Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1175 page)

However, the latitude claimed was allowed but in few instances, and an unfavourable reception was pretty general, the substance of which was ‘On what ground do you arrogate to yourself a right to express in poetry a philosophy which has never been expressed in poetry before?’

Notwithstanding his hopes, he had a suspicion that such might be the case, as we may gather from a note he had written:

‘The old theologies may or may not have worked for good in their time. But they will not bear stretching further in epic or dramatic art. The Greeks used up theirs: the Jews used up theirs: the Christians have used up theirs. So that one must make an independent plunge, embodying the real, if only temporary, thought of the age. But I expect that I shall catch it hot and strong for attempting it!*

Hardy replied to one of these criticisms written by the dramatic critic of The Times in the Literary Supplement (Times Literary Supplement, Feb. 5 and Feb. 19, 1904), but did not make many private memoranda on the reviews. One memorandum is as follows:

‘I suppose I have handicapped myself by expressing, both in this drama and previous verse, philosophies and feelings as yet not well established or formally adopted into the general teaching; and by thus over-stepping the standard boundary set up for the thought of the age by the proctors of opinion, I have thrown back my chance of acceptance in poetry by many years. The very fact of my having tried to spread over art the latest illumination of the time has darkened counsel in respect of me.

‘What the reviewers really assert is, not “This is an untrue and inartistic view of life”, but “This is not the view of life that we people who thrive on conventions can permit to be painted”. If, instead of the machinery I adopted, I had constructed a theory of a world directed by fairies, nobody would have objected, and the critics would probably have said, “What a charming fancy of Mr. Hardy’s!” But having chosen a scheme which may or may not be a valid one, but is presumably much nearer reality than the fancy of a world ordered by fairies would be, they straightway lift their brows.’

Writing to his friend Edward Clodd on March 22, he says:

‘I did not quite think that the Dynasts would suit your scientific mind, or shall I say the scientific side of your mind, so that I am much pleased to hear that you have got pleasure out of it.

‘As to my having said nothing or little (I think I did just allude to it a long while ago) about having it in hand, the explanation is simple enough — I did not mean to publish Part I. by itself until after a quite few days before I sent it up to the publishers: and to be engaged in a desultory way on a MS. which may be finished in five years (the date at which I thought I might print it, complete) does not lead one to say much about it. On my return here from London I had a sudden feeling that I should never carry the thing any further, so off it went. But now I am better inclined to go on with it. Though I rather wish I had kept back the parts till the whole could be launched, as I at first intended.

‘What you say about the “Will” is true enough, if you take the word in its ordinary sense. But in the lack of another word to express precisely what is meant, a secondary sense has gradually arisen, that of effort exercised in a reflex or unconscious manner. Another word would have been better if one could have had it, though “Power” would not do, as power can be suspended or withheld, and the forces of Nature cannot: However, there are inconsistencies in the Phantoms,

no doubt. But that was a point to which I was somewhat indifferent, since they are not supposed to be more than the best human intelligences of their time in a sort of quint-essential form. I speak of the “Years”. The “Pities” are, of course, merely Humanity, with all its weaknesses.

‘You speak of Meredith. I am sorry to learn that he has been so seriously ill. Leslie Stephen gone too. They are thinning out ahead of us. I have just lost an old friend down here, of forty-seven years’ standing. A man whose opinions differed almost entirely from my own on most subjects, and yet he was a good and sincere friend — the brother of the present Bishop of Durham, and like him in old- fashioned views of the Evangelical school.’

His mind was, however, drawn away from the perils of attempting to express his age in poetry by a noticeable change in his mother’s state of health. She was now in her ninety-first year, and though she had long suffered from deafness was mentally as clear and alert as ever. She sank gradually, but it was no’t till two days before her death that she failed to comprehend his words to her. She died on Easter Sunday, April 3, and was buried at Stinsford in the grave of her husband. She had been a woman with an extraordinary store of local memories, reaching back to the days when the ancient ballads were everywhere heard at country feasts, in weaving shops, and at spinning-wheels; and her good taste in literature was expressed by the books she selected for her children in circumstances in which opportunities for selection were not numerous. The portraits of her which appeared in the Sphere, the Gentlewoman, the Book Monthly, and other papers — the best being from a painting by her daughter Mary — show a face of dignity and judgment.

A month earlier he had sent a reply to the Rev. S. Whittell Key, who had inquired of him concerning ‘sport’:

‘I am not sufficiently acquainted with the many varieties of sport to pronounce which is, quantitatively, the most cruel. I can only say generally that the prevalence of those sports which consist in the pleasure of watching a fellow-creature, weaker or less favoured than ourselves, in its struggles, by Nature’s poor resources only, to escape the death-agony we mean to inflict by the treacherous contrivances of science, seems one of the many convincing proofs that we have not yet emerged from barbarism.

‘In the present state of affairs there would appear to be no logical reason why the smaller children, say, of overcrowded families, should not be used for sporting purposes. Darwin has revealed that there would be no difference in principle; moreover, these children would often escape lives intrinsically less happy than those of wild birds and other animals.’

During May he was in London reading at the British Museum on various days — probably historic details that bore upon The Dynasts — and went to Sunday concerts at the Queen’s Hall, and to afternoon services at St. Paul’s whenever he happened to be near the Cathedral, a custom of his covering many years before and after.

On June 28 The Times published the following letter:

‘Sir,

‘I should like to be allowed space to express in the fewest words a view of Count Tolstoy’s philosophic sermon on war, of which you print a translation in your impression of to-day and a comment in your leading article.

‘The sermon may show many of the extravagances of detail to which the world has grown accustomed in Count Tolstoy’s alter writings. It may exhibit, here and there, incoherence as a moral system. Many people may object to the second half of the dissertation — its special application to Russia in the present war (on which I can say nothing). Others may be unable to see advantage in the writer’s use of theological terms for describing and illustrating the moral evolutions of past ages. But surely all these objectors should be hushed by his great argument, and every defect in his particular reasonings hidden by the blaze of glory that shines from his masterly general indictment of war as a modern principle, with all its senseless and illogical crimes.

‘Your obedient servant,

‘Thomas Hardy.’

Again in the country in August, Hardy resumed his cycling tours, meeting by accident Mr. William Watson, Mr. Francis Coutts (Lord Latymer), and Mr. John Lane at Glastonbury, and spending a romantic day or two there among the ruins.

In October Hardy learnt by letter from Madras of the death ot Mrs. Malcolm Nicolson — the gifted and impassioned poetess known as ‘Laurence Hope’, whom he had met in London; and he wrote a brief obituary notice of her in the Athenceum at the end of the month. But beyond this, and the aforesaid newspaper letters, he appears to have printed very little during this year 1904. A German translation of Life’s Little Ironies was published in Aus fremden Zungen, in Berlin, and a French translation of The Well-Beloved undertaken.

His memoranda get more and more meagre as the years go on, until we are almost entirely dependent on letter-references, reviews, and casual remarks of his taken down by the present writer. It is a curious reversal of what is usually found in lives, where notes and diaries grow more elabourate with maturity of years. But it accords with Hardy’s frequent saying that he took little interest in himself as a person, and his absolute refusal at all times to write his reminiscences.

In January (1905) he served as Grand Juror at the winter Assizes, and in the latter part of the month met Dr. Shipley, Mr. Asquith, Lord Monteagle, Sir Edgar Vincent, and others at a dinner at the National Club given by Mr. Gosse. At this time he was much interested in the paintings of Zurbaran, which he preferred to all others of the old Spanish school, venturing to think that they might some day be held in higher estimation than those of Velazquez.

About this time the romantic poem entitled ‘The Noble Lady’s Tale’ was printed in the Cornhill Magazine.

The first week in April Hardy left Dorchester for London en route for Aberdeen, the ancient University of which city had offered him the honourary degree of LL.D. In accepting it he remarked:

‘I am impressed by its coming from Aberdeen, for though a stranger to that part of Scotland to a culpable extent I have always observed with admiration the exceptional characteristics of the northern University, which in its fostering encouragement of mental effort seems to cast an.eye over these islands that is unprejudiced, unbiased, and unsleeping.’

It was a distance of near 700 miles by the route he would have to take — almost as far as to the Pyrenees — and over the northern stage of it winter still lingered; but his journey there and back was an easy one. The section from Euston Square to the north was performed in a train of sleeping-cars which crunched through the snow as if it were January, the occasion coinciding with the opening of the new sculpture gallery, a function that brought many visitors from London. Hardy was hospitably entertained at the Chanonry Lodge, Old Aberdeen, by Principal and Mrs. Marshall Lang, which was the beginning of a friendship that lasted till the death of the Principal. Among others who received the like honour at the same time were Professor Bury and Lord Reay.

In the evening there was a reception in the Mitchell Hall, Marischal College, made lively by Scotch reels and bagpipers; and the next day, after attending at the formal opening of the sculpture gallery, he was a guest at the Corporation Dinner at the Town Hall, where friends were warm, but draughts were keen to one from a southern county, and speeches, though good, so long that he and the Principal did not get back to Chanonry Lodge till one o’clock.

On Sunday morning Hardy visited spots in and about Aberdeen associated with Byron and others, and lunched at the Grand Hotel by the invitation of Mr. (afterwards Sir) James Murray, dining at the same place with the same host, crossing hands in ‘Auld Lang Syne’ with delightful people whom he had never seen before and, alas, never saw again. This was the ‘hearty way’ (as it would be called in Wessex) in which they did things in the snowy north. To Hardy the whole episode of Aberdeen, he said, was of a most pleasant and unexpected kind, and it remained with him like a romantic dream.

Passing through London on his way south he breakfasted at the Athenaeum, where he was shocked to learn of the death of his friend Lord St. Helier (Sir Francis Jeune), who had been ailing more or less since the loss of his only son in the previous August. Hardy on his way down to Dorset was led to think of the humorous stories connected with the Divorce Court that the genial judge sometimes had told him when they were walking in the woods of Arlington Manor in the summer holidays; among them the tale of that worthy couple who wished to be divorced but disliked the idea of such an unpleasant person as a co-respondent being concerned in it, and so hit upon the plan of doing without him. The husband, saying he was going to Liverpool for a day or two, got a private detective to watch his house; but instead of leaving stayed in London, and at the dead of night went to his own house in disguise, and gave a signal. His wife came down in her dressing-gown and let him in softly, letting him out again before it was light. When the husband inquired of the detective he was informed that there was ample evidence; and the divorce was duly obtained.

Hardy could not remember whether it was a story of the same couple or of another, in which Sir Francis had related that being divorced they grew very fond of each other, the former wife becoming the husband’s mistress, and living happily with him ever after.

As they had taken a flat at Hyde Park Mansions for this spring and summer Hardy did not stay long in Dorset, and they entered the flat the week before Easter. During April he followed up Tchaikowsky at the Queen’s Hall concerts, saying of the impetuous march-piece in the third movement of the Pathetic Symphony that it was the only music he knew that was able to make him feel exactly as if he were in a battle.

‘May 5. To the Lord Mayor’s farewell banquet to Mr. Choate at the Mansion House. Thought of the continuity of the institution, and the teeming history of the spot. A graceful speech by Arthur Balfour: a less graceful but more humorous one by Mr. Choate. Spoke to many whom I knew. Sat between Dr. Butler, Master of Trinity, and Sir J. Ramsay, Came home with Sir F. Pollock.’

This month he was seeing Ben Jonson’s play, The Silent Woman, and Shaw’s John Bull’s Other Island and Man and Superman, and went to the Royal Society’s Conversazione; though for some days confined to the house by a sore throat and cough. At a lunch given by Sidney Lee at the Garrick Club in June he talked about Shakespeare with Sir Henry Irving, and was reconfirmed in his opinion that actors never see a play as a whole and in true perspective, but in a false perspective from the shifting point of their own part in it, Sir Henry having shied at Hardy’s suggestion that he should take the part of Jaques.