ABSTRACT
Charles Carrington On 11 September [Kipling] went to Dorchester, where Thomas Hardy carried him off to inspect a lonely house occupied by an elderly lady. While Kipling examined the premises high and low, Hardy was left making conversation in the parlour. ‘I think you would like to know, Madam, that the gentleman I have brought to your house is no other than Mr Rudyard Kipling’. The remark fell flat; she had never heard of Rudyard Kipling. A few minutes later, Rudyard found himself alone with the lady and, not knowing what had passed, made the complementary remark, ‘My sponsor is Thomas Hardy himself’. It was no use, she had never heard of Thomas Hardy; and the two celebrities admitted their insignificance to one another on the way home (pp. 326-7).
