LATE THOMAS HARDY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 17 January 1928, Page 5

LATE THOMAS HARDY

HEART TO BE BURIED «AT ~ ; STINSFORD

(By.Eleotrlc Telegraph-Copyright) ; (Australian & N.Z. Cable Association) LONDON, 15th Jan. Mrs Hardy and Sir Janies Barrie deposited the casket, containjng Mr Hardy's heart in the Stinsford vicarage, where it will' remain until' Monday's service in the churchyard. The casket is an exact replica of the casket containing the ashes in the Abbey. . . • •. '■; '. Stinsford villagers to-day sang Mr Hardy's'hymns and the rector included in the prayer thanksgiving because the heart is to remain in Stinsford. : The King and the Prince of Wales will be represented at the Abbey to-mor-row. ' .'••-' ;■' . ...'-'

J ABBEY SERVICE '; NATION AI/TIOM AGE (Received. 17th. January, 1.50 p.m.) LONDON, 16th' January. The creator of "Tess" joined the-im-mortals' in tho Poets' Corner, amid a demonstration of national homage, recalling '■ the funerals of ■ Dickens and Tennyson. That the novelist's well-lov-ed Wessex might partake in the. everenduring honour, a clod,of Wessex.earth was mingled with London's play in which the-casket rests. ' . A great queue early gathered for admission, to'the nave, and later'the south transept• was filled by literary notables representing numerous societies with which Hardy had been associated as the acknowledged head of English letters. Every seat was filled by 2. o clock, when the singing of the choir heralded the procession bearing the casket covered by a white and golden pall, from St. Faith's Chapel to the sanctuary. Holding the pall's fringes on either side walked Messrs Baldwin, MacDonald, Kipling, G'osse;■ Ilousman Sir James,Barrie, Mr Bernard Shaw, Mr John Galsworthy and representatives of Oxford and Cambridge; then Mrs Hardy, bowed with grief and heavily veiled. Tlie service was the*simplest, consisting of the 23rd Phalm, followed by. a passage from Ecclesiastes, "Let us'praise famous men." . Then the pall-bearers accompanied the coffin to the grave next,Dickens's, where the burial service was completed, closing with Newman's "Lead Kindly Light, and Handel's "Dead March." Thousands of Londoners during the rest of the day passed the tiny casket surrounded by scores of wreaths. Meanwhile, a service much more characteristic of Hardy's message was taking place at Stinsford, in the Mcilstock church. The village choir was singing the hymns Hardy loved to the accompaniment of a harmonium, and when the heart had been buried in the shadow of a yew tree in the church yard, the national tribute to the creator of Wessex tales was complete.