The Life of Thomas Hardy
This not uncommon manner of dealing with youthful aspirations in London was enough to nettle and discourage a young architect of more devotion, perseverance and determination than Hardy. It marked his high-water point as a designer, nevertheless. He gradually abandoned his technical studies from this time on, although he continued his jaunts over the country with Blomfield at intervals during the few succeeding years. He found himself now ready to yield to the more and more enticing siren strain of poetry—and also, perhaps, to the unruly philosophical voices of the times, which, since 1859, had been penetrating with a crescendo-movement into the hearts of even such self-contained lives as Hardy's. Intellectual and spiritual movements which had been blazing away over his head now began to settle upon his spirit—disturbing and arousing it more and more to the necessity of looking upon the fermenting humanity about him with increased interest and sympathy.
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