Thomas Hardy (5 page)

The year is 1859 and Thomas III (who henceforth will be called Hardy) is aged 19. His three-year apprenticeship is over and he is now given the task, by Hicks, of making surveys of churches with a view to their ‘restoration’. In reality, this was a euphemism for what Hardy regarded as ‘ruination’, and the fact that he had become a participant (albeit unwilling) in this process would, in later years, cause him enormous regret. Its legacy remains to this day and is easily borne out by a comparison of, say, the ‘restored’ Stinsford church of St Michael and Puddletown’s church of St Mary, which escaped restoration and in consequence has retained its exquisite and fascinating historical artefacts in their original condition and situation.

The restoration of Stinsford church had begun under the aegis of the Revd Shirley in 1843, when the main part of the west (‘minstrels’) gallery was removed. Shirley also removed the chancel pews and replaced the string choir with a barrel organ. For this, the Hardy family never forgave him. Hardy would one day get his revenge (although these traumatic events had occurred when he was a mere infant) in a poem,
The Choirmaster’s Burial
, in which ‘an unsympathetic vicar forbids [deceased choirmaster] William Dewey old-fashioned grave-side musical rites’.
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Hardy was now at a crossroads: the question being whether he should pursue a career in architecture or immerse himself ever more deeply in the Classics, and in particular, the Greek plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles. In this, he was to be guided by his literary friend and mentor Horace Moule, son of the Revd Henry Moule, vicar of nearby Fordington. Born in 1832 and therefore eight years his senior, Horace Moule had studied at both Oxford and Cambridge universities and had recently commenced work as an author and reviewer. It was he who introduced Hardy to the
Saturday Review
– a radical London weekly publication which attributed the majority of social evils to social inequality – and who also made Hardy gifts of books, including Johann Goethe’s
Faust
.

Hardy now commenced writing, in the hope of being published. He was successful, and his first article, an anonymous account of the disappearance of the clock from the almshouse in Dorchester’s South Street, appeared in a Dorchester newspaper. The poem
Domicilium
followed, together with articles published by the
Dorset Chronicle
about church restorations carried out by his employer Hicks. Meanwhile, Horace Moule’s advice to Hardy was that if he wished to make his living in architecture, then he ought not to continue with his study of the Greek plays. This advice was accepted, albeit reluctantly.

Why did Hardy now make the decision – bold for a country youth – to leave Dorset for London? Was it because he did not find working in Dorchester for Hicks challenging enough, and hoped to better himself in the capital? Or did he have a pecuniary motive, as Desmond MacCarthy (an acquaintance of his) implies? According to MacCarthy, Hardy’s thoughts turned to writing when he heard that George Meredith – poet, novelist and reader for publishers Chapman & Hall – had received the sum of £100 for writing a novel. It was, therefore, Hardy’s ‘desire to make a little money that first made him turn to fiction’.
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And if he did not succeed, at least he would have the consolation, when in London, of getting a glimpse of some of the great writers and poets of the day whom he wished to emulate.

In April 1862 Hardy found temporary employment making drawings for one John Norton, architect of Old Bond Street. This introduction was made by Hicks who was a friend of Norton’s. Soon, Norton in turn introduced Hardy to a Mr Arthur Blomfield, whom Norton had met at the Institute of British Architects. On 5 May Hardy began work as Blomfield’s assistant architect.

One of the duties which Blomfield assigned to his 21-year-old assistant was to supervise the removal of bodies from the churchyard of Old St Pancras, through which the Midland Railway Company proposed to make a cutting. On a more cheerful note, Blomfield invited Hardy to sing in his office choir, and also in the choir of St Matthias’ church, Richmond, where he himself sang bass.

In August 1862 Hardy wrote to his sister, Mary, describing how he had attended evening service at St Mary’s church, Kilburn; and also how he had received a visit from his friend, Horace Moule, who had accompanied him to a Roman Catholic chapel built by the architect Augustus Pugin (1812–52). Two months later, Hardy told Mary how their father (who had evidently made the journey up from Dorset) had been to an opera at Covent Garden and had insisted on seeing the Thames Tunnel (which linked Wapping on the north bank of the river to Rotherhithe on the south bank).
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This was the year in which Hardy made a proposal of marriage to Mary Waight, who was employed in the high-class ‘mantle showroom’ (retail shop selling women’s cloaks) in Dorchester and who, at 29, was seven years his senior. Mary, however, rejected his offer.
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Early in 1863, again in a letter to his sister Mary, Hardy describes his office which overlooks the River Thames and all its bridges, and tells her how he has visited the underground railway, then in its infancy. The smog, however, which hangs over the city like ‘brown paper or pea-soup’ had been a problem. He tells Mary how he intends to enter a competition for a prize, offered by Sir William Tite (the architect who rebuilt the Royal Exchange and designed many of England’s early railway stations). The competition is open to members of the Architectural Association, of which he is one, and his entry is to be his own design for a ‘Country Mansion’ – Hardy subsequently won the prize. He had also entered the Prize Architectural Essay competition of the Royal Institute of British Architects: the subject of his dissertation being ‘The Application of Bricks and Terra Cotta to Modern Architecture’. For this he was awarded a silver medal.
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In the latter part of 1863, Hardy recommends to Mary that she read the works of William Makepeace Thackeray, whose writing he esteems as being of the ‘highest kind’, and a ‘perfect and truthful representation of actual life’. He himself is now, in his spare time, throwing himself once more into the study of literature.

The funeral of former British Liberal Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, took place on 27 October 1865, which Hardy was able to attend, having purchased the necessary ticket. The following day he writes again to Mary, recommending Anthony Trollope’s novel
Barchester Towers
to her as the author’s best work. Hardy also mentions that his father (who is apparently again staying with him at the time) has ‘taken to reading newspapers’. He himself has resumed his study of French and is spending much time in the National Gallery studying, one by one, the great masters; attending a series of Shakespeare’s plays, and also live readings of the works of Charles Dickens by the author himself.
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A formative influence on Hardy was the poet and writer Algernon Charles Swinburne, born in 1837 and educated at Eton and Oxford. Swinburne’s
Poems and Ballads
, published in 1865, showed contempt for conventional morality in favour of sensuality and paganism. Although this evoked violent criticism, Hardy, who was yet to meet Swinburne, was one of his earliest admirers, and later described that ‘buoyant time of thirty years ago, when I used to read your early works walking along the crowded London streets, to my imminent risk of being knocked down’.
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Swinburne’s views were expressed in his
Hymn of Man
as ‘Glory to Man in the highest! For Man is the master of things’.

In 1866 Hardy revealed to his sister, Mary, that it had been his serious intention to enter the Church. To this end, Horace Moule had sent him the
Students Guide to the University of Cambridge
(Moule’s own university), but Hardy eventually decided that this ‘notion was too far-fetched to be worth entertaining’. It would take three years, and then another three, and then almost another one, in order to get ‘a title’
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– which was a necessary prerequisite for those intending to enter the ministry.

The words of Hardy’s poem,
The Impercipient
(subtitled ‘At a Cathedral Service’ and believed to have been written when he was in his twenties), indicate that this decision was the correct one, for the added reason that he had decided that the Christian faith was something he found impossible to embrace. This, Hardy reveals in his reference to worshippers:

That with this bright believing band

I have no claim to be,

That faiths by which my comrades stand

Seem fantasies to me …

It should also be mentioned that a few years previously, in 1858, the conflict between religion and science had been brought into sharp focus when Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace published a joint paper entitled
On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties
. The following year,
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
was published by Darwin alone. Hardy, with his voracious thirst for knowledge, was familiar with this latter work, and ‘had been among the earliest acclaimers’ of it.
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Hardy now began sending poems, which he had recently written, to various magazines with a view to publication, only to have them rejected by their editors.

While in London, Hardy demonstrated that his love of music was as strong as ever, and took every opportunity to visit art galleries and the opera; neither of which had hitherto been available to him. Unfortunately, however, his health had deteriorated; perhaps from the polluted air of the metropolis (his lodgings fronted the River Thames, which was then little more than an open sewer). So, on the advice of Blomfield, he returned to Dorset in July 1867. Blomfield believed that this would be for convalescence. Yet Hardy had already been contacted by his former employer, Hicks of Dorchester, who told him that he, Hicks, was in need of an assistant to help with church restoration work.

Having returned to the house of his parents at Higher Bockhampton – where he regained his strength and health – Hardy resumed his habit of walking to work in Dorchester every day. This time, however, the work was of an irregular nature, and in his spare time Hardy wrote his first novel,
The Poor Man and the Lady
. This was read by Horace Moule, now a regular contributor to the
Saturday Review
, who must have liked it because he furnished Hardy with a letter of introduction to publisher Alexander Macmillan, to whom Hardy sent the manuscript on 25 July the following year. Anxious and impatient to hear Macmillan’s opinion, he wrote again to the publisher on 10 September, saying that he, Hardy, had it in mind to write another story, but had not the courage to do so ‘till something comes of the first’.
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