THOMAS HARDY’S BURIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20309, 18 January 1928, Page 7

THOMAS HARDY’S BURIAL

SERVICE IN THE ABBEY. IMPRESSIVE AND MAJESTIC. (British Official Wireless.) (Fresi Association—By Telegraph—Copyright.) RUGBY, January 16. Westminster Abbey was filled with mourners when the ashes of Thomas Hardy were buried this afternoon in the Poet's Corner. Great figures in literature and art were among the many distinguished men and women who occupied the north and south transepts, while 1000 of the general public were assembled in the nave. Large numbers of admirers of the great writer were unable to gain admission, and stood outside bareheaded in silent reverence while the service was in progress. The King, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York were represented. As pallbearers the Prime Minister and Mr Ramsay MacDonald paid a last tribute to the great author on behalf of the State, while Mr Kipling, Mr Bernard Shaw, Sir James Barrie, Sir Edmund Gosse. and Mr John Galsworthy represented literature. While this service was being conducted with that impressiveness and majesty always associated with Westminster Abbey, another service of the utmost simplicity was taking place at Stinsford, in Wessex, where, as a symbolic act. the writer’s heart was being buried. While the congregation at Westminster mourned Mr Hardy as a genius, the villagers assembled at Stinford Church were there to mourn him rather as a friend. They included a score of grey-haired men who had known as plain “ Toih Hardy,” the architect’s apprentice.

A NATION’S HOMAGE. ABBEY FILLED WITH MOURNERS. LONDON, January 16. (Received Jan. 17, at 5.5 p.m.) The creator of “ Tess ” joined the immortals in the Poets’ Comer amid a demonstration of national homage recalling the funerals of Dickens and Tennyson. That the novelist's well-loved Wessex might partake of the ever-enduring honour a clod of Wessex earth was mingled with the London clay in which the casket rests. A great queue gathered early for admission to the nave, and later the south transept was filled by literary notables representing the numerous societies with which Hardy had been associated as the acknowledged head of English letters. Every seat was filled when the singing of the choir heralded the procession bearing the casket, which was covered by a white and golden pall, from Saint Faith’s Chapel to the sanctuary. Holding the fringes of the pall, on either side walked Mr Balwin, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, Mr Rudyard Kipling, Sir Edmund Gosse, Professor Housman, Sir Jamec Barrie, Mr Bernard Shaw, Mr John Galsworthy, and representatives of Oxford and Cambridge, then Mrs Hardy, bowed with grief and heavily veiled. The service was the simplest, consisting of the 23rd Psalm, followed by a passage from Ecclesiastics, “Le us praise famous mea ’* Then the pallbearers accompanied the coffin to the grave next Dickens, where the burial service was completed, closing with Newman’s “ Lead, Kindly Ligh, and Handel’s “ Dead March.” Thousands of Londoners during the rest of the day passed the tiny casket, which wa« surrounded by scores of wreaths. Meanwhile a service much more characteristic of Hardy’s message was taking place at Stinsford, i n Mellstock Church, the village choir singing hymns that Hardy loved, to the accompaniment of a harmonium. When the heart had been buried in the shadow of a yew tree in the churchyard the national tribute to the creator of Wessex tales was complete.—A. and N.Z. Cable.

THE FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS. DISTRIBUTION OF TICKETS. MR ARNOLD BENNETT’S VIEWS. LONDON, January 16. (Received Jan. 17, at 5.5 p.m.) Mr Arnold Bennett (the novelist) m a letter to the Daily Expreaj condemns the arrangements wherebi the distribution of tickets for th( poets’ corner for Hardy’s funeral wag handed over to MacMillans, the publishers. He says that the dean and chapter cannot divest themselves of responsibility. They were not entitled to say, “We have consented to interment in the Abbey; mvite whom you like.’’ Lastly, he states that he must point out with regret and respect that not a single member of the Royal Family was present. On e of the main functions of royalty is to represent and symbolise .the feeling of the country. As a rule the function is admirably fulfilled, but the King’s message to the widow, though a suitable and sympathetic gesture, was not enough. Hardy was a citizen of the highest consequence. If it had been a military funeral of similar importance half tlie male royalties would have attended as a matter of course.—A. and N.Z. GaK’e.