Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1156 page)

the Contessa Mcalled. She was a great beauty, having the well-

defined hues and contours of foreigners in the south; and she turned out to be one of the very descendants Hardy had inquired about. When asked afterwards how she was dressed, he said in a green velvet jacket with fluffy tags, a grey hat and feathers, a white veil with seed pearls, and a light figured skirt of a yellowish colour. She had a charming manner, her mind flying from one subject to another like a child’s as she spoke her pretty attempts at English. ‘But I li — eek moch to do it!’ . . . ‘Si, si!’ ... ‘Oh noh, noh!’

However, Hardy was not altogether listening, he afterwards recalled. This correct, modest, modern lady, the friend of his English and American acquaintance in Venice, and now his own, was to him primarily the symbol and relic of the bygone ancient families; and the chief effect, he said, of her good looks and pretty voice on him was to carry him at one spring back to those behind the centuries, who here took their pleasure when the sea was warm in May, Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to midday, When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow. . . .

It is not known whether the Italian Contessa in A Group of Noble Dames was suggested by her; but there are resemblances.

Then they left Venice. ‘The Riva degli Schiavoni is interested along its whole length in our departure, just as nautical people at ports always are, and as we left the station we could see the tops of the Alps floating in the sky above the fog.’ They had been unable to follow Ruskin’s excellent advice to approach Venice by water, but they had seen it from the water a good deal while there.

‘The Cathedral, Milan. Yes, perhaps it is architectural filigree: and yet I admire it. The vaulting of the interior is infinite quadrilles in carved-work. A momentary vexation comes when I am reminded that it is not real — even a disgust. And yet I admire. The sense of space alone demands admiration, being beyond that expressed anywhere except at St. Peter’s.’

The cheerful scenes of life and gaiety here after the poetical decay of Venice came as the greatest possible contrast, and a not unwelcome change. Here Hardy’s mind reverted to Napoleon, particularly when he was sitting in the sun with his wife on the roof of the Cathedral, and regarding the city in vistas between the flying buttresses. It was while here on the roof, he thought in after years, though he was not quite sure, that he conceived the Milan Cathedral scene in The Dynasts.

Hardy had lately been obsessed by an old French tune of his father’s, ‘The Bridge of Lodi’, owing to his having drawn near the spot of that famous Napoleonic struggle; and at a large music-shop in the Gallery of Victor Emmanuel he inquired about it; as may be expected, his whimsical questioning met with no success. He felt it could meet with none, and yet went on with his search. At dinner at the Grand Hotel de Milan that evening, where the Hardys had put up, they became friendly with a young Scotch officer of Foot returning from India, and Hardy told him about Lodi, and how he could not get the old tune.

‘The Bridge of Lodi?’ said the Scotchman (apparently a sort of Farfrae). ‘Ay, but I’ve never heard of it!’

‘But you’ve heard of the battle, anyhow?’ says the astonished Hardy.

‘Nay, and I never have whatever!’ says the young soldier.

Hardy then proceeded to describe the conflict, and by degrees his companion rose to an enthusiasm for Lodi as great as Hardy’s own. When the latter said he would like to go and see the spot, his friend cried ‘And I’ll go too!’

The next morning they started and passing through levels of fat meads and blooming fruit-trees, reached the little town of their quest, and more especially the historic bridge itself — much changed, but at any rate sufficiently well denoting the scene of Napoleon’s exploit in the earlier and better days of his career. Over the quiet flowing of the Adda the two re-enacted the fight, and the ‘Little Corporal’s’ dramatic victory over the Austrians.

The pleasant jingle in Poems of the Past and the Present named after the bridge, and written some time after the excursion to the scene, fully enough describes the visit, but the young Scotch lieutenant from India is not mentioned, though his zest by this time had grown more than equal to Hardy’s — the latter’s becoming somewhat damped at finding that the most persevering inquiries at Lodi failed to elicit any tradition of the event, and the furthest search to furnish any photograph of the town and river.

They returned to England by way of Como and the St. Gothard, one of the remarks Hardy makes on the former place being on the vying of’the young greens with the old greens, the greens of yesterday and the greens of yesteryear’. It was too early in the year for Lucerne, and they stayed there only a day. Passing through Paris, they went to see the Crown jewels that chanced just then to be on exhibition, previous to their sale.

PART IV - BETWEEN TOWN AND COUNTRY

CHAPTER XVI

LONDON FRIENDS, PARIS, AND SHORT STORIES

1887-1888: Aet. 47-48

Reaching London in April 1887, Hardy attended the annual dinner of the Royal Academy. He remarks thereon:

‘The watching presence of so many portraits gives a distinct character to this dinner. ... In speaking, the Duke of Cambridge could not decide whether he had ended his speech or not, and so tagged and tagged on a bit more, and a bit more, till the sentences were like acrobats hanging down from a trapeze. Lord Salisbury’s satire was rather too serious for after-dinner. Huxley began well but ended disastrously; the Archbishop was dreary; Morley tried to look a regular dining-out man-of-the-world, but really looked what he is by nature, the student. Everybody afterwards walked about, the Prince of Wales included, remaining till 12. I spoke to a good many; was apparently unknown to a good many more I knew. At these times men do not want to talk to their equals, but to their superiors.’

On the Sunday after, the Hardys again met Browning at Mrs. Procter’s, and being full of Italy, Hardy alluded to ‘ The Statue and the Bust’ (which he often thought one of the finest of Browning’s poems); and observed that, looking at ‘the empty shrine’ opposite the figure of Ferdinand in the Piazza dell’ Annunziata, he had wondered where the bust had gone to, and had been informed by an officious waiter standing at a neighbouring door that he remembered seeing it in its place; after which he gave further interesting details about it, for which information he was gratefully rewarded. Browning smiled and said, ‘ I invented it.’

Shortly afterwards they settled till the end of July at a house in Campden-Hill Road.

Speaking of this date Hardy said that in looking for rooms to stay at for the season he called at a house-agent’s as usual, where, not seeing the man at the desk who had been there a day or two before, and who knew his wants in flats and apartments, he inquired for the man and was told he was out. Saying he would call again in an hour, Hardy left. On coming back he was told he was still out. He called a day or two afterwards, and the answer then was that the clerk he wanted was away.

‘But you said yesterday he was only out,’ exclaimed Hardy. His informant looked round him as if not wishing to be overheard, and replied:

‘Well, strictly he is not out, but in.’

‘Why didn’t you say so?’

‘Because you can’t speak to him. He’s dead and buried.’

‘May 16. Met Lowell at Lady Carnarvon’s.’

‘May 29. Instance of a wrong (i.e. selfish) philosophy in poetry:

‘
Thrice happy he who on the sunless side

Of a romantic mountain. . . .

Sits coolly calm; while all the world without,

Unsatisfied and sick, tosses at noon.

Thomson.’

‘June 2. The forty-seventh birthday of Thomas the Unworthy.’

‘June 8. Met at a dinner at the Savile Club: Goschen, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Lord Lytton, A. J. Balfour, and others.’

‘June 9. At dinner at (Juliet) Lady Pollock’s. Sir F. told Emma that he had danced in the same quadrille with a gentleman who had danced with Marie Antoinette.

‘Sir Patrick Colquhoun said that Lord Strath(illegible) told him he was once dining with Rogers when Sir Philip Francis was present. The conversation turned on “Junius”. Rogers said he would ask Sir Philip point-blank if he really were the man, so going to him he said “Sir Philip, I want to ask you a question”. Sir P. “ At your peril, Sir!” Rogers retreated saying “He’s not only Junius, but Junius BrutusV’

‘He also told us that Lord Sonce related to him how George III. met him on Richmond Hill, and said to him: “Eton boy, what are you doing here?”“Taking a walk, Sir.”“What form are you in?”“The sixth.”“Then you have that which I

couldn’t give you.”(Characteristic.)’

‘Sunday. To Mrs. Procter’s. Browning there. He was sleepy. In telling a story would break off, forgetting what he was going to say.’

On the 21 st was Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, and Hardy took his wife to see the procession from the Savile Club in Piccadilly. ‘The Queen was very jolly-looking. The general opinion is that there will certainly never be another jubilee in England; anyhow, probably never such a gathering of royal personages again.’

‘25. At a concert at Prince’s Hall I saw Souls outside Bodies.’

‘26. We were at Mrs. Procter’s when Browning came in as usual. He seemed galled at not having been invited to the Abbey (Jubilee) ceremony. He says that so far from receiving (as stated in the Pall Mall) an invitation even so late as twenty-four hours before, he received absolutely no invitation from the Lord Chamberlain (Lord Lathom) at all. The Dean offered him one of his own family tickets, but B. did not care to go on such terms, so went off to Oxford to stay with Jowett. People who were present say there were crowds of Court-servants and other nobodies there. An eminent actor had 25 tickets sent him . . . Millais, Huxley, Arnold, Spencer, etc., had none. Altogether Literature, Art, and Science had been unmistake- ably snubbed, and they should turn republican forthwith.’ An interesting comment on the reign of Queen Victoria!

The remainder of the London season in the brilliant Jubilee-year was passed by the Hardys gaily enough. At some houses the scene was made very radiant by the presence of so many Indian princes in their jewelled robes. At a certain reception Hardy was rather struck by one of the Indian dignitaries (who seems to have been the Raja of Kapurthala); remarking of him:

‘In his mass of jewels and white turban and tunic he stood and sat apart amid the babble and gaiety, evidently feeling himself alone, and having too much character to pretend to belong to and throw himself into a thoughtless world of chit-chat and pleasure which he understood nothing of.’

‘June 30. Talked to Matthew Arnold at the Royal Academy Soiree. Also to Lang, du Maurier, Thornycrofts, Mrs. Jeune, etc.

‘With E. to lunch at Lady Stanley’s (of Alderley). Met there Lord Halifax, Lady Airlie, Hon. Maude Stanley, her brother Mon- signor Stanley, and others. An exciting family dispute supervened, in which they took no notice of us guests at all.’

But Hardy does not comment much on these society-gatherings, his thoughts running upon other subjects, as is shown by the following memorandum made on the same day as the above. (It must always be borne in mind that these memoranda on people and things were made by him only as personal opinions for private consideration, which he meant to destroy, and not for publication; an issue which has come about by his having been asked when old if he would object to their being printed, as there was no harm in them, and his saying passively that he did not mind.)

‘July 14. It is the on-going — i.e. the “becoming” — of the world that produces its sadness. If the world stood still at a felicitous moment there would be no sadness in it. The sun and the moon standing still on Ajalon was not a catastrophe for Israel, but a type of Paradise.’

In August he was back again at Max Gate, and there remarks on the difference between children who grow up in solitary country places and those who grow up in towns — the former being imaginative, dreamy, and credulous of vague mysteries; giving as the reason that ‘The Unknown comes within so short a radius from themselves by comparison with the city-bred’.

At the end of the month Mr. Edmund Gosse wrote to inform Hardy among other things that R. L. Stevenson was off to Colorado as a last chance, adding in the course of a humorous letter: ‘I hope your spirits have been pretty good this summer. I have been scarcely fit for human society, I have been so deep in the dumps. I wonder whether climate has anything to do with it? It is the proper thing nowadays to attribute to physical causes all the phenomena which people used to call spiritual. But I am not sure. One may be dyspeptic and yet perfectly cheerful, and one may be quite well and yet no fit company for a churchyard worm. For the last week I should not have ventured to say unto a flea, “Thou art my sister”.’

‘September 3. Mother tells me of a woman she knew named Nanny Priddle, who when she married would never be called by her husband’s name “because she was too proud”, she said; and to the end of their lives the couple were spoken of as “Nanny Priddle and John Cogan”.’

‘September 25. My grandmother used to say that when sitting at home at Bockhampton she had heard the tranter “beat out the tune” on the floor with his feet when dancing at a party in his own house, which was a hundred yards or more away from hers.’

‘October 2. Looked at the thorn-bushes by Rushy Pond [on an exposed spot of the heath]. In their wrath with the gales their forms resemble men’s in like mood.

‘A variant of the superstitions attached to pigeon’s hearts is that, when the counteracting process is going on, the person who has bewitched the other enters. In the case of a woman in a village near here, who was working the spell at midnight, a neighbour knocked at the door and said; “Do ye come in and see my little maid. She is so ill that I don’t like to bide with her alone!”‘

‘October 7. During the funeral of Henry Smith, the rector’s son at West Stafford, the cows looked mournfully over the churchyard wall from the adjoining barton at the grave, resting their clammy chins on the coping; and at the end clattered their horns in a farewell volley.’