MR. THOMAS HARDY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1396, 23 March 1912, Page 9

MR. THOMAS HARDY.

The assertion has often been made, and as it lias been repeated recently by Mr. Shorter it must have legs to stand upon, that, tho reason why Mr. Hardy ceased to write novels was the unfavourable reception of his later books by the critics.. The fact, however, is of a sort to set one a-thinking. It would be unfair, for one tiling, to contrast Mr. Hardy's talcing adverse criticism in this way with Meredith's long and stubborn tight with an apathetic public, for tho sort of criticism to which Mereiiilh was subjected was criticism of his style and method, whereas in Hardy's ,ciiso it was of his moral and philosophic teaching, so that the latter may liavo felt that ho was being treated as a niero purveyor of pornographic literaturo. Such a charge no one could bo expected to stomach lightly, especially ouo liko Mr. Hardy, conscious of a high seriousness of purpose and sensitive alike to appreciation and detraction. Nevertheless, it is difficult to understand why a writer convinced that his pictures were true to life, and knowing Mint he was presenting them under conditions of exquisite art, should have been so easily silenced, and it is not unreasonable to conjecture that, co-operating with resentment at being so egrcgionsly misunderstood, thero may havo been a dim sense that the novel was becoming less and less a suitable vehicle for tho ideas that were strengthening within him. Thos3 ideas wore- of a philosophic nature, and already in "Toss of the D'Urbsrvillos" Hie theorist impedes the novelist, nad Mr. Hardy bron somewhat less terribly in earnest about his theories lie would probably not have written tho "blighted star" passage; ho would have felt it illogical lo create, a-, lie does at the end of "Phass Hie lirst,'' a painful situation out of tho resources of Jiis own imagination and then twit Providence for not "having intervened, and, hi describing o tone 01 Tess's voice, he would have checked himself ere saying that it "will never he forgotten by those who knew her" by the rellection that it.was fiction hn wa.s writing find not biography. The intrusion of Mr. Hardy's personality into tho sequenoo of events was long ago noted as a defect by Lionel Johnson, and the intrusions are such that ono hears at times n voice almost of controversy. Mr. Hedgcoclr in his "French thesis on Mr. Hnrdv's work does justice to tho great qualities of "Toss," but he is substantially right in complaining that in it "tho actors aro mingled with (ho opinions of tho writer and the attention tUic to Iho former is divided to the latter. Not

content with being an artist, Mr. Hardy poses as a philosopher; not satisfied with creating types, ho wishes to stir ideas. Tho inevitable result is that tho ideas are not expounded with clearness and the narrativo is clouded with an atmosphere of protest and polemic." "Judo tho Obscure" is similarly vulnerable. Such a character as Father Timo seems created to enforce a point of "doctrine," and a reader is never allowed to forget tho two theses around which the book is built up. The truth would seem to bo that during the years when tho later books of the Wosse.x series wero being composed, Mr. Hardy was becoming moro and more possessed with the conviction of the truth of his theory of the universe; that theory was nioro'and moro clamouring for utterance, and, consequently, tho narrow restraints of tho novel form were becoming increasingly galling. A new medium had to be found, and so there came the mighty canvas of "The Dynasts," which in its blank verso gave ample scope for tho dramatic delineation of character, in its stage directions opportunity for pictures of n striking realistic verity as well as visualisations of his conception of the universe, and iu the dialogues of its supernatural personages opportunity for the discussion of events from the various philosophic points of view. In short, in tho ovqlutiou of Mr. Hardy's genius the novelist died a natural death—"Manchester Guardian."