Thomas Hardy's Wife

The day after David and I climbed the artificial hill of Maiden Castle, I got up early, and leaving Mother and David sleeping, I walked through the cold, misty streets of Dorchester.  The faint early morning light filtering through low-hanging clouds made the pavement and all the buildings look gray.  I searched for Max Gate, the house the novelist Thomas Hardy built after he became rich and famous..

Hardy’s life was almost a “rags to riches” story.  He was born in 1840 in a thatched roof cottage.  His father was a stonemason.  While not exactly living in poverty, his father and all his relatives were definitely lower class.  (I wonder how many Americans reading Hardy’s novels realize that all of them were inditments of the British class system?) As a young man Hardy went to London for advanced training as an architect.  He felt the Oxford graduates he met there all looked down on him because of his lower class background. 

For several years he worked as an architect.  He met his wife, Emma, daughter of a clergyman, when he was in Cornwall working on the restoration of her father’s church.  Then his novels were published, and he quit work to devote his life to writing.  He became rich and famous.   He went home to Dorchester and built his dream house.  Called Max Gate, Hardy designed the house, and his brother, who followed their father in the trade, built it.

I found Hardy’s home on the edge of town, not far from Maiden Castle.  (I don’t remember the pre-historic mound being mentioned in any of Hardy’s novels, but I don’t remember a lot of things.)  I do remember how surprised I was. The grounds were surrounded by a high brick wall.  A pair of tall iron gates bared entrance to the drive with a sign: Private Property, No Admittance.  Just like T. E. Lawrence’s Cloud Cottage! 

Peeking through the bars on the gate, Hardy’s “dream house” was a tall brick structure, one of the ugliest Victorian houses I ever saw.  Hardy was a bad architect.  How lucky we are that he was able to make a living as a writer and did not inflict any more of his designs on Victorian England! 

Years later Edward R. Hamilton, Bookseller had a sale, and I ordered a biography of Thomas Hardy, a handsome, hard-bound edition, for $2.98.  (It is still on my bookshelf.)  From Claire Tomalin I learned that Thomas and Emma were miserable living in Max Gate. 

The trouble was that Emma also fancied herself a writer.  Thomas persuaded his publishers to include a couple of her stories in their magazines, but even to please the famous novelist, they refused to publish any more of Emma’s work.  Emma’s stories were not any good. 

Emma refused to see any difference in the quality of her work and that of her husband.  She became bitter and angry.  Hardy began to take frequent trips to London where, now that he was famous, he was lionized wherever he went.  Emma grew to hate her husband.  She retreated to a little room in the attic, where in solitude she continued to scribble away at stories and poems until she died, a bitter, lonely old woman.

After reading Tomalin’s biography, I began to wonder: Am I another Emma Hardy?  I’ve worked so hard on novels that no one will publish.  Perhaps my work is not any better than Emma’s.  

There is one difference: I have not retreated from the World.  I go to lunch and entertain the old people at my table with my stories.  They seem to enjoy them; they ask me to come sit with them again.  If I can lift the spirits of the old folks, many of them in constant pain, then my life has been worthwhile.

I continue to write.  (Yes, this blog, plus novels)  Whether or not anyone else wants to read them, I must keep writing.  I am a writer.