The Life of Thomas Hardy
While it would be very difficult indeed to exaggerate the purely literary influence of Barnes, especially over Hardy's early activity as a lyric poet, it must be clearly understood at the outset that of intellectual influence there was practically none. Hardy's consistently revolutionary and irreconcilable attitude both towards the organized social world and towards the first principles manifesting themselves in the tragic features of life found no inspiration or nourishment in the devout and mellow mood of reverent acceptance running through all of the clergyman's work. He himself hinted at this fundamental distinction between the two general viewpoints in the obituary article:
Unlike Burns, Beranger, and other poets of the people, Mr. Barnes never assumed the high conventional style; and he entirely leaves alone ambition, pride, despair, defiance and others of the grander passions which move mankind great and small. His rustics are, as a people, happy people, and very seldom feel the sting of the rest of modern mankind—the disproportion between the desire for serenity and the power of obtaining it. One naturally thinks of Crabbe in this connexion; but though they touch at points, Crabbe goes much further than Barnes in questioning the justice of circumstance.
Great as is the gulf between Barnes and Crabbe, it is far exceeded by that between Crabbe and Hardy. Even the country-folk among Hardy's characters often give expression to opinions which smack of the Satanic rather than the traditional view of the world and its Creator. Hardy gave generous praise to Barnes, however, for having contented himself with the presentation of the simple attitudes of the wielders of the hoe. A significant para-
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