Item 40: Mr. Thomas Hardy (ca. 1902)

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was a writer who, Beerbohm believed, fully deserved his celebrity status. He greatly admired his novels such as Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891). Following Hardy’s death, Beerbohm wrote to Hardy’s widow, expressing his “great sorrow” at the loss of “that illustrious and beloved man” whom he had met on numerous occasions, and who had always displayed “very beautiful manners[.]” Beerbohm also mentioned Hardy’s eyes—how, even in company, “something” in them “betrayed that his thoughts were perhaps a-roving to other and higher matters of his own[.]” In fact, when Beerbohm drew Hardy, it was as a figure with eyes barely visible—squinting and almost shut, as though eager to make the world around him vanish.