356 IN MEMORIAM.— DR HARDY 



were never put off with a brief note, but, as has already 

 been said, found their inquiries discussed with a complete- 

 ness which to those who did not know him was nothing 

 short of amazing. It seemed indeed, as if it were 

 impossible for him to treat any subject, however appar- 

 ently trivial, in a hasty or perfunctory manner. 



Along with his unrivalled clearness of perception, 

 Dr Hardy possessed the gift of lucid and suggestive 

 interpretation in a high degree. His nature was too 

 simple and downright to care much for the mere graces 

 of literary style, and he despised all tricks of expression 

 which seek to cover the commonplace by an affected 

 originality. The arts of the rhetorician he held in 

 something like contempt. But there are numerous 

 passages to be found in his writings which show that, 

 had he chosen, he could have used the methods of professed 

 litterateurs with the best of them. Witness the opening 

 sentences of his paper on the Wood Sorrel in the Border 

 Magazine, and many an unexpected gem of description 

 of natural scener}^ embedded in a dry Club Report. 

 For a time in his youth he courted the Muses, and 

 the verses contributed to the magazine just mentioned, 

 especially the pleasing lines entitled " I'll pu' the wild 

 flowers a' for thee," show that his fancy, if not his 

 imagination, had been touched and stimulated by his 

 communion with Nature. With a wise knowledge of 

 his powers, however, he set himself rigorously to with- 

 stand all temptation to stray into paths in which he 

 felt they could find no appropriate sphere of exercise. 



Of his attitude towards the great scientific and philos- 

 ophical controversies of the century, especially to those 

 waged round the theories associated with the names 

 of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, and Weissman, it is not 

 necessarj- to say much. By training and personal 

 conviction he was unable to accept any explanation 

 of the processes of nature which did not rest upon a 



