Vol. VI No. 1 - Modernist Magazines Project

THE BERMONDSEY BOOK
"The poetry of a scene varies with the minds of the perceivers. Indeed,
it does not lie in the scene at all."
How much of Thomas Hardy's own poetry finds explanation in this
statement! He had begun to write poetry in London but not for publication.
A breakdown in health took him back to Dorchester. His mind was liberated
at once. He sat down and began "The Poor Man and The Lady." He
wanted money, and prose fiction seemed his only way to obtain it. There
were thoughts in his mind about fame for he says, "It is the man who bases
his actions upon what the world is thinking, no matter what it may be
saying, who rises to the top." But at this time Hardy was very ignorant
of the commercial ways of the world however shrewd he ought have been,
and certainly was, in his comments on men and things. He allowed the
publisher to have the copyright of "Under the Greenwood Tree" for £30!
Remembering this, he must have smiled ironically at the prices paid for
scraps of his writings just before his death.
Then came recognition and the long years almost uneventful save for
the work done. Marriage, taking up of residence at Maxgate. At Maxgate
"The Woodlanders" (that most perfect story) took shape and was completed.
"Tess" and the others now so familiar followed. "The Dynast's," too, was
in Hardy's mind in the early days at Maxgate. In this house, which in the
end became almost a shrine, Hardy lived quietly and wrote persistently.
Little or nothing, if one is to judge by this biography, happened to disturb
the quiet order of his life.
In 1890, when he was 49 years of age, he had settled down to an existence
undisturbed by the events of a busy world—an existence which remained
very much the same until his death.
In the second volume which is to come we may hear more about Thomas
Hardy, but it will be less interesting in many ways for it will deal with
a life fixed in its routine and disturbed only by admirers and the consequences
of an established and growing reputation.
One closes this first volume with the feeling that all that could be told
(within the limits prescribed by the form of the book) has been told of a life
remarkably quiet and uneventful—no sort of life at all judged by our
hectic standards of living. Yet the book is disappointing. Thomas Hardy
does not emerge as a quiet man. One carries away no picture of him, for
throughout the book there are no points of contact between the subject
and the reader. The accuracy of detail is remarkable; but in the biography
of one of our greatest writers one looks for the inspiration, the revealing
insight, by which alone a great memorial of such a man can be fashioned
out of words.
DIALOGUES AND MONOLOGUES. By HUMBERT WOLFE (Victor
Gollancz).
In this volume of literary criticism Mr. Humbert Wolfe is assured of his
place as an essayist. In clear, and often very beautiful prose, he discourses