The uniqueness of the whole, the
infinite multiplicity and variety of its elements, are manifested and
apprehended in a part. Since we are here at work on the confines of
intelligible statement, it is better, even at the cost of brutalising a
poem, to choose an example from the book that bears the mysterious name.
The verses that follow come from 'Near Lanivet, 1872.' We choose them as
an example of Mr Hardy's method at less than its best, at a point at
which the scaffolding of his process is just visible.
'There was a stunted hand-post just on the crest.
Only a few feet high:
She was tired, and we stopped in the twilight-time for her rest,
At the crossways close thereby.
'She leant back, being so weary, against its stem,
And laid her arms on its own,
Each open palm stretched out to each end of them,
Her sad face sideways thrown.
'Her white-clothed form at this dim-lit cease of day
Made her look as one crucified
In my gaze at her from the midst of the dusty way,
And hurriedly "Don't," I cried.
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