The Life of Thomas Hardy
One of the memorable scenes in Desperate Remedies is that of Manston's playing of his organ to Cytherea, in which the influence of the powerful strains of music as produced by his practical hand are represented as shaking and bending the impressionable girl "as a gushing brook shakes and bends a shadow cast across its surface." In contrast to the rather sinister spell exercised by the art here, one might call attention to the wonderful power for good which the strains of the hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light," have over the tortured soul of Bathsheba in Far from the Madding Crowd. Tess's innate love of melody, also, "gave the simplest music a power over her which could well-nigh drag her heart out of her bosom at times."
Hardy's knowledge of the history and of the technical side of the art may not have been as great as his knowledge of painting, but he could at times make telling use of the information he possessed. Thus the elm-tree with which John South's life is bound up, gives forth melancholy "Gregorian melodies," Eustacia's presence calls to mind Mendelssohn's march in "Athalia," and Mop Ollamoor might have been "a second Paganini." The Baptists in A Laodicean sing a rather long hymn "in minims and semibreves," and the Trumpet Major possesses the faculty of "absolute pitch." In The Mayor of Casterbridge the sounds emanating from Ten-Hatcher-Wier are likened to the various voices of a symphony orchestra.
Christopher Julian in The Hand of Ethelberta is the only professional musician who plays a major part in
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