I
Since the proof sheets sent to the American magazine received only
a cursory revision by Hardy in the necessity to meet deadlines, there are
but occasional differences between Harper's Bazar and the
manuscript. Moreover, the variants that mark differences between the
manuscript and Harper's Bazar also mark differences between
the manuscript and the Harper book text. (The only exception to this
generalization reflects Hardy's reluctance to offend Victorian readers: it is
discussed in a more pertinent context in the next section of this paper.)
Hardy, in other words, did not alter in the second set of proofs any of the
revisions he made while working on the first set. Therefore, the variants I
am discussing in this section are in both Harper's Bazar and
the
Harper book text; these variants are common Harper variants when
compared to corresponding passages in the manuscript. Of course, the
Harper book text has additional revisions. The book edition's other
variants, which make it a different text than Harper's Bazar
and
which establish it as the second American version, are covered in the next
section of this article.
Only a few improvements were made in time to be included in
Harper's Bazar. In one of the few additions of humor that
Hardy worked into his Harper's Bazar revisions, Marty South
dryly comments to herself after Giles tells her that his houses are only
life-holdings and will someday become Mrs. Charmond's, "They are going
to keep company with my hair" (p. 38) — the hair she had sold to
a
barber to be made into a wig for the rich and fashionable Mrs. Charmond.
Another improvement, the substitution of "gentleness that might hinder
sufficient self-expression for her own good" for "latent sauciness that might
never actually show itself," more clearly connotes Grace's placid lack of
independence (p. 42).
A more important change than most of those affecting the
Harper's Bazar text removes the manuscript's identification
of
Felice Charmond as "the daughter of an eminent painter" who might, if she
wished, have claimed more merit than falls to people merely possessing
family antiquity. In place of this artistic background, Harper's
Bazar ascribes to her an "adaptable, wandering
weltbürgerliche nature" (p. 69). Also, the manuscript's
reference to Grace as "this gentle young girl" becomes
in
Harper's Bazar "this gentle acquaintance [of Mrs.
Charmond's]" (p. 70).
The last two sentences of the last paragraph of Chapter XXX, which
describes Melbury's indecision to ask Mrs. Charmond to cease flirting with
his son-in-law, first appear in Harper's Bazar:
For days he sat in a moody attitude over the fire, a pitcher of cider
standing on the hearth beside him, and his drinking-horn inverted upon the
top of it. He spent a week and more thus, composing a letter to the chief
offender [Mrs. Charmond], which he would every now and then attempt to
complete and suddenly crumple up in his hand (pp. 267-268).
Another added paragraph portrays Grace hearing "a faint noise among the
trees, resembling a cough" during the first day she is at Giles's cabin after
fleeing from her husband Fitzpiers (p. 369). This addition provides the first
indication that Hardy gives to Grace that Giles is ill, even though she does
not consciously link the sound with disease until the evening of the
following day when she hears Giles deliriously talking to himself in the
rain-soaked shelter he has made for himself out of hurdles and thatches
after giving up his hut to Grace.
The conjunction "if" enters a sentence in Harper's
Bazar
to clarify a set of modifiers: "'Grace!' said Fitzpiers in an indescribable
whisper — more than invocating — if not quite
deprecatory" (p. 386; italics mine). Another minor grammatical correction
that was made first in Harper's Bazar was the substitution of
"it" for "them" in the sentence, "Fitzpiers discerned a gay procession of
people coming down the way, and was not long in perceiving
it
to be a wedding-party" (p. 407).
Also, in the early pages of the manuscript Giles has been called
"Ambrose;" this is corrected to "Giles" twice (pp. 32, 34) although in two
other places the appellation remains "Ambrose" (pp. 13, 30). (In several of
the early pages of both the manuscript and the Harper text, Giles is
correctly named.) The name of the man who keeps a ciderhouse is changed
from "Aaron" to "Farmer" Cawtree (p. 27). Interestingly, other evidences
of the evolution of characters' names are unchanged from the manuscript:
Robert Creedle in one passage retains an earlier Christian name, "Lot" (p.
31); and the first appearance of Suke Damson is as "Suke Sengreen" (p.
176). These remnants of earlier names are corrected in Macmillan's
Magazine.