Janus (1925)
meate to-day's programme. This was natural in Dorchester, where the position of Mr. Hardy belies the proverb about a prophet and his own country. But Dorchester was only the culmination of the meeting with Mr. Hardy.
All day long the Prince's motor-car sped through Mr. Hardy's world; not only through the very country which the great writer has transfigured for so many of us by the shifting lights of his genius, but the country he has peopled with characters that do not die like mortal men and women. Here are houses, farms, cottages, beautiful with the time-worn loveliness of Wessex; but their beauty is overlaid by their poetical interest, for in them live the spirits of Bathsheba Everdene, Gabriel Oak, Eustacia Vye, and Tess. Such habitations are familiar, though we may never have seen them before, since Mr. Hardy has the secret of giving his eyes to his readers. And with his eyes they look also at the barrows and downs that stretch along the horizon in hues of green and purple, brown and gold.
The Prince's route need not be related to Mr. Hardy's books by such links as the literary investigator loves to forge. But the veritable Hardy air is breathed forth by names like Warminster, Mere, Shaftesbury, Fordington, Poundbury Farm, Maiden Castle, and Upwey. Through some of the places they connote the Prince passed; at some he stayed to meet Duchy tenants, or for other of the various objects of his tour. Then, at last, Dorchester gave him a welcome which might have been a chapter out of an unpublished Wessex novel. That chapter would describe how a son of the Wessex soil, having lifted himself to greatness, joined in his town's greeting of a Prince, who afterwards delighted to honour him, and be honoured by him, in his own home.
The road into Dorchester cuts deeply between high, wooded banks. The banks were filled by children in simple, pretty dresses; while the road was kept by Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, who showed once or twice, when there was a mild rush, the mingled tact and determination of London policemen. A blazing sun from a quite blue sky brought out the colour wherever it[253]
