ABSTRACT
Edmund Gosse [...Hardy] needed all the natural magic of his genius to prevent his work, interpenetrated as it was by this resigned and hopeless melancholy, from becoming sterile, but joy streamed into it from other sources – the joy of observation, of sympathy, of humour. Yet, after all, the core of Hardy’s genius was austere and tragical, and this has to be taken into consideration, and weighed in every estimate of his writings. It was a curious fact, and difficult to explain, that this obvious aspect of his temperament was the one which he firmly refused to contemplate. The author of Tess of the d’Urbervilles conceived himself to be an optimist.
