ABSTRACT
Elliott Felkin October 21st, 1918 Tea with the Hardys – Mrs Hardy and a man called McDougall [McDowall] and his wife, the author of a book just published on ‘Realism’,1 and myself. Thomas Hardy in better spirits than last time and amazingly lively, interested and interesting. A long discussion arising out of McDougall’s [McDowall’s] book on whether there could be such a thing as scientific treatment in a novel. Hardy said that all imaginative work was events seen through a temperament. That unconscious or conscious selection by the personality of the author must colour the work. I instanced Flaubert as a man who attempted to get at events in themselves but who so definitely had a point of view – and McDougall [McDowall], who had apparently made a study of Flaubert in his book, agreed. Hardy said he found from experience that one could suppress one’s feelings deliberately, but even so one knew that one was still exaggerating personality in the selection of what was significant, in fact that what was to anyone significant was a kind of projection of personality. McDougall [McDowall] said he supposed that the difference between Art and Life was that in Art one always was selecting, while in Life one had to take what came along.
