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His face, as he grew older, became more hawklike, sorrowful and astute. Not in feature but in its remote, speculative expression it resembled the face of a man who has worked in country fields, who has grown wise in bringing, to life out of darkness, many harvests of bitter, golden grain.
* In the U. S., Harpers has published Author Hardy's prose works: of these, Far from the Madding Crowd is the one most often recommended to people who have never read Hardy; The Return of the Native has a hard power that, in some opinions, places it above Jude the Obscure. A Pair of Blue Eyes, The Mayor of Casterbridge, both fine novels, are not quite up to the level of Hardy's greatest work.
† The U. S. publisher of Author Hardy's verse is Macmillan.