TWO ON A TOWER

BY THOMAS HARDY.




'Ah, my heart! her eyes and she
Have taught thee new astrology.
Howe'er Love's native hours were set,
Whatever starry synod met,
'Tis in the mercy of her eye,
If poor Love shall live or die.'
CRASHAW: Love's Horoscope.



PREFACE.

This slightly-built romance was the outcome of a wish to set the
emotional history of two infinitesimal lives against the stupendous
background of the stellar universe, and to impart to readers the
sentiment that of these contrasting magnitudes the smaller might be
the greater to them as men.

But, on the publication of the book people seemed to be less struck
with these high aims of the author than with their own opinion,
first, that the novel was an 'improper' one in its morals, and,
secondly, that it was intended to be a satire on the Established
Church of this country. I was made to suffer in consequence from