ABSTRACT
Frédéric Lefèvre Thomas Hardy lives in Dorsetshire, about a mile from Dorchester, only a few miles from the sea, in a modest country house with trees all around it. Scarcely was I out of the train when I hailed a taxi and gave the address of the master. Then between the chauffeur and the pilgrim this strange dialogue took place:–
Myself: ‘Max Gate’. The Chauffeur: ‘All right. I’ll take you to the seashore. The weather is fine, the
view magnificent. The distance is short – about three miles’. I looked at him and interrupted. ‘What I want you to do is to drive me to Max
Gate, Mr Hardy’s house. I am not talking about the sea’. ‘I understand that. I get that order several times a week, but I always make the
same reply, because I don’t want to disappoint the visitors by taking them to a door that I know by old experience is obstinately shut’.
