SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of tha souk as hays not been marital for mins in other forms.] Thomas Hardy : a Critical Study. By Lascelles Abercrombie. (Martin Seeker. 7s. 6d. net.)—It is as a poet that Mr. Abercrombie has hitherto been chiefly known; but this appreciation of Mr. Thomas Hardy shows that he is not lacking in critical power. Many will doubtless feel that he errs a little in the direction of indiscriminate enthusiasm for Mr. Hardy, especially when he claims "for the Wessex novels of Thomas Hardy that in them Fiction has achieved both a style and a substance that enable it to fulfil the gravest function of art—with the exception, perhaps, of the work of two foreign novelists, to fulfil this function for the first time." This statement may perhaps be considered the theme of Mr. Abercrombie's study. For he elaborates it at some length, and explains that by it he means to say that Mr. Hardy is the first English novelist to base his work upon a foundation of philosophy. "Thomas Hardy," he says elsewhere, "by deliber- ately putting the art of his fiction under the control of a metaphysic, has thereby made the novel capable of the highest service to man's consciousness—made it truly the equal of drama and sculpture." It is in this metaphysic that Mr. Abercrombie is chiefly interested, and it is in their bearing upon it that he criticizes the novels individually in the later chapters of the book. Both there and in the more general argument at the beginning he is especially concerned to defend Mr. Hardy's philosophy from the charge of pessimism But, apart from this, he enters upon no discussion upon the merits of philosophy, being content to emphasize the fact of its lying, as a unifying principle, at the back of the novels, and also, of course, of "The Dynasts." Enough has been said to give an idea of Mr. Abercrombie's critique, with its insistence upon the importance of the metaphysical basis of Mr. Hardy's work. It is permissible to add that there are many who will disagree entirely with this atti- tude. Many—the question is largely one of temperament—will feel doubts not merely as to the truth of Mr. Hardy's philosophy and as to its interest, but also as to its importance in the testhetic value of his writings. Many will find much to appreciate in them which bears hardly any relation to a "fundamental metaphysic," and will admire them in spite rather than because of it.
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