Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1166 page)

On their way back the Hardys went to Ludlow Castle, and deplored the wanton treatment which had led to the rooflessness of the historic pile where Comus was first performed and Hudibras partly written. Hardy thought that even now a millionaire might be able to re-roof it and make it his residence.

On a flying visit to London at the end of this month, dining at the Conservative Club with Sir George Douglas, he had ‘an interesting scientific conversation’ with Sir James Crichton-Browne. ‘A woman’s brain, according to him, is as large in proportion to her body as a man’s. The most passionate women are not those selected in civilized society to breed from, as in a state of nature, but the colder; the former going on the streets (I am sceptical about this). The doctrines of Darwin require readjusting largely; for instance, the survival of the fittest in the struggle for life. There is an altruism and coalescence between cells as well as an antagonism. Certain cells destroy certain cells; but others assist and combine. Well, I can’t say.’

‘September 13. At Max Gate. A striated crimson sunset; opposite it I sit in the study writing by the light of a shaded lamp, which looks primrose against the red.’ This was Hardy’s old study facing west (now altered) in which he wrote Tess of the d’Urbervilles, before he removed into his subsequent one looking east, where he wrote The Dynasts and all his later poetry, and which is still unchanged.

‘September 14. Drove with Em. to the Sheridans’, Frampton. Tea on lawn. Mrs. Mildmay, young Harcourt, Lord Dufferin, etc. On our return all walked with us as far as the first park-gate. May [afterwards Lady Stracey] looked remarkably well.’

‘September 17. At Bockhampton heard a story about eels that was almost gruesome — how they jumped out of a bucket at night, crawled all over the house and half-way up the stairs, their tails being heard swishing in the dark, and were ultimately found in the garden; and when water was put to them to wash off the gravel and earth they became lively and leapt about.’

At the end of the month Hardy and his wife went on a visit to Sir Francis and Lady Jeune at Arlington Manor, finding the house when they arrived as cheerful as the Jeunes’ house always was in those days, Hardy saying that there was never another house like it for cheerfulness. Among the other house-guests were Mrs. Craigie (‘John Oliver Hobbes’), Lewis Morris, Mr. Stephen (a director of the North-Western Railway), and Hubert Howard, son of Lord Carlisle. On Sunday morning Hardy took a two hours’ walk with Mrs. Craigie on the moor, when she explained to him her reasons for joining the Roman Catholic Church, a step which had vexed him somewhat. Apparently he did not consider her reasons satisfactory, but their friendship remained unbroken. While staying there they went to Shaw House, an intact Elizabethan mansion, and to a picnic in Savernake Forest, ‘where Lady Jeune cooked luncheon in a great saucepan, with her sleeves rolled up and an apron on’.

‘October 7-10. Wrote a song.’ (Which of his songs is not mentioned.)

‘November 11. Met Lady Cynthia Graham. In appearance she is something like my idea of Tess, though I did not know her when the novel was written.’

‘November 23. Poem. “The Glass-stainer” (published later on).’

‘November 28. Poem. “He views himself as an automaton” (published).’

‘December. Found and touched up a short story called “An Imaginative Woman”.

‘In London with a slight cold in the head. Dined at the Dss. of Manchester’s. Most of the ‘guests had bad colds, and our hostess herself a hacking cough. A lively dinner all the same. As some people had not been able to come I dined with her again a few days later, as did also George [afterwards Lord] Curzon. Lady Londonderry told me that her mother’s grandmother was Spanish, whence the name of Theresa. There were also present the Duke of Devonshire, Arthur Balfour, and Mr. and Mrs. Lyttelton. When I saw the Duchess again two or three days later, she asked me how I liked her relation, the Duke. I said not much; he was too heavy for one thing. “That’s because he’s so shy!” she urged. “I assure you he is quite different when it wears off.” I looked as if I did not believe much in the shyness. However, I’ll assume it was so.’

After looking at a picture of Grindelwald and the Wetterhorn at somebody’s house he writes: ‘I could argue thus: “There is no real interest or beauty in this mountain, which appeals only to the childish taste for colour or size. The little houses at the foot are the real interest of the scene”.’ Hardy never did argue so, nor intend to, nor quite believe the argument; but one understands what he means.

Finishing his London engagements, which included the final revision with Mrs. Henniker of a weird story in which they had collabourated, entitled ‘The Spectre of the Real’, he spent Christmas at Max Gate as usual, receiving the carol-singers there on Christmas Eve, where, ‘ though quite modern, with a harmonium, they made a charming picture with their lanterns under the trees, the rays diminishing away in the winter mist’. On New Year’s Eve it was calm, and they stood outside the door listening to the muffled peal from the tower of Fordington St. George.

CHAPTER XXII

ANOTHER NOVEL FINISHED, MUTILATED, AND RESTORED

1894-1895: Aet. 53-55

‘February 4, 1894. Curious scene encountered this (Sunday) evening as I was walking back to Dorchester from Bockhampton very late — nearly 12 o’clock. A girl almost in white on the top of Stinsford Hill, beating a tambourine and dancing. She looked like one of the “angelic quire”, who had tumbled down out of the sky, and I could hardly believe my eyes. Not a soul there or near but her and myself. Was told she belonged to the Salvation Army, who beat tambourines devotionally.’ The scene was afterwards put into verse.

One day this month he spent in Stinsford Churchyard with his brother, superintending the erection of their father’s tombstone.

At Londonderry House the subject arose of social blunders. The hostess related some amusing ones of hers; but Sir Redvers Buller capped everybody by describing what he called a ‘double-barrelled’ one of his own. He inquired of a lady next him at dinner who a certain gentleman was, ‘like a hippopotamus’, sitting opposite them. He was the lady’s husband; and Sir Redvers was so depressed by the disaster that had befallen him that he could not get it off his mind; hence at a dinner the next evening he sought the condolences of an elderly lady, to whom he related his misfortune; and remembered when he had told the story that his listener was the gentleman’s mother.

At a very interesting luncheon at the Bachelors’ Club given by his friend George Curzon he made the acquaintance of Mr. F. C. Selous, the mighty hunter, with the nature of whose fame he was not, however, quite in sympathy, wondering how such a seemingly humane man could live for killing; and also of Lord Roberts and Lord Lansdowne.

After these cheerful doings he returned to Max Gate for a while, but when in London again, to look for a house for the spring and summer, he occasionally visited a friend he had earlier known by 262

correspondence, Lord Pembroke, author of South Sea Bubbles, a fellow Wessex man, as he called himself, for whom Hardy acquired a very warm feeling. He was now ill at a nursing home in London, and an amusing incident occurred while his visitor was sitting by his bedside one afternoon, thinking what havoc of good material it was that such a fine and handsome man should be prostrated. He whispered to Hardy that there was a ‘Tess’ in the establishment, who always came if he rang at that time of the day, and that he would do so then that Hardy might see her. He accordingly rang, whereupon Tess’s chronicler was much disappointed at the result; but endeavoured to discern beauty in the very indifferent figure who responded, and at last persuaded himself that he could do so. When she had gone the patient apologized, saying that for the first time since he had lain there a stranger had attended to his summons.

On Hardy’s next visit to his friend Pembroke said with the faintest reproach: ‘ You go to the fashionable house in front, and you might come round to the back to see me.’ The nursing home was at the back of Lady Londonderry’s. They never met again, and when he heard of Pembroke’s unexpected death Hardy remembered the words and grieved.

‘April 7. Wrote to Harper’s asking to be allowed to cancel the agreement to supply a serial story to Harper s Magaiine.’ This agreement was the cause of a good deal of difficulty afterwards (the story being Jude the Obscure), as will be seen.

This year they found a house at South Kensington, and moved into it with servants brought from the country, to be surprised a little later by the great attention their house received from butchers’ and bakers’ young men, postmen, and other passers-by; when they found their innocent country servants to have set up flirtations with all these in a bold style which the Lbndon servant was far too cautious to adopt.

At the end of April he paid a visit to George Meredith at his house near Box Hill, and had an interesting and friendly evening there, his son and daughter-in-law being present. ‘Meredith’, he said, ‘is a shade artificial in manner at first, but not unpleasantly so, and he soon forgets to maintain it, so that it goes off quite.’

At a dinner at the Grand Hotel given by Mr. Astor to his contributors in May, Hardy had a talk with Lord Roberts, who spoke most modestly of his achievements. It was ‘an artistic and luxuriant banquet, with beds of roses on the tables, electric lights shining up like glow-worms through their leaves and petals [an arrangement somewhat of a novelty then], and a band playing behind the palms’.

This month he spared two or three days from London to go to Aldeburgh in Suffolk, where at the house of Mr. Edward Clodd, his host, he met Grant Allen and Whymper, the mountaineer, who told of the tragedy on the Matterhorn in 1865 in which he was the only survivor of the four Englishmen present — a reminiscence which specially impressed Hardy from the fact that he remembered the particular day, thirty years before, of the arrival of the news in this country. He had walked from his lodgings in Westbourne Park Villas to Harrow that afternoon, and on entering the place was surprised to notice people standing at the doors discussing something with a serious look. It turned out to be the catastrophe, two of the victims being residents of Harrow. The event lost nothing by Whymper’s relation of it. He afterwards marked for Hardy on a sketch of the Matterhorn a red line showing the track of the adventurers to the top and the spot of the accident — a sketch which is still at Max Gate with his signature.

On a day in the week following he was at the Women Writers’ Club — probably its first anniversary meeting — and, knowing what women writers mostly had to put up with, was surprised to find himself in a group of fashionably dressed youngish ladies, the Princess Christian being present with other women of rank. ‘Dear me — are women-writers like this!’ he said with changed views.

During the same week they fulfilled likewise day or night invitations to Lady Carnarvon’s, Mrs. Pitt-Rivers’s, and other houses. At Lady Malmesbury’s one of her green linnets escaped from its cage, and he caught it — reluctantly, but feeling that a green linnet at large in London would be in a worse predicament than as a prisoner. At the Countess of’s ‘a woman very rich and very pretty’ [Marcia,

Lady Yarborough] informed him mournfully in tite-h-tite that people snubbed her, which so surprised him that he could hardly believe it, and frankly told her it was her own imagination. She was the lady of the ‘Pretty pink frock’ poem, though it should be stated that the deceased was not her husband but an uncle. And at an evening party at her house later he found her in a state of nerves, lest a sudden downpour of rain which had occurred should prevent people coming, and spoil her grand gathering. However, when the worst of the thunderstorm was over they duly streamed in, and she touched him joyfully on the shoulder and said, ‘You’ve conjured them!’ ‘My entertainer’s sister, Lady P — , was the most beautiful woman there.

On coming away there were no cabs to be got [on account of a strike it seems], and I returned to S.K. on the top of a ‘bus. No sooner was I up there than the rain began again. A girl who had scrambled up after me asked for the shelter of my umbrella and I gave it — when she startled me by holding on tight to my arm and bestowing on me many kisses for the trivial kindness. She told me she had been to “The Pav”, and was tired, and was going home. She had not been drinking. I descended at the South Kensington Station and watched the ‘bus bearing her away. An affectionate nature wasted on the streets! It was a strange contrast to the scene I had just left.’

Early in June they were at the first performance of a play by Mrs. Craigie at Daly’s Theatre, and did some entertaining at their own house, after which Mrs. Hardy was unwell, and went to Hastings for a change of air, Hardy going to Dorchester to look at some alterations he was making in his Max Gate house. At the end of a week he fetched his wife from Hastings, and after more dinners and luncheons he went to a melodrama at the Adelphi, which was said to be based without acknowledgement on Tess of the d’Urbervilles. He had received many requests for a dramatic version of the novel, but he found that nothing could be done with it among London actor-managers, all of them in their notorious timidity being afraid of the censure from conventional critics that had resisted Ibsen; and he abandoned all idea of producing it, one prominent actor telling him frankly that he could not play such a dubious character as Angel Clare (which would have suited him precisely) ‘because I have my name to make, and it would risk my reputation with the public if I played anything but a heroic character without spot’. Hardy thought of the limited artistic sense of even a leading English actor. Yet before and after this time Hardy received letters or oral messages from almost every actress of note in Europe asking for an opportunity of appearing in the part of ‘Tess’ — among them being Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, and Eleanora Duse.

During July Hardy met Mrs. Asquith for the first time; and at another house he had an interesting conversation with Dr. W. H. Russell on the battles in the Franco-Prussian war, where Russell had been correspondent for The Times, and was blamed by some readers for putting too much realism into his accounts. Russell told Hardy a distressing story of a horse with no under jaw, laying its head upon his thigh in a dumb appeal for sympathy, two or three days after the battle of Gravelotte, when he was riding over the field; and other such sickening experiences.