Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/627

 The main idea of the book, the victimisation of the Fairy Prince hero by a fond paternal system of education, was suggested by Herbert Spencer's famous article in the 'British Quarterly Review' (April 1858), with occasional hints from 'Tristram Shandy,' 'Émile,' and the more recent 'The Caxtons.' In this book Meredith first and successfully assumes the airily Olympian and omniscient manner which is the inspiration of his genius and is not explained by anything in his personal experience or training. But his power was little recognised. Nineteen years elapsed before a second edition was called for, and Meredith realised that he could not look to books for a living. He thereupon definitely accepted regular work for the 'Ipswich Journal,' now the 'East Anglian Daily Times.' The offer was due to connections formed in his early London days through Charnock with Foakes, proprietor of the 'Ipswich Journal,' and other newspaper men, among whom was Algernon Borthwick. Every Thursday or Friday he posted a leading article (occasionally two, for the second of which he was expressly paid) and two columns of news-notes, for which he received approximately 200l. per annum. He spoke with feeling later of the Egyptian bondage of (tory) journalism; but the leaders and notes were admirably done (, New Review, March 1893). Indirectly 'Richard Feverel' did Meredith service, for it brought him into nearer contact with Swinburne, Monckton Mihies, and the Pre-Raphaelite group. At a meeting with Swinburne during the summer of 1859 in the Isle of Wight, Swinburne at one sitting 'composed before our eyes his poem "Laus Veneris"', and in a letter to the 'Spectator' of 7 June 1862 Swinburne protested with chivalrous eloquence against the freezing reception accorded to 'Modern Love' in the 'Spectator.' In 1859-60 Meredith had returned to the sand and pines and river that he loved, and it was while he was lodging in High Street, Esher, that Janet Duff Gordon stumbled accidentally upon him and his son Arthur. The Duff Gordons' proximity, between Esher and Oxshott, determined his settlement at Copsham in a fit dwelling for a poet, on a breezy common, close to the humming pine woods, behind Claremont and the Black Pool — a small lake surrounded by tall dark trees and frequented by a stately heron (, Early Days Recalled, 1891). At the Duff Gordons, he was introduced to notable people, such as Mrs. Norton, Kinglake Millais, Sir F. B. Head, G. F. Watts and at Copeham he oontinued to live for six years. An epicure of aristocratic type in his zest for choice living and varied society, he was afflicted with a weak stomach and tormented by a constitutional flatulence which he sought to exercise by many-sided activity; thence came conference with and observation of all sorts and conditions of men. He scoured the countryside by night and day with a hawk's eye for uncommon types; of sportsmen, cricketers, prize-fighters, boxers, race meetings, and alehouse assemblies he was ever, as his books attest, a connoisseur. During the second half of 1859 he contributed six poems to successive numbers of 'Once a Week,' including 'The Last Words of Juggling Jerry' (3 Sept.), and on 11 Feb. 1860, besides submitting one or two short stories, traces of which have since disappeared, he began in the same periodical the serial publication of 'Evan Harrington, or He would be a Gentleman,' which was illustrated by Charles Keene. Keene, Sandys, Millais, and Rossetti were among the illustrators of 'Once a Week,' and with these Meredith became familiar. 'Evan Harrington' is the most real, and perhaps the most generally entertaining, of all Meredith's novels. It describes in a sardonic vein the frantic attempts of Evan's sisters (and sidelights here are assumed to have been drawn from a whimsical observation of his own paternal aunts) to escape from the Demogorgon of Tailordom. The spirit of 'Great Mel,' who dies before the action begins, pervades the book. In so far as he ever drew his characters direct from life Janet Duff Gordon (Mrs. Janet Ross from 1860), who begins now to be a regular oorrespondent, was his model for Rose Jocelyn (see, The Fourth Generation, 1912). 'Evan Harrington' was much more remunerative than its predecessor, and was pirated in America before the year was out. But again it proved a disappointment. The 'Saturday Review,' which had condemned 'Richard Feverel' for its affectations, wearisome word-painting, and immorality, described 'Evan Barrington' as a surprisingly good novel; the other papers either ignored or damned it with vapid mouthings.

The next three years (1861-4) were among the busiest in Meredith's life, although his novel-writing was temporarily interrupted. He wrote much poetry, publishing in 1862 an autobiographical commentary (now in the mood of Hamlet,