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Satires of Circumstance in Fifteen Glimpses VIII: In the Study

By Thomas Hardy 1840–1928 Thomas Hardy

He enters, and mute on the edge of a chair

Sits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there,

A type of decayed gentility;

And by some small signs he well can guess

That she comes to him almost breakfastless.

"I have called — I hope I do not err —

I am looking for a purchaser

Of some score volumes of the works

Of eminent divines I own, —

Left by my father — though it irks

My patience to offer them." And she smiles

As if necessity were unknown;

"But the truth of it is that oftenwhiles

I have wished, as I am fond of art,

To make my rooms a little smart,

And these old books are so in the way."

And lightly still she laughs to him,

As if to sell were a mere gay whim,

And that, to be frank, Life were indeed

To her not vinegar and gall,

But fresh and honey-like; and Need

No household skeleton at all.

Biography

One of the most renowned poets and novelists in English literary history, Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in the English village of Higher Bockhampton in the county of Dorset. He died in 1928 at Max Gate, a house he built for himself and his first wife, Emma Lavinia Gifford, in Dorchester, a few miles from his birthplace. Hardy’s youth was influenced by the musicality of his father, a stonemason and fiddler, and his mother, Jemima . . .

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