by Thomas Hardy
‘1898. February 5. Write a prayer, or hymn, to One not Omnipotent, but hampered; striving for our good, but unable to achieve it except occasionally.’ [This idea of a limited God of goodness, often dwelt on by Hardy, was expounded ably and at length in MacTaggart’s Some Dogmas of Religion several years later, and led to a friendship which ended only with the latter’s death.]
As the spring drew on they entered upon their yearly residence of a few months in London — this time taking a flat in Wynnstay Gardens, Kensington. Hardy did some reading at the British Museum with a view to The Dynasts, and incidentally stumbled upon some details that suggested to him the Waterloo episode embodied in a poem called ‘The Peasant’s Confession’. He also followed up the concerts at the Imperial Institute, mostly neglected by Londoners. One visit gave him occasion for the following note, the orchestra this year being from the Scala, Milan:
‘Scene at the Imperial Institute this afternoon. Rain floating down in wayward drops. Not a soul except myself having tea in the gardens. The west sky begins to brighten. The red, blue, and white fairy lamps are like rubies, sapphires, turquoises, and pearls in the wet. The leaves of the trees, not yet of full size, are dripping, and the waiting-maids stand in a group with nothing to do. Band playing a “Contemplazione” by Luzzi.’
On June 24th, declining to write an Introduction to a proposed Library Edition of Fielding’s novels, he remarks:
‘Fielding as a local novelist has never been clearly regarded, to my mind: and his aristocratic, even feudal, attitude towards the peasantry {e.g. his view of Molly as a “slut” to be ridiculed, not as a simple girl, as worthy a creation of Nature as the lovely Sophia) should be exhibited strongly. But the writer could not well be a working novelist without his bringing upon himself a charge of invidiousness.’
Back in Dorset in July he resumed cycling more vigorously than ever, and during the summer went to Bristol, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Sherborne, Poole, Weymouth, and many other places — sometimes with Mrs. Hardy, sometimes with his brother.
In the middle of December IVessex Poems was published; and verse being a new mode of expression with him in print he sent copies to friends, among them one to Leslie Stephen, who said:
‘It gave me a real pleasure. I am glad to think that you remember me as a friend. ... I am always pleased to remember that Far from the Madding Crowd came out under my command. I then admired the poetry which was diffused through the prose; and can recognize the same note in the versified form. ... I will not try to criticize or distinguish, but will simply say that they have pleased me and reminded me vividly of the old time. I have, as you probably know, gone through much since then. . . .’
CHAPTER XXV
‘WESSEX POEMS’ AND OTHERS
1899-1900: Aet. 58-60
In the early weeks of this year the poems were reviewed in the customary periodicals — mostly in a friendly tone, even in a tone of respect, and with praise for many pieces in the volume; though by some critics not without umbrage at Hardy’s having taken the liberty to adopt another vehicle of expression than prose-fiction without consulting them. It was probably these reviews that suggested to Hardy several reflections on poetry and criticism about this time, and the following gleanings of his opinions are from the rough entries he made thereon. Some no doubt were jotted down hastily, and might have been afterwards revised.
He observes that he had been under no delusion about the coldness and even opposition he would have to encounter — at any rate from some voices — in openly issuing verse after printing nothing (with trifling exceptions) but prose for so many years.
Almost all the fault-finding was, in fact, based on the one great antecedent conclusion that an author who has published prose first, and that largely, must necessarily express himself badly in verse, no reservation being added to except cases in which he may have published prose for temporary or compulsory reasons, or prose of a poetical kind, or have written verse first of all, or for a long time intermediately.
In criticism generally, the fact that the date of publication is but an accident in the life of a literary creation, that the printing of a book is the least individual occurrence in the history of its contents, is often overlooked. In its visible history the publication is what counts, and that alone. It is then that the contents start into being for the outside public. In the present case, although it was shown that many of the verses had been written before their author dreamt of novels, the critics’ view was little affected that he had ‘at the eleventh hour’, as they untruly put it, taken up a hitherto uncared- for art.
3°oVERSE1899-1900
It may be observed that in the art-history of the century there was an example staring them in the face of a similar modulation from one style into another by a great artist. Verdi was the instance, ‘that amazing old man’ as he was called. Someone of insight wrote concerning him: ‘From the ashes of his early popularity, from II Trova- tore and its kind, there arose on a sudden a sort of phoenix Verdi. Had he died at Mozart’s death-age he would now be practically unknown.’ And another: ‘With long life enough Verdi might have done almost anything; but the trouble with him was that he had only just arrived at maturity at the age of threescore and ten or thereabouts, so that to complete his life he ought to have lived a hundred and fifty years.’
But probably few literary critics discern the solidarity of all the arts. Curiously enough Hardy himself dwelt upon it in a poem that seems to have been little understood, though the subject is of such interest. It is called ‘Rome: The Vatican: Sala delle Muse’; in which a sort of composite Muse addresses him:
‘Be not perturbed’, said she. ‘ Though apart in fame, 1 and my sisters are one.’
In short, this was a particular instance of the general and rather appalling conclusion to which he came — had indeed known before — that a volume of poetry, by clever manipulation, can be made to support any a priori theory about its quality. Presuppose its outstanding feature to be the defects aforesaid; instances can be found. Presuppose, as here was done, that it is overloaded with derivations from the Latin or Greek when really below the average in such words; they can be found. Presuppose that Wordsworth is unorthodox: instances can be found; that Byron is devout; instances can also be found. [The foregoing paragraphs are abridged from memoranda which Hardy set down, apparently for publication; though he never published them.]
He wrote somewhere: ‘There is no new poetry; but the new poet — if he carry the flame on further (and if not he is no new poet)
— comes with a new note. And that new note it is that troubles the critical waters.
‘Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.’
In the reception of this and later volumes of Hardy’s poems there was, he said, as regards form, the inevitable ascription to ignorance of what was really choice after full knowledge. That the author loved the art of concealing art was undiscerned. For instance, as to rhythm. Years earlier he had decided that too regular a beat was bad art. He had fortified himself in his opinion by thinking of the analogy of architecture, between which art and that of poetry he had discovered, to use his own words, that there existed a close and curious parallel, both arts, unlike some others, having to carry a rational content inside their artistic form. He knew that in architecture cunning irregularity is of enormous worth, and it is obvious that he carried on into his verse, perhaps in part unconsciously, the Gothic art-principle in which he had been trained — the principle of spontaneity, found in mouldings, tracery, and such like — resulting in the ‘unforeseen’ (as it has been called) character of his metres and stanzas, that of stress rather than of syllable, poetic texture rather than poetic veneer; the latter kind of thing, under the name of ‘constructed ornament’, being what he, in common with every Gothic student, had been taught to avoid as the plague. He shaped his poetry accordingly, introducing metrical pauses, and reversed beats; and found for his trouble that some part
icular line of a poem exemplifying this principle was greeted with a would-be jocular remark that such a line ‘did not make for immortality’. The same critic might have gone to one of our cathedrals (to follow up the analogy of architecture), and on discovering that the carved leafage of some capital or spandrel in the best period of Gothic art strayed freakishly out of its bounds over the moulding, where by rule it had no business to be, or that the enrichments of a string-course were not accurately spaced; or that there was a sudden blank in a wall where a window was to be expected from formal measurement, have declared with equally merry conviction, ‘This does not make for immortality’.
One case of the kind, in which the poem ‘ On Sturminster Foot- Bridge’ was quoted with the remark that one could make as good music as that out of a milk-cart, betrayed the reviewer’s ignorance of any perception that the metre was intended to be onomatopoeic, plainly as it was shown; and another in the same tone disclosed that the reviewer had tried to scan the author’s sapphics as heroics.
If any proof were wanted that Hardy was not at this time and ‘ater the apprentice at verse that he was supposed to be, it could be found in an examination of his studies over many years. Among his papers were quantities of notes on rhythm and metre: with outlines and experiments in innumerable original measures, some of which he adopted from time to time. These verse skeletons were mostly blank, and only designated by the usual marks for long and
VERSE
1899-1900
short syllables, accentuations, etc., but they were occasionally made up of ‘nonsense verses’ — such as, he said, were written when he was a boy by students of Latin prosody with the aid of a ‘Gradus’.
Lastly, Hardy had a born sense of humour, even a too keen sense occasionally: but his poetry was sometimes placed by editors in the hands of reviewers deficient in that quality. Even if they were accustomed to Dickensian humour they were not to Swiftian. Hence it unfortunately happened that verses of a satirical, dry, caustic, or farcical cast were regarded by them with the deepest seriousness. In one case the tragic nature of his verse was instanced by the ballad called ‘The Bride-night Fire’, or ‘The Fire at Tranter Sweatley’s’, the criticism being by an accomplished old friend of his own, Frederic Harrison, who deplored the painful nature of the bridegroom’s end in leaving only a bone behind him. This piece of work Hardy had written and published when quite a young man, and had hesitated to reprint because of its too pronounced obviousness as a jest.
But he had looked the before-mentioned obstacles in the face, and their consideration did not move him much. He had written his poems entirely because he liked doing them, without any ulterior thought; because he wanted to say the things they contained and would contain. He offered his publishers to take on his own shoulders the risk of producing the volume, so that if nobody bought it they should not be out of pocket. They were kind enough to refuse this offer, and took the risk on themselves; and fortunately they did not suffer.
A more serious meditation of Hardy’s at this time than that on critics was the following:
‘January (1899). No man’s poetry can be truly judged till its last line is written. What is the last line? The death of the poet. And hence there is this quaint consolation to any writer of verse — that it may be imperishable for all that anybody can tell him to the contrary; and that if worthless he can never know it, unless he be a greater adept at self-criticism than poets usually are.’
Writing to Hardy in March about her late husband’s tastes in literature Mrs. Coventry Patmore observes:
“... It shows how constant he was to his loves. From 1875 [when he first met with the book — vide ante] to 1896 he continually had A Pair of Blue Eyes read aloud to him. Each time he felt the same shock of surprise and pleasure at its consummate art and pathos. In illness, when he asked for A Pair of Blue Eyes one knew he was able to enjoy again.’
A correspondence on another matter than literature may be alluded to here. Mr. W. T. Stead had asked Hardy to express his opinion on ‘A Crusade of Peace’ in a periodical he was about to publish under the name of War against War. In the course of his reply Hardy wrote:
‘As a preliminary, all civilized nations might at least show their humanity by covenanting that no horses should be employed in battle except for transport. Soldiers, at worst, know what they are doing, but these animals are denied even the poor possibilities of glory and reward as a compensation for their sufferings.’
His reply brought upon Hardy, naturally, scoffs at his unpractical tender-heartedness, and on the other hand, strong expressions of agreement.
In the following April (1899) the Hardys were again in London where as in the previous year they took a flat in Wynnstay Gardens, though not the same one. They saw their friends as usual, on one of whom Hardy makes this observation after a call from him:
‘When a person has gone, though his or her presence was not much desired, we regret the withdrawal of the grain of value in him, and overlook the mass of chaff that spoilt it. We realise that the essence of his personality was a human heart, though the form was uninviting.’
‘It would be an amusing fact, if it were not one that leads to such bitter strife, that the conception of a First Cause which the theist calls “ God “, and the conception of the same that the so-styled atheist calls “ no-God “, are nowadays almost exactly identical. So that only a minor literary question of terminology prevents their shaking hands in agreement, and dwelling together in unity ever after.’
At the beginning of June Hardy was staying at a country-house not many miles from London, and among the guests was the young Duchess of M, a lady of great beauty, who asked him if he would conduct her to the grave of the poet Gray, which was within a walk. Hardy did so and, standing half-balanced on one foot by the grave (as is well known, it was also that of Gray’s mother) his friend recited in a soft voice the ‘Elegy’ from the first word to the last in leisurely and lengthy clearness without an error (which Hardy himself could not have done without some hitch in the order of the verses). With startling suddenness, while duly commending her Performance, he seemed to have lived through the experience before.
Then he realised what it was that had happened: in love of recitation, attitude, and poise, tone of voice, and readiness of memory, the fair lady had been the duplicate of the handsome dairymaid who had insisted on his listening to her rehearsal of the long and tedious gospels, when he taught in the Sunday school as a youth of fifteen. What a thin veneer is that of rank and education over the natural woman, he would remark.
On the 18th he met A. E. Housman (the Shropshire Lad) for the first time probably, and on the 20th he visited Swinburne at Putney, of which visit he too briefly speaks; observing, ‘Again much inclined to his engaging, fresh, frank, almost childlike manner. Showed me his interesting editions, and talked of the play he was writing. Promised to go again.’ He also went a day or two later, possibly owing to his conversation with Swinburne (though he had been there before), to St. Mildred’s, Bread Street, with Sir George Douglas, where Shelley and Mary Godwin were married, and saw the register, with the signatures of Godwin and his wife as witnesses. The church was almost unaltered since the poet and Mary had knelt there, and the vestry absolutely so, not having even received a coat of paint as it seemed. Being probably in the calling mood he visited George Meredith just afterwards, and found him ‘looking ruddy and well in the upper part; quite cheerful, enthusiastic and warm. Would gladly see him oftener, and must try to do so.’ At the end of the month he rambled in Westminster Abbey at midnight by the light of a lantern, having with some friends been admitted by Miss Bradley through the Deanery.
Hardy had suffered from rather bad influenza this summer in Town, and it left an affection of the eye behind it which he had never known before; and though he hoped it might leave him on his return to Dorchester it followed him there. He was, indeed, seldom absolutely free from it afterwards.
In July he replied to a communication from the Rationalist P
ress Association, of which his friend Leslie Stephen was an honourary associate:
‘Though I am interested in the Society I feel it to be one which would naturally compose itself rather of writers on philosophy, science, and history, than of writers of imaginative works, whose effect depends largely on detachment. By belonging to a philosophic association imaginative writers place themselves in this difficulty, that they are misread as propagandist when they mean to be simply artistic and delineative.’
The pleasures of bicycling were now at their highest appreciation, and many miles did Hardy and his wife, and other companions, cover during the latter part of this summer. He was not a long-distance cyclist, as was natural at fifty-nine, never exceeding forty to fifty miles a day, but he kept vigorously going within the limit, this year and for several years after. His wife, though an indifferent walker, could almost equal him in cycle distances.
In October his sonnet on the departure of the troops for the Boer War, which he witnessed at Southampton, appeared in the Daily Chronicle, and in November the veiy popular verses called ‘The Going of the Battery’ were printed in the Graphic, the scene having been witnessed at Dorchester. In December ‘The Dead Drummer’ (afterwards called ‘Drummer Hodge’) appeared in Literature, and ‘A Christmas Ghost-Story’ in the Westminster Gazette.
The latter months of this same year (1899) were saddened for him by the sudden death of Sir Arthur Blomfield, shortly before the date which had been fixed for a visit to him at Broadway by Hardy and his wife. Thus was snapped a friendship which had extended over thirty-six years.
Hardy’s memoranda on his thoughts and movements — particularly the latter — which never reached the regularity of a diary — had of late grown more and more fitful, and now (1900) that novels were past and done with, nearly ceased altogether, such notes on scenes and functions having been dictated by what he had thought practical necessity; so that it becomes difficult to ascertain what mainly occupied his mind, or what his social doings were. His personal ambition in a worldly sense, which had always been weak, dwindled to nothing, and for some years after 1895 or 1896 he requested that no record of his life should be made. His verses he kept on writing from pleasure in them. The poetic fantasy entitled ‘The Souls of the Slain’ was published in the Cornhill in the April of this year, and he and his wife went to London this month according to custom, though instead of taking a flat or house as in former years they stayed on at the West Central Hotel in Southampton Row. He possibly thought it advisable to economize, seeing that he had sacrificed the chance of making a much larger income by not producing more novels. When one considers that he might have made himself a man of affluence in a few years by taking the current of popularity j*811 served, writing ‘best sellers’, and ringing changes upon the novels e had already written, his bias towards poetry must have been »‘tinctive and disinterested.
