[hardy-l] Jeffries

[Rosemarie Morgan]

I've just looked at Hardy's letters and found the following
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To EDWARD GARNETT  MAX GATE
Dear Sir:, | DORCHESTER. | 21:11:1904

         I have finished reading the book that you have been kind enough to 
send me. I had not seen it before, though I recollected the title, & I 
should probably never have read a line of it but for this presentation of 
yours.
         It is a very thorough study, on a large scale, of a farmer & his 
family, & would have made a good first book of a novel as long as Tom Jones 
or Clarissa. I like it exceedingly.
         The question that you raise in your preface, of the relative 
virtues, as fiction, of studies or sketches of character & scenery like the 
present, & the same when connected by a rounded plot, or drama, that (if 
perfectly constructed) is like an animal organism, & does not contain a 
line which fails to help on the development -- is one of interest. I 
understand you to hold that it is greater to succeed in the first kind, 
without attempting the more subtle
         Second, than to attempt the second & succeed but indifferently 
therein outside the qualities of the first, (assuming these to be equal in 
both cases.) Some might answer that this is despising in the story with a 
cohering plot all that you have valued in the other, & the higher aim in 
addition. Nevertheless it is the attitude of English critics in general not 
to value the artistic aspect of a composition as a whole, so that you are 
not singular in your doctrine.
         I should add that I have not for many years looked into the novel 
of mine that you name, & have no opinion for or against it.
         With thanks for the book, I am
Yours truly
Thomas Hardy.
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Purdy/ Millgate Notes:
Garnett: Edward Garnett (1868-1937), author and editor.  the book: a 
reprint of Richard Jefferies's Amaryllis at the Fair, with an introduction 
by Edward Garnett (London, 1904).  in your preface: Garnett, seeking to 
defend Amaryllis at the Fair against the standard charge of lack of plot 
structure, had argued that its very spontaneity and 'naturalness' made it 
superior to Hardy's highly plotted novels, in which the 'arranging and 
rearranging' activity of the author was too plainly visible. In a 
subsequent letter (25 Nov 04, DCM) Garnett pointed to Sarah Orne Jewett's 
The Country of the Pointed Firs and Conrad's Heart of Darkness as examples 
of essentially undramatic novels that had little popular appeal and were 
therefore difficult to publish.  that you name: Garnett had taken The Mayor 
of Casterbridge as an example of Hardy's work.
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I hope this prompts some interest in Jefferies.

Best

Rosemarie
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