(Abercrombie). Hardy, Thomas.
TWO ON A TOWER. A Romance.
Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1893. New and Cheaper Ed. Sm. 8vo. 346pp. Light browning and spotting, with the signature of ‘Morfey Havenpool 7/3/1952’, original gilt lettered maroon cloth, spine sl. bumped and faded, very minor marking.
¶ Ms review on blank facing title page by Lascelles Abercrombie ‘This is a book whose beauty owes nothing to decoration. The lives of its composition are ordered with severe economy; nothing distracts from the poignant tragedy of the central theme. But the whole effect is one of extraordinary beauty. The book is pervaded by an exquisite melancholy, the melancholy which "dwells with Beauty-Beauty that must die". Its story goes through some wonderful flights of joyous rapture; but the joy is one "whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu". The deserted fine lady who pours out all her stories of passionate love on the youthful astronomer; her momentary terrible jealousies of his science; the relentless drift of their destiny, at first by external embarrassment making their private intimacy the sweeter, but at last dividing them; her desperate marriage with the Bishop; her lovers return, still a youth, while she has aged; the agony of unlooked for joy which kills her- this is a theme which for sheer beauty of drama & character, Hardy has scarely equalled anywhere close. Lascelles Abercrombie.’

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Keywords: LITERATURE; PRE 1900 LITERATURE