Real conversations Author:William Archer Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Conversation II. With Mr. Thomas Hardy. Scene : Mr. Hardy's library at Max Gate, near Casterbridye. Discovered, before a smouldereng fire of elm-logs, Thomas... more » Haedy and "W. A. Mr. Hardy. Have you seen anything of C lately ? W. A. I've scarcely seen him since our famous midnight expedition to Egdon Heath. Mr. Hardy. Ah, yes, when he wrenched his ankle. How many years ago is that ? W. A. It must be five or six. Mr. Hardy. And you haven't been here since then, have you ? W. A. I had a little walking tour in Wessex a couple of years ago, but you weren't at home. I climbed up to Shaston, in the tracks of Jude and Sue: went on to Sherton Abbas, and met Grace Melbury and Winterbourne in Sheep Street: then down through the country of the Woodlanders to Casterbridge : on to Budmouth, looking for (but not finding) Overcombe of The Trumpet-Major on the way Mr. Hardy. You would have had to turn eastward from the main road. W. A. From Budmouth along the Chesil, and up the escarpments of the Isle of Slingers, till we reached the place where Anne Garland watched the Victory fading under the sea-line on her way to Plymouth and Trafalgar. Mr. Hardy. She did, you know—that was a true story. W. A. I've often wondered what proportion, so to speak, of fact there is in your books ? Mr. Hardy. In several of my stories there is a very large element of fact, or tradition. For instance, the story of Napoleon's landing in person on the Dorsetshire coast—I don't know whether you remember it—is related as a fact. W. A. Do you yourself believe it ? Mr. Hardy. I cannot honestly say I do. But the incident in The Trumpet-Major of the people letting their cider run when Buonaparte was reported to have landed is a literal fact. Few of my longer books, however, are so ...« less