ABSTRACT
The Hardys were lovely and simple, and seemed so glad to see me. She is very shy, but a thoroughly nice sensible woman. I missed Wessex, the wire-haired terrier, and they said their hearts ached whenever they thought of him. He died of old age a few weeks ago, and he was a puppy of six months when I saw him in 1914.1 I never saw so attractive a man of his age as Thomas Hardy, which proves that it is intellect, after all, that counts as one goes over the hill of life. He is far more modern and advanced than most men of twenty-five, and age has not deadened his sensibility in the least. I was so glad I went after hesitating to do so. It must be the last time, and I shall like to remember how he was when I saw him so near the end of life. He is profoundly civilized and sympathetic about animals just as he is in his books – and especially in Jude (pp. 88-9).
