III
Besides more concretely establishing differences between the
American book text and the English serial, presentation of a few of the
revisions made for Macmillan's Magazine illustrates the sort
of
thing that Hardy as an artist gave attention to. Touches of humor
concerning the servant Grammer's sale of rights to her corpse to Fitzpiers
for physiological experiments are added to the English serial version by
references to "the head in question" and "heathen's chopper" (pp. 142,
143). An erudite adjective, "accipitrine" (p. 254), is deleted for
Macmillan's Magazine, as are "macaroni" and a technical
architectural term, "double-cyma," in references to Fitzpiers (p. 120).
Redundancies are taken out: in the American texts, Fitzpiers describes his
youthful love for Felice as "a colossal passion in posse; a
giant
in embryo;" in Macmillan's Magazine he terms it "a colossal
passion in embryo" (p. 227). A word in Hardy's manuscript which
Mowbray Morris, the
editor of Macmillan's Magazine, had not liked,
"horizontality,"[5] was left
in the proof sheets bound for America, but
Macmillan's
Magazine does not contain it. Also, in the Harper text as in the
manuscript Mrs. Charmond had always been rich, while in
Macmillan's Magazine she evidently married her husband for
his money; the English version thereby makes more understandable the
intensity of her interest in her frustrated youthful affection for Fitzpiers.
This change in Mrs. Charmond's character occurs through two revisions:
Fitzpiers' statement that "you have grown rich" had been in the American
texts "You are still rich" (p. 227); and Felice says that her mother had
prevented a lasting acquaintance with Fitzpiers, in the American texts
because "she knew my disposition," in
Macmillan's Magazine
because "she knew my face was my only fortune" (p. 226).
One interesting category of variants, certain manuscript passages that
were published in America but not in Macmillan's Magazine,
implies that the American text represents to a certain degree Hardy's
intentions more fully than does the English serial. But the likely explanation
for this fact is entirely non-aesthetic; the editors of Macmillan's
Magazine were forced to excise several passages in order to fit
Hardy's copy into available space in their magazine. Proof of this assertion
is circumstantial: the eighth, ninth, and twelfth monthly portions in
Macmillan's Magazine, from which the following material
was
deleted, end flush on the bottom of the last page given to the particular
month's serial. A 250-word-long passage describing a meeting in church
between Fitzpiers and Mrs. Charmond early in their affair is in the
American text (p. 260), as are the following italicized passages describing
Mrs. Charmond's haste and emotion in returning home after her
trip to Melbury's on the night of Fitzpiers' accident:
Once outside Melbury's gates, Mrs. Charmond ran with all her speed
to the Manor House, without stopping or turning her head, and
splitting her thin boots in her haste. She entered her own dwelling,
as she had emerged from it, by the drawing-room window. In other
circumstances she would have felt some timidity at undertaking such an
unpremeditated ["unprecedented" in the manuscript] excursion
alone; but her anxiety for another had cast out her fear for
herself.
Everything in her drawing-room was just as she had left
it — the candles still burning, the casement closed, and
["and" is not in the manuscript] the shutters gently pulled to, so as
to
hide the state of the window from the cursory glance of a servant entering
the apartment. She had been gone about three-quarters of an hour
by
the clock, . . (p. 317).
Also contained in the manuscript and the American texts of The
Woodlanders, though not in the English serial, are Grace's wish that
either she or Marty had been Giles's wife "for a little while, and given the
world a copy of him who was so valuable in their eyes" (p. 404),
a long sentence commenting upon Fitzpiers' "marvellous escape from being
dragged into the inquiry" following Mrs. Charmond's death (p. 404), and
Tim Tangs's exclamation at finding the man-trap (p. 423). Of these
deletions from the manuscript and American readings from
Macmillan's Magazine, the last two were reinstated into the
English text in the English first edition [text number 5 of the list at the
beginning of this paper].