the-library-and-step-on-it:LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS:Thomas Hardy and Siegfried Sassoon.Here was the real
the-library-and-step-on-it:LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS:Thomas Hardy and Siegfried Sassoon.Here was the real Hardy, unmeasurable by intellectual standards, who will haunt the civilized consciousness of our race when the age he lived in has become as remote as the Roman occupation of Britain. He was sitting with one arm round his old friend ‘Wessex’ – that unruly and vociferous sheep-dog whom he has enshrined in a poem. But when he gazed at ‘Wessie’ he ceased to be Merlin. The face of the wizard became suffused with gentle compassion for all living creatures whom he longed to defend against the chanceful injustice and calamity of earthly existence. -- source link