Hardy's Funeral (January, 1928)

Yesterday we went to Hardy's funeral. What did I think of? Of Max

Beerbohm's letter... or a lecture... about women's writing.

At intervals some emotion broke in. But I doubt the capacity of

the human animal for being dignified in ceremony. One catches a

bishop's frown and twitch; sees his polished shiny nose; suspects

the rapt spectacled young priest, gazing at the cross he carries,

of being a humbug... next here is the coffin, an overgrown one;

like a stage coffin, covered with a white satin cloth; bearers

elderly gentlemen rather red and stiff, holding to the corners;

pigeons flying outside... processions to poets corner;

dramatic "In sure and certain hope of immortality" perhaps

melodramatic... Over all this broods for me some uneasy sense

of change and mortality and how partings are deaths; and then a

sense of my own fame... and a sense of the futility of it all.