‘Little Appreciation of Other Men’s Work’ – Morley Roberts

I never heard [George Meredith] speak slightingly of any fellow writer. If [Edward] Clodd1 was to be credited, he was in this very different from Thomas Hardy, who had little appreciation of other men’s work and a strong disinclination to mention it if he had. This I cannot corroborate, as on one occasion I had a tolerably kind note from Hardy about something of my own.2 It was, I must own, very guardedly expressed, and had in it nothing like the geniality which Meredith showed in one letter of his (p. 63).