Thomas Hardy’s Obsession with Ghosts

Thomas Hardy the author of Tess of the d’Urbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Return of the Native, and Far From the Madding Crowd is considered one of the best Victorian English novelists.

In his later life, Hardy only wrote poetry. His poems were even more widely read than his books. They reflect his genius as a writer.

Hardy was born in Dorset, England in 1840. All his writings reflect where he grew up.

Hardy had a strong belief in ghosts, one reason for this, was Dorset, a rural part of England, defied the modern world and managed to hold on to its traditions for over a hundred years.

Before Hardy actually encountered ghosts late in life, he wished for this type of experience. In 1904, he told William Archer, a journalist that interviewed him---

“I would give ten years of my life. .to see a ghost—an authentic, indubitable spectre.” Hardy went on to point out that he was “cut out by nature to be a ghost-seer . . . If ever a ghost wanted to manifest himself, I am the very man he should apply to.”

Emma Lavinia Gifford

One of my favorite poems he wrote is entitled The Voice. Hardy wrote this poem soon after his first wife, Emma Lavinia Gifford died in 1912.

He and Emma had been estranged for twenty years at the time of her death, so this poem reflects his regret at the failure of their marriage.

The Voice

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,

Saying that now you are not as you were

When you had changed from the one who was all to me,

But as at first, when our day is fair.

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,

Standing as when I drew near to town

Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,

Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness

Travelling across the wet mead to me here,

You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,

Heard no more again far or near?

Thus I; faltering forward,

Leaves around me falling,

Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,

And the woman calling.

This poem also reflects Hardy’s lifetime desire to encounter a ghost.

But some mistakenly think Hardy is claiming in this poem he did actually hear Emma calling him after her death. So he was accused of being delusional.

I think Hardy was actually just expressing his wish to encounter the ghost of the woman he once loved.

It is not through Hardy’s writings we know today that his wish for an encounter with the afterlife did eventually, come true, but from his second wife’s letters.

Florence Emily Dugdale
visiting seashore.

In 1914, Hardy married his secretary, Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years younger than him. In 1919, Florence wrote a letter to a friend that Hardy had seen what he felt was a ghost.

Hardy and his sister Kate had been in the Stinsford churchyard on Christmas Eve. He had placed a sprig of holly on the grave of his grandfather, which he had never done before.

A strange man then greeted him, “A green Christmas” at which Hardy replied, “I like a green Christmas.” Hardy then watched as this stranger went into the church.

Curious, he followed this figure that wore old fashioned, 18th-century clothing. But no one was in the church. So Hardy saw and spoke to a Christmas ghost.

In 1927, Florence shared another encounter he experienced several years before his death. Hardy, Florence and five friends were having tea at Max Gate, his beloved home when he noticed a man he didn’t recognize standing right next to him.

Max Gate

He later asked Florence who the man was who had stayed so close to him during the party. She told her husband she had not seen this stranger.

Grave at Stinsford.

But Hardy insisted there was another person in the room. He told Florence he could still picture this stranger’s face.

Thomas Hardy died at the age of 87 in 1928. Only his heart was laid to rest at Stinsford, in the same grave with Emma, the rest of his body was cremated, and the ashes were placed in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abby.

Florence died the same year as Hardy and is buried next to him.

An Obsession with Sharp Objects

The following ghost story is a good an excellent example of how a haunting that initially scares people is not always what it seems...

Jim and Liz Fallows were both schoolteachers in a small coastal town in Maine, where they both grew up. They lived in a small cramped house with their dog and two cats. So when one summer Liz’s maternal grandfather suggested they move into the family's empty ancestral home. The young couple agreed thankfully.

The 100+-year-old two-story white house sat overlooking green fields and the ocean. The Fallows settled in quickly, knowing the school year was fast approaching.

Immediately, a couple of peculiar things occurred, but Jim and Liz didn’t place much significance upon them until much later. 

One day as Liz painted an upstairs bedroom, she stepped down off a ladder only to feel a steadying hand upon her back. She turned thinking it was Jim only to discover no was in the room with her.

Three weeks later, Liz’s father was going through items in a shed on the property when a music box started to play. It was in a back storage cabinet that he had not touched.

Pins, Needles, Scissors, and Knives

Once the school year began, more odd things occurred in the old house. They increased in intensity quickly.

One morning Jim took a new dress shirt out of a drawer and pulled the straight pins out and carelessly threw them on a table by the bed. When the couple returned after work that day they were puzzled when they found these pins had been pushed into the top of a candle that sat on the same table.

Later that week, Liz was sewing a button back on a favorite skirt in the upstairs bathroom when the phone rang. She placed the needle and thread she had been using on the back of the toilet and went to answer the phone. When she returned, she was mystified to see the needle had been pushed into a bar of soap on the sink.

The Fallows busy with work, managed to put these strange occurrences behind them. But things became more frightening when one afternoon they found a pair of scissors in an impossible position.

Liz, the night before, had been cutting out fabric for kitchen curtains and left her scissors lying next to the cloth. When the couple returned home, they found these scissors standing on end balanced on one point. When Liz touched them, they fell over.

This was the first of several similar occurrences. If a dirty knife was left in the kitchen sink, it would be discovered balanced on end with no apparent support. This happened only with sharp objects.

Frightened and alarmed the couple started to make sure that they put pins, needles, knives, and scissors immediately away after use to avoid seeing these odd sights.

One night as the couple slept Liz was awakened out of a sound sleep. The house was quiet, so she wondered what had roused her. She went out onto the landing and discovered the home was sweltering.

She looked down upon one of her cats as it lay rolled over on it back with its stomach exposed. She usually only saw her female cat do this in the heat of the summer.

She then heard the loud rumbling of the furnace. When she inspected it, she realized it had been running non-stop. She managed to shut it down.

Later the couple realized that this malfunctioning furnace could have exploded or even burnt down the house.

Liz started to wonder if there was a connection between the strange occurrences they had been experiencing and the fact she was awakened just in time to divert a possible disaster.

A Secret Family History

The Fallows had been reticent to discuss what had been happening in the house not wanting to appear ungrateful, but after the furnace incident, they started to ask questions.

Liz’s grandfather told the couple he felt the house was haunted, in fact, there was one room he told them he would no longer enter. When he heard about the sharp objects, he stated that he probably could shed some light on what they had been going through.

He felt the ghost was a female relative that had an extreme phobia when it came to anything sharp-- in fact the family several generations before had locked her away briefly because of her irrational fear.

Liz’s father told the Fallows that a caretaker who had looked after the property before they moved in, when it was empty, had mentioned to him that he had seen an apparition of a woman at one of the home’s windows on several occasions. He apologized to Liz stating he had not believed the man.

With this new information, the young couple lost their fear. They remained in the home with a clearer understanding. That month, Liz found out she was pregnant, and after her baby was born, the activity ceased.

Liz afterward viewed the ghost as a protective spirit. It did not want her baby harmed by anything sharp, and she felt it had alerted her to the fact the old furnace was dangerous.