SOURCE: Moss, Mary. “The Novels of Thomas Hardy.” Atlantic Monthly 98 (September 1906): 354-67.

In the following review of Hardy's novels, Moss urges that Hardy be treated as a universalist and not just a regionalist.

In a certain book on Japan the traveler asks his guide why all the little Japanese birds on a telegraph wire face the same way. He even noted it as a characteristic national trait. On learning that they were more comfortable beak to the wind, the author artlessly observes that American birds probably follow the same custom, for the dignity of their tail feathers, only at home such trifles escaped his notice. That man was an accomplished art critic, and to such small purpose had he learned to use his eyes!

Now Thomas Hardy, on the contrary, has so seen and felt the world about him that whether his particular country be as unfamiliar as...