Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



8s 



THOMAS HARDY AT HOME. 



The English Illuslraled Migazine for June contains 

 the account of a visit p-iid by a cyclist to Mr. Thomas 

 Hardy at his Dorchester home : — 



"Max G.ite" is a little reil-brick house, covered over with 

 ivies anvl creepers, and only two storeys high, if one iloe> not 

 ciiunt the square toivers which rise on each side of the buiMiiiL;. 

 There are white gales on the road, and a ctinninglytwisteil 

 little "drive," with a clump of tall shrubbery in the middle, 

 making the place practically invisible to one who travels thus 

 far to ^00 a great man's house. 



The room in which he met the novelist did not seem 

 at all an old man's room. Of Mr. Hardy himself he, 

 says : — 



The picture he presented was, for the moment at least, all- 

 satisfying ; there was more than nervousness in the strangely- 

 harasse Idooking face, with the most sensitive features that I 

 had ever seen. The deep-set eyes were troubled, but there was 

 no mistaking their fearless cour.age. I knew that I was looking 

 at a n a 1 whose soul was more ravaged than ever his careworn 

 feature', were wiili the riddle of life and the tragedy of it, and 

 yet a soul uiltrly self-reliant, for all the shyness of the outward 

 m.-in. 



WIIV so PESSIMISTIC ? 



I attempted no compliments, and asked him instead why he 

 w,-is so pessimistic a writer, why he wrote at once the most 

 beautiful and the most dreadful of stories, and why he had not 

 shown u,- far m.>re often than he has done a picture of requited 

 love, or of requited love that was not victimised at once by some 

 pitiless act of fate. 



Mr. Hardy had not sat down himself, but had stood by the 

 fireplace with his white hands holditig the lapels of his old- 

 f.ishioned ami even ill-fitting tweed coat. 



We were on better terms in a moment, as Mr. Hardy replied, 

 his voice curiously halting, but not as if he was in any doubt of 

 his sentiments. It seemed a mixture of irony and diffidence. 

 "THE CRIJELTV OF FATE." 



" Vou arc a young man," he said. " The cruelty of fate 

 becomes app.irent to people as they grow older. .Kt first one 

 may perhaps .vcape contact with it, but if one lives long enough 

 ■ inc realises that happiness is very ephemeral." 



" Uut is not optimism a useful and sane philosophy ? " I 

 asked liim. 



"There's loo much sham optimism, humbugging, and even 

 cruel optimism," .Mr. Hardy retorted. "Sham optimism is 

 really a more heartless doctrine to preach than even an 

 t'Xaggerated pessimism — the latter leaves one at least on the 

 #.afe side. There is loo much sentiment in most fiction. It is 

 iiece^^iry for somebo<ly to write a little mercilessly, althougli, 

 if course, it's painful to have to do it." 



GE()R(;I': CKUIKSHAXK.S WORK. 



In the Kw^liih Illuslraled for June .Mr. C. M. IT. 

 Etlward^ writes an appreciation of George Cniikshank. 

 He .says : — 



One is imprnscil by the two extremes of coarseness an 1 

 *cn-itiv.j fi lineineiil--«omc li.ive almost the exquisiteness, with- 

 out tin ili.ili'.m, of William HIake— by the womleriul sense of 

 ni"\' !■ ' 111 I life in all of them, and by the extraordinary 

 • \'c ■ ■.' ■• Old siiiipliclty of his style. 



Ill t ,;-, m i^e of such dilTercnl thgught and opinion, we 

 si.iic. ;y, jierli.i|is, realise what a Ijunefit Cruikshank was to the 

 tliiii- ill wliicli he lived, and the elevating and reforming inlliience 

 ..I lii, work. Thi.« endeavour to benefit lib fellow-creatures w.is 

 eiriied out not only during the later yearj of his life in his 

 renuous efforts in favour of Total .Mxtinencc, when all his 

 I'ltlureswere devoted to that evil, but almost from the beginning 

 il liU career. 



One morning, on his way to the Guildhall, he passed New 

 gate, and saw hanging outside a group of human beings; among 

 them three women, and making inquiry he learned that they 

 had been hanged for pa sing ^"l forged t)ank-notes ! Horiified, 

 he went straight back to his rooms, and at once designed and 

 circulated his imitation bank-note, with its grim row of men 

 and women hanging by the neck, its implements of torture, and 

 jCl writ large upon it.. 



This pic:ure, by the notice it attracted, abolished once and 

 f«.>r all c.ipilal punishment for -uch minor olfences. He assisted 

 largely also in aljolisliing ]i irih.doniew's Fair, a most scandalous 

 scene of de! auchery and roUick'ng, by the picture of " His 

 Friend's Frying Pan." 



TWO \\'ELLINGTON STORIES. 



In Cornhill for July Dr. Fitchett culls interesting 

 matter from a volume of some three hundred pages, of 

 which only twelve copies were printed for family 

 perusal. It is the military autobiography of .Major- 

 General Sir John T. Jones, late of the Corps of Royal 

 Kngineers. It contains two good stories of 

 Wellington : — 



.\s everyone knows, Wellington was contemptuously critical 

 of all literature dealing with his career. Jones relates how he 

 sal in the carriage opposite the Duke, and "watched him read 

 a ponderous quarto recital of the Battle of Waterloo." .\s he 

 re.ad he held in his hand a great blunt-ended pencil, and against 

 paragraph after paragraph he traced the letters "L" or 

 " I> L." Jones ventured to ask what these mystic letters 

 meant. The pithy reply was, "'Lie' and 'Damned lie,' 

 to be sure." 



The second is of a more serious character. Going 

 over the field of Waterloo with Sir John T. Jones, the 

 Duke of Wellington said, "' I had only 35,000 men on 

 whom I could thoroughly rely. The remainder were 

 but too likely to run away." The misbehaviour of a 

 militia general in deserting the position assigned him 

 well-nigh cost him the battle : — 



The Duke told Jones that at another perioil of the action, 

 " having ordered up the Nassau troops, they fell into confusion 

 anil gave way, and when he went personally to rally them, and 

 take them forn-aid, they absolutely fired at him. ' In fact,' said 

 the Duke, ' ihere was so much nli^behaviour that it w.is only 

 through God's mercy we won the battle.' These," says 

 Jones, " were his very words, noted a few minutes after they 

 had been uttered." 



THl-: NATIONAL RESERVE. 



A[>rol>os of the King's inspection of the London 

 Division of the National Reserve on the 8th of fune, 

 ■' Trainband," in the Uiiilcii Service .U/;ga2/«^, discusses 

 its efficiency. He distinguishes lour classes. First, the 

 really old soldiers, a lew wearing the ("riniean and 

 .Mutiny medals, and one man of a hundred years of 

 age who was registered a lew months ago. .Next, the 

 older middle-aged men, whose training is so antiquated 

 as to be scarcely of much service. I'hen the yourger 

 middle-aged men, who I'orin the pick of the National 

 Reserve. Finally, some young veterans. He assumes 

 that about half the force is elTective, and urges that 

 the provision of arms and eciuipmcnt should be con- 

 sidered. From the point of view of an adequate home 

 defence army he wonders whether in Kngland just 

 now there is not too much '' pi. tying at soldiers." 



