ges, and the tendency of the book is
unavoidably towards the development and multiplication of the type
described. This is the only end the book can serve, apart from the fact
that it does reveal to us Mr. Hardy's special knowledge of a dangerous
and disagreeable form of mental disorder, But it is not the physician's
business to sow disease, and any treatise on hysteria which is thrown
into a captivating popular form, and makes hysteria look like an
interesting and romantic thing, will spread the malady as surely as
a spark will ignite gunpowder. This at least is not a mere matter of
opinion, but of sound scientific fact, which no student of that disorder
which Mr. Hardy has so masterfully handled will deny. In this respect,
then, the book is a centre of infection, and that the author of 'A Pair
of Blue Eyes' should have written it is matter at once for astonishment
and grief. That is to say, it is a matter of astonishment and grief
to me, and to those who think as I do. There is a large and growing
contingent of writers and readers to whom it is a theme for joyful
congratulation. It is one of the rules of the game we are now playing to
respect all honest conviction.

Of Mr. Hardy, from the purely artistic side, there is little time
to speak. On that side let me first set down what is to be said in
dispraise, for the mere sake of leaving a sweet taste in the mouth at
the end. Even from his own point of view--that lauded 'sense of the
overwhelming sadness of modern life' which captivates the admirers of
his latest style--it is possible to spread the epic table of sorrow
without finding a place upon it for scraps of the hoggish anatomy which
are not nameable except in strictly scientific or wholly boorish speech.
But it seems necessary to the new realism that its devotee should be
able to write for the perusal of gentlemen and ladies about things
he dared not mention orally in the presence of either; so that what a
drunken cabman would be deservedly kicked for saying in a lady's hearing
may be honourably printed for a lady's reading by a scholar and a sage.
It was once thought otherwise, but I am arguing here, not against
realism _per se_, but against the inartistic introduction of gross
episodes. Every reader of Mr. Hardy will recognise my meaning, and the
passage in my mind seems gratuitously and unserviceably offensive.

To come to less unpleasing themes, where, still expressing disapproval,
one may do it with some gr