ABSTRACT
Israel Zangwill May 8th 1893. [at the Authors’ Club] Tonight he [Norman Gale]1 recited a pretty thing, ‘Pigeons in Cannon Street’. Like Hardy he is surprised at London ignorance of trees etc. Thomas Hardy is oldish and (admittedly) unlike his pictures. He knew me from the portrait in Merely Mary Ann2 which he brought from a pile in Stonehams3 and liked ‘up to the dollars’4 but had now commenced [Children of the] Ghetto and looked out Petticoat Lane on a map of London.5 He said Besant6 always drew from ‘reading’. Seemed anxious about ‘Alan’s Wife’ coincidence – showed his was first.7 ... Hardy took to me and we were old friends. He only remonstrated laughingly when I said I’d met a Tess – a Devonshire prostitute.
