ABSTRACT
Virginia Woolf At first I thought it was Hardy, & it was the parlourmaid, a small thin girl, wearing a proper cap. She came in with silver cake stands & so on. Mrs Hardy talked to us about her dog. How long ought we to stay? Can Mr Hardy walk much &c I asked, making conversation, as I knew one would have to. She has the large sad lack lustre eyes of a childless woman; great docility & readiness, as if she had learnt her part; not great alacrity, but resignation, in welcoming more visitors; wears a sprigged voile dress, black shoes, & a necklace. We cant [sic] go far now, she said, though we do walk every day, because our dog isn’t able to walk far. He bites, she told us. She became more natural & animated about the dog, who is evidently the real centre of her thoughts – then the maid came in. Then again the door opened, more sprucely, & in trotted a little puffy cheeked cheerful old man, with an atmosphere cheerful & businesslike in addressing us, rather like an old doctors or solicitors [sic], saying ‘Well now –’ or words like that as he shook hands. He was dressed in rough grey with a striped tie. His nose has a joint in it, & the end curves down. A round whitish face, the eyes now faded & rather watery, but the whole aspect cheerful & vigorous. He sat on a three cornered chair (I am too jaded with all this coming & going to do more than gather facts) at a round table, where there were the cake stands & so on; a chocolate roll; what is called a good tea; but he only drank one cup, sitting on his three cornered chair. He was extremely affable & aware of his duties. He did not let the talk stop or disdain making talk. He talked of father1 – said he had seen me, or it might have been my sister but he thought it was me, in my cradle. He had been to Hyde Park Place – oh Gate was it. A very quiet street. That was why my father liked it. Odd to think that in all these years he had never been down there again. He went there often. Your father took my novel – Far From the Madding Crowd. We stood shoulder to shoulder against the British
* The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume III: 1925-1930, ed. Anne Olivier Bell (London:
Hogarth Press, 1980), pp. 96-101. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) and her husband Leonard went to Dorchester and back by train on the afternoon of Friday, 23 July 1926, in order to have tea with the Hardys at Max Gate. She wrote the above entry in her diary two days later.
