Saddened View
THOMAS HARDY'S NOTEBOOKS: And Some Letters from Julia Augusta Martin. Edited with notes by Evelyn Hardy. (Hogarth Press, Ws. 6d.) OTHER people's notebooks, like other people's letters, appeal to our baser instincts; impersonal curiosity anticipates many re- vealing references, and, quite unashamedly, we look forward to the controversies which inevitably follow. The second Mrs. Hardy's presentation of her husband's Memoirs induced a cer- tain acrimony among critics, and Miss Evelyn Hardy's slender offering of two unpublished notebooks, together with five letters from the lady whose 'thrilling frou-frou of four grey silk flounces' inspired Proustian dreams in Hardy the child, has rekindled all passionate protagonists. It is a measure of Hardy's immortality that so innocuous and uninformative a miscellany should provoke such an intellectual witch-hunt of this over-conscientious and dedicated editor. Ad- mittedly Miss Hardy, whose scholarship prevails over common sense, has, to say the least, introduced her material with a singular lack of tact.
In themselves, these notebooks hardly rise above mere com- monplace jottings of stray and slightly platitudinous thoughts, references for possible use,' unremarkable quotations from other people, day-to-day Nature notes, diary entries of guests and money transactions, secretarial instructions to self, and so on, relieved only occasionally by urgent reflections. On the whole these note- books sadden one's view of Thomas Hardy in the sense that any rummaging of the wastepaper basket does; of course, it's fasci- nating because there is always a chance of finding something pertinent, but one is, as it were, ever on the floor scratching about among a lot of curled and torn litter. Only deliberate and creatively conceived notebooks carry a writer's full impact. These notebooks introduce neither Hardy the writer nor Hardy the man; they erase the line of purity, and Miss Hardy's fulsome comments compare with over-hollied rooms at Christmas.
The general effect is tiresome. Miss Hardy's concern for the truth of her matter makes her appear bossy. Barely has the poor old man got a few words out than in wades Nurse Hardy with her severe transcription of his meaning. Furthermore, Miss Hardy's eagerness to introduce her subject degenerates into a kind of fight with the reader who must be kept at a distance, rather in the fashion of garrulous guides who shoo the interested away in case one should be tempted to touch. Also like this proverbial guide, Miss Hardy tells us what conclusions should be made : 'Compare this with a note made many years later. . . .' When on those rare occasions Hardy's voice comes through, such as his comments on insomnia, Miss Hardy rushes to explain such morbidity as the result of his having 'not as yet succeeded in having anything pub- lished. . . .' The entry, 'December 19th. Long Ditton. Snow on the graves. A superfluous piece of cynicism in Nature,' provokes Miss Hardy to presumption : 'It is characteristic of Hardy to read into Nature a purposeful malignity.' One is tempted to refer these editorial comments to Hardy's not exactly original remark that 'Nothing is so interesting to a woman as herself.'
The value of Mrs. Martin's five short letters can be circum- scribed by any similar correspondence which refers to past acquaintanceship and requests and thanks for free copies of hooks. ' KAY DICK
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