Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1165 page)

She: (tongue out) “No, nor you neither. Come, you can’t act in that show, Natty! You haven’t the guts to carry it off!” The discussion was ended by their going off to Came Plantation.’

In London this spring they again met many people, the popularity of Hardy as an author now making him welcome anywhere. For the first time they took a whole house, 70 Hamilton Terrace, and brought up their own servants, and found themselves much more comfortable under this arrangement than they had been before.

At such crushes, luncheons, and dinners the Hardys made or renewed acquaintance also with Mrs. Richard Chamberlain, Mr. Charles Wyndham, Mr. Goschen, and the Duke, Duchess, and Princess May of Teck, afterwards Queen Mary. ‘Lady Winifred Gardner whispered to me that meeting the Royal Family always reminded her of family prayers. The Duke confused the lady who introduced me to him by saying it was unnecessary, as he had known me for years, adding privately to me when she was gone, “That’s good enough for her: of course I meant I had known you spiritually”.’

‘13. Whibley dined with me at the Savile, and I afterwards went with him to the Trocadero Music-Hall. Saw the great men — famous performers at the Halls — drinking at the bar in long coats before going on: on their faces an expression of not wishing in the least to emphasize their importance to the world.’

‘April 19. Thought while dressing, and seeing people go by to their offices, how strange it is that we should talk so glibly of “ this cold world which shows no sympathy”, when this is the feeling of so many components of the same world — probably a majority — and nearly everyone’s neighbour is waiting to give and receive sympathy.’

‘25. Courage has been idealised; why not Fear? — which is a higher consciousness, and based on a deeper insight.’

‘27- A great lack of tact in A. J. B., who was in the chair at the Royal Literary Fund dinner which I attended last night. The purpose of the dinner was, of course, to raise funds for poor authors, largely from the pockets of the more successful ones who were present with the other guests. Yet he dwelt with much emphasis on the decline of the literary art, and on his opinion that there were no writers of high rank living in these days. We hid our diminished heads, and buttoned our pockets. What he said may have been true enough, but alas for saying it then!’

‘28. At Academy Private View. Find that there is a very good painting here of Woolbridge Manor-House under the (erroneous) title of “Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ ancestral home”. Also one entitled “In Hardy’s Country, Egdon Heath”.

‘The worst of taking a furnished house is that the articles in the rooms are saturated with the thoughts and glances of others.’

‘May 10. Spent a scientific evening at the conversazione of the Royal Society, where I talked on the exhibits to Sir R. Quain, Dr. Clifford Allbutt, Humphry Ward, Bosworth Smith, Sir J. Crichton- Browne, F. and G. Macmillan, Ray Lankester, and others, without (I flatter myself) betraying excessive ignorance in respect of the points in the show.’

‘May 18. Left Euston by 9 o’clock morning train with E. for Llandudno, en route for Dublin. After arrival at Llandudno drove round Great Orme’s Head. Magnificent deep purple-grey mountains, the fine colour being on account of an approaching storm.’

‘19. Went on to Holyhead and Kingstown. Met on board John Morley, the Chief Secretary, and Sir John Pender. Were awaited at Dublin by conveyance from the Viceregal Lodge as promised, this invitation being one renewed from last year, when I was obliged to postpone my visit on account of my father’s death. We were received by Mrs. Arthur Henniker, the Lord-Lieutenant’s sister. A charming, intuitive woman apparently. Lord Houghton (the Lord-Lieutenant) came in shortly after.

‘Our bedroom windows face the Phoenix Park and the WickloW Mountains. The Lodge appears to have been built some time in the last century. A roomy building with many corridors.’

‘20. To Dublin Castle, Christ Church, etc., conducted by Mr. Trevelyan, Em having gone with Mrs. Henniker, Mrs. Greer, and Miss Beresford to a Bazaar. Next day (Sunday) she went to Christ Church with them, and Trevelyan and I, after depositing them at the’church door, went on to Bray, where we found the Chief Secretary and the Lord Chancellor at the grey hotel by the shore, “making magistrates by the dozen”, as Morley said.’

‘22. JVhit Monday. Several went to the races. Mr. Lucy (who is also here) and I, however, went into Dublin, and viewed the public buildings and some comical drunken women dancing, I suppose because it was Whitsuntide.

‘A larger party at dinner. Mr. Dundas, an A.D.C., played banjo and sang: Mrs. Henniker the zithern.’

‘23. Morley came to lunch. In the afternoon I went with H. Lucy to the scene of the Phoenix Park murders.’

‘24. Queen’s birthday review. Troops and carriages at door at \ past 11. The Aides — of whom there are about a dozen — are transformed by superb accoutrements into warriors — Mr. St. John Meyrick into a Gordon Highlander [he was killed in the South African War], Mr. Dundas into a dashing hussar. Went in one of the carriages of the procession with E. and the rest. A romantic scene, pathetically gay, especially as to the horses in the gallop past. “ Yes: very pretty!” Mr. Dundas said, as one who knew the real thing.

‘At lunch Lord Wolseley told me interesting things about war. On the other side of me was a young lieutenant, grandson of Lady de Ros, who recalled the Napoleonic wars. By Wolseley’s invitation I visited him at the Military Hospital. Thence drove to Mrs. Lyttel- ton’s to tea at the Chief Secretary’s Lodge (which she rented). She showed me the rooms in which the bodies of Lord F. Cavendish and Mr. Burke were placed, and told some gruesome details of the discovery of a roll of bloody clothes under the sofa after the entry of the succeeding Secretary. The room had not been cleaned out since the murders.

‘We dined this evening at the Private Secretary’s Lodge with Mrs. Jekyll. Met Mahaffy there, a rattling, amusing talker, and others. Went back to the Viceregal Lodge soon enough to join the state diners in the drawing-room. Talked to several, and the Viceroy. Very funny altogether, this little Court.’

‘25. Went over Guinness’s Brewery, with Mrs. Henniker and several of the Viceregal guests, in the morning. Mr. Guinness conducted us. On the miniature railway we all got splashed with porter, or possibly dirty water, spoiling Em’s and Mrs. Henniker’s clothes. E. and I left the Lodge after lunch and proceeded by 3 o’clock train to Killarney, Lord Houghton having given me a copy of his poems. Put up at the Great Southern Railway Hotel.’

‘26. Drove in car round Middle Lake, first driving to Ross Castle. Walked in afternoon about Killarney town, where the cows stand about the streets like people.’

‘27. Started in wagonette for the Gap of Dunloe. Just below Kate Kearney’s house Em mounted a pony and I proceeded more leisurely on foot by the path. The scenery of the Black Valley is deeply impressive. Here are beauties of Nature to delight man, and to degrade him by attracting all the vagabonds in the country. Boats met us at the head of the Upper Lake, and we were rowed through the three to Ross Castle, whence we drove back to Killarney town.’

On the following Sunday they left and passed through Dublin, sleeping at the Marine Hotel at Kingstown, and early the next morning took the boat to Holyhead. Reached London the same evening.

Early in June Hardy attended a rehearsal at Terry’s Theatre of his one-act play called The Three Wayfarers — a dramatization of his story The Three Strangers, made at the suggestion of J. M. Barrie. On the 3rd June the play was produced with one equally short by his friend, and another or two. The Hardys went with Lady Jeune and some more friends, and found that the little piece was well received.

During the week he saw Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and Rosmersholm, in which Miss Elizabeth Robins played. The former he had already seen, but was again impressed by it, as well as by the latter. Hardy could not at all understand the attitude of the English press towards these tragic productions — the culminating evidence of our blinkered insular taste being afforded by the nickname of the ‘Ibscene drama’ which they received.

On the eighth he met for the first time (it is believed) that brilliant woman Mrs. Craigie; and about this date various other people, including Mr. Hamilton Aide, an old friend of Sir Arthur Blomfield’s. In the week he still followed up Ibsen, going to The Master Builder with Sir Gerald and Lady Fitzgerald and her sister, Mrs. Henniker, who said afterwards that she was so excited by the play as not to be able to sleep all night; and on Friday lunched with General Milman at the Tower, inspecting ‘Little-ease’, and other rooms not generally shown at that time. In the evening he went with Mrs. Hardy and Miss Milman to Barrie’s play, Walker, London, going behind the scenes with Barrie, and making the acquaintance of J. L. Toole, who said he could not go on even now on a first night without almost breaking down with nervousness. In a letter to Mrs. Henniker Hardy describes this experience:

‘The evening of yesterday I spent in what I fear you will call a frivolous manner — indeed, during the time, my mind reverted to our Ibsen experience; and I could not help being regretfully struck

by the contrast — although I honestly was amused. Barrie had arranged to take us and Maarten Maartens to see B.’s play of Walker, London, and lunching yesterday with the Milmans at the Tower we asked Miss Milman to be of the party. Mr. Toole heard we had come and invited us behind the scenes. We accordingly went and sat with him in his dressing-room, where he entertained us with hock and champagne, he meanwhile in his paint, wig, and blazer, as he had come off the stage, amusing us with the drollest of stories about a visit he and a friend paid to the Tower some years ago: how he amazed the custodian by entreating the loan of the crown jewels for an amateur dramatic performance for a charitable purpose, offering to deposit 30s. as a guarantee that he would return them, etc., etc., etc. We were rather late home as you may suppose.’

Some ten days later Hardy was at Oxford. It was during the Encaenia, with the Christ Church and other college balls, garden- parties, and suchlike bright functions, but Hardy did not make himself known, his object being to view the proceedings entirely as a stranger. It may be mentioned that the recipients of Honorary Degrees this year included Lord Rosebery, the Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Liddell, and Sir Charles Euan Smith, a friend of his own. He viewed the Commemoration proceedings from the undergraduates’ gallery of the Sheldonian, his quarters while at Oxford being at the Wilberforce Temperance Hotel.

The remainder of their season in London this year was of the usual sort. A memorial service to Admiral Tryon, a view of the marriage procession of the Duke of York and Princess May from the Club window, performances by Eleanora Duse and Ada Rehan in their respective theatres, with various dinners and luncheons, brought on the end of their term in Hamilton Terrace, and they returned to Dorchester. A note he made this month runs as follows:

‘I often think that women, even those who consider themselves experienced in sexual strategy, do not know how to manage an honest man.’

In the latter part of July Hardy had to go up to town again for a few days, when he took occasion to attend a lecture by Stepniak on Tolstoi, to visit City churches, and to go with Lady Jeune and her daughters to a farewell performance by Irving. His last call this summer was on Lady Londonderry, who remained his friend through the ensuing years. ‘A beautiful woman still’, he says of her; ‘and very glad to see me, which beautiful women are not always. The Duchess of Manchester [Consuelo] called while 1 was there, and Lady Jeune. All four of us talked of the marriage-laws, a conversation which they started, not I; also of the difficulties of separation, of terminable marriages where there are children, and of the nervous strain of living with a man when you know he can throw you over at any moment.’

It may be mentioned here that after the Duchess of Manchester’s death a good many years later Hardy described her as having been when he first knew her ‘a warm-natured woman, laughing-eyed, and bubbling with impulses, in temperament very much like “Julie-Jane” in one of my poems’.

‘At Dorchester. July 31 st. Mrs. R. Eliot lunched. Her story of the twins, “May” and “June”. May was born between n and 12 on the 31st May, and June between 12 and 1 on June the ist.’

The following month, in reply to an inquiry by the editors of the Parisian paper L’ Ermitage, he wrote:

‘I consider a social system based on individual spontaneity to promise better for happiness than a curbed and uniform one under which all temperaments are bound to shape themselves to a single pattern of living. To this end I would have society divided into groups of temperaments, with a different code of observances for each group.’

It is doubtful if this Utopian scheme possessed Hardy’s fancy for any long time.

In the middle of August Hardy and his wife accepted an invitation to visit the Milnes-Gaskells at Wenlock Abbey, on their way thither calling at Hereford to see the Cathedral, Hardy always making a point of not missing such achievements in architecture, even if familiar. Lady Catherine and her daughter met them at the station. ‘Lady C. is as sweet as ever, and almost as pretty, and occasionally shows a quizzical wit. The pet name “Catty” which her dearest friends give her has, I fear, a suspicious tremor of malice.’ They were interested to find their bedroom in the Norman part of the building, Hardy saying he felt quite mouldy at sleeping within walls of such high antiquity.

Their time at the Abbey appears to have been very pleasant. They idled about in the shade of the ruins, and Milnes-Gaskell told an amusing story of a congratulatory dinner by fellow-townsmen to a burgher who had obtained a divorce from his wife, where the mayor made a speech beginning ‘On this auspicious occasion’. During their stay they went with him to Stokesay Castle and Shrewsbury.

Lady Wenlock came one day; and on Sunday Hardy and Lady C. walked till they were tired, when they ‘ sat down on the edge of a lonely sandpit and talked of suicide, pessimism, whether life was worth living, and kindred dismal subjects, till we were quite miserable. After dinner all sat round a lantern in the court under the stars — where Lady C. told stories in the Devonshire dialect, moths flying about the lantern as in In Memoriam. She also defined the difference between coquetting and flirting, considering the latter a grosser form of the first, and alluded to Zola’s phrase, “a woman whose presence was like a caress”, saying that some women could not help it being so, even if they wished it otherwise. I doubted it, considering it but their excuse for carrying on.’