The Life of Thomas Hardy
"If you had not said otherwise," replied Doncastle somewhat warmly, "I should have asserted him to be the last man-servant in London to infringe such an elementary rule. If he did so this evening, it is certainly for the first time, and I sincerely hoped that no annoyance was caused—"
"O no, no—not at all—it might have been a mistake of mine," said Jones. "I should quite have forgotten the circumstances if Mr. Neigh's words had not brought it to my mind. It was really nothing to notice, and I beg that you will not say a word to him on my account."
Application of the qualities discovered in a poet's writing to the character of the poet himself is a process of reasoning that Hardy often characterized as fallacious. Sue tells Jude that "some of the most passionately erotic poets have been the most self-contained in their daily lives." There are evidences, on the other hand, that he did not think very highly of emotional poetry produced by phlegmatic temperaments. Thus Ethelberta begins as a poet of a rather sweetened Satanic school, but as experiences accumulate, she begins to wonder if her early notes "had the genuine ring in them, or whether a poet who could be thrust by realities to a distance beyond recognition as such was a true poet at all." The author goes on to hint that the distorted Benthamism with which she justifies her subsequent course may be, ethically considered, superior to her original playful Romanticism. One may here call to mind the complete absence of the typical Romantic emotionalism from Hardy's own lyrics, from even his avowed "love-lyrics." No one can possibly consider him a "passionately erotic" poet, and very few would go so far as defi-
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