This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler [Picture: Weymouth: St. Mary Street and statue of George III.] THE HARDY COUNTRY LITERARY LANDMARKS OF THE WESSEX NOVELS * * * * * BY CHARLES G. HARPER AUTHOR OF “THE INGOLDSBY COUNTRY,” ETC. “Here shepherds pipe their rustic song, Their flocks and rural nymphs among.” [Picture: Medallion] _ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR_ * * * * * LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1904 _PREFACE_ _Dorsetshire_, _the centre of the_ “_Hardy Country_,” _the home of the Wessex Novels_, _is a land literally flowing with milk and honey_: _a land of great dairies_, _of flowers and bees_, _of rural industries_, _where rustic ways and speech and habits of thought live long_, _and the kindlier virtues are not forgotten in such stress of life as prevails in towns_: _a land desirable for its own sweet self_, _where you may see the beehives in cottage gardens and therefrom deduce that honey of which I have spoken_, _and where that flow of milk is no figure of speech_. _You may indeed hear the swish of it in the milking pails at almost every turn of every lane_. _Thatch survives in every village_, _as nowhere else_, _and here quaint towns maintain their quaintness at all odds_, _while elsewhere foolish folk seek to be—as they phrase it_—“_up to date_.” _It is good_, _you think_, _who explore these parts_, _to be out of date and reckless of all the tiresome worries of modernity_. _Spring is good in Dorset_, _summer better_, _autumn—when the kindly fruits of the earth are ingathered and __the smell of pomace is sweet in the mellow air—best_. _Winter_? _Well_, _frankly_, _I don’t know_.