AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED ('Thomas Hardy'), to Captain Rumbold, stating his later preference for writing poetry rather than prose ('...As to my writing another Wessex tale, as you so flattering suggest, I fear that will never be done. Of late years - indeed for more than 20 years - my attention & efforts have been given to that branch of literature which originally attracted me - before novel-writing did - poetry...'), suggesting that he will find tales quite as good in Wessex Poems and Time's Laughingstocks as in the prose volumes 'with the added advantage that they are short & condensed', praising Rumbold as a soldier ('...I am glad to know...that you are among the worthy ones who are doing good work for us against the enemy...'), lamenting the loss of a friend and relative in the Dardanelles [Frank George] ('...shrapnel put an end to him, to our grief...'), recalling for a poignant reason his visit with Lionel Fox Pitt in November 1912 ('...you & he were the last guests, I think, that my late wife entertained, & she died on the 27th of that month...') and extending him his best wishes in 'this Campaign', 3 pages, octavo, black-edged paper, Max Gate, Dorchester, 4 October 1915