THOMAS HARDY AS I KNEW HIM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23719, 27 July 1940, Page 6 (Supplement)

THOMAS HARDY AS I KNEW HIM

ONE of those lovely moors near Dorchester stretches away to the village of Bockhampton. If you go up the lane, or approach through the bracken, you will find the thatched cottage in which Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840. Hardy was a weedy youth. I suppose it was merely by chance he grew up to be strong enough to go to the village school at the age of eight.

His novels, his poetry stand as the permanent record of what ho carved out of his thoughts-—thoughts which began when he used to walk to the village school with his knapsack jon Ins back. Ho said to me once: When I was a boy walking up the road 1 used to wonder what sort of queer world 1 had been born into! The thoughts of a boy are just bits of Life. It IS Lite that fashions them as the sun shapes the odd things that grow m our gardens. But much that I thought and queried in those days I could, not explain even now, although more than seventy years have since passed over me." He was a little man with a wide forehead. He had a quiet, gentle voice. And, although he knew quite well that he was a genius born of the Dorset soil, I never heard one word of conceit pass his lips. How He Wrote He wrote his books in a strange fashion. Most of the Wessox novels were published first in serial form. He would write the instalments from week to wteek. Usually on Fridays. Sir Eelmund Gosse, the long friend of Hardy, told me that ho watched Hardy writing "The Woodlanders" in bed. He was very ill. His head from his nose upward and his two hands holding and writing on a pad were all that was visible of a man who was creating a classic. . , . The memory of Hardy was long and ripe. Ho never forgot a name or n date. In one of the last years of his lifo 1' rang up Hardy and told hi m_ I would like to take him out on a picnic. I went to Max Gate, with tho car and a good luncheon basket, and fivo of us set out.

• He got into tlio cnr. "Now, T.H.," said I, "where do you wish to go?" He thoupht for a moment. Then he said: "To Sturminster Newton. I once lived in a little place there." We went to Sturminster Newton. He found the cottage hear the river. He stood looking at a tall monkey-puzzle tree, and said nothing. Then he remarked: "I suppose it was a long time aizo. I brought mv first wife hero in the 'seventies." Ho pointed to a win dow. "In tlint, room T wrote 'The Tieturn of tlie Native.' " Then he looked up at the monkey-puzzle tree again. "I planted that tree," he said. "And how

By Sir NEWMAN FLOWER

it's grown. Time changes everything except that within us which is never surprised by change." We went on toward the High Stoy. that lovely hill of "The Woodlanders." As we were driving down a narrow road, he exclaimed suddenly: "Slow down. . . . See that woman coming toward us? She is Tess as I imagined her to be."

, We reached High Stoy, and sat on a fallen tree and ate our lunch. Going back to Dorchester ho kept up a running stream of memories. He said: "lludyard Kipling came down to stay with me. He wanted mo to show him some of the places in my novels. Ho and I were walking across a field, just near here, when a savage sow came for 11s. We both rushed toward the hedge. The farmer called out, 'Let 'vin be! She won't 'urt 'ce if 'ee don't rumplo on!' . . . We didn't wait to 'rumple' 'un! Wo tore our way through that thick hedge, and Kipling and I came out the other side in ruined suits."

When Hardy forsook prose for poetry it was said that Coventry Patmore persuaded him to do so. "I am so tired . . . horribly tired of this story that Coventry Patmore made me change from the novel form to verse," lie said. "Tho whole thing is a lie. He wrote and . suggested that a certain novel of mine would have been bettor written in verse. We exchanged some letters. But I changed

over to verse because I knew that I could express myself better thereby. Anyway, I didn't care much-for my novels. Tho only two I really liked were 'Jude the Obscure' and 'The Woodlanders.' "

The years closed about Hardy, but tho poetry came from him like goodness from a rich bowl. He went to his desk every morning, for, ho said to mo, "I go for tho sake of discipline. I may write nothing, but I go." This continued until his last November, when he fell from his chair. He was taken to bed, never to come downstairs again. He passed over on January 11, 1928. It was a night of storm. The trees swung wildly in tho roaring wind. Owls were hooting among tho crazy branches. Hardy's little blue Persian cat, "Cobby," was curled up among tho medicine bottles on tho table beside the bed. The candles were guttering down as wisps of wind swept the room.

Suddenly, as the soul of Hardy passed the cat flung itself from the table, overturning the articles thereon. It rushed, half-crazed, downstairs —a grey spectre in tho dark of the house. It tore its way to the top of Hardy' 3 bookcase, jumped wildly off and ran distraught about the house. The last time I saw Hardy was in the late summer before his death. We were walking round the garden when he stopped and petted this little beast. "Flower," he said. "I often wonder how much animals know—about things —things of which wo are so ignorant." This was one of tho last remarks I heard him make.