HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H01009 "LETTER TO EDMUND GOSSE QUESTION" =================================================== From: "Eustacia" Subject: Letter to Edmund Gosse 6 Jan 1889: "flow of soul" Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 22:53:01 -0000 : I have been perusing Purdy and Millgate's volumes of _The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy_ and would like to ask the forum what they believe Hardy could mean by "flow of soul" mentioned in his letter to Edmund Gosse dated 6 January 1889 (Vol II: 185). I have taken the liberty of typing out the relevant body of the letter below: "Here I am at the Savile in a pillar of a cloud of fog--there is my wife in Manchester Street--miles away--at least furlongs away--in another cloud of fog--while you are sitting by a comfortable fire in the land of Goshen where probably there is no fog or if any, it is rendered invisible by the flow of soul. If we get to you we shall never get back, for the atmosphere thickens every moment." Best wishes, Melissa Phillips University of Kent at Canterbury ========== From: RPKOAK@aol.comm> Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 21:06:33 EST Subject: Re: Letter to Edmund Gosse 6 Jan 1889: "flow of soul" the lines you quote are interesting here in wisconsin if a black friend says to me that "I have soul" he would mean that he recognizes my thought at present is just as his own. In this case two souls sharing a view point. 'flow of soul" would seem to mean a refuge or a'village' of like minded people thinking about certain issues together and challenging ,examining, expanding those thoughts... the person sitting by a comfortable fireplace fire is alone but the 'flow of soul' is not that of a single individual but a 'flow' due the thinking people in the small community maybe a university campus? (where some may say that there is plenty of fog!) 'soul' would be not individuals but communal or corporate. maybe Hardy is sharing or expressing emotional stress at not being able at the time to resolve in his own mind to deal with a conflict with his wife at that point due his own feelings of shame and guilt -- others use to control persons with . ========== Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 03:34:50 -0800 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Re: Letter to Edmund Gosse 6 Jan 1889: "flow of soul" Dear Melissa, In the LIFE Hardy reports receiving a letter "for the new Year 1889)" from Gosse (224-5). None of the contents of Gosse's letter mentioned there sheds any light on the letter you quote, which was probably Hardy's reply to him. We know that Hardy and Emma were in London in January of 1889, and it is easy enough to believe it was literally foggy at that time of the year. I can only guess that the thickening atmosphere referred figuratively to the strained atmosphere between Hardy and his wife, in contrast to the "flow of soul" or shared intimacy he supposed to be the case in Gosse's family life. But as I said, I'm only guessing. Betty Cortus ========== From: KVANART@aol.com Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2001 14:48:07 EST Subject: Re: Letter to Edmund Gosse 6 Jan 1889: "flow of soul" Typically ,I believe ,reference to the " Land of Goshen" by Victorians as well as by latter day victorians in 20th Century America, means a reference to a "promised land" of sorts using the Biblical analogy of the Isrealites escaping to the promised land ,in this case ( I believe ) the first land of freedom ( the wilderness) after escaping the Egyptians as led by Moses. The flow of soul would possibly mean here the more spirtitual atmosphere,(in the metaphysical sense) of the country as apposed to the polluted fog of the city, which I take to be London.To Hardy the country is always more spiritually healthy. ========== Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 07:40:14 -0500 (EST) From: Keith Wilson Subject: Re: Letter to Edmund Gosse 6 Jan 1889: "flow of soul" : Is it possible that Hardy was vaguely remembering/echoing elements of the specific description of the movement of Jacob and his descendants to Goshen as it is recorded in Genesis 45 et. seq., where the numerous family members/progeny are referred to as "souls"? The "flow of soul" then simply becomes a way of talking about Gosse being in the company of family in a land of plenty, unlike the solitary Hardy and Emma who are forced by fog to be temporarily apart from each other in a dreary London. The reference to the visit to Gosse that "we" might not be able to take because of the weather suggests that he can still talk naturally of himself and Emma in the companionable first-person plural. Its difficult to believe, given Hardy's valuing of emotional privacy almost to the point of fastidiousness, that he would make an almost overt reference to any chilliness between him and Emma in writing to a friend. Incidentally, the surrounding letters written on or near this date indicate that there was indeed a major fog, and also speak quite naturally of TH and Emma doing things together ("We are in town for another week or so", "we had a fairly good day for the pictures yesterday"). Also the _Life_ reveals that Emma was unwell at the time, and that TH was looking after her "(Em being unwell, I went to a druggist's for a simple remedy"). During the same week he comments on the fact that if Emma had been on the horse-drawn omnibus with him (whose horses were having difficulty hauling the bus up a greasy Ludgate Hill), she would have got out and walked out of compassion for the animals. ----- Keith Wilson Department of English, University of Ottawa 70 Laurier Avenue East, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N 6N5 Telephone/Voice-Mail: (613) 562 5770; Fax: (613) 562-5990 e-mail: kgwilson@aix1.uottawa.ca ========== From: "Patrick Roper" Subject: RE: Letter to Edmund Gosse 6 Jan 1889: "flow of soul" Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2001 12:03:03 -0000 Status: The phrase "flow of soul" appears in Alexander Pope's 'Essay on Man'(see below), though that is not neccessarily, of course, where Hardy found it. The St. John mentioned by Pope is, I think, Lord Bolingbroke. I know almost nothing about Pope, but it seems that 'The feast of reason and the flow of soul' must have become a fairly well-known line as it is also used by P G Wodehouse. There are probably other interpretations, but it seems to me simply to describe the conviviality of like-minded old friends or members of a family settling down for a drink and a talk and TH expressing some envy of Gosse being in this situation. Know, all the distant din that world can keep Rolls o'er my grotto, and but soothes my sleep. There, my retreat the best companions grace, Chiefs out of war, and statesmen out of place. There St. John mingles with my friendly bowl The feast of reason and the flow of soul: And he, whose lightning pierced the Iberian lines, Now forms my quincunx, and now ranks my vines Or tames the genius of the stubborn plain, Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain. Patrick Roper ========== From: "Eustacia" Subject: Re: Letter to Edmund Gosse 6 Jan 1889: "flow of soul" Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 00:44:49 -0000 Thank you for all your responses to my earlier post regarding the letter to Gosse. I noticed the other night that the letter was actually part of Volume I and not II--my apologies. With reference to Goshen, I notice that Hardy befriended a Mr. Goschen (later Lord Goschen) during the 1880's (as in Life, Macmillan-St. Martin, 1962). Perhaps they were to meet at Goshen's and Hardy merely spelled the name incorrectly due to frustration, hurry, etc.? Best wishes, Melissa ==========