Wessex Twilight (November, 1923)
At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame
Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we,
May their familiars grow to shun their name,
And their brood perish everlastingly."
What an Argive curse is here! What an ardent vengeance and pity! What an ardent meliorist is this aged man!
This thought colors your next utterances.
"No," says the poet. "I am not."
Mrs. Hardy takes her leave. She has vanished to look after her brood of chickens.
"I am not interested in Mrs. Hardy's chickens. And really, you must not ever call me ‘ardent' about anything. I am not. I am as indifferent as I find it possible to be. I wish you success, however. Good-day."
* *
*
Amazing, curious visit! A physically feeble man, more than eighty-three years old. But keen-witted, with a strange, slippery logic to cover an enigmatic personality. A memory but fitfully illuminated, and in unexpected places. A touch of common simplicity, a strain of common nobility. An unflinching grip on reality, and a sentiment that trembles at the touch of things.
An aura surrounds Max Gate, a twilight aura that suffuses the district and its people. One feels it even outside Wessex, of course, even before one treads the Wes-
[11]
