Thomas Hardy

 

About the year 1877 there lived for a period in the town one how afterwards became world-famous, the great Thomas Hardy.  IT is safe to say that some of his early works must have been written during his residence in Sturminster where he became well known to the inhabitants.

In fact I remember that, as an occasional assistant at the counter of our local Post Office, I once weighted and stamped a bulky package of manuscript, most probably one of his earlier novels, which he handed in for posting.

Then, shortly before 1914, when I was living in Blandford, two gentlemen called at my home who, I found, were John Lane the London publisher and Thomas Hardy himself.  They had come to the town and to the house in the hope of discovering some remaining traces of the work of Alfred Stevens, the celebrated sculptor, who designed the Wellington memorial, one of the chief ornaments of St Paul’s Cathedral.  An authority considers that ‘this important wok ranks Stevens among the greatest sculptors of modern times.

Stevens was born in Blandford where he spent his early days.  He was known to have spent much of his time in and about the house mentioned where there were workshops and tools which enabled him to prepare various requirements for the first essays in his art.  But as the house had changed hands several times and had been partly rebuilt since Stevens time no trace of his work had survived so that my visitors' quest was unrewarded.

I once happened to get a close-up view of the great man of our neighborhood – the last Lord Rivers who was known in society circles as ‘Handsome Horace Pitt’ a distinction which was certainly well applied. When I saw his Lordship he happened to be waiting at the railway station for a train.  As he stood in the waiting room he smoked a cigarette, impressed on my memory as being the first of those articles I had seen.

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