contrast, the gentle humour or the heart;
less satire of
it
all,
observant genius.
53
So considering Mr. Hardy's work, I cannot conmy thought of him to the immediate interests
fine
of to-day
upon whom
art
do great things
too
many
English birth
and
who
for
writers,
to
We
literature.
English
whom
'
have
of their
art
must always
men
of a certain
'
and
Mr. Hardy
places, in particular manners.
can lie under no charge of insular arrogance but
he uses powers, in which I see many affinities with
the French genius of our time, not in a French
manner, but in an English revealing his art in
no provincial way, but rather producing books of
Here is
which, at their best, it may be said
:
'
truth to nature,
its
French.'
art, felt
his treatment of
and women,
thought
is
given to the novel a simple grandeur and impressiveness, the more impressive, for his pre-occupation with the concerns of modern thought.
The
figures of Tess, of
Henchard, of Winterborne, of
'
full
55
The
different fashions.
little
men,
Beaumont, Shirley
speare's
it were, in quips
conceits
and
saws and byjests,
all that recurs to the mind of Mr.
itself
so surely.
The increasing gravity, noticeable in
the best of Mr. Hardy's later books, in The Woodlanders, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the
each
in its
is
The
Trumpet Major
to
The Woodlanders.
This steady
informing
it
the heightened
meant by these
sense of what
is
deaths, so ready
to be lightly treated ; the stronger mastery over
that rhythmical impulse, which finds fit words to
tragedies
'
no
But,
it 's
'
men's lives
until the
buying
literary artist have a sense of sacredness in his
relation of men's lives, he remains trivial, inconFor soul is form, and doth the body
siderable
fish
ye
make,'
as
're
it 's
'
the
The
humourist begins, either in pettinesses or in extravagances he must find his way to the natural
:
heart of things.
When
Fielding
57
tells
us of Major
ashamed of
sister's
posset,
and
then Fielding
changes from our boisterous entertainer to our
generous friend, and that, through a triumph of
heartily
humourous
his detection
art.
Mr. Hardy is fast making us forget his extravagances in his realities, and the change is great.
Extravagance of a sort he will always love, it
inheres in his chosen materials
but he has
His earlier
abandoned artificiality for art.
extravagance is an extravagance, which delights
:
The
58
humourist
Reuben the
men.
tranter
recommendation
to be true.
And
for
it
for the
story with a
stories
59
by a
logic of
'
high seriousness
:
it
is
tive in these
favourite contrivance
upon the reader.
the assemblage of several actors upon the scene,
effect
is
or intention to be present
Thus,
in Desperate
and hear
marriage
the journey of
Christopher
60
'
are coincidences, contrasts, oddities of circumstance, almost wholly natural and justifiable, yet
great cleverness.
It is to be observed, that Mr. Hardy's sureness
of heart and hand deserts him, or in a measure
deserts him, only when he deserts Wessex and its
people, or when he deals with Wessex people,
In fidelity to nature,
uncharacteristic of Wessex.
61
of what
is
called
good society,
compared with his
Wessex folk, are like Lady Blarney and Miss
Carolina Wilelmina Amelia Skeggs, by the side of
Dr. Primrose. Every novelist of peculiar excel-
or of what
is
called education,
in
familiar example,
'
'
experience, a
little
into
the
quieting,
'
mind and
antiquity.
'
effete
'
airs.
Edred
Fitzpiers, the
rival
for
the hand of
D'Urberville, has
radical
The
and
'
Rabelais, in
descenduz de sang
et
ligne
de grands
rois
et
63
soil,
:
successes.
in
'
of
A rolling down country,
Mr. Hardy's works.
crossed by a Roman road here, a gray standing
stone, of what sacrificial, ritual origin, I can but
guess there, a grassy barrow, with its great bones,
its red brown jars, its rude gold ornaments, still
a broad sky burning with stars
safe in earth
and a solitary man. It is of no use to turn away,
and to think of the village farms and cottages,
with their antique ways and looks of the deep
this
is
my
vision
64
That
characteristic scene.
night, with its
dead
is
the great
down by
and
diers
and
Stoics, watchers
upon Chaldaean
plains,
Saxon
rural,
labours,
figure
recalls
of Millet
'clown,' the
'common
labourer,'
have amassed
fields,
with their
Like Claudian's
vasta stlentia, their otia dia\
old Veronese, the man has lived close to his
mother
'
and thither
must be
heaviness and
its
65
Master
Gammon
Queen Anne's
'
man,
whom
patient
see
Hardy's books.
This is no more than an imaginative summary,
by the help of concrete symbols, of the finer and
made upon
the mind, by
a sense of awe, in the
presence of a landscape filled with immemorial
signs of age a sense of tranquillity in the presence
of human toil, so bound up and associated with the
But Mr. Hardy
venerable needs of human life.
is no mere patron of the dignity and the honour
of labour, standing at heart a little aloof from
content to admire its historical and
its realities
monumental aspects; satisfied with blessing its
How near and dear to
nobility from a distance.
the deeper impressions
Mr. Hardy's best work
animates
'
it
all.
He
night,' said
his long,
66
heroes.'
They are strong, generous, and capable
and their part is the part
of a wise passiveness
of Jacob serving Laban for love of Rachel. Giles
'
'
'
Winterborne,
Gabriel
worldlier
tarnished
John
Loveday,
the
Reddleman,
Oak
men
hardly to reward.
67
Hayward, so
skilled
in
by
heart,
and by
instinct,
what
lies
beyond them
him, who has not hit things off to his mind is it not
to be read in the complexion ?
As the naturalist
;
68
with a bone, so Mr. Hardy with a word can construct for us the whole manner of a man, the whole
know
of
we
it.
If we step out of doors in Little
or
Hintock,
upon Egdon, or at Casterbridge, in
some dream or fancy of our own, we know our
way
wind
all
about
we know, according
to season,
what the
'
'
'
'
my
il
remember
own
laws.
a mat courue
69
little,
Quelle
and how
Theban
This subtile
to
is
law.
nature makes
it
difficult
light
example
fidelity to
it
call,
as one instrument
of
all
psychology ? or what
name
After
for this spirit of simple truth ?
terms are poor enough and this rich
play of passions and emotions, with its ancient
elements, in their modern combinations, deserves
no poorer name than truth.
In dwelling upon a few results of Mr. Hardy's
is
the
all, critical
style,
all is said, if
we
amount of
may be considered,
may be viewed. Yet
it implies a sense of
the absurd, the impossible
it may show itself
in a thousand forms, and always with becoming
:
grace
'
and
Pedantry
abhorrence
it
holds in equal
illiteracy,
lack of urbanity, all failure in
marks of the clown and of the fop,
all
courtesy, all
are hateful to scholarship whilst it is tolerant of
infinite variety.
The scholar thinks with Pope's
:
friend
all
that
my
'
is
favourites
all
but he
ages and of
than
all
are
they
their
like
bad contemporaries.
of
of the
tense,
72
communicated
surprise.
is
over
with
deep and
its
fearless
elaboration.
The
recalls
73
\/
novels,
powers
where
for a
his
up
difficul-
the gift of
as
God
but
men
think and
'
:
which
I
is
disinterestedly,
what
own
feel.
They
are
my
models of
My
74
farming
known
to
Angel
Clare,
'the seasons in
life:
their
Saturninus.
scholar's discrimination.
Perhaps,
it
is
not
suffi-
ciently remembered by some readers, that scholarship and erudition are no less concerned with
simple things, than with recondite and abstruse
that what charms them, in a writer's sure and lucid
style, so full of grace and ease, is quite as much a
:
result of
knowledge, as
it is
a natural
gift.
It is
quite
plicity
the
first
man
at
my
hand
it is
a version
a Gentle-
book, ready to
of Herodian,
'
was
read,
abounds
happy
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
'
76
upon which,
Mr. Hardy preserves,
with scarce a lapse into less austere a style, the
accent of stateliness and of solemnity, unsoftened
and unrelieved by the gentler spirit of sympathy,
so frequent a companion of the delicately austere.
books,
surely, his
fame
will
rest,
And
before,
some of his
'
glorious wit
critics
spells,
Ye know
and
.
77
'
'
among
knowledge of the
last
alone, whose
novelists
was
century
78
us to hear Quintilian or
Dryden.
Here
'
is
Some words
little
Discoveries
and
'
79
Now,
is
no lack
in
England of
flourishing
who devote
a passionate diligence to
eccentrics,
the construction of such work I would, Pantagruel had by the throat these professors of strange
:
They
speech.
suffer,
many
'
'
that
precisely true
is
fool but
awkwardly.
do not
tongue
English
yet whose writing contains words and
phrases, not wholly acceptable at first sight:
writers, who have the desire strong upon them,
to find the exact expression for their thought
;
'
'
always be intelligible. Substance, accident, subjectmatter ; these have endured and are intelligible;
men
first
significance.
dently, to use the
But were
I,
airily
of their
and
confi-
terms, in which
81
is
stood
binomial,
atavism,
agnation,
are
no
not
little
or
require a
field.
writer's
use
played.
that follows
Le pdantisme,'
writes
M. Renan,
'
1'ostentation
du
savoir, le soin
de Port-Royal,
fession
sait se borner,
de science,
et
dans un
ne
fait
livre
arrieYe's.'
The
practice of Mr.
of George Eliot
simple interest,
Hardy
is
much
akin to that
I
may give sundry
accuracy of description.
his
of
learned
language static, momenexamples
tum, thesmothete, zenithal, nadiral, monochromatic,
isometric, mechanized friendship, photosphere, unten'
'
able
himinosity.
Hardy's readers,
who remember,
or
who
discover,
the various contexts, will agree that those words
and phrases are not felicitous in themselves, or
To
take some
passages
all
the
men
were
a-field
'
this,
Hill.'
Or
example
of her lips
formed, with almost geometric precision, the curve
so well known in the arts of design as the cimaclosing-line
One had
though
full,
Or, again,
clearly cut as the point of a spear.'
the wet cobwebs, that hung like movable dia'
84
was
thing
itself.
description of
There, at
the very
last, is
'
is fine,
but
human
nature
finer
':
We
charm
here,
it
is
an
may
Lammas
even
monothe words are
pass,
So
offence.
:
may
too,
oil
intrusion.
Just
so,
when we
85
are looking
down
THE
AliT OF
THOMAS HARDY
isometric drawing.'
It may be so
I have looked
down upon the old city, some hundred times,
from the same height, without realizing the fact :
:
and
at so culminating a
at the dark
moment,
great arguments,
'
What
sort of
'
dubious success,it
is
no
is
less impertinent,
country
folk,
These
truth.
artistic sincerity
considerations will
and moral
exhibit
the
common
in
manner
87
to these,
contrasts
the result,
now
of conscious or uncon-
for
classic
for a
the
humanist
humanist
must have
perfect
may be
the classic
contem-
not at
all-.
88
WESSKX
III
WESSEX
IN a Study from Euripides, Mr. Pater tells us, how
Theseus destroyed 'that delightful creature, the
Centaur,' and warred with the Amazons also
and how they exerted the prerogative of poetic
That is a thing to
protest, and survive thereby.'
muse upon Art the Preserver
Art, gathering
up the wonders and the powers, no longer living
of themselves but henceforth to live only in Art
which has a natural office of piety towards the
Mr. Hardy has done this service to a
past.
:
'
his inventions
name
of
Wessex
is
full
its
89
and by
mind
with a
scientific
and with an
no parallel in
severity,
artistic
is
patriotic,
some county,
for
district,
or place,
is
common 'enough;
spirit
of art
side, rich in
also
but
it
is
science.
all
intellectual - love
*"**
,
love of beauty.
This concentration of Mr. Hardy's art upon
the varieties of one great theme, Wessex and its
people, has provoked, now and again, complaints
from readers, to whom Wessex is not infinitely
90
WESSEX
interesting
but
I
let it
give us
Wessex
be Japan to-morrow.
For
art ofliterature,
my own
part,
what Thomas
qui
is
the conquering
art.
unadventurous
art.
One
is
moved
to wonder,
put
Whistler, once
made
a similar reply.
91
single
care, or with
meditated work.
Mr. Hardy's
way
of work, to
judge by
to which it is wrought, is the way of elaboration
a cautious, anxious way.
If the monotony, the
his
of
all
the
work, have for some
sameness,
unity,
readers so powerful a charm, it is for this reason
that, content to labour in one rich field, he shows
us the wealth of human nature.
Wessex, one
of
a
is
small
his
and of
island,
part
ground
Wessex, he takes one part in especial, the county
of Dorset he has rarely left it, throughout fifteen
books.
He has studied it in his maturity of
mind
he has loved it with the fervour of a
patriot he has understood it with the instinct of
a child
it is his own.
As Wordsworth would
have the poet find his mystery in a primrose by
the river's brim' as Shelley would have him watch
the sun upon the yellow bees in the ivy bloom,'
to some high Platonic end
so Mr. Hardy has
pondered the looks and the ways, the histories
and the associations, the places and the people, of
his native region.
He has done it with that
patient contemplation, which is so English a
that satisfaction with experiences, few
thing
perhaps, and monotonous, yet deep and strong,
;
'
'
92
WESSEX
to reveal varieties of
human
all
seal, as
its
No lover
there, moulded upon a Wessex plan.
of Hawthorne can quite reconcile himself to the
Marble Faun, with its Italian colour and Roman
interest
that gray New England of the Puritans
was Hawthorne's very own. Old America, the
ruined cities of Yucatan what a fascination is in
that unrealized antiquity
what a charm in the
of
and
Aztecs
of
Incas
And there are
thought
the days of Spanish domination
New Orleans,
the glory of the South, aristocratic and decaying
:
American
Quebec
93
'
Jacobite,
'
who
trees,
'
:
him
writers,
men
94
W ESSEX
work,
whom we
truth,
trust
Through these
passers by.
writers,
how every
place, dull
account, is like
we come
to
be to
us,
though
Bunyan's Valley of
Humiliation: 'Though Christian had the hard
hap to meet here with Apollyon, and to enter
with him into a brisk encounter, yet I must tell
you, that in former times men have met with
angels here, have found pearls here, and have in
this place found the words of life.'
Mr. Hardy's Wessex is not a region of strict
learn,
and of no
boundaries
it
it
Winchester
but, for our present purposes, it
be
considered, as equivalent to the County
may
of Dorset.
Critics have already identified Mr.
:
Hardy's
localities
map
places,
it
is
innocent as
at this publicity
of intrusion.
From
Mr.
is
Dorchester
Sherton
Melchester, Salisbury
Abbas,
Sherborne Mr. Hardy has not pledged himself
to the literal fidelity of a guidebook.
Nothing
is gained, by a minute comparison of the real
95
that
Hardy's Casterbridge
his
his
cal
memories, more
by the successive
stratified
Thus, he
of science.
tells
is
full
of suggestions
Hardy's somewhat
towards the
rigid
history
of
loneliness.'
:
it
illustrates
The
Mr.
man
natural
science
Celts
it
is
96
WESSEX
Yet
man
of
'
'
way
influences
land
97
and date
one race
may have
succeeded to
its
hands, have
That
is
come
to
results of ancient
upon
history,
this tract
and
people
long
familiarity
qualified,
lets
no
Mr. Hardy,
or
hint
trace
who
and
is
thus
escape
him.
representatives of antiquity,' he
says of the Dorset folk
Many of these labourers
'
in great
for four
They even
and
precinct.
It
98
\V ESSEX
affirmed,
time, in broad
of Hadrian's soldiery, as
combat
if
'the still-used burial-ground of the old RomanBritish city, whose curious feature was this, its
Mrs. Henchcontinuity as a place of sepulture.
ard's
dust
who
lay
99
This
Roman
'
And, just as
grandeur des ossements romains
the Roman Empire seems very present with the
Wessex wayfarer, so too seems the Roman
Church from Wimborne in the east, to Sherborne
!
in
scholar and
upon
presides
lies
at
Since writing
this,
in
see a centurion
coming up the
street
'
legionaries.
IOO
WESSEX
its villages,
the remnants of
religious
native Wessex
dear, delightful Wessex,
whose statuesque dynasties are even now only just
beginning to feel the shaking of the new and
strange spirit without, like that which entered the
lonely valley of Ezekiel's vision, and made the
dry bones move, where the honest squires, tradesmen, clerks, and people still praise the Lord with
one voice for His best of all possible worlds.'
'
lie in his
Dames
Noble
Major
to
primitive,
for quotation at
this point.
'
They sheared
tempted.
and
was
tied in
shadows on the
spaces between them, which were perforated by
lancet openings, combining in their proportions the
and ventilation.
had dictated
its
this
original erection
1
02
WBSSEX
it was still applied.
Unlike
and superior to either of those two typical remnants of mediaevalism, the old barn embodied
practices which had suffered no mutilation at the
hands of time. Here at least the spirit of the
ancient builders was at one with the spirit of the
modern beholder. Standing before this abraded
battered
to
creed.
'
103
'
shearers were in
to the shearers,
and the
104
WESSEX
sheltered
thirsty tongues
by
licking
the quaint
Norman_
'
'
in
the
Ball
Cainy
his
"
'
"
You
stun-poll
What will
Coggan.
105
ye say next
"
said
"Let en
The
strange
cities,
be suffered,
'"And
"
ready
Moon.
'
'
us,
"
said Matthew.
'
"
And
up as well as drink?"
'
close
06
WESSEX
according to ancient
in its decay.
custom
Dame
'
to
'
When Abbotsbury
Mr. Gosse, the late eminent naturalist, in a postpaper, Poole folk were amused at a
humous
the
peculiarity in the Abbotsbury speech
places are not more than thirty miles apart
:
two
One
War
'
:
'
!
their rich
and employers.
As
temper of
their bestowers
Saxon names of
with the pleasant wholesome smack of the
'
the
107
places,
soil
in
them,
ecclesiastical
Ryme
Intrinsica,
Town, Frome
Stanton
St.
St. Gabriel,
WESSEX
Martell, Hinton Parva, Hinton St. Mary, Gussage
St. Michael, Gussage St. Andrew, Gussage All
Saints, Melbury Osmund, Melbury Bubb, Melbury
Sampford, Melbury Abbas, Winterbourne Abbas,
Houghton Winterbourne, Winterbourne Whitechurch, Stickland Winterbourne, Winterbourne
Kingston, Winterbourne Zelstone, Winterbourne
Clenstone.
indulgence
in
the
comfortably
rural,
all,
war.
these
them
'
'
single,
little
region,
as a field of art
many
and,
fields
by
un-
no
one
locality,
which prompt
science,
'
of men, all the pity and all the pride, there rises
from the heart no word, but the constant word
of Saint John: Filioli ! filioli !
Little children
find infinite pleasure
and pain
in the
most
too
trivial
'
infinity in the
And
of sand,
flower ;
eternity in an hour.'
Ill
all
and
are allies
who
spicuous
trumpets
friends.
and
blades flashing,
shining deeds
savour
of the sea in
the
sounding,
;
do us
fine
greater beauty,
with
how
upon
of
his character
life,
and
how
it
112
Yet the
WESSEX
men from
their
common
detaching
them, for the most part, under
of passion, or in rare and
storms
sudden
the
and
the reader neither knows,
subtile difficulties
novelists,
interests, present
acts,
an hundredfold more
tragic.
The
stroke of
no great
effort
still
easier
113
vow
Melbury's
friend
in
the
way.
sidered
definite sphere,
we
It
of
varieties
ancient,
life
festival,
Now
and again, as
in
Under
the
Greenwood
Tree,
'
rustic.'
'"
the hill?"
pointed
'
"
it
out.
of bitter-sweets, they
couldn't grind
'
She
know
'
"
bitter-sweets
am
afraid I
ways of her
two.
life
It excites
116
and homeliness, a
WESSEX
Finally,
South,
gives
among
As
this
solitary
and
silent
girl
womanhood
so undeveloped as to be scarcely
marks of poverty and toil effaced
perceptible, the
points,
with
rejected
indifference
stooped
down and
humanism.
She
away
the withered
cleared
'
"
own, own
my
Now,
love,"
she whispered,
'ee at last,
although
whenever
down
young larches I '11 think that none can plant
you planted and whenever I split a gad, and
lie
the
as
whenever
could do it
117
me
forget
my
woman, whose
field
work of Xess^jKg^
make
'
WESSEX
'
come
there
to the surface
buried genealogical
dead men's
traits,
which
life, is
with
thoughts of
faithful
from the
patriarchal days
pourtraiture of a secluded
village,
life,
which
it
for eternal
eyes.
Through
his concentration
upon
this
kingdom
love of
Wessex has
to the
'
of his
Wessex books.
mental of writers
art
in
into
captivity.
Examine
like
the
those
passages,
Welsh preacher
much
swells
solemnity.
to rouse a kind of
fails
lover
rose
'The untamable,
is
old
always
can
Distilled
by the
in
it
it
Who
sun,
WESSEX
level
away
On
Egdon Heath.
slopes of
its
fir-trees,
summit stood
whose notched
went to
find
Clare, in
Tess at Sandbourae, a
fashionable watering-place.
An out-lying eastern
tract of the enormous Egdon Waste was close at
'
'
nigh to home.'
other,
121
'
And
late
Mayor
him
in
The tumuli
122
WESSEX
weighty style.
It is hard to express that singular quality of Mr.
Hardy's writing, when he deals with the aspects
of Wessex that quality, by virtue ol which the
:
'
'
though
now seen by us
time the landscape changes, and all
is new, touched with fresh colours, seen under a
strange light the homeliness of the old place has
Most novelists are not at home among
gone.
the places of their imagination from first to last,
they describe their woods and fields, not as long
familiarity makes them appear, but as they apfamiliar to us from childhood, are
for the first
scenes, that
our
they
may
be.
To
rural aspects of
yet, by
humanity in a landscape, Mr. Hardy's woods and valleys, fields and
farms, take him back to the wilds of Merioneth.
:
power of the
hearts and
humanist
that power to touch
common
to all
minds, not by vague generalities
the classic
is
all
Wessex
their celebrator.
All
'
though many
dangerous to
try.
There
is
and bold
with
as
all that.
was the
Mr.
Jefferies,
life
124
WESSBX
liberal arts
by the
'
'
Spenser's
charms
to us,
all
are
is
full
warm
They lie deep below ranges of high downs,
in
white scars
flowers
The downs
give place to
wooded
hills:
wooded
slopes
village,
across the
way:
the hollow
in
lies
dreamy
rounded
over the windows, and drooping between them,
behind them
dispersed round the gray church
are the meadows, deep in rich grass, yellow with
blossoms fields full of sheep, very white in the
blinding sun and uplands climbing to the sky,
patched with heather, shadowed with beech and
fir.
Then, there are the clear rivers, in which the
dark rushes bend to the breeze: rivers, winding
never far from the way, and bridged by old, stout
arches of gray stone. And there are the two kinds
of desolate country
WESSEX
'
of
Drayton, the
pure Dorsetian downs
Thomson sometimes he may catch a little of
Tom Warton's pretty sentiment, or the pensive
But the masters cover him
elegance of Bowles.
with confusion only a Coleridge can tell,
of
'
'
How
The
stilly
murmur
Tells us of silence'
or how,
Bathed by the
mist,
is
fresh
'The dell,
and delicate
As
Coleridge
Somerset
dell,
knew
to
fit
his
musings to
his
his
imagination to the
He may
Wessex
summer
him
127
witnessed
by
itself,
the
and upon
same calm
earth's
stars
changes
into the
books
in
them
the
WESSKX-
men, and
claim upon
full
its
'
nature's
large
of
an
around them
malice
and Mephistopheles
most
rather,
how
to write of
them
in the
the misfortunes of
Among
spirit
Ireland, not the least has been the note of provinciality in her literature: Carleton and Banim
liberal
'
It is
an example of
be
artist's part, to
his hands, in
a great province of
130
art's
kingdom.
COUNTRY FOLK
IV
COUNTRY FOLK
JOHN HEWET was a well-set man of about five
and twenty Sarah Drew might be rather called
comely than beautiful, and was about the same
age They had pass'd thro' the various labours of
;
several
sorts
her complection, to
wedding-day.
While they were thus busied
'
(it
was on the
of July between three and four in the afternoon) the clouds grew black, and such a storm
of lightning and thunder ensued, that all the
last
labourers
made
frightned,
and
and hedges
fell
down
to what
Sarah was
way
afforded.
in a
swoon on a heap of
barley.
down
if
heaven had
split
asunder
every one
was
and
No
this
tender
sing'd,
and
were found
Attended by their
melancholy companions, they were convey'd to
the town, and the next day interr'd in StantonHarcourt Church-yard.'
This letter by Gay, which Thackeray has
life
in
either.
132
COUNTRY FOLK
pretty, serious
ways of love
in the fields
glimpses
of the
fair,
they
as in
Madame
or Mrs.
Woods'
Darmesteter's The
New
It
Village Tragedy.
Arcadia,
helps us,
piping to Phyllis
among
the flocks
those
nymphs
whom
'
:
is
requisite
wrote George
protest to
and
M.
difficult
humaine
is
no more
is
real
long
than
Russian patient.
men
as
Though
undistinguishable,
'
rustics
as
'
'silly
be to some
sheep,'
the
dairy-maids,
furze
cutters,
many
cases, to the
carriers,
cottagers, who
Wessex scenes.
conduct of the
and
come
foolish,
to
tious.
appropriate
134
its leisurely,
full
of
an
COUNTRY FOLK
the
Wessex
puppet of the stage, to drawl bucolic commonplaces in a dialect, or to pass the bounds of nature
in savagery, and whimsicality, and uncouthness.
As we read, it is borne in upon us, that in this
peasant talk we have the spiritual history of a
feudalism and Catholicism and
country side
Protestantism, law and education and tradition,
changes in agriculture and commerce and tenure,
in traffic and society and living, all these have
worked and wrought upon the people, and here
is the issue
this and this is their view of life
thus and thus they think and act
here is a
here a spirit of
survival, and there a desire
conservation, and there a sign of decay, and there
Poor laws and school
again a look of progress.
boards, the Established Church and the Dissenting
Mission, the extension of the franchise and the
:
135
it,
academics of country
life
136
COUNTRY FOLK
of pastoral
men
whom
of
'
O how
fresh the
morning air
morning air
the Zephirs and the heifers
Charming
When
fresh the
But
all
to look
'
in old English.
137
The
writers,
who compose
factors
we
sit
by
ne'er
shall
my
and
side,
be younger,'
let
is
much our
bene-
of
or
life,
felt
among
because both
oldest
truth
and
is
my
feet.
sacred
of
Adam,
as
138
it,
COUNTRY FOLK
first
breath of mornings
'
We
rip
up
first,
And
Such
charm us by the romance inseparable from simple and dignified things: the
that in Lucretius,
fill
to
discover
it
139
to
men and
:
'
Silvane potens !*
'
'
we may
civilities
of the world
find, in
natural mystery:
'
Car sur
la fleur
Fruit de la force
humaine en tous
Dieu moissonne,
et
La Chair
et le
lieux repartie,
fins
'
140
COUNTRY FOLK
vague
and discontinu-
histories.
the
little
man
blessed the
'
stones,
and
and we are
will
relics
piteous, or marvellous, or
writers,
'
who know
Once,
in
142
COUNTRY FOLK
felt, not for an instant, but for
a lifetime, by more writers, literature would boast
of fewer egoists and of better novelists.
If this truth
were
Mr. Hardy's books, one and all, shew this consuming devotion to the old records, and to the
in especial, to those of
living details, of men
in
constant
occupation with the
labouring men,
:
its
earth,
living things,
and
life.
its
oil:
and much
cattle
the fruits
But he pursues
things.
the
farms of their
fields
and
beyond
he knows them, not by sight alone, but
busied with
them
labour
heart.
by
any
such
all
far
The Wessex
is
heaped graves of
which
rest
what hands
warriors, among
they
once grew hard with handling them, hands
Here is a lonely, mean
mortified long since!
some
built
house,
forty years ago, standing back
from the road too commonplace and dull to
immeasurably
old, old
as the
their
inmates,
ments, failures and desires, the secret truths of
the plays played out in the dreary place, might
prove a masterpiece of life, and yield matter for a
masterpiece of
art.
Here
is
a milestone, crusted
And
down
to the ground
among
the
tall
still
me
a gruff greeting
'
ragged
and
staff/
am
and
suddenly
paisible et bucolique.'
The pale
familiar to the verge of contempt.
'
artisan is an estimable person, with good, strong
but,
virtues, and bad, weak vices, of his own
'
144
'
COUNTRY FOLK
'
epithets,
light at
'
random upon
How
grotesque and
he might think how
wandering and aimless, the whole drift of talk.
This is not the manner of Shirley, of Silas
strained are these phrases
'
'
fortably at home among his works, such concluFor they have learned to
sions seems quite false.
see in Mr. Hardy an artist, obedient to the com-
mands of
had a
down
country, a
hill
fen country, a
its
own
his pride
to respect the universal laws of art, whilst
respecting the genius of place and circumstance,
it
is,
which he builds
natural
'
When in
Again, in another place
the midst of the field, a dark spot on an area of
'
primitive.'
COUNTRY FOLK
'
'
synthetic
phrase,
the
'
decisive
'
the
word,
must
'
men
to
sentences of proverbial
fruit
of a
life
of them
his
matter,
is
life :
take
it
all
COUNTRY FOLK
but it is one
viction, as that rustic sentence left
of
to
the
character in
depths
recognize
thing
:
folks
and another, to comprehend the
conditions and experiences of life, which go to
Let us remember the
its various formations.
these
'"Never."
"
thing in him."
"
Ay
bottle fellers
1
listen to."'
That poor
ink-bottle
rustics
creature,
feller,'
he
will
can
hardly,
But Mr.
both
powers required
his
and
of
own
countrydescription
interpretation
Hardy
men
alive.
has
in his
all
the
for
He knows what
the
the shrewd, the sullenness of the stupid
or
the
blows
of
which
have
fortune,
blessings
moulded character the countless details of work,
;
and
Wessex country.
of society, of religion, views
multifarious and odd, entertained there, are familiar
hand
all
The views
of
life,
to
and humourously,
the view of which Mr. Ritchie speaks or by the
quaint problem presented in the preacher's love
for so lawless a sweetheart.
The one thing of
is
the skill, with which the writer
importance
by a
in
into art.
in
these novels
state of
know
Wessex
folk
must be known,
if
you would
150
COUNTRY FOLK
in
And
life,
some
think,
In The Woodlanders and in Tess of ttte Z>' Urbervilles, Mr. Hardy avails himself, with admirable
effect, of a peculiar mode in tenures: the system
of liviers> In the woodland story, Winterborne's
tragic calamity in love, and heroism in death, are
'
rustic
ville.
among the
life
quicken wonderfully
is a common
sudden death
novelists
issue,
are
tions
these
all
become
turns in a romance, at
Through the writer's sense
critical
gentle spirit of Alan Breck, the consuming selfishness of Sir Willoughby, compose no more passionate and stirring histories, than
affairs
centre
do these homely
of
humanist.
I
'
have
used
'
labourers,' or
the
work
folk,'
out precision
these Wessex people, of whom
Mr. Hardy writes, include all varieties of class
farmers and their hinds, tradesmen in villages
:
and market towns, gamekeepers and millers, innkeepers and servants. They vary in degree from
respectability to vagabondage but all have this
:
towns at
all.
The most
152
flourishing
of them,
COUNTRY FOLK
however
alone
their
floated in
stood in a
meadow immediately
flail,
the flutter of
153
the pails
whatever
bridge.'
Under
Country
Folk,
comprehended all the miscellaneous populace of Wessex, as men attached to the soil, in the
is
mind of Mr.
if
the
dreary genius of
genius of Puritanism,
have wrought their will upon our national life,
to the souring of our tempers, and to the saddening
It
is
true,
that
frost
feast
the
the
near neighbours of Death
and the ugly country
pretty country folks
serfs.
Here is an honest Jacques Bonhomme his
children may be of the Jacquerie.
Upon the one
'
little
people,'
'
'
side,
we
154
homely
COUNTRY FOLK
pleasures, of fair
work
side, there
the cry of the poor, the peasant risings, the
In
angry, blind despair of men turned to brutes.
the days, for which Bishop Corbet sang his dirge,
:
is
days of the
1
faeries,
from Labour,
their
Toes'
many
telling of
screed,
'Attend, ye gentlemen
A story
suffer
was
writ in
hunger and
all,
proves true
oft
look
cold,
pitiful blue.
an evening bright,
to be ruddy,
Tom
fell
to give light,
into a study,
And
conscience
is
is alive.'
155
and charm
By
the story
the side of
Sir
'
'
'
labourers
The changes
indisclass.'
and
country
interior
law,
folk, to
life,
156
COUNTRY FOLK
their stupidity
Hardy's
men have
Seneca's
\
is
lesson
/!
Mr.
non
They can
:
'
see
Shallow. O, the
how many
Silence.
We
and to
living yet?
Silence.
Dead,
Sir.
157
i'
?'
particular.
'
"
And
Mrs. Cuxsom.
woman
little
too
ah,
poor soul
that
a'
minded every
'
coffin clothes
a piece of flannel that 's to put
under me, and the little piece is to put under my
head and my new stockings for my feet they
are folded alongside, and all my other things.
And there's four ounce pennies, the heaviest I
;
'
my
eyes
And open
158
'm carried
COUNTRY FOLK
out,
and make
it
"
my
Elizabeth Jane.'
"
"
Ah, poor heart
'
'
"
'
Faith,'
'
he
it,
the garden.
in
why
said,
Death
's
fourpence
we should respect 'en to that extent,' says he."
"
'Twas a cannibal deed " deprecated her
'
listeners.
' "
Gad, then,
"
it,"
to-day, and
said
Solomon
say
Sunday
wouldn't speak wrongfully for
I
silver sixpence at such a time.
don't see
Longways.
morning, and
a
no harm
in
it
To
it.
and
wouldn't
doxology
ways respectable skellintons
;
'tis
run out
to be varnished for
o'
'natomies, except
is scarce, and throats get dry.
work.
But money
Why
should death
workmen
in
159
fantastic tongue of
many
a Shakespearian fool
is not merely the
:
and the
narrative.
Elizabethan
and modern
life
before
modern modes of
necessities of industry
travel
changed them,
so
justices
Wessex
and
discovery of a people,
presented by a living artist in all the truth of
their actual life, as it veritably is
yet a people,
the
result
the
is
whom
facts,
not
fancies,
compel
Shakespearian.
It is to be observed, that these
us
to
call
Wessex
folk
mon emotions
birth
COUNTRY FOLK
three intermediate affairs of
moment
But
their
is
True it
fine, bold, rushing oratory.
Love is gone into the
as Tibullus put it,
at
country, and is learning the country speech
sentence of
'
is,
'
emotion.
The
rest
more
grand tour of 'culture, nor come home to themselves, dissipated by variety of appreciation, surfeited with the taste of too many fine interests
:
it
delights
'
hit
161
"
'
"
Ah
Ve
feeled over
and over
ho
ho
We
ho
Splendid !"...'
it
caricature
time.
first
culture, able to
range at ease
itself, is
whom
at a stay
life is
'
soil, lies
upon the
spirit is
for consideration, in
any estimate
Howe
of rural thought about matters spiritual.
can he get wisedome that holdeth the plough, and
'
162
COUNTRY FOLK
professed that he would learn to talk of runts,'
with a man who talked of them, he did not believe
'
men
of rustic
those,
influence
quickening
whose lack of
those,
by the
whose
direct
is
knowledge
supplied
somewhat
'
'
'
"
'
son
"
Egdon
And he was
I have said
fifty times, if I have said once, that I
don't believe in him.
And I don't believe in him.
But
shall
yes,
shall
continnys
'
have to go to him
have to go to him,
"
if
he 's
if this
alive.
Oh,
sort of thing
dairyman's desperation.
163
"
Conjuror
Fall,
t'
'"My
Complete
let that
Fortune-Teller,
rest
grimy volume,
in
the
house
'
in legends,
myths, magical
164
rites
such as those,
COUNTRY FOLK
with
which
the
and
sense of
and South's horror of the great tree.
old-world credulity pervades the books we hear
the voices of such haggard crones, as live for us in
:
Apart from
all
of
permanence of
and
in directing
Balliol calls,
in purify-
'underground
'
all
manner of
confused
oracles,
dubious
gross
rites,
fancies?
so
That comely service and decorous liturgy
of
and
Herbert
of
the
to
spirits
gracious
moving
Ken, so comfortable to the trained minds of
Walton and of Johnson, so stately at Whitehall
and at Oxford could it make much appeal to
The
ruder spirits and to unlettered minds?
;
became
official,
legal,
and conventional,
fecit timor
'nous humanisons
souvent
la
divinite,'
writes
Malebranche
the two tendencies, the habit of
fear and the habit of literality, unchastened by
:
and how a
So
too,
it
is
COUNTRY FOLK
fix our thoughts upon the peasant's outdegradation of spiritual faith, without
thinking of the interior sentiment so rudely
manifested.
At the least, I would apply to these
Wessex pagans,' what Burke said of the French
easy to
ward
'
'
'
God can
teach him to
any additional
The quality of a man's
in
or encouragement.'
is hard to estimate
belief
I/
'
turies
chill air.
167
"
That
'
"
'
"
believe
you
to be a chapel-member, Joseph.
I do."
'
"
'
won't say
much
for
myself
don't wish
the church, a
to the church
and
the newspaper."
'
"
They can
corroborative feeling
see,
must have
all,
it all
printed aforehand,
or,
dang
it
to say to a
"We
68
COUNTRY FOLK
worked hard
for
it,
it,
'tis.
'
you get"
Wessex
all
Throughout
poor.
to
''Twas
Mr. Hardy's
books,
be,'
is
'
'
'
in fancies
and prefigurative
superstitions,' these
man
'
'
'
:
'twas to
The Mayor
'
not, the
shape of his
patience of
is no wild
tion to sorrow
families,
that
many
had
Devon
from noble
houses
it
is
characteristic, as Tess pleaded,
of all Wessex.
These considerations explain
that monumental, that almost mortuary, look of
passionless calm in Mr. Hardy's books an air of
massive grandeur, which moulds their features,
from long pondering upon the ways of time and
:
COUNTRY FOLK
told of my
&
&
"&
that
nobody
is
wished to see
my dead
me
body.
my
at
funeral.
"&
"
that
&
my
grave.
"MICHAEL HENCHAKD."
"What are we to do?" said Donald, when he
had handed the paper to her.
She could not answer distinctly. " O Donald "
she said at last, " what bitterness lies there
But
there 's no altering so it must be."
This naked misery and mere agony, sublimed
to grandeur by endurance, seem commensurate
with the great looks and ways of nature like the
sacred madness of Lear, this aching stoicism, in
which all is petrified but one nerve of pain, escapes
1
'
'
of which Mr.
Hardy
often
avails
himself, that
new
'
:
The
vale of
Thule
and closer harmony with external things wearing
a sombreness distasteful to our race when it was
:
171
young.'
way
'
We
country
is
There
is
distracted
owe
the
and of
personality, clear
experience do
but
confirm.
Brutal,
ignorant,
of character: kindly,
still
full of distinction.
are
wise, dignified, they
Giles Winterborne and Gabriel Oak, by their
sottish, they are
still
full
duties,
them
who
men
possess
in
the culture,
their right
demanded
of
minds and
places, to
of the crowd.
In
proceeded towards his home.
approaching the door, his toe kicked something
172
COUNTRY FOLK
which
felt
and sounded
soft,
leathery,
Oak took
to kill
placed
it
it
it
the creature
uninjured, he
He knew what
this direct
And
When he
'
it.
it
led
up to a large brown
weather.
Oak
down meditating
sat
this
among them.
They were crowded
on the other
and
the first
bushes,
on
the
was
sudden
observable
that,
peculiarity
the
over
of
head
Oak's
fence,
they did
appearance
1
side
around
some
close together
furze
173
stir
or run away.
outside
these
neck.
174
COUNTRY FOLK
part
it is
tudinous
traffic,
waters
they find
men have
the innumerable
things, trees
these
society of natural
companionship
field
in creatures of
in
touched
Wessex
'
ballad
'
there
not unkind
is
very
rich,
dialect.
An
older, than
is
think
it
to be:
Fielding
tors did
not bestow
all
have to thank
my
friend,
176
COUNTRY FOLK
with the
words
'
'
diseases of language
at least,
are
dulcet
full
of
charm
and
diseases,'
they
vigour.
:
'
demands of
to reconcile the
how
'
still
and Somerset
'
:
and
how
177
'
Grammer
Oliver's
*/
THET
conversation in
his province.
paysans, si le paysan ne me
the
Abbe" Roux, of those Limousin
de"gdutait,' says
whom
he
folk,
depicts with so subtile a mingling
'J'aimerais
les
he, so reticent
and
restrained.
But of
his fidelity
in
there
is
artist.
an equal
Sitting
in
at least
Walton's
lavender in the
ballads,
honest
'
like
Tuns in Sherborne,
with bills of sale and agricultural notices
ensconced in the old settle, black or white, and
joining in talk with mine Hostess and her bluecoated gossips: many a time, I have almost
;
dreamed myself
178
COUNTRY FOLK
art,
so
thank him
of truth.
J79
burden,
is
fill
us,
while
we
read the
Wessex
soul,
stories
is
music
in us
men
humble
in a
station
an ancient world
'
'
ideas, awful
against this austerity, this iron mood, this unamiable serenity, this unbending dignity and both go
:
when they
relinquish
accustomed heights.
181
Both
zest.
when Wordsworth
living
life
the
writer's
faith.
The
sideration here
Wordsworth
is
plentiful
182
in
Mr. Hardy
who would
'
II
But both
writers,
hensions of
by loyalty
about
truth
which
they have
attachment, come
apprehensions
with a passionate
resemble each other in
things,
treasured
to
common
virtue of that
tenacity
other ;
now they
cure,
they stand in
like
ol Montesthe
first
sentence
antagonism,
sentence
of
Rousseau
and
the
first
quieu
they
;
fact
of
characteristics
the
Wordsworth
hard, apart
that he is a lyrical and a meditative
in
And it
gatherer, of Lucy, of the Highland girl.
is Wordsworth's habitual openness to certain influences, his prepossession with ideas of a certain
order, that make these characters at once so
indelible from our memories, and so elusive of
our descriptions.
This
is
true of Mr.
Hardy's
As
graces, a strict
is in
him no
liance
there
183
human
some modern
passion.
In the curious
we might
say, that
his characters are subtly coloured, or chemically
compounded, by the idiosyncrasies of his psychocritics,
As
stone, a gleam of
;
but in both there is this concentration, this intensity, signs of a certain spiritual temperament,
to be seen in a large class of strenuous minds.
Pascal, Rousseau, Obermann, Hawsome mystical theologians of Germany
Lucretius,
thorne
and Spain
philosophy and in poetry many of these communicate fine truth, gold tried in the fire others
yield only dust and ashes but, one and all, they
are men of minds too intensely strained in one
direction, to apprehend truth in its fullness and
in
184
wholeness.
salt of
common
sense,
wholesomely
Hardy
185
when once a
or to a fastidious, taste
character, or an event, or an issue
of events,
is
it
it
discomforts, an
Hardy
find
will
Streams
will not
facts of nature.
man be
represent
it.
There
he may enjoy it in
but he may not mis:
are, then,
1
86
two chief
difficulties
acters
the
way
and
method of
upon an
may be
difficulty
and with
it,
examining
characters, as he pre-
grand
the endurance of
in
dooms
upon
their
modern
two
play of
life,
definite tract
of
Kingdom
Wessex
whither
new
all,
;
in
in a
the
influences
and soul
by the
but
men
necessities of
187
^Thirdly, he surrounds
them with
men
he brings
his
file
few
of country labour.
of that stronger
men
..Fourthly,
and finer nature, his rustic heroes, into contact
women
scene
marked
of various natures
men
in character
than the
less
plainly
most
and pretty fellows
and culture but
for the
given to
its
make
when
made
there
is
to its
'
'
is
according to the
worth of the performers with that strange organ,
the human mind.
Tess was changing from
peasant ignorance and convention, when she met
Clare, changing from the conventional culture and
belief of a higher station
the woman struggling
from
the
man
superstition,
struggling free from
up
the
two
natures, breaking with the past,
prejudice
came together, she straining towards his level of
thought, he stooping to her level of life: the
It might be interresult was a tragic discord.
in
preted
many ways. Perhaps the superstitious
faith of the Durbeyfield household, and the
Calvinist faith of the Clare household, were more
nearly in accord with the essential verities of life,
than the new aims and impulses of their offspring
perhaps Tess and Clare carried right theories into
contrast,
issue,
wrong
practice
we have
perhaps
one
alone
did
so
a singular precertainly,
of
the
old and new, in
between
_sentation
struggle
various ranks of life and ranges of thought of
in this story
189
new
in
"\vilh Uie
m"eacn~case. of the
several
which
ments
in
capital
society,
England
religion, however stern,
however cruel, are vindicated in the
of
'
190
'Twas a Celebrated
Contemplation
Problem among the Ancient Mythologists, What
was the strongest thing, what the wisest, and
his
'
third
Concerning
which
'twas
and deepest
Hardy
noblest of defeats.
about
human
'
191
own
visions of truth,
writer, as
which
reverence them
reverence in
Lucretius.
in
in-
living
writer about
tranquil equability
interpretation.
Such
'
'
His three
classes,
company
Yeobright
and Smith, Julian and Swithin, Somerset and
Farfrae
a whole chapter of ecclesiastics
and
other inhabitants of Wessex.
The first class shows the immitigable strength
of Mr. Hardy at its best a comparison of Winterborne and Henchard will serve our purpose.
Winterborne was a plain countryman, skilled in
woodland lore, honest and courteous and kind, but
in no way a man of genius, in things worldly, or
in things spiritual
his chief distinction was that
refinement
and
habitual reverence, which
simple
;
of grace.
its
natural contentment
fell
in love
with a
man
borne, upon
whom
193
fell,
bore
it
man
place, Felice
abroad
emotions.
woman
husband parted
to
know
distance.
She was forced, by circumstances, to
ask the guidance of Winterborne for a little way,
to the market town, the first stage of her evening
then came a storm of rain, preventing her
flight
:
But
his
'
In
hope of success
frantic
at last,
reveal
strain
;
195
proprieties we can be amused by the arrangements of his household, and be shocked by his
:
in
hostelries
scrutinies
'
Shall
we
him?"
"
"
his soul."
"
So should
must not."
'
I,"
196
"
But we
"
Why
The conduct
of the story
is
'
characteristic of
writer's fearlessness
how
last.
We are
Winterborne's grave
cannot love,
My thoughts
The
shall be.'
character of Michael
Casterbridge, is in
Giles Winterborne.
rich
Henchard, Mayor of
contrast with
that
of
197
twenty years,
life
came
to an end, for
a tent at the
fair
some
drunk with
'
laced
for
furmity,
five
guineas.
among
and child
the third
The
Farfrae.
together,
all
in
imperious
way up
pride of
fortunes
The
will.
four actors
198
redeemed
The Mayor,
then,
his past
had
his
evitable
how Henchard
and
pursuing fate,
through that stubborn pride and passion of his
will, which had caused alike his old wrong doing,
In the inhis repentance, and his prosperity.
sanity of his jealous pride, he dismissed Farfrae,
his most faithful servant and friend, to whose
'
'
such thought.
Farfrae established
himself
in
He
for his
daughter
sailor, as
199
'
and again
his
own down-
child
three
months
after
the
In
Elizabeth- Jane was the sailor's child.
he
treated
fortification at the mockery of things,
fair
left him
come
to the
with his consent, to live with a lady
the
she
made
had
town, whose acquaintance
lady
was Lucetta, who was to become Farfrae's wife.
fell
in love
her consequent
strengthened
dislike to Henchard, by the publication of his
The furmity seller, an old woman
early crime.
with Farfrae
in
fallen
before
confirming
her.
"'
judgment
and
his
long
room
ago cashiered
or disappointed, to make
bosom friend of his
Jnfinite
Henchard,
and delicacy
in
fit
of
in offers of help
half
grim,
half
but
noble,
them
women
in
who
'
suddenness.
had
refused
Farfrae, disbelieving
Each
Now
voluntary, or, against his will, inevitable.
one thing alone remained the love of Elizabeth:
who
still
*/
her
father
remaining
among
contempt and
dislike
would be
bear,
life
intolerable.
her
When,
a stranger,
'
citizen, the
He
old
first
it
long ago.
disgrace
then,
with
bitterness
at
his
heart,
'
'
'
'
203
make no complaint
'
'
-Neapolitan
'
towards
Anne Garland
much
of Winterborne's
natural
fantastic
hills
his
figure,
as he lurks
and trenches,
lost
mistress
to surprise
among
the
Egdon
news of import to
admit.
The
Angel
Clare.
minating to class
is
'
it
be Festus, talking
Overcombe
to
liberality of mind,
205
orthodoxy of
his brothers
and
stuff;
man
freedom.
excellent
qualities,
but
qualities
alloyed
and
vowed
Some
own
of them
stocks of their
of themselves,
knew nothing
206
of her value,
till
his
homely
rival
her.
Such men
shamed
into
by mortification,
modesty by mockery of their pride
:
comment
not
prigs, than scapegraces
hearts
take
our
with
by storm,
scapegraces,
their engaging follies ; but unamiable scapegraces,
who drift and dangle into dishonour. Sergeant
this
set
are less
Who
He
and
As he
flashy proficient in the elegances of vice.
dazzled and enchaunted Bathsheba by his miracles
of sword play, in that hollow among the ferns,
was by the quick keenness and flashing
manner and speech, that he won her
and what a contrast are those displays
heart
so
it
assault of his
:
when he and
Robin, the
his wife
coffin of
Fanny
betrayed and
him
one can imagine both men, lace ruffles falling over their white hands, with an incommunicable air of elegance, insolence, and ease, the
heroes of old comedy. They would have been
at home there the one hard and brilliant as a
diamond, the other full of shallow sentiment and
charm. These men bring into Mr. Hardy's most
rural books a strain of worldliness, in the lighter
sense of that condemnation, which the word imWessex can furnish its own great crime
plies.
and sin but its casual, careless peccadilloes are
uninteresting, unless some wider experience has
touched them experience, however contemptible
and slight, some hint of superior education, some
trace of the world's bustle and business anything
:
208
Dr. Johnson the charge of flirtation, since he defines a flirt to be a pert young hussey.'
I cannot
think that any one of them is so powerfully con'
dexterity of wit,
more
research, have
gone to
their
An
tressing consequences.
Eustacia, Lucetta, Ethelberta, Bathsheba, ViviFelice, Elfride, and some of the noble
ette,
dames,
how admirable
is
lance, perversity
patience, and
natures are
demeanour
in
upon the
The
restraint.
other, of reticence,
violent or ambitious
proud
in their
bearing
they
209
more
suffer,
refined
but
the
and
in silence
strength.
of any other
'
of
to come.
Thus
far,
Egdon
she
is
In bitter
not the tragic chances of the stage.
contrast with her ideals, she has but the wretched
wastes of Egdon, the stupid labourers, the maddening unworldliness of the wilderness and she
:
knew Weymouth
in
earlier
days.
Just as that
looks and a
little
education.
all
the world
contrasted
'
Egdon reduced
suffer.
Imperiales fantaisies,
des somptuositds
Amour
Voluptueuses fr&isies,
Reves d'impossibilites
'
!
'
It is difficult for
woman
to define
'
211
away
Elfride
for the
when
left
is
impression
the
upon
reader
by these
Elfride
'
falseness of
bold
Fancy Day,
in
accepting Mr.
May-
'
least,
213
life
just as
wit,
and
the
tained by an emotional
whose
in
intellect
Lady
'
less
is
inimitable.
It is a relief to turn
characters
from these to
women
to
like
less disquieting
Anne
who,
Garland,
could reconcile dignity with sweetness
of whom
it could be said
beneath all that was charming
and simple in this young woman there lurked a
real firmness, unperceived at first, as the speck of
colour lurks unperceived in the heart of the palest
:
'
'
'
214
parsley flower.'
it
charm of
'
that
Faith.
It
more
stable natures, net rocking in a perpetual indecision nor yet, by the alternative perfection, motion:
less
old Assyria
'
:
to
stantiated him.'
'
bewilderment of
they do not
into danger
such perfect
women gives them a curious grace of courage and
they shape their sorrows into finer forms, than do
Mr. Hardy's art in his presentations of
men.
women, whatever be their natures, might well
draw to him readers, whom Wessex does not win
or indignity.
love,
A certain manliness
fall
in
epigram.
recent success,
New
woman,
in the first
in
conscience there.
identical
common
The
circumstances of
life
there
216
is
no
repetition
and
allowed himself
satire, to
An
if it
evill spirit,
his Idea
Drayton to
'Thus
By
It
am
this
were
till
good wicked
a
mistake,
to
attribute
malice
to
There
is an attractive set of
youths, as characof Mr. Hardy's books, as Marius, Sebastian,
Gaston, are characteristic in the works of Mr.
teristic
Pater
who with
a simpli-
combine
an energy, often artistic, which has raised them
to another level.
Somerset, Owen Graye, and
Smith, are architects
Christopher Julian is a
musician Swithin St. Cleeve is an astronomer
Yeobright is an idealist upon ways of life and
city native to the soil, a literal humility,
217
thought
moving
Farfrae
gift
is
an
commerce, with a
They have a
artist in
young musician
in love is
Greek
also.
'
His habit
surprised to behold
what
It
'
'
draw
commonly with
218
the result,
that
attracted wrongly.
genius, apparent in
and through
their youthful-
also,
At
Such, then are a few of Mr. Hardy's chief charand what a multitude of others throng his
Wessex
He has dispossessed it of the living, to
acters
it
people
of literature in Dorset
fail
In
full
we
Dorset Downs' with Young, under
the north-east,
of
rather, the
Thomson's
Dodington,
patron,
'
on
the auspices
Browning's
victim
we
'
'
'
'
'
Creech in the south-west, we forget that Wordsworth wrote his dreadful tragedy at Race:
down,
first
219
that Mill in
Bentham
at
Ford
Abbey
that
Wyatt
down
that
off
the
Bill,
it
is
lived, at
when
Anne
Upon
but
we remember.
and Raleigh
died,
Sherborne. On Portland,
of Wordsworth's brother,
last great
under
sonnet
it
was the
Mr.
English
storm
off
is
more
in
our
Hardy's
Swanage,
minds. If we think of George III., at sight of
that equestrian monarch cut in chalk by Osmingearth
last
his
feet
Weymouth,
but
it is
less
'
'
to Mr. Hardy.
The
power
sundry gentlemen, who have no great parts to play even
Knight, who is of vital importance in the story of
and
Elfride
comedy
Lady Constantine's
with
her
a husband in the
provides
of
the
Baron
Melchester
Von Xanten,
Bishop
and
are
not
characters,
mysterious
dyspeptic
brother,
who
220
whom
others,
He was
'
more
Knight,
:
he
at
in particular,
so dryly real,
Like the
interesting.
is
many
beside,
of masculine
become united
due
that process
a divorce.
:
able of
stern
Calvinists
whom young
baptism, for
the Bishop of Melchester, so cruelly fooled in his
marriage Mr. Swancourt, a genial aristocrat with
:
the
gout,
beneficed
at
others,
the criticisms of their flocks.
Fitzgerald, in angry
about Dorsetshire to Carlyle and to Mr.
Tennyson, describes the two main kinds of country
The one
parson, with whom Mr. Hardy deals.
has a touch of Parson Trulliber, and a touch of
letters
221
Adams
quaint and humourous,' Fitzgerald calls such an one, quiet and saturnine
a poor Rector in one of the most out-of-the-way
Parson
'
'
'
'
it.'
much
fats
and
home and
But he
also
'
found Dorset
villagers of Mellstock
clerical duty.
'"
Why he
'
'
'
this perfect
when
house is in a muddle
walking about
and making quaint impossible suggestions in
academic phrases, till your flesh creeps and you
wish them dead.'
The rural clergy in these
Wessex novels provide admirable mirth, and
one's
quite good-humoured.
It is a rare praise, to say of a
book that
it
is
it
222
many,
in
nature,
'
'
Temper,
too, in his
of Judgement.'
example of
sanity, of beauty,
223
and of strength.
VI
SINCERITY IN ART
'
Well,
am
sure
to
do that with
practice.'
It is often asserted, that practice has made most
English novelists perfect in this art of omission,
air,
'
right
reason would
assign
224
to
the
contending.
SINCERITY IN ART
work
and the
claims
of
the
imagination,
constraining morality
and the claims of creative desire, are in persistent
elements in
'
artistic
In
the senses
the
'
'
mistiness
or that
art and morals have nothing in common
one must give way to the other. These theories
might be rational in Utopia, and lucid in a Land
of the Fourth Dimension they are inexpressibly
meaningless, here and now. Not even music, that
art so independent of matter, is disconnected from
the great Greek critics of art and
morality
morals would have been astounded at that notion.
So long as art proceeds from, and appeals to, men
of a whole and harmonious nature, art must
express that wholeness and that harmony an
:
artist is
structure,
forbidden, by
dissociate
to
aesthetics
his
ethics
from his
by bread
in
thought and
'
And
his
Not a few
engaged
idiot,
in
those
upon
is
'
'
These suspicious
and suspected persons, could we believe them,
was an ingredient
carnality
are
Swift's age,
'
'
by
against him.'
and
catholicity of taste
is
them both
226
We
or
or
SINCERITY IN ART
these days
no Arnold
left
those,
who preach
more
it
and grave
'
quackery
afraid of truth.
'
The
compose
'
227
soothing, comfortable
remarks
may
strain.
be made.
works
against his
Upon
this,
if
the
taste
public
two
cannot
it.
be
By
no obligation
Secondly, it is not
enjoy poor art, provided that the
enjoyer do not enjoy it for artistic reasons let us
consider the example of Darwin. In early life, he
loved great poetry, painting, and music immersed
in scientific studies, he lost those tastes, and
loathed the great arts the dullness of Shakespeare nauseated him. But, on the other hand,
to
like
it.
criminal to
'
'
'
'
'
228
SINCERITY IN ART
wonderful
relief
often
and of pain
the physical
in
order
pleasant,
about happy
charming, trifling inventions,
writers of
the
Had
people and fortunate events.
these stories prefaced them by saying, that they
contained a ripe philosophy of life, the mature
fruits of wise consideration, Darwin would not
have been deceived
but his favourite novelists
made no such pretensions. They pourtrayed life
in bright colours
they wrote fictions, not facts
all
their
aim was
incidents of
life,
and so
229
men, that
From
momentous facts.
The majority of men and women turn from their
work and occupation, in the same spirit, to the
pursuit of hard, inexorable, and
amusement
things.
things?
that,'
is
in
'Why do you
Life
is
melancholy enough
without
a
The
cheery,
trivial stories
artist in
sad
all things,
And
glad or
Dr. Johnson
they have great allies
said to Mrs. Sheridan
I know not, Madam, that
you have a right, upon moral principles, to make
and Arnold has
your readers suffer so much
immortalized that saying of Joubert about the
soul's cry, 'You hurt me
Even Mr. Hardy has
:
'
'
'
when Bentley
'
230
SINCERITY IN ART
we do
of
'
be allowed to think
the principle
But I must
an hard task, to discern
far.
common
To take
sense, let
a famous
instance:
'On my
prospect.
are perished
minished
and shaken
How is
How are
And now
unius mulierculae
tanto opere commoveris ?' The futile elegance of those sentiments,
set to sonorous phrases, after a sentimental
animula
si
iactura facta
in
esf,
journey
is
In that, there
is
tastes,
no
thought or of invention, no
to
pandering
prejudice or to preference of any
kind.
His last book shows his courage and
mutilation of
conscientiousness
for
we may
well consider
that
is,
his
love
for
'
the note of
revolt.'
'
The
unreconciled to
life
'
:
Was
232
way
Sumner enabling
;
to wealth, to
wind
SINCERITY IN ART
monument
Throughout Mr.
burns with a passionate
sometimes to a white
to revolt wrongly.
must be considered
common
may prove
the eternal
in
remedies
worse than the diseases.
Here islhe sober counsel of one who, like his own
Heine, was a Knight in the War of Liberation
Dissolvents of the old European systems of
dominant ideas and facts we must all be, all of us
:
'
to study
of
at
'
it.'
old
wisdom
233
all
the
is
the
'
is
of great revolutionaries.
Contemplate Socrates in
and Dante in exile contrast them with
Shelley and with Byron. There is nothing more
pathetic, and nothing more triumphant, than the
figure of Socrates, drawn by his disciple in the
Crito Socrates is urged to fly from prison, and to
take refuge in Thessaly the laws have condemned
an innocent man why should he respect them,
and not rather save a life, full of light and
strength to many ? But Socrates hears the voice
:
prison,
Laws murmuring
of the
in his ears
'
:
Will you
fly
Will you
Thessaly, the land of disorder?
break our commands, because men have used us
wrongly? Will you return evil for evil? Will
to
solemn meditations, his 'contemplation everywhere of the sun and stars,' issued in the most
perfect poem of an universal harmony modern
:
234
SINCERITY IN ART
doubts and
'
sign
silence
:
Most
many should
may sometimes
'
learn
in
suffering,'
that
But the
human
flippancy
life is
235
The
'
novels,
much
contains so
books.
refusal
to
own
moral,
At
help of epigrammatic hints.
imitations
read
like
modern
times, they
quaint,
of those marginal glosses, which adorn the
without
the
Pilgrim's
'
fidelity to
him,
among hard
by the
who
seducer, in a revulsion of
SINCERITY IN ART
the
mighty tragedies.
illustrations fail
:
Oresteia
does not.
Pure Woman faithfully Presented,'
writes Mr. Hardy upon his title page the second
and fourth words would be the better for some
definition.
Let us set down, for consideration,
some passages from the book.
The Durbeyfield household is described, with
'
these comments.
passengers
in
the
'
All
these
young
Durbeyfield
souls were
ship
entirely
dependent on the judgment of the two Durbeyfield adults for their pleasures, their necessities,
If the heads
their health, even their existence.
of the Durbeyfield household chose to sail into
degradation,
death, thither were these half-dozen little captives
under hatches compelled to sail with them six
creatures, who had never been
for life on any terms, much
wished
they
less if they wished for it on such hard conditions
as were involved in being of the shiftless house of
helpless
asked
little
if
237
is
'
'
\f
V>
Y
i/>
\jX. \^
y
'
'
Xjjjf
is
so unfor-
'
SINCERITY IN ART
whom
any other.
'But this encompassment of her own characterization, based on shreds of convention, peopled
by phantoms and voices antipathetic to her, was
a sorry and mistaken creation of Tess's fancy,
a cloud of moral hobgoblins by which she was
terrified without reason.
It was they that were
out of harmony with the actual world, not she.
Walking among the sleeping birds in the hedges,
watching
the
f
'
difference.
quite in accord.
'
239
/t
Her baby
dies
'
:
law
'
Almost at a leap
time has passed
Tess thus changed from simple girl to complex
woman. Symbols of reflectiveness passed into
her face, and a note of tragedy at times into her
'
Some
soul that of a woman whom the turbulent experiences of the last year or two had quite failed to
demoralize. But for the world's opinion those
them by crueU&aurje!s-law
an emotion which_
The
they had neither expected' nor desired.
.
240
SINCERITY IN ART
its
them
to a killing joy
the
through
her fellow-creatures
universe itself only came
her existence
all
The
existed, to her.
into being for Tess on the particular
particular year in which she was born.
day
in
the
was
felt
1
home
foreign
and uncongenial.
futilely
content to palliate.'
Tess at
last
kissed
'
agreed at
pervades
first.
all
The
creation, that
sways humanity
to
its
Nature.'
Tess
was
hanged
for
killing
her
seducer
Immortals
(in
SINCERITY IN ART
all this
wronging of
social
law
came that
ment
'
:
its
The view of
Phidias
may
produce such
faces.
men
243
feel.
That old-fashioned revelling in the
situation
general
grows less and less possible as
we uncover the defects of natural law, and see the
quandary that man is in by their operation.'
children
life
when
situation
becomes
this causes
In France
it
may
be.'
his
Swithin,
the
his sickness,
new comet
'
:
his
example
244
affords another
SINCERITY IN ART
the sovereign body, which, operating so wonderfully in elastic natures, and more or less in all,
modern
taste
now
it was relished in
and of Elizabeth but a
relishes, as
its
'
'
'
'
'
It is
Dorset labourers, Mr. Hardy observes
among such communities as these that happiness
:
will find
them that a
at
its
human
245
me
'
:
how
as Goethe said of
Marlowe's Faustus.
But gradually, difficulties,
unfelt under the first spell of enchauntment, begin
to appear it were unjust to Mr. Hardy to ignore
them. Doubtless, there is something prosaic in
scrutinizing, with unmoved tranquillity, the argument of so piteous a story why not accept its
all
is
it
largely
planned
passion of
it
and
simple, beauty
;
where the
places,
its
writer's
personal
convictions
the Oresteia
is
its
vindication.
I doubt, whether we should all have received quite the same moral to prevent any such
'perverse' resistance to his intended moral, Mr.
hearts
indubitable
The
and obscure.
246
art.
SINCERITY IN ART
In
art,
nothing
is
more
difficult
than to turn
irrecoverable
whole book.
or hear
own
a mistake
is
Hugo may
logic,
247
in another.
from his
narration
they are
of nature, law,
society,
coarse, doubtless,
we
now
who
'
the right of
the individual to general haziness,' would feel
most unhappy, confronted with the great Doctors,
Many
misty persons,
248
exercise
SINCERITY IN ART
the
the
Subtile,
Irrefragable,
the
Special,
the
his
and none
conventions of society about sexual commerce. Nature's law is cruel exciting sensations,
which cannot be gratified
and desires, which
for the
civilization
cannot
justify.
Tess
felt
herself
condemned by an
'
'
pleasure in it
seduction and
been but
nature
is
'
full
of recuperative power
249
does not
power extend to
lost
are
that
maidenhood
After
supreme
jest of
I
know not, who can lie under a stronger
necessity to realize the sorrow of the world, than
a Catholic but he lies under no obligation to
:
in
will
inconsistencies.
or of
well
propound
'
his difficulties
SINCERITY IN ART
That eats her children, should not have ears and eyes.
Philosophy maintains that Nature 's wise,
And forhis no useless or unperfect thing.
Did Nature make the earth, or the earth Nature ?
For earthly dirt makes all things, makes the man,
Moulds me up honour, and like a cunning Dutchman,
Paints me a puppet even with seeming breath,
And gives a sot appearance of a soul
Go to, go to thou liest, Philosophy.
Nature forms things unperfect, useless, vain.
Why made she not the earth with eyes and ears ?
That she might see desert, and hear men's plaints
That when a soul is splitted, sunk with grief,
:
of earth
Exclaiming thus,
And
And
me
'
'
'
'
'
251
'
'
when
is
it
in truth divesting
and reducing
judices,
state of nature.
Oh
it
to
nature
its
!
'
of pure nature
Thus Alciphron, in the manner
of Mr. Squeers upon the same theme and thus
'You seem very much
Euphorion, in answer.
!
Whereat Alciphron
falls into
the prettiest
away from
SINCERITY IN ART
expedient laws
'
'
Hardy's position.
arbitrary,' in
development
253
be to blame.
cannot blame
Society, unless
it
it
commit
suicide
must be God.
'
pax
gods are at
revile
rest in
some
But that
'
rhetoric
Catoni*
victa
'
'
(in
Tess.'
It is characteristic of Mr. Hardy to quote the
Prometheus: that one play of ^Eschylus, which
1
This chapter was written before, and has not been altered
Mr. Hardy's new preface to Tess.
254
SINCERITY IN ART
may
man.
'
Do
you not
You
see,
asks Browning
./Eschylus, for
'
but Mr.
'
Hardy has
nursery children
'
;
even
left
'
am
is
pessimism perfected.
But
PrometJuo !
parum
Recta
tion, that
and
sin is
punishment, free-will,
compelled to sin that
will
that punishment is
255
That no man
act
of a bad
the
fate.
sin,
is
that suffering
is
discipline
too strong
that no inherited tendency to sin
for a good will
that with God is no caprice nor
tyranny all this is the faith of millions to-day.
is
is
no
literature
quanta poena
As Herbert
said,
the 'divine
'
'
life's
poore span
place
man upon
is
to
particular
and
also
to
ignore
difficulties
256
SINCERITY IN ART
'
reasonableness, replied
Jc crois bien qu'en effet
That is practically Mr. Hardy's
je le supprime.'
answer and his view of conscience is scarce more
:
which
seizes
of the
heart,
a childish misconception
ideas, to
'
'
in 'a
As
cool self-love.'
in
illustrate,
sentence of
it
her darkling
Leo
XIII.
conscience, a great
Ita magnam in animis
'
'
woman
nobody
frankly.'
is thinking but
be
taken
up and treated
saying might
But there is little advantage to be
R
257
'Men cannot
'
savages
'
like the
'
it
And
elementary principles.'
also has discovered, that
'
men
his
of
life
design
fact, that
same, as
knew
yet
in
may be
'
'
'
society.'
Lucretius
SINCERITY IN ART
concord
social
but
Homo
to nature
saw
'
res
the
in
Aristotle at least
with
another phrase, that 'man is by nature a social
animal
just as Burke declared him to be 'a
phrase
inconsistent
nothing
'
religious
animal.'
It
was reserved
for
dis-
better
known
to our
youth
of pure
'
which is acquired
and Angel
part and parcel of outdoor nature
at
farm
in
the
Var
Vale, experienced
Clare,
dairy
an aesthetic, sensuous, pagan pleasure in natural
the latter phrase
life
and lush womanhood
'
'
'
259
This
material mankind, preserve their charm.
from
the
firm
declension
hardly won,
ground
seeming
of social concord this lust after ruinous and abandoned ways compel a melancholy anger. To what
end has the human race discovered, through ages
of strife and struggle, the better way if, provoked
by its imperfections, men are to fall back into the
But the sanctions of Christian
old confusions?
ethics
of Christian civility, are somethe
marriage,
thing stern, you say, and austere They are do
you expect much softness and much ease in an
honourable life ? Boethius was wiser
;
'
may
we miss
It is little
the force of
some
hindrance to
us,
term
in
rhetorical
Seneca
for the
word
many
same
but
in this
where Tace
places,
by Mr. Hardy
Abelard sang.
in
SINCERITY IN ART
polite doctrine
'
:
Nous devons
a 1'Eternel
la vertu
comme
reprise
'
is
tempted
Herr Gott
dem Spass
'
It
hard, to feel
is
bitter a
book
it is
to share
my
view of it
sentiment, often
'
'
'
devriez
tin
peu vous
faire
apprendre
261
le
choses."
chose
The
Mercy, observed
moral that would be drawn up by the author may
be conjectured from the title of the book that
which will be drawn by many of its readers may
be summed up in the comfortable doctrine of Hans
called
Recommended
'
to
Carvel's wife,
" That if weak
women went
In truth,
astray,
in fault
we much doubt
than they."
wisdom
the
or
the
morality of drawing fictitious portraits of nobleminded and interesting sinners, by way of teaching us to feel for the sinner while
the sin.'
we condemn
'
'
SINCERITY IN ART
a knife,
we
are led
to look
upon
as an
her,
society demands
her punishment, in reparation and in self-defence
but, since she was at the mercy of her inherited
inheritor of ancestral passions
Certainly,
unmoved
'
Ne
pardon.
story,
and be
So she seems
:
our
lo son fatta
Che
life
and
pity
and to take
for epitaph
and
my dust,
'Weep
To Love and Fate an equal
only o'er
say,
Here
lies
sacrifice.'
'
Not
'
as to be forced
to
a mechanical destiny.
There
is
she
fulfilled
nothing tragic
in that,
'
'
Tragedie
is
And
The tragedy
pity and
and fear
'
'
'
it
'
'
'
of passions
all
the
'
room
is
left
'
for
them
in
Belluine Liberty
SINCERITY IN ART
and Brutish
Force.'
It
may
be urged, that
'
tragedy
in the
come
girl,
Is
'
can find
whom
in
it
cinis f
tedious to amuse.
It
is
oblivious
not
cheerful
and
partial
acquiescence
view of
it,
in
that have
life,
an
marked
265
and
lost,
as
it
whatever
creator.
I am
polytheist, when I looked into the world.
speaking for myself only; and I am far from
denying the real force of the arguments in proof
of a God, drawn from the general facts of human
266
SINCERITY IN ART
society
do not
warm me
rejoice.
'
of
to the facts of
life,
made
that
impossible, for
it
story,
it
Newman,
to
is
read
it
to her fate
vehement
of her
temptations circumstances may be against her
always the conflict will be an agony between
the world and the will. Like Marty South, she
inherited
impulses,
:
267
abettors
'
'
of adverse circumstances.
Thomas a Kempis
whom
among
'
268
SINCERITY IN ART
or, at
Hardy's art
Blougram
'
We
in equilibrium
Tess
is
keep
aside,
rustic casuist of
Wessex puts
it.
Much
hostile
literature
of
new
all
things human,'
me for a
disqualify
will
in
battle
269
than they
artists,
who
age
or,
fin de siede.
much
with
in nature
'
mere
universal death
'
:
but
was
of
clear
all
difference of colour
angle with the meridian.
in the stars
oftener read of than seen in England
To
270
SINCERITY IN ART
The poetry
and abiding.
of motion is a
and to enjoy the epic form
phrase
of that gratification it is necessary to stand on
a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having
first expanded with a sense of difference from the
vivid
much
in use,
'
grand.'
The imaginary picture of the sky as the concavity of a dome whose base extends from horizon
1
is
and
wish
271
There is a size
on there is a
'
at
size
So am
who
exert their
imaginative
'
'
'
'
ness,
and
wish
to
remain
Of
so,
leave
the
the sciences,
astronomy
deserves the character of the terrible.'
alone.
the truth of
all
all
study of
it alone
This
is
'
or perhaps,
'
And
yet,
there
falls
total darkness'
also, chilling its
SINCERITY IN ART
It is in
die.
we
the
feel
with horror.
matter
et
And
'
There
is something in the
immensity of this distance that shocks and overwhelms the imagination
it is too big for the grasp of a human intellect
estates, provinces,
at
its
Lucretius also deplored, how the contemplation of Nox et noctis signa severa may bring
enlightened minds back to the superstitions of
whilst the infinite spaces did but terrify
religion
presence.'
Pascal.
lay
upon
his death-
first
chapters of
him
Far from
the
Madding
'
'
'
'
and
that,
'
'
because
'Tis
Heart.'
274
men
of
'
souls
'
:
trudging
Wessex
SINCERITY IN ART
peasant
'charm the
Hardy, with
heart.'
their
if
'
style,
275
sadness.
its
woods.and
dealwth
hand, to
but
painful
and unessential
:
276
THOMAS HARDY
A BIBLIOGRAPHY
[18651894]
BY
JOHN LANE
C-
PREFACE
THE
my
the
bibliography
adding for reason that I
paragraphists
was experiencing great difficulties in identifying a number of Mr. Hardy's early papers on
architectural subjects, contributed to professional
Co.,
in
America,
PREFACE
The
little
I had
was a
leaven of
must be found
book
by the
critics to
each
in its turn.
the
necessity of enumerating
in
the
seems to
me
in
first
have
And
PREFACE
whole of the
poems, and
am
which
bowdlerised,
appeared,
man's Magazine
November
courtesy
sketch of William Barnes's
Athenaum on October
Any
Gentle-
Mr. Hardy's
1875.
to a
has
also
extended
respect
in
in this
The
in
life
published in The
i6th, 1886.
volume,
will
be gratefully
acknowledged.
In conclusion,
for
have to express
others
Mr. Clement K.
my
me by
Shorter,
Dr.
thanks
amongst
Garnett,
JOHN LANE.
THE ALBANY, LONDON, W.,
August 1894.
(unsigned).
vn
DESPERATE REMEDIES. A
NOVEL.
'
Though
individual
is
in
nature,
Brothers,
vi 274.
Second Edition.
REMEDIES
DESPERATE
THOMAS HARDY
NOVEL
By
'
of
reality.'
SIR W.
PP- 384-
PREFATORY NOTE.
The following story, the first published by the author, was
written nineteen years ago, at a time when he was feeling his way
The principles observed in its composition are, no
doubt, too exclusively those in which mystery, entanglement, surto a method.
prise,
January
in America.
1889.
Third Edition.
DESPERATE REMEDIES
THOMAS HARDY
etc.
villes,'
adventures
is
A NOVEL
By
'
arti-
mere
viii
384.
IX
'
don
1872.
215
8 Catherine
RURAL
Tinsley Brothers,
Two
In
Desperate Remedies.'
Author
By
Volumes Lonthe
St.,
Post 8vo.
Strand.
|
Vol. L, pp.
Second Edition.
TREE. A RURAL
'
342.
17 Illustrations.
Third Edition.
RURAL
'
'
Piccadilly.
1878.
This Edition
differs
in the title-
is
substituted, in 1892.
A PAIR OF BLUE
HARDY,
'
Author of
|
Desperate Remedies,' et
'
'
.
|
No
more.'
London
In Three Volumes.
8 Catherine
tion
PP-
St.,
and reproduction
33 v
;
l-
1873.
Tinsley Brothers,
VoL
reserved^ Post 8vo.
Vol. III., pp. 262.
is
PP- 3 11
II-i
Strand.
I.,
')
'
'
A NOVEL. By.|
EYES.
Author of Far from the Madding
A PAIR OF BLUE
THOMAS HARDY,
Crowd, 'etc.
'
'
A violet
No
more.'
&
Co., London.
1877.
Henry
King
With a Frontispiece by M. E. E.(dwards).
S.
Post
The same Edition was afterwards sold by Kegan Paul & Co.,
who succeeded to the publishing business of Henry S. King & Co.,
and by them transferred in June 1884 to Sampson Low & Co., by
whom
in
xi
'A
Author of
|
Eyes,'
Twelve
Illustrations.
In
|
Smith, Elder
&
By
Pair of Blue
Co.,
Tree,'
Two
15,
With
etc.
|
Volumes. London
Waterloo Place. 1874.
II.,
Helen Paterson.
Cornhill Magazine, vols. xxix. and xxx., Jan. to Dec. 1874,
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. (Unsigned.) 12
Illustrations
by H. Paterson (Mrs.
Wm.
Allingham).
'
Third Edition
By
'
Eyes,'
Waterloo Place
vii
1877
&
407.
xii
Gentleman's Magazine.;
55 2 -5S5
Wessex
vol.
xv.,
November
1875, PP-
THOMAS HARDY.
Xlll
COMEDY
CHAPTERS
By
THOMAS HARDY
Author of
London
|
Waterloo Place
IN
Far
Vitse post-scenia
In
Illustrations
|
Two Volumes
'
Smith,
Elder,
&
Co., 15
8vo.
May
1876,
trations
xxxiii.,
July 1875 to
12 Illus-
by George du Maurier.
Second Edition
(first
one-volume edition).
COMEDY
CHAPTERS
By
THOMAS HARDY
New
Lucretius
celant
London
Place
|
8vo, pp.
1877
vii
post-scenia
With Six
Illustra-
tions
Vitse
etc.
Edition
IN
Author of 'Far
|
Smith, Elder,
[All rights
&
Co., 15 Waterloo
reserved]
Large crown
412.
&
Co., 1878.
Transferred
xiv
HARDY
Author
of
'
Crowd,'
'Far
And
To
from
By
THOMAS
the
Madding
sorrow
She
She
me dearly ;
so constant to me, and so kind.
loves
is
And
But ah
so leave her,
is so constant and so kind.'
she
In Three Volumes
15 Waterloo Place
8vo.
Vol.
London
&
Smith, Elder,
Co.,
I.,
1878
HARDY.
2 Illustrations
NATIVE, by THOMAS
by Arthur Hopkins.
Author
'
from
And
'Far
of
To
By
the
THOMAS
Madding
sorrow
And
But ah
so leave her,
is so constant and so kind.'
she
XV
New
Edition,
Kegan Paul
&
with
Co.,
Frontispiece.
i
viii)
London
Paternoster Square.
:
|
C.
1880.
|
412.
Transferred to
xvi
New
x. (Chatto &
Windus),
October 1878, pp. 315-378, AN INDISCREIN THE LIFE OF AN HEIRESS, by THOMAS
April to
TION
HARDY.
Part
I.,
pp. 3 1 5-347
Part
II.,
347-378.
(Not reprinted.}
30, 1878.
DIALECT IN NOVELS.
story,
"The
element
diverting
(Not elsewhere
xvu
reprinted.}
New
(Not
reprinted.}
XV11I
THE TRUMPET-MAJOR A
TALE By THOMAS
London Smith, Elder
HARDY
&
In Three Volumes
Co., 15
1880
|
VoL
Waterloo Place
Post 8vo.
served]
[All rights
Vol.
pp. vi 295;
I.,
reII.,
Good Words,
by
THOMAS HARDY.
32
THE TRUMPET-MAJOR,
Illustrations
by
John
Collier.
Second Edition.
THE TRUMPET-MAJOR A
TALE By THOMAS
HARDY Author of Far from the Madding Crowd,'
New and cheaper Edition London Sampson
etc.
|
'
&
Low, Marston,
Searle,
reserved]
Crown
Reprinted by Sampson
Low
XIX
&
March
A LAODICEAN
HARDY,
STANCYS.
|
Crowd,'
Volumes.
&
Vol.
Post 8vo.
[All rights reserved.]
Vol. III., pp. 269.
pp. 312; Vol. II., pp. 275
1881.
I.,
HARDY.
du Maurier.
13 Illustrations by George
Second Edition.
A LAODICEAN;
STANCYS.
'
&
xx
Co., Jan.
By THOMAS
HARDY, Author of Far from the Madding Crowd,'
'The Trumpet-Major,' etc.
In Three Volumes.
London
Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & RivCrown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street. 1882.
ingtou,
|
'
pp. 246
I.,
by
THOMAS HARDY.
Second Edition,
that the date
is
1883.
TWO ON A TOWER. A
ROMANCE. By THOMAS
HARDY, Author of Far from the Madding Crowd,'
The Trumpet Major,' etc.
Ah, my heart her eyes and she
|
'
'
'
Have
Whatever
set,
'Tis in the
If poor
CRASHAW
Love's Horoscope.
Third Edition.
Searle
&
Reprinted by Sampson
1890,
Low &
1893.
June
TWO ON A TOWER.
Author of
wood
'
By
THOMAS HARDY,
Pair of Blue Eyes,' Under the GreenFar from the Madding Crowd,' ' The
'
'
Tree,'
Return of
|
London
:
|
Ludgate
etc., etc.
57 & 59
1882.
All rights reserved. Part I.,
Part IV., 8vo, pp. 59-78; Part V.,
|
Hill.
|
8vo, pp. 21
The above
Museum, but
XX11
made
in
order to
is the collation
following
The
MAID.
are
you
a-milking,
NOVEL,
going,
sir,'
my
she
Munro, Publisher,
Crown
By THOMAS HARDY.
pretty
said.
|
17 to
<
|
Where
'I'm going
maid?'
New York:
George
27 Vandewater Street.
|
xxiu
Longman's Magazine, vol. ii., July 1883, THE DORSETSHIRE LABOURER (article), by THOMAS HARDY, pp.
252-269.
xxiv
THE
:
|
LIFE
MAN OF CHARACTER. By
AND DEATH OF A
THOMAS HARDY, Author of 'Far from the Madding
I
In Two Volumes.
Crowd,' 'A Pair of Blue Eyes/etc.
Elder
&
London
Co., 15 Waterloo Place,
Smith,
|
1886.
Post 8vo.
Vol.
I.,
pp.313; Vol.
STORY
MAN
By THOMAS HARDY
New Edition London Sampson Low, Marston,
Searle & Rivington
Crown Buildings, 188 Fleet
Crown 8vo,
St., E.G.
1887
[All rights reserved]
OF A
OF CHARACTER
pp. 432.
The
bastard-title
and
and
title
i, 2,
3,
4.
Reprinted by Sampson
November
Low &
Co., October
1889,
this
volume by permission.}
XXV
THE WOODLANDERS
By
THOMAS HARDY
In
|
I.,
pp.
Macmillan's Magazine,
April 1887,
THE WOODLANDERS
Author
of
London
1887
By
'The Mayor of
THOMAS HARDY)
Casterbridge,'
and
|
etc.
New York
Reserved.
Crown
Reprinted 1889.
xxvi
is
Macmillan
and
rights reserved
In
etc.
Woodlanders,'
Co.
Two Volumes
and New York
Globe 8vo.
Vol.
I.,
London
|
1888
All
|
pp. 347
Vol.
212.
II., pp.
Contents of Vol.
I.
The
WESSEX TALES
By
THOMAS HARDY
'
Reprinted 1893.
New
New
THREE
pp. 30-48.
xxvin
THE WITHERED
March
THE WAITING
17,
SUPPER, by THOMAS
HARDY
HARDY,
pp. 57-70.
(Not
reprinted.}
xxix
New
CANDOUR IN
ii., Article,
WALTER
BESANT.
II. By
By
III. By THOMAS HARDY, pp.
ENGLISH FICTION.
E. LYNN LINTON.
vol.
I.
15-21.
IN
Magazine,
New
ENGLISH FICTION
A Symposium.
xxx
CANDOR
By WALTER
LYNN LINTON. III. By
I.
THE MELANCHOLY
THE MARQUIS OF
HUSSAR
Respectively by
LORNE, K.T. MRS. ALEXANDER THOMAS HARDY
To
NOT To BE
OR
BE,
London
Crown
by
THOMAS HARDY,
pp. 151-211.]
xxxi
A GROUP OF
HARDY
Wessex
That
NOBLE DAMES
By THOMAS
The First Countess of
House of Grebe
The
Stonehenge Lady Mottisfont, The
to say
Barbara of the
is
Marchioness of
'.
Rain
Z''Allegro.
Publishers' Device
\
Osgood,
London.
M'llvaine
1891.
(vi)
271.
Illustrations
The
pp. 217-222.
PRELIMINARY
A GROUP
OF
A COLUMN.
This
xxxii
make
series.
'The
with
it
tales.
i.
ii.
iii,
iv.
v.
The Lady
Maltster
vi.
Lady
'
in the vol.
Member.
volume, with
The sequence
XXXlll
New Review,
304-319.
April 1891,
I.
WALTER BESANT,
HARDY,
THE SCIENCE OF
By PAUL BOURGET,
pp.
305-315.
FICTION, pp.
II. By
By THOMAS
pp. 304-309.
III.
pp. 315-319.
Eclectic
pp. 854-856.
XXXIV
TESS
OF THE D'URBERVILLES
WOMAN
FAITHFULLY PRESENTED BY
HARDY In Three Volumes
|
'.
A PURE
THOMAS
My
bosom
as a
bed
W. SHAKSPEARE.
8vo.
Vol.
I.,
pp.
(viii)
264
Vol.
pp.
II.,
(viii)
278
TESS
OF THE D'URBERVILLES
WOMAN
HARDY
THOMAS
'
.
A PURE
FAITHFULLY PRESENTED BY
My bosom
as a
bed
W. SHAKSPEARE.
Publisher? Device All Rights Reserved (and on
c
back of title-page} James R. Osgood,
llvaine
\
Co.,
45
Contains,
Albemarle Street
|
besides
Edition, a
four pages,
the
London,
explanatory
XXXV
&
1892
Edition,' of
frontispiece,
Crown
8vo, pp.
519.
xlix.
Magazine, New York, June 1891, THE MIDNIGHT BAPTISM, A STUDY IN CHRISTIANITY (episode
from 'Tess'), by THOMAS HARDY, pp. 826-831.
Eclectic
xxxvi
THOMAS HARDY.
(Not
reprinted.}
Illustrated London"
Part First
A YOUNG MAN
OF TWENTY.
Chapters
OF FORTY.
Chapters
I.-XII.
MAN
reprinted.}
xxxvn
(Not
reprinted.)
XXXVlll
Pp. 281-288.
STORIES FROM
XXXIX
LIFE'S
LITTLE IRONIES
SET OF TALES
with
On Back
of
All rights
reserved
\
Title.
Osgood,
Albemarle Street
|
London,
45
1894
|
Contents.
('
The
Son's Veto.
To
A Few
Crusted Characters.')
Crown
OF
Two
ii.,
A TRAGEDY
Illustrations.
xl
With 6
370-382.
Eclectic
vol.
Magazine,
liii.,
New
York,
May
1891 (new
W. Hennessy, and a
series),
pp. 610-619.
To PLEASE
Illustrations
Portrait of the
Author,
HIS
by
pp.
678, 682.
2 Illustrations
Scribner's Magazine,
W.
xlii
J.
(Not
Goodman,
reprinted.}
xliii
pp. 951-969.
PLAYS.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, a Pastoral Drama in
Three Acts, by THOMAS HARDY and COMYNS CARR.
Produced
at
Theatre,
Liver-
Produced
at
London,
May
1882.
(a dramatisation of 'The
Three Strangers '), by THOMAS HARDY.
Produced at Terry's Theatre, London, 3rd June 1893.
xliv
Contemporary Review,
entitled
THOMAS
WESSEX, by
Eclectic
J.
M.
THE
Article
Ivi.,
HISTORIAN
OF
WESSEX, by
J.
M.
Edmund
Barrie,
13, 1890,
THOMAS HARDY
'The Speaker's
(three
Gallery,'
[By
columns).
Gosse.]
'
7,
1891,
Article,
1889, vol.
July
HARDY
entitled
No.
Ixxiii.,
little
over two
26-28.
xlv
Illustrated
entitled
bridge).
WILLIAM BARNES
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
AND
THE FIRE AT
TRANTER SWEATLEY'S
A WESSEX BALLAD
BY
THOMAS HARDY
THE
B.D.
BY THOMAS HARDY.
(Reprinted, by permission, from The Atheruzum
of October 16, 1886.)
He
his old-fashioned
and
set
it
watch from
its
deep
London
fob,
time,
WILLIAM BARNES
first act of his market visit,
been
having
completed to his satisfaction, he
turned round and methodically proceeded about
The
the century
unique position in this respect than the remoteness, even from contemporary provincial civilisation, of the pastoral recesses in which his earlier
years were passed places with whose now obsolete
customs and beliefs his mind was naturally imbued. To give one instance of the former tardiit
ness of events in that part of the country
was a day almost within his remembrance when,
amidst the great excitement and applause of the
natives, who swept the street with brooms in
honour of its arrival, a stage-coach made its first
entry into Sturminster Newton, the little market
town nearest to the hamlet of Bagbere, the home
of his parents. And there used to come to a
:
little
till
quite
'
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
sufferer's
'
'
many names
WILLIAM BARNES
local
Dashwood, entered
inquired if there was a
his pen to come and
with
enough
solicitor,
boy clever
copy deeds
only lad
The
in his office in a clerkly hand.
at all approximated to such a high
who
perusal
said
that
he
it
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
this
crests
and
initials
neighbourhood
the
skill in
Though
still
remaining to
silver,
in the
testify to
his
art.
first practical step in life had
to the office of a solicitor, his in-
Barnes's
brought him
stincts
later,
first,
name
second, and
poems by which
be best remembered.
He used to tell an amusing story of his experience on relinquishing the school at Dorchester
his
will
About
in which he has ended his days.
the very week of his translation, so to call it,
the name of one of his pupils appeared in the
Came,
Indian
liii
WILLIAM BARNES
it
from the name following
lists lent a keen interest
of
these
novelty
to them in those days, and the next morning
marks separating
The
all
of use to me.'
To many
idyls
known
the prominences of
Nettlecombe
The
prospect
heights
is
Hambledon
Tout, Dogbury,
northwards from
one which
rivals,
liv
and
Hill,
Bulbarrow,
and
High-Stoy.
each of these
in
many
points
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
we
in
in
find
among
the
presented
my
measure
and the
inspirer of
effusions.
feel
Iv
WILLIAM, BARNES
of modern mankind
life,
was,'
'
is
'
'
'
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Bit
o'
upon
aspects of a
that,
and Jaay
'Woak
Hill,'
'
it
a-past.'
The explanation
side of his nature,
The
last,
Ivii
indeed,
dimmed but
WILLIAM BARNES
slightly,
A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
and even on
'
call it
"
wheel-saddle
Though not
"
'
Why
he exclaimed.
averse to
social
intercourse, his
Iviii
(Printed,
\N.B.
(written 1867).
A bowdlerised
THEY
original MS.)
o'
for
November
Sundays
1875.]
her true-love
She
'
cried,
pray pity
me
'
!
Nought would he
hear;
off wi'
her:
The
To throw
As
fitting
woone
flesh to
lix
be made,
gone
The
folks
anon
To
The
their
lover,
home
heart-sick
and
drear
mere,
The
o'
field's vail,
When
to drain,
;
grain
A WESSEX BALLAD
Her
Her
little
tooes,
so loose
Sheened
like stars
through a tangle
o' trees.
is
drawn,
Till her
From
'
Tim,
my own Tim
must
call 'ee
will
ill?
Can you
feel for
her
still ?
chill,
'
Ixi
think
it/
she said,
Had my
'
Tim's soul
like a lion^within
en outsprung
Feel for
Then
dear Barbree ?
'
he cried
warm
his
Made
clung
Like a
As
'ee,
chiel
Over
piggeries,
sight.
a chair,
the caddie she found herself
At
Ixii
in.
A WBSSBX BALLAD
'em she
in
slid
Tim
'
and
her limbs,
'
'
They
And
Then
sifted the
all
'
me!'
And
began to repent
But before 'twas complete, and till sure she was free,
Barbree drew up her loft-ladder, tight turned her
in terror
key
Tim
A WESSEX BALLAD
wi' rout, shout,
and
flare,
stood in a stare,
and his lodger should risk it, and
all
So he took her
to church.
And some
laughing
lads there
Cried to Tim,
declare
I
'
After Sweatley
'
!
She
'
said,
'
!
APR 2 2
1982
CARDS OR
SLIPS
PR
J65