Charles G. (Charles George) Harper - The Hardy Country

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The Hardy Country
Author:
Charles G Charles George Harper
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Outlook Verlag
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Books / Detective and thriller
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2020
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This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler

THE
HARDY COUNTRY

LITERARY LANDMARKS OF
THE WESSEX NOVELS

BY
CHARLES G. HARPER
AUTHOR OF THE INGOLDSBY COUNTRY, ETC.

Here shepherds pipe their rustic song,
Their flocks and rural nymphs among.

ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK

1904

PREFACE

Dorsetshire, the centre of theHardy Country, the home of the Wessex Novels, is a land literally flowing with milk and honey: a land of great dairies, of flowers and bees, of rural industries, where rustic ways and speech and habits of thought live long, and the kindlier virtues are not forgotten in such stress of life as prevails in towns: a land desirable for its own sweet self, where you may see the beehives in cottage gardens and therefrom deduce that honey of which I have spoken, and where that flow of milk is no figure of speech. You may indeed hear the swish of it in the milking pails at almost every turn of every lane.

Thatch survives in every village, as nowhere else, and here quaint towns maintain their quaintness at all odds, while elsewhere foolish folk seek to beas they phrase itup to date. It is good, you think, who explore these parts, to be out of date and reckless of all the tiresome worries of modernity.

Spring is good in Dorset, summer better, autumnwhen the kindly fruits of the earth are ingathered andthe smell of pomace is sweet in the mellow airbest. Winter? Well, frankly, I dont know.

To all these natural advantages has been added in our generation the romantic interest of Mr. Thomas Hardys novels of rural life and character, in which real places are introduced with a lavish hand. The identity of those places is easily resolved; and, that feat performed, there is that compelling force in his genius which inevitably, sooner or later, magnetically draws those who have read, to see for themselves what manner of places and what folk they must be in real life, from whose characteristics such poignant tragedy, such suave and admirable comedy, have been evolved. I have many a time explored Egdon, and observed the justness of the novelists description of that sullen waste: have traversed Blackmoor Vale, wherethe fields are never brown and the springs never dry, but where the roadsit is a cyclists criticismare always shockingly bad: in fine, have visited every literary landmark of the Wessex Novels. If I have not found the rustics so sprack-witted as they are in The Return of the Native and other storieswhy, I never expected so to find them, for I did not imagine the novelist to be a reporter. Butthis is in testimony to the essential likeness to life of his womenI knowBathsheba; only she is not a farmer, nor inDoset, and I have metVivietteandFancy. They were called by other names, tis true; but they were, and are, those distracting characters come to life.

A word in conclusion. No attempt has here been made to solemnlyexpoundthe novelist. He, I take it, expounds himself. Nor has it been thought necessary to exclude places simply for the reason that they by some chance do not find mention in the novels. These pages are, in short, just an attempt to record impressions received of a peculiarly beautiful and stimulating literary country, and seek merely to reflect some of the joy of the explorer and the enthusiasm of an ardent admirer of the novelist, who here has given tongues to trees and a voice to every wind.

CHARLES G. HARPER.

Petersham , Surrey ,
July 1904.

CONTENTS

CHAP.	PAGE
I.	PRELIMINARIES: THE HARDY COUNTRY DEFINED; FAWLEY MAGNA; OXFORD
II.	WINCHESTER: THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF WESSEX
III.	WINCHESTER TO STOCKBRIDGE AND WEYHILL
IV.	STOCKBRIDGE TO SALISBURY AND STONEHENGE
V.	THE OLD COACH-ROAD: SALISBURY TO BLANDFORD
VI.	THE OLD COACH-ROAD: BLANDFORD TO DORCHESTER
VII.	DORCHESTER
VIII.	DORCHESTER (continued)
IX.	SWANAGE
X.	SWANAGE TO CORFE CASTLE
XI.	CORFE CASTLE
XII.	WAREHAM
XIII.	WAREHAM TO WOOL AND BERE REGIS
XIV.	BERE REGIS
XV.	THE HEART OF THE HARDY COUNTRY
XVI.	DORCHESTER TO CROSS-IN-HAND, MELBURY, AND YEOVIL
XVII.	SHERBORNE
XVIII.	SHERBORNE TO CERNE ABBAS AND WEYMOUTH
XIX.	SHERBORNE TO CERNE ABBAS AND WEYMOUTH (continued)
XX.	WEYMOUTH
XXI.	THE ISLE OF PORTLAND
XXII.	WEYMOUTH TO BRIDPORT AND BEAMINSTER
XXIII.	WEYMOUTH TO LULWORTH COVE
XXIV.	BOURNEMOUTH TO POOLE
XXV.	WIMBORNE MINSTER
XXVI.	WIMBORNE MINSTER TO SHAFTESBURY
XXVII.	WIMBORNE MINSTER TO SHAFTESBURY (continued)
XXVIII.	WIMBORNE MINSTER TO HORTON AND MONMOUTH ASH
XXIX.	OVER THE HILLS, BEYOND THE RAINBOW
INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Weymouth: St. Mary Street and Statue of George III.	Frontispiece
Fawley Magna
High Street, Oxford, Facing
High Street, Winchester
Winchester Cathedral, Facing
Weyhill Fair
Salisbury Cathedral
Stonehenge
Pentridge
Eastbury
Blandford Forum
The Old Manor-House, Milborne St. Andrew
Weatherbury Castle
The Obelisk, Weatherbury Castle
Piddletown
A Quaint Corner in Piddletown
Lower Walterstone Farm; Original of Bathshebas Farm in Far from the Madding Crowd