Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/133

 fiction, particular interest is aroused by Springrove's defence of bis own somewhat similar fluctuation. The following passage may throw light upon Hardy's professional artistic opinions:

"I must go away to-morrow . . . to endeavor to advance a little in my profession in London. . . . But I shan't advance."

"Why not? Architecture is a bewitching profession. They say that an architect's work is another man's play."

"Yes, but worldly advantage from an art doesn't depend upon mastering it. I used to think it did; hut it doesn't. Those who get rich need have no skill at all as artists."

"What need they have?"

"A certain kind of energy which men with any fondness for art possess very seldom indeed—an earnestness in making acquaintances, and a love for using them. They give their whole attention to the art of dining out, after mastering a few rudimentary facts to serve up in conversation. . . . Then, like Cato the Censor, I shall do what I despise, to he in fashion. . . . Well, when I found all this out that I was speaking of, whatever do you think I did? From having already loved verse passionately, I went on to read it continually; then I went rhyming myself. If anything on earth ruins a man for useful occupation, and for content with reasonable success in a profession or trade, it is a habit of writing verses on emotional subjects, which had much better be left to die from want of nourishment."

"Do you write poems now?" she said.

"None. Poetical days are getting past with me, according to the usual rule. Writing rhymes is a stage people of my sort pass through, as they pass through the stage of shaving for a beard, or thinking they are ill-used, or saying there's nothing in the world worth living for."

Whether Hardy eventually gave up architecture because of similar disillusionment as to the actual relation