"THOMAS HARDY AND HIS FOLK."

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18722, 19 June 1926, Page 13

"THOMAS HARDY AND HIS FOLK."

FECIAL article.

If - Thurston Hopkins, author of Hardy's Dorset.")

I S ■ (JJECUL 10 THE PRESS.)

H "" ~ . fa often shy, and to this rule Uardy is ' no i 'Ser Interviewed Mr Hardy, but very distinctly the one | wuen 1 had tho honour orewnced to him. I was ta*en riecturo g> ven the Dorset Field '"'l afaen 1 «'a» a very young man by ,v k° " now tt raaSU:r of Kne " irtinu. i?'or a tew minutes Air W ~7riot.'e w we. it seemed that a, iut) ini'vcd about in him, f' ll »uark m an opal now in hit, HLTno* io his eyes. 1 asbea him (ittwUons auout bis uooks—l #*' efLSVons impertinence on my youth, tw niy excuse—that, optimism. I was Kit* euough to get my questions for with lively hands and S turning head Mr Hardy broko I man of letters why he eve that there was any er which could bnn,; • man in this world, v moved and a haunted 3 face. His exact words ejnbcr, but ho spoko to rrow older," he replied, irony in his voice, "you that the world is not he convenience of man, s very little to say con:ontrol. You are so tha viciousness of fate He time to attack you. der wo all realise thai, mere circumstance is iptimism is a good anti•act the gloomy prisons id him. If yfu do not oilsm 1 should like to ur philosophy offers in hilosophy ... they onO for me. But I limism can be just »as lets as pessimism. Opti« result of a horse-race, and doubt, but pessiit a certainty; one g<mlew than one gets, hat Mr Hardy want on ie that there should be novel that should Iran* l, meliorism, or optimis the search for truth, simlsnt he dismissed as drubble-headed people I to pair all tho couples , f a book and loavo them til supply' -of beautiful Mfih,, and humbugging 0 years Hardy has lived his habitation, exc6ptwriods, has never been w rttilos from his birth* r Ho Otttsido Dordhestor at a Max Gate. It is tog. that Hardy, who 1 written so- feelingly Idnt houses of Dorset live Jit:a modern altogether lacking the auty of ago. Tho house j Mr . Hardy's own dell meet a rustjc he will or better as the builder than as the creator of itili remembered as an p. in Dorchester, and i to examine a specimen irk you must walk irtto ?ch, where in the vestry of the building signed y for Mr Hlcks," and if Hardy is Very fro-', tered In Dorset, but tho ly is commonly' said to ante blood as tfelsoa's lardy's family posse wed 8s and resource of the here can, be little doubt, {a accentuated by an swing Hardy's grand-, jf, Mr i Dorset Field Club, at the society. About a If' Hard*'* grandfather tonaly heath one midWhen ha diacove-ed ho owed by two footpads, urte faggot on to the ,'On it, took off his hat, fronts babirid his ears rfns, and then pretended if, whioh he took from the light of th<s glow- ; pioked up and placed B .of his hat.' The tnen t) bolted on tteing him, soon got abroad in the that the Devil had been ht hear Greenhill Pond, ring about the old town r enquired of several of yours what they thought and I found that they .of Hardy at all. At Uvea one of Mr Hardy's b hard-headed man with accent, who is a gart smart mam," said an toe. "jußt as clever as Mbas, bat he don't go aIbCUfc if.. Ho plays tho tea no end of poetry—ittiff than the Max Gate » silence is a byword in Per fifty years he has Dorset County Museum, iter passed a word with the gate. . I asked, that S impression of Hardy. In three words, ''A sad rustics are a slow-mov-S&Ople. .1 was told the »small Dorset boy who l\e London Zoo and stood >re a gorgeously featherlittle man/' said the 'OS showing him round, d of a bird do yon think »w it arn't no owl," was was reply. ided- of this story when a: Dorset man the plot > D'Urbervilles." After I ■how Hardv started to forty years ago and that tely produced in London Me, the old man pushed . forehead, and, Wht to be alt right if years over it. But my tore all Turberville?. irant to *ee them in no