Among the most engaging qualities of this writer is humor. Hardy is a
humorous man himself and entirely appreciative of the humor that is in
others. According to a distinguished philosopher, wit and humor
produce love. Hardy must then be in daily receipt of large measures of
this 'improving passion' from his innumerable readers on both sides of
the Atlantic.
His humor manifests itself in a variety of ways; by the use of witty
epithet; by ingenious description of a thing which is not strikingly
laughable in itself, but which becomes so from the closeness of his
rendering; by a leisurely and ample account of a character with
humorous traits,--traits which are brought artistically into
prominence as an actor heightens the complexion in stage make-up; and
finally by his lively reproductions of the talk of village and country
people,--a class of society whose everyday speech has only to be heard
to be enjoyed. I do not pretend that the sources of Hardy's humor are
exhausted in this analysis, but the majority of illustrations can be
assigned to some one of these divisions.
He is usually thought to be at his best in descriptions of farmers,
village mechanics, laborers, dairymen, men who kill pigs, tend sheep,
furze-cutters, masons, hostlers, loafers who do nothing in particular,
and while thus occupied rail on Lady Fortune in good set terms.
Certainly he paints these people with affectionate fidelity. Their
virile, racy talk delights him. His reproductions of that talk are
often intensely realistic. Nearly every book has its chorus of human
grotesques whose mere names are a source of mirth. William Worm,
Grandfer Cantle, 'Corp'el' Tullidge, Christopher Coney, John Upjohn,
Robert Creedle, Martin Cannister, Haymoss Fry, Robert Lickpan, and
Sammy Blore,--men so denominated should stand for comic things, and
these men do. William Worm, for example, was deaf. His deafness took
an unusual form; he heard fish frying in his head, and he was not
reticent upon the subject of his infirmity. He usually described
himself by the epithet 'wambling,' and protested that he would never
pay the Lord for his making,--a degree of self-knowledge which many
have arrived at but few have the courage to confess. He was once
observed in the act of making himself 'passing civil and friendly by
overspreading his face with a large smile that seemed to have no
connection with the humor he was in.' Sympathy because of his deafness
elicited this response: 'Ay, I assure you that frying o' fish is going
on for nights and days. And, you know, sometimes 'tisn't only fish,
but rashers o' bacon and inions. Ay, I can hear the fat pop and fizz
as nateral as life.'
He was questioned as to what means of cure he had tried.
'Oh, ay bless ye, I've tried everything. Ay, Providence is a merciful
man, and I have hoped he'd have found it out by this time, living so
many years in a parson's family, too, as I have; but 'a don't seem to
relieve me. Ay, I be a poor wambling man, and life's a mint o'
trouble.'
One knows not which to admire the more, the appetizing realism in
William Worm's account of his infirmity, or the primitive state of his
theological views which allowed him to look for special divine favor
by virtue of the ecclesiastical conspicuousness of his late residence.
Hardy must have heard, with comfort in the thought of its literary
possibilities, the following dialogue on the cleverness of women. It
occurs in the last chapter of _The Woodlanders_. A man who is always
spoken of as the 'hollow-turner,' a phrase obviously descriptive of
his line of business, which related to wooden bowls, spigots,
cheese-vats, and funnels, talks with John Upjohn.
'What women do know nowadays!' he says. 'You can't deceive 'em as you
could in my time.'
'What they knowed then was not small,' said John Upjohn. 'Always a
good deal more than the men! Why, when I went courting my wife that is
now, the skillfulness that she would show in keeping me on her pretty
side as she walked was beyond all belief. Perhaps you've noticed that
she's got a pretty side to her face as well as a plain one?'
'I can't say I've noticed it particular much,' said the hollow-turner
blandly.
'Well,' continued Upjohn, not disconcerted, 'she has. All women under
the sun be prettier one side than t'other. And, as I was saying, the
pains she would take to make me walk on the pretty side were unending.
I warrent that whether we were going with the sun or against the sun,
uphill or downhill, in wind or in lewth, that wart of hers was always
toward the hedge, and that dimple toward me. There was I too simple to
see her wheelings and turnings; and she so artful though two years
younger, that she could lead me with a cotton thread like a blind ham;
... no, I don't think the women have got cleverer, for they was never
otherwise.'