ABSTRACT
Sir George Douglas It was in the autumn of 1881, at Wimborne, that I first met Thomas Hardy,1 and the circumstances of our meeting were perhaps sufficiently odd to justify recapitulation. I had gone to Wimborne to visit a brother2 who was studying landagency there, and who, knowing my interest in books, lost no time in saying, ‘By the way there is an author living here, and he seems to be a very good fellow, for he has lent me his stable, having no use for it himself, and he won’t take a rent for it. His name is either Hardy or Harvey, I am not certain which’. ‘Not by any possibility the author of The Trumpet-Major!’ I said. ‘The same’, remarked a fellow-pupil of my brother’s, who was present, and I certainly cannot find words to tell how much this meant to me. For I cared for books above all earthly things, and for Hardy above all earthly authors. Nay, I had already, with the fine presumption of youth, addressed a sonnet to him, which he had very graciously acknowledged.3 So, in a sense, the ice was already broken. But I had addressed my letter to the care of his publisher, and he had replied from an address at Upper Tooting. What expectation, then, had I of finding him established at Llanherne Villa, Wimborne, just over the way from where my brother lodged?4 It was luck, pure and solid luck, or what we call so. And today, with tears, I thank the Power above for giving me, at once, an ever kind and faithful friend and the intimate knowledge of a man of transcendent genius and of noble character.
