Question
1:
I wonder whether any of your readers knows the source of the name FARNFIELD
which Hardy used for the Sussex estate in "The Hand Of Ethelberta"?'
Could it have been because he knew my great-grandmother, Frances Shore Pope?.
She married, as her second husband, Dr Walter Edmund FARNFIELD, a Londoner, on
6 August 1872. I believe this was around the time Hardy was beginning to collect
material for 'The Hand of Ethelberta'. Her brother Edmund and Dr Farnfield had
been fellow medical students. Frances Shore Pope was baptised in Stinsford, 19
September 1833. The 1841 census shows her living with her family at 'Old Kingston
Mansion House' in Kingston Maurward, aged 8. If anyone can give me any information,
however slight, I shall be most interested. For my part, I have extensive records
of the Pope and Farnfield families. From Miriam Scott awaiting answer Question
2:
I need an appropriate quotation of about 2/3 lines from a poem or novel
where a candle (or candles) is mentioned. So far, I have not been very successful
from my own research, so am now appealing to the experts. Do let me know if you
can come up with something. From Heather Shean click for answer
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Answer
to Question 2:
From 'The Three Strangers': "The
room was lighted by half-a-dozen candles......two of them standing on the chimney-piece.
This position of candles was in itself significant. Candles on the chimney-piece
always meant a party."
From
'Under The Greenwood Tree' - Autumn 11 Honey-taking and Afterwards
'All
right, friend; I'll hold the candle whilst you are gone,' said Mr Shiner, leisurely
taking the light and allowing Geoffrey to depart, which he did with his usual
long paces.
He could hardly have gone round to the housedoor when other
footsteps were heard approaching the outbuilding: the tip of a finger appeared
in the hole through which the wood latch was lifted, and Dick Dewy came in, having
been all this time walking up and down the wood vainly waiting for Shiner's departure.
Fancy looked up and welcomed him rather confusedly. Shiner grasped the candlestick
more firmly...
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