Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Source of book: I own this. 

I think I came to Thomas Hardy somewhat backwards. The husband of my longtime violin teacher gave me his extra hardback of Jude the Obscure when I was a teen (along with a bunch of other stuff - including my introduction to Anthony Trollope and P. G. Wodehouse), and I put it on my shelf, hoping to eventually read it. I kind of knew in advance that it was Hardy’s last novel, and was so scandalous for its time that it caused an outcry, which then hurt Hardy’s feelings, causing him to never write another novel, instead focusing on increasingly pessimistic and bitter poetry. At least, that’s how I learned it in high school English Lit class. It wasn’t entirely inaccurate, of course. What was left out was that Hardy had some circumstances in his life which directly influenced the novel. (I summarized them in my post on his final poetry collection, Winter Words.) In any event, Jude the Obscure rather traumatized me with its bitter pessimism and vicious misogyny. The “scandal” of its day, the pointed mocking of the hypocrisy of puritanical religion and classism of higher education actually aged really well. I would say that those parts of the book resonate well in our own day. But the misogyny, driven by the catastrophic breakdown of his marriage, is so nasty that it taints the whole book. The psychological place he was in at the time led him to portray women as inherently untrustworthy, nay, as scheming snakes out to ruin men for their own reasons, and the book thus denies its female characters any humanity worthy of sympathy. As I found out later, Hardy regretted his break with his wife, and rather deified her after her death. So the whole thing is, to say the least, complex. 

After that, I avoided Hardy for years. I did, however, find a paperback copy of Under the Greenwood Tree, and gave it a chance. That book was his second published work (published anonymously), and the first of his “Wessex” novels. I really enjoyed that one, in large part because of its story about village musicians (hey, that’s my sort of thing!) and the “worship wars” - the generational difference between musical styles - which dominated my own church experience for years. 

I mentioned Winter Words, above. I own Hardy’s complete poetry, and decided to start from the back, just to be different. His poetry is enjoyable, I would say, and often more subtle than his novels. 

I decided last year to make an effort to read one of Hardy’s mature Wessex novels. I own the four best known: Far From the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I went with Far From the Madding Crowd mostly because of the use of the word “madding,” which is often misread as “maddening.” Now, for an introvert like myself, crowds can become rather maddening (as in driving one insane), but the word “madding” refers to movement. A “madding crowd” is a large group of people milling around in a swarm, so to speak. Whether that drives you mad, or exhilarates you depends on personality. 

Written in 1874, Far From the Madding Crowd was Hardy’s first true commercial hit, and enabled him to give up his day job (as an architect) and write full time. The title was taken from Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” a poem 125 years old at that point, but which captured Hardy’s vision of portraying a rural England which was, but which was fading away. 

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way

This idea of the sequestered life, rigid roles and types, is key to understanding the book, in my view. The characters aren’t so much people as they are metaphors, archetypes rather than individuals, expressions of the land and culture in which they live. This is pretty obvious in the minor characters, which are practically purchased in bulk from the bin of minor rural English characters. Although 150 years ago, the characters were far more novel than now, it is impossible not to imagine Hardy shopping at Hackney’s Novel Shop, the delightful invention of my friend Sara. (“Need a simple yet goodhearted farmhand, given to getting ‘double vision’ after a nip in the local pub? You’ve come to the right place. I’ll throw in a rakish soldier and the girl he knocks up for free...”) Even the major characters do not seem to be full human characters so much as they are representations of facets of the rural English character. Don’t get me wrong: there is quite a bit of psychological depth to the three main actors. But even this depth is driven by their type. It is hard to explain this sensation, but if you read the book, I think it is easy enough to feel. 

Whatever the “idyllic” character of the fictional “Wessex” - essentially rural Southwestern England - the plot is anything but that. It is pretty dang sensational and scandalous. If you want to be surprised, I recommend stopping here, reading the book, and then coming back, because spoilers are necessary from this point on. 

I would say that the plot centers on a combination of a love triangle and a “love pyramid” - as far as I know, I coined that term. This is not to be confused with a love quadrilateral, where there are four points which connect to two others, but not to all three. In this case, there is one person (the female) at the pinnacle, with the three men at the base vying for her. With, as might be expected, tragic results. 

First, the pyramid. At the apex is Bathsheba Everdene (um, definitely no metaphorical names in this book, no sir…) She is an attractive young woman who starts off fairly poor, but suddenly inherits a farm from a relative, and becomes the most eligible bachelorette for miles around. Three men desire her. First is Gabriel Oak, the solid, stolid, steadfast, reliable young shepherd, fallen on hard times after a doofus dog ruins his flock. Second is Farmer Boldwood, an older gentleman who has never really related well to women, but who is suddenly smitten with Bathsheba after she plays a spurious joke on him. (She sends him a valentine saying “marry me” despite having no interest in him.) The third is Sergeant Troy, the son of a nobleman who has taken military orders, and who is a rake in every sense of the word. So, sense the theme with these names yet? As go the names, so go the personalities. All three of these desire Bathsheba, but take completely different approaches to this desire. 

Then, we get to the love triangle. Before meeting Bathsheba, Troy has already loved Fanny Robin, a young servant girl who used to work for Bathsheba’s predecessor. Due to a mixup, she fails to go to the right church, and doesn’t end up marrying Troy. This is the heart of the tragedy that dominates the book. 

The triangle is necessary to the plot, but it is really the pyramid which drives the psychological drama. 

I would go so far as to consider Sergeant Troy a more minor character in this sense: while he is a major character as far as importance to the plot, we get very little of his inner life. He comes and goes, but he is a protean force, not a complex human. He loves, or better, lusts, like an animal, and reacts without thinking through the implications. 

In contrast, the motivations and struggles of Bathsheba, Gabriel, and Boldwood are all examined at length, and it is their fates which truly matter. (Anyone who isn’t relieved to some degree when Troy finally meets his quietus is someone I wouldn’t recommend dating.) 

If I were to describe the three archetypes represented here, I would do it as follows. Bathsheba is kind of the facets of the “feminine” rolled into one. She is, on the one hand, competent and strong. On the other, she is (in the irritating Victorian stereotype) vulnerable to emotion, and thus unable to keep to a steady purpose in love. Is she an inspiration or a cautionary tale? That isn’t clear. But Hardy definitely seems to adopt the attitude of the Victorian Male and assume that she will be at her best when taken well in hand by the right sort of man. (An idea which, ironically, is undermined by the way he portrays her before her unfortunate adventures in love…) 

Boldwood, on the other hand, is the unstable masculine. Hardy seems almost oblivious to the way that Boldwood is even more emotional and unstable than Bathsheba - he insists on using feminine ideas of “weakness” to describe her, while explaining his excesses as, well, excesses of passion and spirits. It isn’t that he candy-coats Boldwood’s issues - rather the contrary - it is just that the gendered way in which these are described hasn’t aged all that well. 

Gabriel Oak, in contrast to the others, is a man for all times, perhaps. After the initial catastrophe that overtakes him, and renders him (in his own mind, at least) as an utterly unsuitable suitor for Bathsheba, he takes on the “stiff upper lip, stout fellow” British archetype, and proceeds with his life and his looking out for Bathsheba despite knowing he has no chance. Although almost superhuman in his stoicism (he is an archetype, not a realistic character), he does represent an ideal of goodness. An earthy, everyday, simple goodness. He has his emotional struggles, of course. And he is relatable in many ways. But he never really slips up and becomes a full human with genuine weakness. 

That isn’t really the point, though. Far From the Madding Crowd is neither a novel of manners nor a coming of age story. It’s drama is as much between forces as humans. The protean and the rooted, bold and the patient. And, I might add, the three-fold choice that Bathsheba faces. Does she want the financially and socially obvious choice, that is, Boldwood? Or does she want the dashing and romantic Troy? Or will she eventually go with the gentle friendship of Oak? All three represent compromise in some way, alas. 

In my opinion, Hardy isn’t my favorite Victorian novelist, although this book was indeed good. That place remains Anthony Trollope’s to lose, followed by George Eliot. But reading this book at least helped me understand why he has the reputation he does. This is a compelling book, and his writing is better than I remember in either of the others I read. 

Here are some examples of passages or phrases which stood out to me. 

On the first page, there is a description of Gabriel Oak, the first character we meet. 

On Sundays he was a man of misty views, rather given to postponing, and hampered by his best clothes and umbrella: upon the whole, one who felt himself to occupy morally that vast middle space of Laodicean neutrality which lay between the Communion people of the parish and the drunken section, -- that is, he went to church, but yawned privately by the time the congregation reached the Nicene creed, and thought of what there would be for dinner when he meant to be listening to the sermon. 

This might be a description of Hardy himself, who was never a particularly devoted churchgoer, and became increasingly agnostic as he aged. I love the phrase “Laodicean neutrality” thought. 

I also loved the line after Bathsheba rejects Oak’s clumsy proposal, and leaves the neighborhood. 

It may have been observed that there is no regular path for getting out of love as there is for getting in. Some people look upon marriage as a short cut that way, but it has been known to fail.

I know this is a variant on the old joke, but I still like the delightful twist of phrase that Hardy uses. 

Another pithy distillation of an age-old thought comes when Bathsheba contemplates Boldwood’s offer of marriage. She thinks he is disinterested. (Not to be confused with uninterested - although the two are conflated all the time these days.) But Hardy points out that this isn’t the case. 

Yet Farmer Boldwood, whether by nature kind or the reverse to kind, did not exercise kindness here. The rarest offerings of the purest loves are but a self-indulgence, and no generosity at all.

I really had to think about this one for a while, but I think Hardy is right. Sit with that thought a while, and think about those you know who consider themselves the most pure...trust me on this. 

Without a doubt, the most brilliant scene in the book comes about two thirds of the way through. Bathsheba has (spoiler!) married the dissolute Troy, and he has thrown a party and made most of the town drunk as hell. Oak realizes from his knowledge of nature that a huge storm is coming in, and the harvest is sitting out and vulnerable. He works most of the night by himself before Bathsheba joins him. The two of them work together in the gathering lightning until the storm hits in its fury. I could literally quote several pages here, the writing is so good, and the scene so unforgettable. Here is just a taste:

Heaven opened then, indeed. The flash was almost too novel for its inexpressibly dangerous nature to be at once realized, and they could only comprehend the magnificence of its beauty. It sprang from east, west, north, south, and was a perfect dance of death. The forms of skeletons appeared in the air, shaped with blue fire for bones--dancing, leaping, striding, racing around, and mingling altogether in unparalleled confusion. With these were intertwined undulating snakes of green, and behind these was a broad mass of lesser light. Simultaneously came from every part of the tumbling sky what may be called a shout; since, though no shout ever came near it, it was more of the mature of a shout than of anything else earthly.  

I have been through some wicked electrical storms over the years. I particularly think of one where we watched the lightning roll in at Encino Park when I was a kid. Or the one on the Navajo Reservation. Or that one out at Arches National Park (where I got my best ever lightning photo), or several in the Sierras while hiking or camping. Although the craziest still has to be getting caught in a squall in Grand Staircase Escalante with the kids, where we literally wondered if we needed to lay flat on the ground or risk a strike. Hardy does a great job here in evoking the feeling. 

Hardy also uses meteorological conditions as metaphors for the plot as well. After Fanny dies in childbirth, he uses the term “atmospheric fungi” to describe the building clouds, and then the fog which incites Joseph Poorgrass to get drunk out of his skull at the pub rather than do his duty and return the bodies to the town. 

The final line I want to mention, though, is pretty devastating. Although not nearly as nasty as Hardy would get in Jude, there is already a foreshadowing of his distrust of feminine wiles. After the culminating tragedy of the plot, Oak gives notice that he will leave Bathsheba’s employ, and perhaps seek his fortune in California. She finds herself unexpectedly devastated. Now, fine enough to acknowledge that the two of them love each other, and that she is sad to lose a friend. But this little twist of the knife by Hardy is brutal. 

She was aggrieved and wounded that the possession of hopeless love from Gabriel, which she had grown to regard as her inalienable right for life, should have been withdrawn just at his own pleasure in this way. 

I regard this as a misstep on Hardy’s part. Don’t get me wrong. I know and have known women (and men!) like this, who get their rocks off on knowing that someone hopelessly desires them one way or another. (Either romantically, as a friend, or as a status symbol. See, for example, the mean girls who want everyone jealous of them. Or The Toupee Who Shall Not Be Named and his need to be the center of attention at all times.) For that matter, I have had a personal experience of someone who was pissed as hell when my wife and I decided to cut this person out of our lives rather than put up with the abuse any longer. I think [s]he did regard the ability to inflict drama on us to be his/her inalienable right for life. 

But this is an injustice to Bathsheba, who, for whatever weaknesses she has, isn’t a narcissist like that. Rather, it is her own conscience that leads her to commit more to Boldwood than she should, because she feels guilty at having pranked him and given him the wrong impression that she loves him. I think Hardy slips a bit of his distrust of women into this line, and misses that he is contradicting his carefully constructed characterization. It also undermines the final resolution. If Bathsheba is really this manipulative and self-absorbed, she is hardly the soulmate for Oak that Hardy then endeavors to portray her as being. If she is this way, she will make Oak - and anyone else foolish enough to marry her - miserable. But the rest of the portrayal of her personality undercuts this. She is flawed, but she isn’t even close to cruel. A better way to understand her is to realize that she is very young, and thrust into responsibility she was not trained or expected to assume. She was not prepared either for the relentless pursuit by a wealthy older man or for infatuation with a charming rake. It isn’t really that she believes she is entitled to use Oak as she wishes. Rather, she just unthinkingly takes his loyal friendship for granted. She doesn’t really appreciate what she has until it is gone. Which is a rather different thing. 

Far From the Madding Crowd is a compelling book, I will say. It has its flaws, primarily Hardy’s inability to really understand women. I would contrast both Anthony Trollope, who can be both a conservative Victorian and make all his characters, male and female, nuanced and recognizably human; and George Eliot, who, being female herself, sees no need to indulge the Victorian male-driven stereotypes in the first place. 

But Hardy has his strengths too. His observation and description of a time and place are compelling, and his analysis of the tension between the expectations of society and the need to be true to one’s own self and conscience are as timeless as ever. Of the novels of his I have read, I think this one is the best, although the other two have their strengths. I hope to eventually read his other major works, including more of his poetry. 

Winter Words by Thomas Hardy

Source of book: I own this

I’ve had kind of mixed feelings about Hardy ever since I read Jude the Obscure a decade or so ago. Yeah, I know, perhaps not the best place to start, but I owned it already, and it was controversial, so why not jump in and see? Well, the controversy part was easy enough, with its frank (for its time) sexuality and non-conventional family. Likewise, it wasn’t hard to see both the digs at academia (inaccessible to those lacking wealth or status) and the church (more concerned with enforcing sexual mores than with true morality.) In fact, both of these ideas seem every bit as relevant today as then. After all, our own modern time sees higher education becoming ever more expensive, and the most politically powerful church organizations calling for policies that would harm those who break the sexual rules. (Jude’s family starving because he couldn’t get work or housing? That sure sounds relevant these days.)

No, what actually bothered me most about Jude the Obscure was that it is the most misogynistic book I recall reading. I don’t mean “mere” sexism, but bitter, bitter hatred of women.

It turns out that there is a reason for this.

Hardy’s mother - like the father of Elizabeth Barrett Browning - made clear to her children that they were never to marry, but were to remain as “bachelor siblings” and live together for life. When Hardy did marry Emma Lavinia Gifford at age 30, he was made to know his mother’s displeasure.

The marriage with Emma started off happy, but became increasingly estranged. The last 20 years of her life, they lived on separate floors of their house, and rarely saw each other. It isn’t clear entirely what happened. The two of them made sure their correspondence was destroyed, and much of what survived of Emma’s was later burned by Thomas after her death. There are some hints, however. Hardy was a difficult man, to say the least. Emotional and high strung, he seems to have taken Emma for granted. On her part, she seems to have married for more platonic reasons, and resented her life from early on. They never had children, which may have contributed as well. Further, Hardy himself appears to have suffered from bouts of depression, and Emma is believed to have had mental health issues of her own.

Whatever the underlying causes, it appears that, like Sue in Jude, Emma retreated into religion when she hit middle age, and cut Hardy off from sexual contact. Needless to say, Hardy’s tendency to put the autobiographical details of his failing marriage into his novels didn’t exactly thrill Emma.

Odd to say, after her death, Hardy seems to have felt terrible about it all, and tried to deify her in his later poems.

All this to say that Hardy’s experiences in a failed marriage led him to believe that women, particularly middle-aged women, were out to take advantage of men, and wield their sexuality as a weapon.

I did later read Under the Greenwood Tree, which is from the earlier, more optimistic period of his works. But I’m not sure I ever recovered from the trauma of Jude.

So, with that lengthy introduction, let me proceed. 

***

 

Winter Words is Hardy’s last collection of poetry. They were generally written in the 1920s, after the horror that was World War I changed England forever. The last of the collection was dictated on his deathbed - his intention to release the collection on his next birthday had failed. Considering he started putting it together at age 87, he didn’t do too badly.

Hardy introduces the collection by noting that the critics considered his last one to be too pessimistic and gloomy. With his characteristic wit, he quips, “However, I did not suppose that the licensed tasters had wilfully misrepresented the book, and said nothing, knowing well that they could not have read it.”

The collection starts with a peculiar poem, “The New Dawn’s Business,” which expresses the feeling that Hardy has been ready to die for some time, but life keeps on.

The New Dawn’s Business

What are you doing outside my walls,

O Dawn of another day?

I have not called you over the edge

Of the heathy ledge,

So why do you come this way,

With your furtive footstep without sound here,

And your face so deedily gray?

‘I show a light for killing the man

Who lives not far from you,

And for bringing to birth the lady’s child,

Nigh domiciled,

And for earthing a corpse or two,

And for several other such odd jobs round here

That Time to-day must do.

‘But you he leaves alone (although,

As you have often said,

You are always ready to pay the debt

You don’t forget

You owe for board and bed):

The truth is, when men willing are found here

He takes those loth instead.’

Perhaps pessimistic. Perhaps just melancholy. Hardy has other moods, however. I liked this one:

Concerning His Old Home

MOOD I

I wish to see it never –

That dismal place

With cracks in its floor –

I would forget it ever!

MOOD II

To see it once, that sad

And memoried place –

Yes, just once more –

I should be faintly glad!

MOOD III

To see it often again –

That friendly place

With its green low door –

I’m willing anywhen!

MOOD IV

I’ll haunt it night and day –

That loveable place,

With its flowers’ rich store

That drives regret away!

Hardy’s poems are quite traditional in meter and form, and the level of craft is apparent. In the above, the internal lines of each stanza rhyme with each other throughout the entire poem, which I found to be an interesting way to tie the form together.

The craft is evident in many of the pictures Hardy paints as well. The first stanza of this one is memorable: the picture of the sky as a pot with a slightly askew lid.

Suspense

A clamminess hangs over all like a clout,

The fields are a water-colour washed out,

The sky at its rim leaves a chink of light,

Like the lid of a pot that will not close tight.

She is away by the groaning sea,

Strained at the heart, and waiting for me:

Between us our foe from a hid retreat

Is watching, to wither us if we meet. . . .

But it matters little, however we fare—

Whether we meet, or I get not there;

The sky will look the same thereupon,

And the wind and the sea go groaning on.

Another example of melancholy, rather than true pessimism.

One of the themes that runs through this collection is the loss of the naivete of the past. For Hardy, this means the loss of his religious beliefs, the loss of faith in mankind, and the devastation of the passage of time. Whether you agree with his assessment or not, these are some of the best poems in the collection. Here are a few that stood out.

I won’t quote all of “Drinking Song,” which recounts the gradual loss (as Hardy sees it) of the “God in the Gaps” of ancient times. The great thoughts of the past lose their mystery as science explains them. I don’t agree with Hardy on the philosophical point, perhaps because I never liked the God in the Gaps argument in the first place. But the poem itself has a humor about it. Sure, we have to adapt as we discover, but no need to despair. Thus, at the end, Hardy concludes that even without the great thoughts of the past, we can still do good in the world. The best stanza in my opinion is the one on Einstein. (Recall that Relativity was a new concept when the poem was written…)

And now comes Einstein with a notion —

Not yet quite clear

To many here —

That's there's no time, no space, no motion,

Nor rathe nor late,

Nor square nor straight,

But just a sort of bending-ocean.

Chorus

Fill full your cups: feel no distress;

'Tis only one great thought the less!

This loss of faith seems to be particularly lacerating to Hardy around Christmas. There are two poems with this theme, the first of which is one of Hardy’s better known late poems.

Yuletide in a Younger World

We believed in highdays then,

And could glimpse at night

On Christmas Eve

Imminent oncomings of radiant revel—

Doings of delight:—

Now we have no such sight.

We had eyes for phantoms then,

And at bridge or stile

On Christmas Eve

Clear beheld those countless ones who had crossed it

Cross again in file:—

Such has ceased longwhile!

We liked divination then,

And, as they homeward wound

On Christmas Eve,

We could read men's dreams within them spinning

Even as wheels spin round:—

Now we are blinker-bound.

We heard still small voices then,

And, in the dim serene

Of Christmas Eve,

Caught the far-time tones of fire-filled prophets

Long on earth unseen. . . .

—Can such ever have been?

Should I live as long as Hardy, I truly hope I never lose the ability to see the wonder. On the other hand, I suppose one can see why Hardy felt that way. World War I caused so many to recoil in horror at the hatred that mankind has for mankind. And I share Hardy’s frustration that all the centuries of Christian faith seem to have done little to nothing to prevent it.

Christmas: 1924

'Peace upon earth!' was said. We sing it,

And pay a million priests to bring it.

After two thousand years of mass

We've got as far as poison-gas.

A bitter little epitaph, although it misses the point that mankind has yet to find any creed, sacred or secular, that appears to be able to overpower the tribalist instinct.

Turning from that wretched taste, here is one that shows more good humor: his lament by an old newspaper. (Had he only seen the Digital Age…)

The Aged Newspaper Soliloquizes

Yes; yes; I am old. In me appears

The history of a hundred years;

Empires’, kings’, captives’, births and deaths,

Strange faiths, and fleeting shibboleths.

- Tragedy, comedy, throngs on my page

Beyond all mummed on any stage:

Cold hearts beat hot, hot hearts beat cold,

And I beat on. Yes; yes; I am old.

Two things I love about this one. The use of semicolons to slow the repeat of “yes.” It’s brilliant, and I’m not saying that just because I love semicolons. The other thing I adore is “fleeting shibboleths.” Every age has them, the litmus tests, the signs of belonging to a tribe - and the means of excluding outsiders. Just a great picture.

Another poem also uses tragedy and comedy in a creative way. This may be my favorite of the collection.

He Did Not Know Me

(Woman's Sorrow Song)

He said: " I do not know you;

You are not she who came

And made my heart grow tame?"

I laughed: " The same!"

Still said he: " I don't know you."

" But I am your Love!" laughed I:

" Yours — faithful ever — till I die,

And pulseless lie!"

Yet he said: " I don't know you."

Freakful, I went away,

And met pale Time, with " Pray,

What means his Nay?"

Said Time: " He does not know you

In your mask of Comedy."

" But," said I, " that I have chosen to be:

Tragedy he."

" True; hence he did not know you."

" But him I could recognize?"

" Yea. Tragedy is true guise,

Comedy lies."

Two contrasting poems also caught my eye on the way that age steals beauty. In the first, the narrator never catches the object of his love, but wonders if she would have faded to him. (Perhaps like Emma.)

A Countenance

Her laugh was not in the middle of her face quite,

As a gay laugh springs,

It was plain she was anxious about some things

I could not trace quite.

Her curls were like fir-cones — piled up, brown —

Or rather like tight-tied sheaves:

It seemed they could never be taken down. . . .

And her lips were too full, some might say:

I did not think so. Anyway,

The shadow her lower one would cast

Was green in hue whenever she passed

Bright sun on midsummer leaves.

Alas, I knew not much of her,

And lost all sight and touch of her!

If otherwise, should I have minded

The shy laugh not in the middle of her mouth quite,

And would my kisses have died of drouth quite

As love became unblinded?

But not for everyone does love lose its luster.

Faithful Wilson

" I say she's handsome, by all laws

Of beauty, if wife ever was!"

Wilson insists thus, though each day

The years fret Fanny towards decay.

" She was once beauteous as a jewel,"

Hint friends; " but Time, of course, is cruel."

Still Wilson does not quite feel how,

Once fair, she can be different now.

Anyone who has known a couple who has had true love for many years knows this to be true.

There are a lot of poems in this collection - over a hundred pages worth - and they span many other moods, genres, and forms. Hardy may or may not be your taste, but I found his poems to be better than I expected, with many having a psychological and philosophical depth that went well with the superb craftsmanship.

I’ll end with this one, another favorite, that might be seen as an argument between an extrovert and an introvert.

A Private Man on Public Men

When my contemporaries were driving

Their coach through Life with strain and striving,

And raking riches into heaps,

And ably pleading in the Courts

With smart rejoinders and retorts,

Or where the Senate nightly keeps

Its vigils, till their fames were fanned

By rumour's tongue throughout the land,

I lived in quiet, screened, unknown,

Pondering upon some stick or stone,

Or news of some rare book or bird

Latterly bought, or seen, or heard,

Not wishing ever to set eyes on

The surging crowd beyond the horizon,

Tasting years of moderate gladness

Mellowed by sundry days of sadness,

Shut from the noise of the world without,

Hearing but dimly its rush and rout,

Unenvying those amid its roar,

Little endowed, not wanting more.