Free Thomas Hardy by Andrew Norman

parties,’ said she haughtily. It was now ‘Ladies and MEN’, always! Again, in reality, these voices are those of Emma’s father John Gifford and his wife.
    Why did Hardy choose to include such details of his personal life in a novel? Partly because this was his modus operandi, but also out of anger. He had asked Emma’s father, in all good faith, for the hand of his daughter, and instead of being welcomed into the Gifford family, John Gifford had chosen to humiliate him. So how could Hardy express his disgust? Through his writings, where not he but his fictitious character, Stephen Smith, becomes the victim of social snobbery. And Hardy was determined to have the novel published, come what may, even if this meant offending Emma, who would inevitably read it, if she had not done so already.
    To summarise, the idea that Hardy used A Pair of Blue Eyes as a debating chamber in which to mull over his own private thoughts about women in general, and Emma in particular, and the problems attendant on who falls in love with a person of higher social standing, may at first appear fanciful; but as the novel progresses, it becomes more and more apparent that this is exactly what he is doing.
    The first instalment of A Pair of Blue Eyes appeared in Tinsley’s Magazine in September 1872, and in May 1873 the novel was published by Tinsley Brothers in three volumes.

    In June 1873 Hardy visited Cambridge where he met his friend Horace Moule, and the two of them visited Kings College Chapel, from the roof of which they could see Ely Cathedral ‘gleaming in the distant sunlight’. 6 (Whatever doubts Hardy may have had about the dogma of Christianity, he was still in love with its ritual, its imagery and the splendours of its architecture.) Sadly, this was to be the pair’s last encounter. Hardy visited St Juliot on two occasions during 1873; the second time at Christmas.
    On 21 September 1873, in his rooms at Queens College, Cambridge (where he was employed as a Poor Law inspector), Horace Moule took his own life. He had befriended Hardy; encouraged him with gifts of books and intellectually stimulating conversations; set him on the road to socialism, and shielded and defended him when his books were denigrated by other critics. But for years Moule, a taker of opium and a heavy drinker, had battled against severe depression and suicidal tendencies, and at the end of the day, Hardy’s great friend and comrade had been unable to overcome his problems. What was it that had brought the two of them so closely together? Perhaps in Hardy, Moule recognised a kindred spirit: a person, like himself, of great sensitivity, who saw enormous suffering in the world and found it hard to bear.
    Moule’s body was brought back to Fordington for burial in consecrated ground. This was possible, because although it was normally considered a crime for a person to commit suicide, the jury had returned a verdict of ‘temporary insanity’. Hardy was nonplussed and wrote, quoting Psalm 74: ‘Not one is there among us that understandeth any more.’
Far from the Madding Crowd
    In December 1872, scholar and critic Leslie Stephen, who had been impressed by his reading of Under the Greenwood Tree , asked Hardy to provide a story suitable for serialisation in the Cornhill Magazine , of which he was editor. Stephen, a philosopher and man of letters, was also editor of the Dictionary of National Biography . A year later, Hardy would meet him in person and the two would become lifelong friends.
    Accordingly, having completed A Pair of Blue Eyes , Hardy set out to write Far from the Madding Crowd , in which he ventured beyond the world of his own personal experiences and instead used as the basis of the plot a story told to him by his cousin Tryphena Sparks. It tells of a woman who has inherited a farm, which contrary to the tradition of the times she insists on managing herself. However, Hardy does not neglect to include his favourite theme – that of a man of