by Thomas Hardy
To Mr. Joseph McCa.be, who wrote proposing to include Hardy in a Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists ‘February 18, 1920.
‘Dear Sir,
‘As Mr. Hardy has a cold which makes writing trying to his eyes, I answer your letter for him. He says he thinks he is’rather an irra- tionalist than a rationalist, on account of his inconsistencies. He has, in fact, declared as much in prefaces to some of his poems, where he explains his views as being mere impressions that frequently change. Moreover, he thinks he could show that no man is a rationalist, and that human actions are not ruled by reason at all in the last resort. But this, of course, is outside the question. So that he cannot honestly claim to belong to the honourable body you are including in your dictionary, whom he admires for their straightforward sincerity and permanent convictions, though he does not quite think they can claim their title.
‘Yours very truly,
‘F. E. Hardy.’
On March 7, 1920, Hardy writes to an old friend of nearly fifty years’ standing, Mr. John Slater, F.R.I.B.A.: l.t.h. — 2 d . . As to your question whether I should like to be nominated as an Hon. Fellow of the R.I.B.A., I really don’t know what to say. Age has naturally made me, like Gallio, care for none of these things, at any rate very much, especially as I am hardly ever in London. But at the same time I am very conscious of the honour of such a proposition, and like to be reminded in such a way that I once knew what a T-square was. So, shall I leave the decision to your judgment?’
Hardy was duly nominated and elected, and it was a matter of regret to him that he could not attend the meetings of the Institute, held still in the same old room in Conduit Street in which he had received the prize medal for his essay in 1863 from the hands of Sir Gilbert Scott. Mr. John Slater was almost the only surviving friend of Hardy’s architectural years in London since the death of Arthur Blomfield.
‘March 25. Joined National Committee for acquiring Wentworth Place — the house once occupied by John Keats.’
‘April 7. A would-be author, not without humour, writing from South Africa for a “foreword” from me, adds: “Mr. Balfour when writing asked me not to use his remarks mentioning the number of books sent him from all parts of the world (for forewords). But mental dexterity greatly inferior to yours, Sir, could contrive to do somewhat, and yet avoid the consequences contemplated” — i.e. multitudes of other would-be novelists asking the same favour.’
‘April 21. Went with F. to St. Margaret’s, Westminster, to the wedding of Harold Macmillan and Lady Dorothy Cavendish. Sat with Lord Morley, and signed as one of the witnesses. Morley, seeing Bryce close by us, and the Duke of Devonshire near, whispered to F., “Which weigh most, three O.M.’s or one Duke?”‘
This was Hardy’s last visit to London. He, with his wife, stayed for two nights only at J. M. Barrie’s flat, so near the house in Adelphi Terrace where he had worked as an architect’s assistant nearly sixty years before.
‘May 14. Motored with F. and K. to Exeter. Called on the Granville-Barkers at Sidmouth. Cathedral service: the beautiful anthem “God is gone up” (Croft). Well sung. Psalms to Walker in E flat. Felt I should prefer to be a cathedral organist to anything in the world. “Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, claiming each slave of the sound.” A fine May day.’
At the end of May a letter came from C. W. Moule in reply to Hardy’s note of sympathy on his loss of his only remaining brother,
Handley, the Bishop of Durham, with whom Hardy had had occasion to correspond the year before. As it was the last letter Hardy received from his correspondent, who himself passed away within the next year, the following passages are quoted:
‘In condolence “the half is more than the whole”, as the wise Greek paradox saith (ttXIov r/fiLav iravros). Your friendly acceptance of those stanzas was answered by me, but that in which you told me that dear Horace was one of “The Five Students” in Moments of Vision I fear was never answered. ... I did not know of Hand- ley’s nearness in age to your sister Mary (they were only two days apart), nor did I know that your mother and mine knew each other well enough to compare notes on the point. ... I am glad you saw him at Max Gate. We wish that we could see you here. I may try to send you some book in memoriam H. C. G. M. . . . “Not one is there among us that understandeth any more”, as a snapshot of the current generation, is worthy of you.’ [Hardy had quoted the words from the 74th Psalm in the letter to which this was an answer, alluding probably to the memories familiar to all three.]
On June 2nd of this year came Hardy’s eightieth birthday, and he received a deputation from the Society of Authors, consisting of Mr. Augustine Birrell, Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, and Mr. John Galsworthy. The occasion was a pleasant one, and the lunch lively. Many messages were received during the day, including one from the King, the Lord Mayor of London, the Cambridge Vice-Chancellor, and the Prime Minister.
Hardy pencilled down the following as “Birthday notes’: ‘When, like the Psalmist, “I call mine own ways to remembrance”, I find nothing in them that quite justifies this celebration.
‘The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it. To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to complete their job.
‘We have visited two cathedrals during the last month, and I could not help feeling that if men could get a little more of the repose- fulness and peace of those buildings into their lives how much better it would be for them.
‘Nature’s indifference to the advance of her species along what we are accustomed to call civilized lines makes the late war of no importance to her, except as a sort of geological fault in her continuity.
‘Though my life, like the lives of my contemporaries, covers a period of more material advance in the world than any of the same length can have done in other centuri.es, I do not find that real civilization has advanced equally. People are not more humane, so far as I can see, than they were in the year of my birth. Disinterested kindness is less. The spontaneous goodwill that used to characterize manual workers seems to have departed. One day of late a railway porter said to a feeble old lady, a friend of ours, “ See to your luggage yourself”. Human nature had not sunk so low as that in 1840.
‘If, as has been lately asserted, only the young and feeble League of Nations stands between us and the utter destruction of Civilisation, it makes one feel he would rather be old than young. For a person whose chief interest in life has been the literary art — poetry in particular — the thought is depressing that, should such an overturn arrive, poetry will be the first thing to go, probably not to revive again for many centuries. Anyhow, it behoves young poets and other writers to endeavour to stave off such a catastrophe.’
Among others who remembered his birthday, Mr. John Lane sent a glass goblet which had come into his possession many years before, remarking, ... ‘no doubt it was intended as a gift for you from some fair but probably shy admirer’; to which Hardy replied:
‘Also, for the mysterious goblet inscribed to the mysterious namesake of mine. He must, or may, have been a jockey from the diagrams. . . . Anyhow, no woman ever took the trouble to inscribe her love for me on a cup of crystal — of that you may be sure; and it is best on the whole to leave the history of the glass in vague obscurity.’
The next week J. M. Barrie came to Max Gate on a visit, and in July Hardy and his wife were motoring about Dorset, showing some features of the county to their friend Mrs. Arthur Henniker, who was staying at Weymouth, and at that time had ideas of buying a house in the neighbourhood. He was also engaged in further correspondence on the scheme of establishing a South-western University at Exeter.
To Mr. G. Herbert Thring ‘August 23, 1920.
‘The address from the Members of the Council, representing the Society of Authors all, has reached me safely, and though I knew its contents — its spiritual part — on my actual birthday when the deputation came here, I did not realise its bodily beauty till now.
‘As to the address itself, I can only confirm by this letter what I told the deputation by word of mouth — how much I have been moved by such a mark of good feeling — affection as I may truly call it — in the body of writers whose President I have had the distinction of being for many years — a do-nothing President, a roi-faineant, I very greatly fear, in spite of their assurances! However, the Society has been good enough to take me as worth this tribute, and I thank them heartily for it and what it expresses. It will be a cheering reminder of bright things whenever I see it or think o fit, which will be often and often.’
‘September 6. Death of Evelyn Gifford, at Arlington House, Oxford. Dear Evelyn! whom I last parted from in apparently perfect health.’ She was the daughter of Dr. Gifford, who married Margaret Jeune, and the poem ‘Evelyn G. of Christminster’ was written on this occasion.
‘November 11. Hardy’s poem ‘And there was a great calm’ appeared in The Times Armistice Supplement.
The request to write this poem had been brought to him from London by one of the editorial staff. At first Hardy was disinclined, and all but refused, being generally unable to write to order. In the middle of the night, however, an idea seized him, and he was heard moving about the house looking things up. The poem was duly written and proved worthy of the occasion.
On the 13th the Dorchester Amateurs performed The Return of the Native in Dorchester, as dramatized by Mr. Tilley.
‘More interested than I expected to be. The dancing was just as it used to be at Higher Bockhampton in my childhood.’
In declining to become a Vice-President of a well-known Society, Hardy writes:
‘I may be allowed to congratulate its members upon their wise insistence on the word “English” as the name of this country’s people, and in not giving way to a few short-sighted clamourers for the vague, unhistoric and pinchbeck title of “British” by which they would fain see it supplanted.’
Towards the end of the year Hardy was occupied with the following interesting correspondence:
To Mr. Alfred Noyes ‘Dorchester, 13th December 1920.
‘Dear Mr. Noyes,
‘Somebody has sent me an article from the Morning Post of December 9 entitled “Poetry and Religion”, which reports you as saying, in a lecture, that mine is “a philosophy which told them (readers) that the Power behind the Universe was an imbecile jester”.
‘As I hold no such “philosophy”, and, to the best of my recollection, never could have done so, I should be glad if you would inform me whereabouts I have seriously asserted such to be my opinion.
‘Yours truly,
‘Th. Hardy.’
It should be stated that Mr. Noyes had always been a friendly critic of Hardy’s writings, and one with whom he was on good terms, which was probably Hardy’s reason for antagonism in his letter.
Mr. Noyes replied that he was sorry the abbreviated report of his address did not contain the tribute he had paid Hardy as a writer with artistic mastery and at the head of living authors, although he did disagree with his pessimistic philosophy; a philosophy which, in his opinion, led logically to the conclusion that the Power behind the Universe was malign; and he referred to various passages in Hardy’s poems that seemed to bear out his belief that their writer held the views attributed to him in the lecture; offering, however, to revise it when reprinted, if he had misinterpreted the aforesaid passages.
To Mr. Alfred Noyes ‘December 191 h, 1920.
‘I am much obliged for your reply, which I really ought not to have troubled you to write. I may say for myself that I very seldom do give critics such trouble, usually letting things drift, though there have been many occasions when a writer who has been so much abused for his opinions as I have been would perhaps have done well not to hold his peace.
‘I do not know that there can be much use in my saying more than I did say. It seems strange that I should have to remind a man of letters of what, I should have supposed, he would have known as well as I — of the very elementary rule of criticism that a writer’s works should be judged as a whole, and not from picked passages that contradict them as a whole — and this especially when they are scattered over a period of fifty years.
‘Also that I should have to remind him of the vast difference between the expression of fancy and the expression of belief. My imagination may have often run away with me; but all the same, my sober opinion — so far as I have any definite one — of the Cause of Things, has been defined in scores of places, and is that of a great many ordinary thinkers: that the said Cause is neither moral nor immoral, but unmoral: “loveless and hateless” I have called it, “which neither good nor evil knows” — etc., etc. — (you will find plenty of these definitions in The Dynasts as well as in short poems, and I am surprised that you have not taken them in). This view is quite in keeping with what you call a Pessimistic philosophy (a mere nickname with no sense in it), which I am quite unable to see as “leading logically to the conclusion that the Power behind the universe is malign”.
‘In my fancies, or poems of the imagination, I have of course called this Power all sorts of names — never supposing they would be taken for more than fancies. I have even in prefaces warned readers to take them as such — as mere impressions of the moment, exclamations in fact. But it has always been my misfortune to presuppose a too intelligent reading public, and no doubt people will go on thinking that I really believe the Prime Mover to be a malignant old gentleman, a sort of King of Dahomey — an idea which, so far from my holding it, is to me irresistibly comic. “What a fool one must have been to write for such a public!” is the inevitable reflection at the end of one’s life.
‘The lines you allude to, “A Young Man’s Epigram”, dated 1866, I remember finding in a drawer, and printed them merely as an amusing instance of early cynicism. The words “Time’s Laughingstocks” are legitimate imagery all of a piece with such expressions as “Life, Time’s fool”, and thousands in poetry and I am amazed that you should see any belief in them. The other verses you mention, “New Year’s Eve”, “His Education”, are the same fanciful impressions of the moment. The poem called “He abjures Love”, ending with “And then the curtain”, is a love-poem, and lovers are chartered irrespon- sibles. A poem often quoted against me, and apparently in your mind in the lecture, is the one called “Nature’s Questioning”, containing the words, “some Vast Imbecility”, etc. — as if these definitions were my creed. But they are merely enumerated in the poem as fanciful alternatives to several others, having nothing to do with my own opinion. As for “The Unborn”, to which you allude, though the form of it is imaginary, the sentiment is one which I should think, especially since the war, is not uncommon or unreasonable.
‘This week I have had sent me a review which quotes a poem entitled “To my Father’s Violin”, containing a Virgilian reminiscence of mine of Acheron and the Shades. The writer comments: “Truly this pessimism is insupportable. . . . One marvels that Hardy is not in a madhouse”. Such is English criticism, and I repeat, why did I ever write a line! And perhaps if the young ladies to whom you lectured really knew that, so far from being the wicked personage they doubtless think me at present to be, I am a harmless old character much like their own grandfathers, they would consider me far less romantic and attractive.’
Mr. Noyes in a further interesting letter, after reassuring Hardy that he would correct any errors, gave his own views, one of which was that he had ‘ never been able to conceive a Cause of Things that could be less in any respect than the things caused’. To which Hardy replied:
‘Many thanks for your letter. The Scheme of Things is, indeed, incomprehensible; and there I suppose we must leave it — perhaps for the best. Knowledge might be terrible.’
To the ‘New York World’
‘December 23, 1920.
‘Yes I approve of international disarmament, on the lines indicated by the New York World:
The following letter, written to someone about December
1920, obviously refers to his correspondence with Mr. Noyes:
‘A friend of mine writes objecting to what he calls my “philosophy” (though I have no philosophy — merely what I have often explained to be only a confused heap of impressions, like those of a bewildered child at a conjuring show). He says he has never been able to conceive a Cause of Things that could be less in any respect than the things caused. This apparent impossibility to him, and to so many, is very likely owing to his running his head against a Single Cause, and perceiving no possible other. But if he would discern that what we call the first Cause should be called First Causes, his difficulty would be lessened. Assume a thousand unconscious causes — lumped together in poetry as one Cause, or God — and bear in mind that a coloured liquid can be produced by the mixture of colourless ones, a noise by the juxtaposition of silences, etc., etc., and you see that the assumption that intelligent beings arise from the combined action of unintelligent forces is sufficiently probable for imaginative writing, and I have never attempted scientific. It is my misfortune that people will treat all my mood-dictated writing as a single scientific theory.’
About Christmas the song entitled ‘When I set out for Lyon- nesse’ was published as set to music by Mr. Charles A. Speyer. It was one of his own poems that Hardy happened to like, and he was agreeably surprised that it should be liked by anybody else, his experience being that an author’s preference for particular verses of his own was usually based on the circumstances that gave rise to them, and not on their success as art.
On Christmas night the carol singers and mummers came to Max Gate as they had promised, the latter performing the Play of Saint George, just as he had seen it performed in his childhood. On the last day of the old year a poem by Hardy called ‘At the Entering of the New Year’ appeared in the Athenceum.