ABSTRACT
Sir Henry Newbolt I remember how Hardy, who was in those years [circa 1908] a kind of Socrates in the dialogues of the Savile Club, would now and then cross-question one or two of us as to the way in which we apportioned our work time and our leisure. He had apparently a strong feeling that a writing man should spend most of his leisure in solitude – should at any rate pass his time much as he used to do in the days when he had not yet attracted the attention of the public. When success comes to a writer (Hardy thought) he generally follows the opposite course – he accepts invitations and takes a place in society; he changes his habits and tastes, till he has almost lost the thread of his own life and is no longer the only begetter of his work; then his critics revise their judgement, and his public drops away, because they think they have been deceived in him, and now find him to be after all no wizard, but a manufacturer for the market, like the rest.
