. If Hardy only wrote
good stories he would be merely doing his duty, and therefore
accounted an unprofitable servant. But he does much besides.

He fulfills one great function of the literary artist, which is to
mediate between nature and the reading public. Such a man is an eye
specialist. Through his amiable offices people who have hitherto been
blind are put into condition to see. Near-sighted persons have
spectacles fitted to them--which they generally refuse to wear, not
caring for literature which clears the mental vision.

Hardy opens the eyes of the reader to the charm, the beauty, the
mystery to be found in common life and in every-day objects. So alert
and forceful an intelligence rarely applies its energy to fiction. The
result is that he makes an almost hopelessly high standard. The
exceptional man who comes after him may be a rival, but the majority
of writing gentlemen can do little more than enviously admire. He
seems to have established for himself such a rule as this, that he
will write no page which shall not be interesting. He pours out the
treasures of his observation in every chapter. He sees everything,
feels everything, sympathizes with everything. To be sure he has an
unusually rich field for work. In _The Mayor of Casterbridge_ is an
account of the discovery of the remains of an old Roman soldier. One
would expect Hardy to make something graphic of the episode. And so he
does. You can almost see the warrior as he lies there 'in an oval
scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his knees drawn up to
his chest; his spear against his arm; an urn at his knees, a jar at
his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified conjecture pouring
down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge street-boys and men.'

The real virtue in this bit of description lies in the few words
expressive of the mental attitude of the onlookers. And it is a nice
distinction which Hardy makes when he says that 'imaginative
inhabitants who would have felt an unpleasantness at the discovery of
a comparatively modern skeleton in their gardens were quite unmoved by
these hoary shapes. They had lived so long ago, their hopes and
motives were so widely removed from ours, that between them and the
living there seemed to stretch a gulf too wide for even a spirit to
pass.'

He takes note of that language which, though not articulate, is in
common use among yeomen, dairymen, farmers, and the townsfolk of his
little world. It i