The death of Mr. Thomas Hardy, which occurred on Wednesday,
leaves all Englishmen mourning and ve7 intiell'IC456-rer.- He We:S. the las-i of the great' Vietoilati. writers, but he was in no customary sense a Victorian, -for he reached across into our most modern phases. He conquered by the sincerity and coherence of his planning, by the grand simplicity and tenacity of his intellect. A generation ago he was attacked as a writer of obscene stories. He never answered that astonishing misinterpre- tation of what may be called his reverent faithfulness to truth. He did not try to produce what was pretty or conciliatory, because he was impelled by his philosophy to be the unrelenting prophet of sorrow in human life, and of the blind and aimless energy which he saw in the cosmic scheme. The wonder is that a writer who found no benevolent design in the universe should have been the recorder of so much that is endearing and lovely in English life and scenery.
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