In taking up Hardy one should begin with _Far From the Madding Crowd_. The story of Bathsheba Everdene's relations with her three lovers, Sergeant Troy, Boldwood and Gabriel Oak, moves one at times to some impatience with this charming woman's frequent change of mind, but she would not be so attractive or so natural if she were not so full of caprice. His women all have strong human passion, but they are destitute of religious faith. They adore with rare fervor the men whom they love. In this respect Bathsheba is like Eustacia, Tess, Marty South or Lady Constantine. Social rank, education or breeding does not change them. Evidently Hardy believes women are made to charm and comfort man, not to lead him to spiritual heights, where the air is thin and chill and kisses have no sweetness. In his first novel Hardy lightened the tragedy of life with rare comedy. These comic interludes are furnished by a choice collection of rustics, who discuss the affairs of the universe and of their own township with a humor that is infectious. In this work Hardy surpasses George Eliot and all other novelists of his day, just as he surpasses them all in such wholesome types of country life as Giles Winterbourne and Marty South of _The Woodlanders_. No pathos is finer than Marty's unselfish love for the man who cannot see her own rare spirit, and nothing that Hardy has written is more powerful than Marty's lament over the grave of Giles: "Now, my own, my love," she whispered, "you are mine, and on'y mine, for she has forgot 'ee at last, although for her you died. But I--whenever I get up I'll think of 'ee, and whenever I lie down I'll think of 'ee. Whenever I plant the young larches I'll think none can plant as you planted; and whenever I split a gad, and whenever I turn the cider-wring, I'll say none could do it like you. If I forget your name, let me forget home and heaven! But, no, no, my love, I never can forget 'ee, for you was a good man and did good things!" _The Return of the Native_ is generally regarded as Hardy's finest work. Certainly in this novel of passion and despair he has conjured up elements that speak to the heart of every reader. The hand of fate clutches hold of all the characters. When Eustacia fails to go to the door and admit her husband's mother she sets in motion events that bring swift ruin upon her as well as upon others. At every turn of the story the somber Egdon heath looms in the background, more real than any character in the romance, a sinister force that seems to sweep the characters on to their doom. _Tess_ is more appealing than any other of Mr. Hardy's works, but it is hurt by his desire to prove that the heroine was a good woman in spite of her sins against the social code. What has also given this work a great vogue is the splendid acting of Mrs. Fiske in the play made from the novel.