by Thomas Hardy
The years 1872 and 1873 were pre-eminently years of unexpectedness. Having engaged to give some help to Mr. T. Roger Smith, a well-known London architect and Professor of Architecture at the Royal Institute of British Architects, he speedily found himself on his arrival in the first-named year assisting Professor Smith in designing schools for the London School Board, which had then lately come into existence, public competition between architects for such designs being arranged by the Board from time to time. Hardy had no sooner settled down to do his best in this business than he met in the middle of a crossing by Trafalgar Square his friend Moule, whom he had not seen for a long time. Moule, a scholar and critic of perfect taste, firmly believed in Hardy’s potentialities as a writer, and said he hoped he still kept a hand on the pen; but Hardy seems to have declared that he had thrown up authorship at last and for all. Moule was grieved at this, but merely advised him not to give up writing altogether, since, supposing anything were to happen to his eyes from the fine architectural drawing, literature would be a resource for him; he could dictate a book, article, or poem, but not a geometrical design. This, Hardy used to say, was essentially all that passed between them; but by a strange coincidence Moule’s words were brought back to his mind one morning shortly after by his seeing, for the first time in his life, what seemed like floating specks on the white drawing-paper before him.
For some reason or other at this date — a year after its publication — he wrote to his publishers to render an account of their transactions over Desperate Remedies, which he had once before requested, but had not been very curious upon; for though the Saturday Review had brought the volumes to life after their slaughter by the Spectator, he quite supposed he had lost on the venture both his time and his money. By return of post Tinsley Brothers rendered the account, showing that they had printed 500 copies of the novel in three volumes, and sold 370, and enclosing a cheque for £60, as being all that was returnable to him out of the £75 paid as guarantee — after the costs and the receipts were balanced, no part of the receipts being due to him.
From these figures Hardy, who did not examine them closely, found that after all he had only lost his labour and £15 in money — and was much gratified thereby.
Quite soon after, while reading in the Strand a poster of the Italian Opera, a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and turning he saw Tinsley himself, who asked when Hardy was going to let him have another novel.
Hardy, with thoughts of the balance-sheet, drily told him never.
‘Wot, now!’ said Tinsley. ‘Haven’t you anything written?’
Hardy remarked that he had written a short story some time before, but didn’t know what had become of the MS., and did not care. He also had outlined one for three volumes; but had abandoned it. He was now doing better things, and attending to his profession of architect.
‘Damned if that isn’t what I thought you wos!’ exclaimed Mr. Tinsley. ‘Well, now, can’t you get that story, and show it to me?’
Hardy would not promise, reminding the publisher that the account he had rendered for the other book was not likely to tempt him to publish a second.
“Pon my soul, Mr. Hardy,’ said Tinsley, ‘you wouldn’t have got another man in London to print it! Oh, be hanged if you would! ‘twas a blood-curdling story! Now please try to find that new manuscript and let me see it.’
Hardy could not at first recollect what he had done with the MS., but recalling at last he wrote to his parents at home, telling them where to search for it, and to forward it to him.
When, the first week in April, Under the Greenwood Tree arrived Hardy sent it on to Tinsley without looking at it, saying he would have nothing to do with any publishing accounts. This probably was the reason why Tinsley offered him £30 for the copyright, which Hardy accepted. It should be added that Tinsley afterwards sent him £10 extra, and quite voluntarily, being, he said, half the amount he had obtained from Tauchnitz for the Continental copyright, of which transaction Hardy had known nothing.
Hardy’s indifference in selling Under the Greenwood Tree for a trifle could not have been because he still had altogether other aims than the literature of fiction, as had been the case in the previous winter; for he casually mentioned to Tinsley that he thought of going on with the three-volume novel before alluded to. Moule’s words on keeping a hand on the pen, and the specks in his eyes while drawing, may have influenced him in this harking back.
In the early part of May he was correcting the proofs of the rural story. It was mostly done late at night, at Westbourne Park, where he was again living, the day being occupied with the competition- drawings for Board schools in the various London districts — and some occasional evenings in preparing drawings for Blomfield, with whom Hardy was in frequent and friendly touch — though he told Blomfield at that time nothing about his adventures as a novel-writer.
Under the Greenwood Tree was published about the last week in May (1872) and met with a very kindly and gentle reception, being reviewed in the Athenceum as a book which could induce people ‘to give up valuable time to see a marriage accomplished in its pages’, and in the Pall Mall Gazette as a story of much freshness and originality.
As its author was at Bedford Chambers in Bedford Street — Professor Smith’s offices — every day, and the office of the publishers was only a street or two further along the Strand, he was not infrequently encountering Tinsley, who one day asked him — the book continuing to receive good notices — for how much he would write a story for Tinsley s Magazine, to run a twelvemonth, the question being probably prompted by this tone of the press towards Under the Greenwood Tree.
Hardy reflected on the outlined novel he had abandoned — considered that he could do it in six months — but ‘ to guard against temptation’ (as he put it) multiplied by two the utmost he could expect to make at architecture in the time, and told his inquirer the sum.
‘All right, all right, Mr. Hardy — very reasonable,’ said the friendly publisher, smacking Hardy’s shoulder. ‘Now come along into the office here, and we’ll sign the agreement, and the job will be off our minds.’
Hardy, however, for some reason or other was growing wary, and said he would call next day. During the afternoon he went to a law-bookseller, bought Copinger on Copyright, the only book on the subject he could meet with, and sat up half the night studying it. Next day he called on Tinsley, and said he would write the story for the sum mentioned, it being understood that the amount paid was for the magazine-issue solely, after which publication all rights were to return to the author.
‘Well, I’m damned!’ Tinsley said, with a grim laugh. ‘Who the devil have you been talking to, Mr. Hardy, if I may ask, since I saw you yesterday?’
Hardy said ‘Nobody’. (Which was true, though only literally.)
‘Well, but — Now, Mr. Hardy, you are hard, very hard upon me! However, I do like your writings: and if you’ll throw in the three-volume edition of the novel with the magazine rights I’ll agree.’
Hardy assented to this, having, as he used to say, some liking for Tinsley’s keen sense of humour even when it went against himself; and the business was settled shortly after, the author agreeing to be ready with the first monthly part of his story for the magazine soon enough to give an artist time to prepare an illustration for it, and enable it to be printed in the September number, which in the case of this periodical came out on August 15.
It was now the 24th July, and walking back towards Professor Roger Smith’s chambers Hardy began to feel that he had done rather a rash thing. He knew but vaguely the value of a three-volume edition, and as to the story, he had, as already mentioned, thought of a possible one some time before, roughly noted down the opening chapters and general outline, and then abandoned it with the rest of his literary schemes. He had never written a serial narrative and had no journalistic experience; and he was pledged to the Board-school drawings for at least another week, when they were to be sent in to the Committee. Nevertheless, having prom
ised Tinsley, he resolved to stick to his promise, and on the 27th July agreed by letter.
Apparently without saying anything of his new commitment, he informed the genial Professor of Architecture that he thought he would take a holiday in August, when there would be little more of a pressing nature to do for that year; and going home to Westbourne Park wrote between then and midnight the first chapter or two of A Pair of Blue Eyes. Even though he may have thought over and roughly set down the beginning of the romance, the writing it out connectedly must have been done very rapidly, despite the physical enervation that London always brought upon him. (It may be noticed that he gave the youth who appears first in the novel the surname of the Professor of Architecture he had been assisting.) At any rate the MS. of the first number, with something over, was ready for the illustrator in an incredibly quick time. Thereupon, though he had shaped nothing of what the later chapters were to be like, he dismissed the subject as Sheridan dismissed a bill he had backed, and on August 7 went on board the Avoca, of the Irish Mail Packet Company (a boat which, by the way, went to the bottom shortly after) at London Bridge, to proceed to Cornwall by water.
In Cornwall he paid a visit to some friends — Captain and Mrs. Serjeant, of St. Benet’s Abbey, who owned valuable china-clay works near, which were just then being developed; drove to St. Juliot, and met there among other visitors Miss d’Arville, a delightful old lady from Bath, who had a canary that fainted and fell to the bottom of the cage whenever a cat came into the room, or the picture of a cat was shown it. He walked to Tintagel Castle and sketched there a stone altar, having an Early-English ornamentation on its edge; which altar in after years he could never find; and in the intervals of this and other excursions went on with his MS., having naturally enough received an urgent letter for more copy from the publisher. He returned to London by way of Bath, where he left Miss d’Arville, who had accompanied him thus far.
He could not, however, get on with his novel in London, and late in September went down to the seclusion of Dorset to set about it more thoroughly. On this day Under the Greenwood Tree was reviewed by Moule in the Saturday. The Spectator, however, which had so mauled Desperate Remedies, took little notice of the book.
An entry in the diary at this time was: ‘Sept. 30. Posted MS. of A Pair of Blue Eyes to Tinsley up to Page 163.’
Before the date was reached he had received a letter from Professor Roger Smith, informing him that another of the six Board-school competitions for which Hardy had helped him to prepare designs had been successful, and suggesting that he had ‘been at grass’ long enough, and would be welcomed back on any more liberal terms, if he felt dissatisfied.
This architectural success, for which he would have given much had it come sooner, was now merely provoking. However, Hardy confessed to the surprised and amused Smith what he had been doing, and was still occupied with; and thus was severed, to his great regret, an extremely pleasant if short professional connection with an able and amiable man; though their friendship was not broken, being renewed from time to time, and continued till the death of the elder of them.
Till the end of the year he was at Bockhampton finishing A Pair of Blue Eyes, the action of which, as is known, proceeds on the coast near ‘Lyonnesse’ — not far from King Arthur’s Castle at Tintagel. Its scene, he said, would have been clearly indicated by calling the romance Elfride of Lyonnesse, but for a wish to avoid drawing attention to the neighbouring St. Juliot while his friends were living there. After a flying visit to the Rectory, he remained on through the spring at his mother’s; and it may be mentioned here that while staying at this place or at the Rectory or possibly in London, Hardy received an account of the death of ‘the Tranter’, after whom the character in Under the Greenwood Tree had been called, though it was not a portrait, nor was the fictitious tranter’s kinship to the other musicians based on fact. He had been the many years’ neighbour of the Hardys, and did the haulage of building materials for Hardy’s father, of whom he also rented a field for his horses. The scene of his last moments was detailed in a letter to Hardy by one present at his death-bedside: ‘He was quite in his senses, but not able to speak. A dark purple stain began in his leg that was injured many years ago by his waggon going over it; the stain ran up it about as fast as a fly walks. It ran up his body in the same way till, arriving level with his fingers, it began in them, and went on up his arms, up his neck and face, to the top of his head, when he breathed his last. Then a pure white began at his foot, and went upwards at the same rate, and in the same way, and he became as white throughout as he had been purple a minute before.’
In this connection it may be interesting to add that the actual name of the shoemaker ‘Robert Penny’ in the same story was Robert Reason. He, like the Tranter and the Tranter’s wife, is buried in Stinsford Churchyard near the tombs of the Hardys, though his name is almost illegible. Hardy once said he would much have preferred to use the real name, as being better suited to the character, but thought at the time of writing that there were possible relatives who might be hurt by the use of it, though he afterwards found there were none. The only real name in the story is that of ‘Voss’, who brought the hot mead and viands to the choir on their rounds. It can still be read on a headstone, also quite near to where the Hardys lie. It will be remembered that these headstones are alluded to in the poem entitled ‘The Dead Quire’ —
There Dewy lay by the gaunt yew tree,
There Reuben and Michael, a pace behind,
And Bowman with his family
By the wall that the ivies bind.
Old Dewy has been called a portrait of Hardy’s grandfather, but this was not the case; he died three years before the birth of the story-teller, almost in his prime, and long ere reaching the supposed age of William Dewy. There was, in fact, no family portrait in the tale.
A Pair of Blue Eyes was published in three volumes the latter part of May.
‘May 5. “Maniel” [Immanuel] Riggs found dead. [A shepherd Hardy knew.] A curious man, who used to moisten his lips between every two or three words.’
‘June 9, 1873. To London. Went to French Plays. Saw Brasseur, etc.’
‘June 15. Met H. M. Moule at the Golden Cross Hotel. Dined with him at the British Hotel. Moule then left for Ipswich on his duties as Poor Law Inspector.’
‘June 16-20. About London with my brother Henry.’
‘June 20. By evening train to Cambridge. Stayed in College — Queens’ — Went out with H. M. M. after dinner. A magnificent evening: sun over “the Backs”.
‘Next morning went with H. M. M. to King’s Chapel early. M. opened the great West doors to show the interior vista: we got upon the roof, where we could see Ely Cathedral gleaming in the distant sunlight. A never-to-be-forgotten morning. H. M. M. saw me off for London. His last smile.’
From London Hardy travelled on to Bath, arriving late at night and putting up at 8 Great Stanhope Street, where lodgings had been obtained for him by his warm-hearted friend Miss d’Arville, whom Miss Gifford was then visiting. The following dates are from the intermittent diary Hardy kept in these years.
‘June 23. Excursions about Bath and Bristol with the ladies.’
‘June 28. To Clifton with Miss Gifford.’ — Where they were surprised by accidentally seeing in a newsagent’s shop a commendatory review of A Pair of Blue Eyes in the Spectator.’
‘June 30. About Bath alone. . . . Bath has a rural complexion on an urban substance. . . .’
‘July 1. A day’s trip with Miss G. To Chepstow, the Wye, the Wynd Cliff, which we climbed, and Tintern, where we repeated some of Wordsworth’s lines thereon.
‘At Tintern, silence is part of the pile. Destroy that, and you take a limb from an organism. ... A wooded slope visible from every unmullioned window. But compare the age of the building with that of the marble hills from which it was drawn! . . .’
Here may be stated, in relation to the above words on the age of the hills, that this shortcoming of the most ancie
nt architecture by comparison with geology was a consideration that frequently troubled Hardy’s mind when measuring and drawing old Norman and other early buildings, just as it had been troubled by ‘The Wolf’ in his musical tuning, and by the thought that Greek literature had been at the mercy of dialects.
‘July 2. Bath to Dorchester.’
CHAPTER VII
‘FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD’, MARRIAGE, AND ANOTHER NOVEL
1873-1876: Aet. 33-36
Some half-year before this, in December 1872, Hardy had received at Bockhampton a letter from Leslie Stephen, the editor of the Corn- hill — by that time well known as a man of letters, Saturday reviewer, and Alpine climber — asking for a serial story for his magazine. He had lately read Under the Greenwood Tree,and thought’the descriptions admirable’. It was ‘long since he had received more pleasure from a new writer’, and it had occurred to him that such writing would probably please the readers of the Cornhill Magazine as much as it had pleased him.