[Hardy-l] Findon Sheep Fair

[Keith Wilson]

I'm not suggesting they are "infallible," but they are sufficiently careful scholars to bring a daunting weight of convincing evidence into play in support of their conclusions -- unlike Lois Deacon, and unlike the writer on this Findon website who chats about Hardy's (well-documented) relationship with Eliza Nicholls.  The website proceeds by innuendo and manifest inaccuracy.  For example, the only paragraph I could find that even obliquely implied that Hardy might have had a child by Eliza reads:
 
"At the end of 2002, a gentleman named Roy Buckle sent me an e-mail with a snippet of scandal.   Skeletons always come out of the cupboard eventually.    It had come to his knowledge that Eliza had a child whilst in the West Country in Penzance and this boy was fostered and Eliza banished to London.   The boy's name was Pulson and he remained in foster care until he was 14 years old and later the young Pulson Nicholls refused to see anything of his mother."
 
There is no evidence even suggested let alone provided that if this child existed it was Hardy's child, and the speculation rests at the level of nudging/prurient hearsay and platitude: "snippet of scandal," "skeletons always come out of the cupboard eventually" (clearly, even if they don't exist).  This careless trailing of a red herring comes in the same website offering that has Hardy working for an architect called "Bloomfield" instead of "Blomfield" and claims that he "wrote a group of verses known as the 'He to She' poems," thereby indicating not only a lack of knowledge of what Hardy actually called this group and a less than secure hold on basic grammar but also a failure to realize that the person speaking in these "She, to Him" poems is the woman.
 
In fact, in the days when Bob Schweik was providing his very useful commentaries on Hardy-related web-sites, this is precisely the kind of page that would have been eliciting one of his relishably tart dismissals.
 
Best,
 
Keith  
 
 
________________________________

From: Rosemarie Morgan [mailto:Rosemarie.morgan at yale.edu]
Sent: Tue 02/09/2008 9:39 AM
To: hardy-l at coyote.csusm.edu
Subject: RE: [Hardy-l] Findon Sheep Fair



I was speculating, Keith.

  Millgate et al are not infallible.  I do though find it implausible that
a youth with Hardy's"village culture" freedom practised safe sex long
before the concept held universal sway (if it does, which is also doubtful).

Jury's out, in my book.

Best
Rosemarie


At 03:09 PM 9/1/2008, you wrote:
>I assume you didn't mean, Rosemarie, that Hardy really did father a child
>by Tryphena  --


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