by Thomas Hardy
On May 26 a letter and a leading article appeared in The Times on the subject of a Thomas Hardy Chair of Literature and a Wessex University. The letter was signed by many eminent writers and educationalists. At the date of writing, however, the Chair has not been endowed.
Later in the summer, on July 15, a deputation from Bristol University arrived at Max Gate to confer on Hardy the honourary degree of Doctor of Literature. This was the fifth degree he had received from English and Scottish Universities, the others being, in the order in which the degrees were bestowed — Aberdeen, Cambridge, Oxford, and St. Andrews.
At the end of July Hardy sent off the manuscript of his volume of poems, Human Shows, to the publishers, and a month later he made arrangements for the performance of his dramatization of Tess at the Barnes Theatre. About this time he enters in his notebook:
‘“Truth is what will work”, said William James (Harpers). A worse corruption of language was never perpetrated.’
Few other events were of interest to him during the year. Tess of the d’Urbervilles was produced in London, but he felt he had not sufficient strength to go up to see it. After nearly two months at Barnes Theatre the play was removed on November 2 to the Garrick Theatre, where the hundredth performance took place.
The many pilgrimages Hardy made with his wife to Stinsford Church took place usually in the evening during the summer, and in the afternoon during the winter. On October 9, however, contrary to his usual custom, he walked to Stinsford in the morning. The bright sunlight shone across the face of a worn tomb whose lettering Hardy had often endeavoured to decipher, so that he might recarve the letters with his penknife. This day, owing to the sunlight, they were able to read:
SACRED
to the memory of
ROBERT REASON
who departed this life
December 26th 1819
Aged 56 years
Dear friend should you mourn for me
I am where you soon must be.
Although Robert Reason had died twenty-one years before the birth of the author of Under the Greenwood Tree, he was faithfully described in that novel as Mr. Penny, the shoemaker, Hardy having heard so much of him from old inhabitants of Bockhampton. He used to regret that he had not used the real name, that being much better for his purpose than the one he had invented.
On December 6 the company of players from the Garrick Theatre arrived at Max Gate in the evening for the purpose of giving a performance of Tess in the drawing-room. The following description of this incident is taken from a letter written by one of the company to a correspondent in America who had particularly desired her impression of the visit:
‘Mr. and Mrs. Hardy behaved as if it were a most usual occurrence for a party of West-End actors to arrive laden with huge theatrical baskets of clothes and props.
‘They met us in the hall and entertained us with tea, cakes and sandwiches, and Mr. Hardy made a point of chatting with everyone.
‘The drawing-room was rather a fortunate shape — the door facing an alcove at one end of the room, and we used these to make our exits and entrances, either exiting into the hall or sitting quietly in the alcove.
‘Mr. and Mrs. Hardy, a friend of the Hardys, and two maids who, in cap and apron, sat on the floor — made up our audience. I think I am correct in saying there was no one else. The room was shaded — lamps and firelight throwing the necessary light on our faces.
‘We played the scenes of Tess’s home with chairs and a tiny drawing-room table to represent farm furniture — tea-cups for drinking mugs — when the chairs and tables were removed the corner of the drawing-room became Stonehenge, and yet in some strange way those present said the play gained from the simplicity.
‘It had seemed as if it would be a paralysingly difficult thing to do, to get the atmosphere at all within a few feet of the author himself and without any of the usual theatrical illusion, but speaking for myself, after the first few seconds it was perfectly easy, and Miss Ffranggon-Davies’s beautiful voice and exquisite playing of the Stonehenge scene in the shadows thrown by the firelight was a thing that I shall never forget. It was beautiful.
‘Mr. Hardy insisted on talking to us until the last minute. He talked of Tess as if she was someone real whom he had known and liked tremendously. I think he enjoyed the evening. I may be quite wrong, but I got the impression that to him it seemed quite a proper and usual way to give a play — and he seemed to have very little conception of the unusualness and difficulties it might present to us.
‘The gossip of the country has it that his house was designed and the garden laid out with the idea of being entirely excluded from the gaze of the curious. Of course it was dark when we arrived, but personally I should say he had succeeded.’
On December 20 he heard with regret of the death of his friend Sir Hamo Thornycroft, the sculptor, whose bronze head of Hardy was presented later to the National Portrait Gallery by Lady Thornycroft.
Siegfried Sassoon, a nephew of Sir Hamo’s, happened to be paying Hardy a visit at the time. He left to go to the funeral of his uncle at Oxford, carrying with him a laurel wreath which Hardy had sent to be placed on the grave. Hardy had a warm regard for the sculptor, whose fine upstanding mien spoke truly of his nobility of character. The hours Hardy had spent in Sir Hamo’s London studio and at his home were pleasant ones, and they had cycled together in Dorset while Sir Hamo was staying at Max Gate.
‘December 23. Mary’s birthday. She came into the world . . . and went out . . . and the world is just the same . . . not a ripple on the surface left.’
‘December 31. New Year s Eve. F. and I sat up. Heard on the wireless various features of New Year’s Eve in London: dancing at the Albert Hall, Big Ben striking twelve, singing Auld Lang Syne, God Save the King, Marseillaise, hurrahing.’
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE LAST SCENE
1926 — January 1928: Aet. 86-87
Early in January 1926, feeling that his age compelled him to such a step, Hardy resigned the Governorship of the Dorchester Grammar School. He had always been reluctant to hold any public offices, knowing that he was by temperament unfitted to sit on committees that controlled or ordained the activities of others. He preferred to be ‘the man with the watching eye’.
On April 27, replying to a letter from an Oxford correspondent, who was one of four who had signed a letter to the Manchester Guardian upon the necessity of the reformation of the Prayer Book Services, Hardy writes from Max Gate:
‘I have read your letter with interest: also the enclosure that you and your friends sent to the Manchester Guardian, particularly because, when I was young, I had a wish to enter the Church.
‘I am now too old to take up the questions you lay open, but I may say that it has seemed to me that a simpler plan than that of mental reservation in passages no longer literally accepted (which is puzzling to ordinary congregations) would be just to abridge the creeds and other primitive parts of the Liturgy, leaving only the essentials. Unfortunately there appears to be a narrowing instead of a broadening tendency among the clergy of late, which if persisted in will exclude still more people from Church. But if a strong body of young reformers were to make a bold stand, in a sort of New Oxford Movement, they would have a tremendous backing from the thoughtful laity, and might overcome the retrogressive section of the clergy.
‘Please don’t attach much importance to these casual thoughts, and believe me,
‘Very truly yours,
‘T. H.’
In May he received from Mr. Arthur M. Hind a water-colour sketch of an attractive corner in the village of Minterne, which the artist thought might be the original of’Little Hintock’ in the Wood- landers. In thanking Mr. Hind, Hardy writes:
‘The drawing of the barn that you have been so kind as to send me his arrived uninjured, and I thank you much for the gift. I think it a charming picture, and a characteristic reproduction of that part of Dorset.
‘As to the spot being the “Little
Hintock” of The Woodlanders — that is another question. You will be surprised and shocked at my saying that I myself do not know where “Little Hintock” is! Several tourists have told me that they have found it, in every detail, and have offered to take me to it, but I have never gone.
‘However, to be more definite, it has features which were to be found fifty years ago in the hamlets of Hermitage, Middlemarsh, Lyons-Gate, Revels Inn, Holnest, Melbury Bubb, etc. — all lying more or less under the eminence called High Stoy, just beyond Min- terne and Dogbury Gate, where the country descends into the Vale of Blackmore.
‘The topographers you mention as identifying the scene are merely guessers and are wrong. . . .’
On June 29 he again welcomed the Balliol Players, whose chosen play this summer, the Hippolytus of Euripides, was performed on the lawn of Max Gate. About the same time he sent by request a message of congratulation and friendship to Weymouth, Massachusetts, by a deputation which was then leaving England to visit that town.
‘July 1926. Note — It appears that the theory exhibited in The Well-Beloved in 1892 has been since developed by Proust still further:
‘Peu de personnes comprennent le caract£re purement subjectif du phenom^ne qu’est 1’amour, et la sorte de creation que c’est d’une personne supplemental, distincte de celle qui porte le meme nom dans le monde, et dont la plupart des elements sont tires de nous- memes.’ (Ombre, i. 40.)
‘Le desir s’el£ve, se satisfait, disparait — et c’est tout. Ainsi, la jeune fille qu’on dpouse n’est pas celle dont on est tombe amoureux.’ (Ombre, ii. 158, 159.)
On September 8 a dramatization of The Mayor of Casterbridge by Mr. John Drinkwater was produced at the Barnes Theatre, and on the 20th the play was brought to Weymouth, where Hardy went to see it. He received a great ovation in the theatre, and also, on his return to Max Gate, from an enthusiastic crowd that collected round the Pavilion Theatre on the pier. From balconies and windows people were seen waving handkerchiefs as he drove past. In his diary he notes:
‘20 September. Performance of Mayor of Casterbridge at Weymouth by London Company, a “flying matinee”. Beautiful afternoon, scene outside the theatre finer than within.’
Writing to a friend about a proposed dramatization of Jude the Obscure, he observes:
‘I may say that I am not keen on the new mode (as I suppose it is regarded, though really Elizabethan) of giving a series of episodes in the film manner instead of set scenes.
‘Of the outlines I sent you which suggested themselves to me many years ago, I thought the one I called (I think) “4th Scheme” most feasible.
‘Would not Arabella be the villain of the piece? — or Jude’s personal constitution? — so far as there is any villain more than blind Chance. Christminster is of course the tragic influence of Jude’s drama in one sense, but innocently so, and merely as crass obstruction. By the way it is not meant to be exclusively Oxford, but any old-fashioned University about the date of the story, 1860-1870, before there were such chances for poor men as there are now. I have somewhere printed that I had no feeling against Oxford in particular.’
A few days later he visited Mrs. Bankes at Kingston Lacy in Dorset, and was greatly interested in the priceless collection of pictures shown him. Of this occasion he writes:
‘End of September. With F. on a visit to Mrs. Bankes at Kingston Lacy. She told me an amusing story when showing me a letter to Sir John Bankes from Charles the First, acknowledging that he had borrowed £500 from Sir John. Many years ago when she was showing the same letter to King Edward, who was much interested in it, she said, “Perhaps, Sir, that’s a little matter which could now be set right”. He replied quickly, “Statute of Limitations, Statute of Limitations”.’
Another note:
‘1 November. Went with Mr. Hanbury to Bockhampton and looked at fencing, trees, etc., with a view to tidying and secluding the Hardy house.’
That was his last visit to the place of his birth. It was always a matter of regret to him if he saw this abode in a state of neglect, or the garden uncherished.
During this month, November, his friend Colonel T. E. Lawrence called to say good-bye, before starting for India. Hardy was much affected by this parting, as T. E. Lawrence was one of his most valued friends. He went into the little porch and stood at the front door to see the departure of Lawrence on his motor-bicycle. This machine was difficult to start, and, thinking he might have to wait some time Hardy turned into the house to fetch a shawl to wrap round him. In the meantime, fearing that Hardy might take a chill, Lawrence started the motor-bicycle and hurried away. Returning a few moments after, Hardy was grieved that he had not seen the actual departure, and said that he had particularly wished to see Lawrence go-
The sight of animals being taken to market or driven to slaughter always aroused in Hardy feelings of intense pity, as he well knew, as must anyone living in or near a market-town, how much needless suffering is inflicted. In his notebook at this time he writes:
‘December (ist Week). Walking with F. by railway saw bullocks and cows going to Islington (?) for slaughter.’ Under this he drew a little pencil sketch of the rows of trucks as they were seen by him, with animals’ heads at every opening, looking out at the green countryside they were leaving for scenes of horror in a far-off city. Hardy thought of this sight for long after. It was found in his will that he had left a sum of money to each of two societies ‘ to be applied so far as practicable to the investigation of the means by which animals are conveyed from their houses to the slaughter-houses with a view to the lessening of their sufferings in such transit’.
The year drew quietly to an end. On the 23rd of December a band of carol-singers from St. Peter’s, Dorchester, came to Max Gate and sang to Hardy ‘While Shepherds Watched’ to the tune which used to be played by his father and grandfather, a copy of which he had given to the Rector.
A sadness fell upon the household, for Hardy’s dog, Wessex, now thirteen years old, was ill and obviously near his end.
Two days after Christmas Day Hardy makes this entry:
‘27 December. Our famous dog “Wessex” died at J past 6 in the evening, thirteen years of age.’
‘28. Wessex buried.’
‘28. Night. Wessex sleeps outside the house the first time for thirteen years.’
The dog lies in a small turfed grave in the shrubbery on the west side of Max Gate, where also were buried several pet cats and one other dog, Moss. On the headstone is this inscription drawn up by Hardy, and carved from his design:
THE FAMOUS
DOG WESSEX
August 1913-27 Dec. 1926
Faithful. Unflinching.
There were those among Hardy’s friends who thought that his life was definitely saddened by the loss of Wessex, the dog having been the companion of himself and his wife during twelve years of married life. Upon summer evenings or winter afternoons Wessex would walk with them up the grassy slope in the field in front of their house, to the stile that led into Came Plantation, and while Hardy rested on the stile the dog would sit on the ground and survey the view as his master was doing. On Frome Hill when his companions sat on the green bank by the roadside, or on the barrow that crowns the hill, he would lie in the grass at their feet and gaze at the landscape,’ as if’, to quote Hardy’s oft-repeated comment on this,’ it were the right thing to do’.
Those were happy innocent hours. A poem written after the dog’s death, ‘ Dead “ Wessex “, the dog to the household’, well illustrates Hardy’s sense of loss. Two of its verses are:
Do you look for me at times,
Wistful ones?
Do you look for me at times
Strained and still?
Do you look for me at times,
When the hour for walking chimes,
On that grassy path that climbs
Up the hill?
You may hear a jump or trot,
Wistful ones,
You may hear a jump or trot —
You may hear a jump or trot
On the stair or path or plot;
But I shall cause it not,
Be not there.
On December 29 Hardy wrote to his friends Mr. and Mrs. Granville-Barker from Max Gate:
‘. . . This is intended to be a New Year’s letter, but I don’t know if I have made a good shot at it. How kind of you to think of sending me Raymond Guyot’s Napoleon. I have only glanced at it, at the text that is, as yet, but what an interesting collection of records bearing on the life of the man who finished the Revolution with “a whiff of grapeshot”, and so crushed not only its final horrors but all the worthy aspirations of its earlier time, made them as if they had never been, and threw back human altruism scores, perhaps hundreds of years.’
‘31 December. New Year’s Eve. Did not sit up.’
In January 1927 ‘A Philosophical Fantasy’ appeared in the Fortnightly Review. Hardy liked the year to open with a poem of this type from him in some leading review or newspaper. The quotation at the heading, ‘Milton . . . made God argue’, gives the keynote, and the philosophy is much as he had set forth before, but still a ray of hope is shown for the future of mankind.
Aye, to human tribes nor kindlessness
Nor love I’ve given, but mindlessness,
Which state, though far from ending,
May nevertheless be mending.
Weeks passed through a cold spring and Hardy’s eighty-seventh birthday was reached. This year, instead of remaining at Max Gate, he motored with his wife to Netherton Hall in Devonshire, to spend a part of the day with friends, Helen and Harley Granville-Barker. In a letter written some months later, Mrs. Granville-Barker describes this visit.
