MEMORIAL TO HARDY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21379, 23 June 1939, Page 10

MEMORIAL TO HARDY

TRIBUTE BY MASEFIELD The Poet Laureate, Mr John Masefield, paid tribute to the genius of Thomas Hardy, the Wessex novelist and poet, when a Thomas Hardv memorial room was opened in the Dorset County Museum, on May 10 reports the “Daily Telegraph and Morning Post.” The room is the personal memorial of the late Mrs Emily Hardy, second wife of the novelist, to her husband. Mrs Hardy bequeathed the furniture, personal belongings, and manuscripts which formed the collection in her will when she died in 1937, nine years after her husband. She accompanied her friend and trustee, Miss Irene Cooper-Willis, to select the gifts from Max Gate, the novelist’s home. Miss Cooper-Willis, with her fellowtrustee, Lieutenant-Colonel W. G. Johns, representing Lloyds Bank, handed over the collection to the Earl of Shaftesbury, who received it on behalf of the trustees of the Dorset Museum. Referring to the fact that the novelist’s study has been reconstructed ir. the museum as it was at Max Gate, Miss Cooper-Willis said: “It is touchingly like the original. It contains a great deal of the original furniture, the original fireplace, and on the floor is the original carpet—with some of the original dust of Max Gate. It is a genuine reconstruction.” The memorial room was opened by Miss Kate Hardy, the novelist's octogenarian sister, after Mr Masefield had eulogised her brother. Mr Masefield, who was born in 1875, said that one remarkable thing about Hardy was the way he matured. Few artists went on growing as Hardy did until well past the age of 70. Maturity was perhaps the rarest gift to any human being. Thirty-six was a fatal age for poets—it was surprising the number who had died about that age—and those who continued often ceased to do enthusiastic work after 50. A few, the great ones, went on getting better and better until they were 70. Ibsen was one such, Thomas Hardy another. He did some of his very best work after 65. and it was astonishing that he grew better and better after 50. His “Wessex Poems” had been the most powerful influence for the good of English poetry since Robert Browning. He brought to his writing an extraordinary knowledge of the countryside and its past, and invented more methods of writing verse than any other of the great company of English poets. Dr. W. D. Lang, president of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, presided over the ceremony.