ABSTRACT
William Rothenstein Hardy I had met at the Gosses’ earlier in the year. He had been to the studio once or twice, and I had made several attempts at a portrait. He took a kindly interest in the new series,1 and suggested someone, though, I thought, with hesitation, who might be included – Lady Jeune;2 also, more hopefully, George Gissing.3 He had lately published Jude the Obscure, and was so upset at its reception, that he declared he would never write another novel. The feeling about his picture of Oxford was so strong, he scarcely liked going to the Athenaeum. He described one day how, while he was sitting quietly reading, unobserved as he hoped, he was suddenly aware of the menacing figure of a Bishop striding towards him; now he was in for it, he thought; happily the Bishop passed him by; but he was always in fear of being assailed. In future, he said, he would limit himself to writing verse. I cared deeply for his poems, truth to tell even more for his poems than for his novels, though this was a taste then shared by few people; and I thought the simple drawing made by Hardy himself for the Wessex Poems dramatic and moving.
