Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1143 page)

Mr. Smith replied that though he had not printed the original edition he would take it up, profit or no profit; but for some unexplained reason the book was published at other hands, the re-issue receiving much commendatory notice.

‘May 1. A man comes every evening to the cliff in front of our house to see the sun set, timing himself to arrive a few minutes before the descent. Last night he came, but there was a cloud. His disappointment.’

‘May 30. Walking to Marnhull. The prime of bird-singing. The thrushes and blackbirds are the most prominent, — pleading earnestly rather than singing, and with such modulation that you seem to see their little tongues curl inside their bills in their emphasis. A bullfinch sings from a tree with a metallic sweetness piercing as a fife. Further on I come to a hideous carcase of a house in a green landscape, like a skull on a table of dessert.’

Same date:

‘I sometimes look upon all things in inanimate Nature as pensive mutes.’

‘June 3. Mr. Young says that his grandfather [about 1750-1830] was very much excited, as was everybody in Sturminster, when a mail-coach ran from Poole to Bristol. On the morning it ran for the first time he got up early, swept the whole street, and sprinkled sand for the vehicle and horses to pass over.’

Same date:

‘The world often feels certain works of genius to be great, without knowing why: hence it may be that particular poets and novelists may have had the wrong quality in them noticed and applauded as that which makes them great.’

We also find in this June of 1877 an entry that adumbrates The Dynasts yet again — showing that the idea by this time has advanced a stage — from that of a ballad, or ballad-sequence, to a ‘ grand drama’, viz.:

‘Consider a grand drama, based on the wars with Napoleon, or some one campaign (but not as Shakespeare’s historical dramas). It might be called “Napoleon”, or “Josephine”, or by some other person’s name.’

He writes also, in another connection:

‘There is enough poetry in what is left [in life], after all the false romance has been abstracted, to make a sweet pattern: e.g. the poem by H. Coleridge:

‘“She is not fair to outward view”.

‘So, then, if Nature’s defects must be looked in the face and transcribed, whence arises the art in poetry and novel-writing? which must certainly show art, or it becomes merely mechanical reporting. I think the art lies in making these defects the basis of a hitherto unperceived beauty, by irradiating them with “the light that never was” on their surface, but is seen to be latent in them by the spiritual eye.’

‘June 28. Being Coronation Day there are games and dancing on the green at Sturminster Newton. The stewards with white rosettes. One is very anxious, fearing that while he is attending to the runners the leg of mutton on the pole will go wrong; hence he walks hither and thither with a compressed countenance and eyes far ahead.

‘The pretty girls, just before a dance, stand in inviting positions on the grass. As the couples in each figure pass near where their immediate friends loiter, each girl-partner gives a laughing glance at such friends, and whirls on.’

‘June 29. Have just passed through a painful night and morning. Our servant, whom we liked very much, was given a holiday yesterday to go to Bournemouth with her young man. Came home last night at ten, seeming oppressed. At about half-past twelve, when we were supposed to be asleep, she crept downstairs, went out, and on looking from the back window of our bedroom I saw her come from the outhouse with a man. She appeared to have only her nightgown on and something round her shoulders. Beside her slight white figure in the moonlight his form looked dark and gigantic. She preceded him to the door. Before I had thought what to do E. had run downstairs, and met her, and ordered her to bed. The man disappeared. Found that the bolts of the back-door had been oiled. He had evidently often stayed in the house.

‘She remained quiet till between four and five, when she got out of the dining-room window and vanished.’

1 June 30. About one o’clock went to her father’s cottage in the village, where we thought she had gone. Found them poorer than I expected (for they are said to be an old county family). Her father was in the field hay-making, and a little girl fetched him from the haymakers. He came across to me amid the windrows of hay, and seemed to read bad news in my face. She had not been home. I remembered that she had dressed up in her best clothes, and she probably has gone to Stalbridge to her lover.’