Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/180



Hardy had the good sense to take Meredith's advice, and accordingly withdrew and rewrote the book, adopting a gentler mode of approach for his first attempt to win public favor. But even in its revised form the story failed to please its creator, and it remains unpublished to this day. The manuscript is at present in the possession of Mrs. Hardy.

Now definitely embarked on a fictional career, Hardy continued to "feel his way towards a method." He summoned his best powers and was soon completely absorbed in the first of what was destined to be known as the Wessex novels. The ambitious plan of recreating a whole geographical and spiritual Kingdom gradually materialized.

His mental equipment was of course varied and unique. Poetic passion, adequately restrained, was already his, and could be depended upon to flower into a genuinely individual narrative prose style. A philosophy based equally on experience and reading, and animated by a discerning power of insight into human characters, was to provide an intellectual framework which would unify the general impressions under development. The