Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



283 



THE WESSEX DRAMA. 

 A French Bomk on Mr. Thomas Hardy. 

 The most complete and competent criticism of 

 Mr. Thomas Hardy's work which has yet appeared 

 comes from France, says a writer in the January 

 number of the Edinburgh Rn'ieiv. The book thus 

 referred to is "Thomas Hardy, Penseur et Artiste," 

 recently brought out by M. Franck A. Hedgcock, a 

 French writer, and it is described by the reviewer 

 as a model of what criticism should be. The book 

 is also the subject of an interesting article by M. 

 Charles Chassc in the Grande Reriie of December 

 25th and January loth. The opinions expressed in 

 both articles are presumably those of M. Hedgcock. 



MR. H.\RDY'S pessimism. 



Writing of Mr. Hardy's pessimism, M. Chasse' says 

 that fronv his early works one might think the novelist 

 had been influenced by Schopenhauer, did he not 

 hirrself so emphatically deny it. His pessimism 

 certainly existed before he knew the vritings of 

 Schopenhauer, but it cannot be denied that when he 

 wrote his 'later novels he had come under the in- 

 fluence of the German philosopher, and in ihem he 

 uses a number of expressions borrowed from the 

 jihilosopher's vocabulary. What Schopenhauer did 

 was to help him to systematise a pessimism, which 

 before had only been instinctive. If Mr. Hardy 

 had been integrally a pessimist he would have com- 

 mitted suicide or have died of grief. \s it is, he 

 is too healthy-minded a man, and the instinct of pre- 

 servation is too strong in him to allow pessimism to 

 take complete possession of him. For this reason M. 

 Chassc does not think Mr. Hardy's work very 

 dangerous. Besides, with the normal man the love of 

 life is so strong that no philosophical consideration 

 can shake it. 



HIS SERVICE TO ENGLAND. 



A striking feature in Mr. Hardy's work is the 'great 

 sympathy, and even a certain amount of envy, with 

 which he si)eaks of the counti7-people. Zola's " La 

 Torre " makes one pity the peasantry, Mr. Hardy 

 makes us love iliLin. In fact, he makes us love all 

 men. Thus, notwithstanding his pessimism, he helps 

 us to find life more bearable and to make it more 

 agreeable to others. But to the English especially he 

 has rendered a great service, because he has dared, 

 without prudery and without exaggeration, to speak 

 1 luarly of the sexual problems and religious ((ucstions. 

 The Lnglish, who morally and physically are perhaps 

 more courn'cous than the French, are intellectually 

 more pusillanimous. There are questions which they 

 dare not ask for fear the answers should prove 

 unpleasant. Mr. Hardy has dealt with these (|Ues- 

 tions and has forced his contemporaries to discuss 

 them ; he has broken down their reserve and made 

 them think of these things; and that is one of the 

 most splendid glories to which a novelist, and 

 especially an English novelist, may pretend to attain. 



The Se.\ Obsession. 

 The Edinburgh Rmiciver, in analysing Mr. Hedg- 

 cock's book, points out that the key to Mr. Hardy's 

 attitude towards life, his interpretation of its problems, 

 is pathological — the medium, the perspective, the 

 focus are wrong. To see all things in sex is to see 

 them out of focus. Sex is not the whole of life or all 

 man. Life is manifold ; its chord is too full to 

 tolerate the monotonous persistence of one note. 

 Preoccupation with the details of sex does not carry 

 with it a high view of women. Religion, replies the 

 reviewer, is ceasing to be Oriental ; education is 

 ceasing to be confined to men, and the estimate of 

 women based upon them has ceased to be tenable. 

 In a word, feminism has re-shaped the sex-problem. 



SOME interesting CO.MPARISONS. 



Mr. Hardy's attitude to nature is compared to that 

 of \\'ordsworth. The poet is a teacher or he is 

 nothing, but Mr. Hardy is content to feel and 

 describe. The Nature-sense is twofold, outer and inner. 

 Wordsworth possessed both. Mr. Hardy, though he 

 has it to perfection, has the first only ; hence his 

 sombreness, recalling that of the Nature cults of the 

 old world. .'Vgain, the standpoint from which Mr. 

 Hardy regards life is contrasted with that of Stevenson 

 — that of the pessimist who lays stress on the evil, 

 and that of the optimist who lays stress on the good. 

 Mr. Hardy is curiously destitute of the spirit ot ad- 

 venture, whereas adventure is the most distinctive 

 note in Stevenson. 



Another interesting comparison is made between 

 Mr. Hardy and Meredith. With Mr. Hardy the 

 style is simple and the standpoint individualistic. 

 He is a spectator rather than an actor in the universe. 

 Meredith's outlook is radically different. To the 

 individual he opposes the race, to speculation science, 

 and contemplation action. He believes in the world, 

 in mankind, in the future, and in himself. To him 

 life is a succession of efforts, and if his appeal is 

 primarily to the understanding, we must remember this 

 faculty is the key to our nature. He does not invite 

 us to suffer with his personages, but to think about 

 them, to observe them, to criticise them with him. 

 He is more a professor of psychology than a iwet. 



Christina Rossetti. 

 The January Bnck'ihin contained an article by 

 Katharine Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson) on Christina Ros- 

 setti, who died in 1894. In .Mrs. Hinkson's opinion 

 Christina Rossetti stands head and .shoulders above 

 all other women who have written English poetry, 

 and the noblest series of sonnets given to the world 

 by a woman is that entitled " .Monna Innoniinata." 

 .Mrs. Hinkson also ventures the opinion that among 

 the Victorian poets Christina Rossetti and Jirowning 

 will eventually take the first place. The article is 

 illustrated by a number of portraits of Christina and 

 other members of the Rossetti family, most of them 

 the drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 



