HARDY'S PREFACES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1289, 18 November 1911, Page 9

HARDY'S PREFACES.

Prefaces of tho sort which are to accompany tho fourteen volumes of the impending edition o£ Mrs. Humphry "Ward's novels are always sure of a welcome (says an' English writer). They furnish the future biographer with authentic material, they give those who arc interested in methods glimpses into a literary workshop, and they <!o something to assuage the curiosity oi the reader of the "I want io know" sort. In order to bo serviceable, however, it is far from necessary that prefaces should be elaborate. Perfect' in a different kind are those which Mr. Hardy has been in the way of writing. They are singularly brief and also singularly" suggestive. Each sheds light upon the volume to which it is attached, and vet one who knows the novelist's work well enough to take a conspectus of it easily detects little bits of s?ff-rpvolation. Somo of tlicui show how early Hardy must have developed his interest in folk-lore and legend. Ho was in the making when in his boyhood he had the key of the greenwoods, and in huts where poor men lie found love and the ingredients of "dramas of a grandeur and unity truly Sophoclean." It was characteristic of him that ho should draw stories from the lips of the'man who had sunk into -u incurable melancholy because ho had been refused the post of linngniau, or converso with a smuggler who remembered the weight of the spirit tubs when they wero carried over rough ground by night, or interest himself in tho existence of the ailing old woman who in her youth had [rone to have her "blood turned" by a convict's corpse. How rich the harvest was which the rmiet eye so early at work collected, and with what skill it is woven up into the novels, a. little easy analysis would show, but no analysis would show what another of the prefaces extraordinary fact that tho stories in the "Group of JCoble Dames" sprang from a. contemnlation of the genealogical trees of the county families. We know what such trees are like. They grow root upward, and, from their meagre branches depend dates and proper names that «ro no more succulent to tho fancy than algebraic symbols. Yet given those dates und names, with perhaps a whiff of rumour or legend, and let tho powerful creative imagination of a Hardy play upon them, and the arid treo buds and brings forth buds and blooms blossoms and yields almonds—in other words, ym have the "Group of Noble Dames." The eye, it is written, sees what it brings with it the power of seeing.

There are faint indications in tho prefaces of a certain jcn.sitivenest, en Hardy's part to criticism. There is a hint of it in tho fact that he does not republish his first novel without rxrinting out that there pre-existed in it elements to which sore exception had been taken in his latest, lie wishes to vindicate the identify of his method throughout the series of tho novo.ls and of. tho men behind the method. In

like manner he does not take the criticism of "Tew" lying down. It. wills him nut. in full war-paint, mid in dealing with his critics ho gives Huttrrinij titles t» no mail. They srnml for tiic "(,-i>nt<vl [ierson"; one "turned Christian I'm , halt nn hour" lo liml fault with his philosophy; others are "literary boxer*," or "sworn Discouragers" who "porvcrt plain meanings." Now, if anyone doubled that this derangement of epitaphs iiirlicolotl fieuto nientiil pain on the jinit. nf the author ho would l>o undeceived by the touching and almost plaintive words of tlinnks which tho latter offers to readers who have written a-npreciativo letters, lie "cannot refrain from expressing his thanks." and adds: ".My regret is thai, in a world where one so often hungers in vain fnr friendship, where even not to be wilfully misunderstood is felt as a kindness, 1 shall never meet in person Ibvso appreciative readers, male and female, and shake them by (ho hand."

A FUNCTION FOR ACADEMIES,

The current number of the "Eye-\yit-ne*i contains a nicely malicious article by Mr. 11. Ci. WelJs on the Academic Committee, which ninkes very entertaining reading. It all began, apparently, in a sudden Hash of apprehension in the middle of the night—one of those occasions (readers will recognise tho psychological truth of tho thing) when, quite suddenly aud irrationally, a man parses into a state of tinglingly wakeful apprehension about something Which does not really concern him in the least, but which seems for the moDient to bo overwhelmingly important, "Last night," says Mr. Wells, "I sat up in bed and wondered quite suddenly what tho Academic Committee was un' to. In the darkness it seemed quite ntir to me, and very dangerous. I felt lucky to h:ive the electric light at hand." Apnarently (and the absence of news confirms us. and no doubt has reassured Mr. Wells) it is up, at present, to nothing in particular. But Mr. Wells feels '.I is a "queer" thing, "queer to tho pitch of being sinister," he says; aud though hs recently laid money with Mr. Arnold Bennett and Mr. Thomas Seccombe whether it would next

visit a grave, oft'er a prize, or crown a work, ho is afraid it is going to set a-jtoing a literary censorship, in conjunction with the Home Office and establish "a little libsral-looking council, Mr. Shaw, Mr. Sturge Moore, Mr. George Trevelyan, Mr. Alfred Austin, and Mr. Herbert Samuel (on tho political side), for example, ivith the rielit to affix the red label 'Indecent' (justifying police prosecution and suppression) upon any work they didn't, for any sort of reason, happen to want published." Tin's is all, of course, the mere irrationality of nightmare; so fir as human evo can fee. there is not the slightest danger of the Academic Committee's doing anrthinz'of the sort. What it and Mr. Wells's little covert suit's and sneers at some of the members of the committee whom he names show is the quite norm.il and healthy fact that art which is vigorous und combative 'and. concerned..with matters hotly debatable distrusts the whole notion of an Academy as antagonistic to its spirit. And when, at the find of his article. Mr. Wells asks some of the members of thn committee, publicly and by name, what the committee can pos'ibly be for, how it stands to the general body of contemporary literature, and what it is going to do, ho proves, by the very tone of his question, that the Academic Committee is already performing the chief function of nil Academy; it is standing by itself in the middle of English letters in order that it may be, as Dravton raid in his vigorous wav about nublishers. "both scorned and kicked at."" Mr. Wells shows himself ciuito competent to do this office for it. — "Manchester Guardian."

THE NOVELISTS' READY-MADES An amusing articlo in the "Atlantic Monthly" shows how "the trail of tho fashion' magazine" is seen in our. fiction. It reminds us of Gilbert's "making the punishment fit the crime." "Observe, in (his choico publication, tho crucial moment when the pergola studied from directions in "The Ladies' Own" for manufacturing Italian gardens—stands, with elbows ' correctly bent, a perfect facsimile of 'Gentleman's Afternoon Wear,' p. 2 of the fashions circular.

"She, in Empire stylo without folds, is gazing at' him with that facial expressionlessness that means a. perfect fit.. It is most effective, after its kind; but should a ■ man, at this great crisis u> life, be .thinking quite so hard about the lines of his shoulders? Should she. at this time, which 'The Ladies' Own' would pronounce the supreme moment of a woman's life, be quite so careful to tilt her head in just tho way that shows off the under sido of her hat?

"Again," in another equally superior journal,- I encounter another heroine and see her waiting, all suspense, to know whether it .-is- joy or doom; but. the only idea that comes to me is—'Ladies' sevengored skirt.' Is this despair ?' No, it is only old-bluo chiffon-taffeta with Venetian point. Is this, bending over the cradle, the rapture of motherhood? Not a bit of it! It is an old-rose, tea-gown, with pipings of a darker shades, and insertions of Irish lace. So it runs through the whole range of human , feeling and experience.

"Wβ have love, directoire; hate, princess; compassion, early Victorian, with capes. Into the subtlest moment of passion bursts the spring stvlo in hats: into the deepest grief, when the mother bends over her dead child, intrudes tho thought that, if her house-dress of cashmere and silk is so correct, her mourning will be equally effective.

"It is evident, after prolonged study of many magazines, first, that the various motifs of love, passiou, grief, fear, are carefully rendered with a view to displaying late styles to best advantage; second, that no emotion must be carried to the point where it will wrinkle, injure or destroy tho fit of a costume.

"Must our.range of feeling, then, be determined by our clothes? You will see at once how this is going to limit our expression of passion. Must we confine ourselves to those phases of achievement that will not injure ruffle or waistcoat? How could yonder hpro rescue, in boots so palpably tight, tho heroine from a watery grave?"