ABSTRACT
William Lyon Phelps [...] On September 10, 1900, I walked from the inn at Dorchester to Max Gate, Mr Hardy’s house. On the front door hung a large sign not at home. I rang the bell, and when the maid appeared, I asked her if Mr Hardy was at home. She pointed to the sign, and said, ‘Can’t you read?’ ‘Yes, indeed’, said I, ‘can you? and if so, what are your favourite books?’ Either she was overcome by my infinite cheek, or, being a woman, was tender-hearted; at any rate, she fled softly into the interior of the house, and knocked at a door. She soon returned. ‘Mr Hardy will see you at three o’clock’. I walked on air until that hour, when Mr Hardy himself received me, and we sat down on a bench in the front yard. He was clad in knickers, with an old coat and a straw hat – a compliment to me, I think, for I had no clothes except my bicycle costume. Either he had looked out of the window and seen my departing form, or he had asked the maid what this particular idiot who had called, looked like. I will not attempt to report his conversation in detail, for no one can do that without lying. Suffice it to say that he was the incarnation of simplicity, dignity, and friendliness; when I could not have blamed him if he had ordered me off the premises. He spoke of the wickedness of hunting and shooting, said he regarded his poems as better than his novels, said that misrepresentation in book reviews hurt him even though he knew their impotence, and said that A Laodicean contained more of his personal experiences than any other of his books. He dictated it in 1881 when he was thought to be on his deathbed, or anyhow, seriously ill. [...]
He mentioned that under our feet were the remains of Roman civilization, pottery, and also the bones of Roman soldiers. He spoke much of the topography in the neighbourhood, the Roman amphitheatre, ‘the most perfect rings in England’, and Maiden Castle. [...]
* Phelps, William Lyon, ‘Thomas Hardy’, Saturday Review of Literature, 1 (6 June
1925), 808. William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943), American critic and professor.
