n artist; his habit is not slatternly, like those of such literary hodmen
as Mr. David Christie Murray, Mr. Besant, Mr. Buchanan. There is no trace
of the crowd about him. I do not question his right of place, I am out of
sympathy with him, that is all; and I regret that it should be so, for he
is one whose love of art is pure and untainted with commercialism, and if I
may praise it for nought else, I can praise it for this.

I have noticed that if I buy a book because I am advised, or because I
think I ought, my reading is sure to prove sterile. _Il faut que cela,
vient de moi_, as a woman once said to me, speaking of her caprices; a
quotation, a chance word heard in an unexpected quarter. Mr. Hardy and Mr.
Blackmore I read because I had heard that they were distinguished
novelists; neither touched me, I might just as well have bought a daily
paper; neither like nor dislike, a shrug of the shoulders--that is all.
Hardy seems to me to bear about the same relation to George Eliot as Jules
Breton does to Millet--a vulgarisation never offensive, and executed with
ability. The story of an art is always the same,... a succession of
abortive but ever strengthening efforts, a moment of supreme concentration,
a succession of efforts weakening the final extinction. George Eliot
gathered up all previous attempts, and created the English peasant; and
following her peasants there came an endless crowd from Devon, Yorkshire,
and the Midland Counties, and, as they came, they faded into the palest
shadows until at last they appeared in red stockings, high heels and were
lost in the chorus of opera. Mr. Hardy was the first step down. His work is
what dramatic critics would call good, honest, straightforward work. It is
unillumined by a ray of genius, it is slow and somewhat sodden. It reminds
me of an excellent family coach--one of the old sort hung on C springs--a
fat coachman on the box and a footman whose livery was made for his
predecessor. In criticising Mr. Meredith I was out of sympathy with my
author, ill at ease, angry, puzzled; but with Mr. Hardy I am on quite
different terms, I am as familiar with him as with the old pair of trousers
I put on when I sit down to write; I know all about his aims, his methods;
I know what has been done in that line, and what can be done.

I have heard that Mr. Hardy is country bred, but I should not have
discovered this from his writings. They read to me more like a report, yes,
a report,--a con