Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/634

 friends, in this case R. L. Stevenson. The story had been begun and laid aside in 1879; it was resumed in 1894 at the urgent instance of his friend Frederick Jameson, to whom the work was dedicated. 'The Amazing Marriage' shows no declension of power — the style is less mannered than that of its three predecessors, but the subject-matter is almost extravagantly varied and complex. The arrangement affords the reader two peeps at English society of an almost Disraelian luxuriance, respectively in 1814 and 1839. The work appeared serially in 'Scribner's Magazine' (Jan.-Dec. 1895), and was published in two volumes in the same year by Constable & Co. His son William had recently joined this firm, which now assembled (under the author's direction) the copyrights of all his works and in 1896 commenced a collective edition de luxe in thirty-six volumes (completed 1910-11).

Meredith's life-work in prose fiction, which taxed his brain and health far more severely than his verse, was now completed. Henceforth he was regarded by the enlightened public as literary and political arbitrator and court of appeal, and in that capacity wrote during his later years various poems, platform letters, introductions, and the like, his opinions being cited in the newspapers in every form and context. His mental activity though still formidable was evidently more upon the surface than it had been during the harassing turmoil of the creative period. For the last sixteen years, owing to paraplegia, he had to abandon the physical activities which had been such an important element in his life and thought.

In 1892, upon the death of Tennyson, Meredith was elected president of the Society of Authors. In 1894 he relinquished his long established relation as reader with Chapman & Hall. In 1895 his quiet routine was broken by visits from the Daudets and Mr. Henry James and in July by a visit of ceremony of the Omar Khayyam Club, upon which occasion Mr. Edward Clodd ('Sir Reynard') 'discovered his brush' by eliciting a speech in answer to laudatory apostrophes by Thomas Hardy and George Gissing. Five years later he welcomed a similar visitation from the Whitefriars Club. In 1898 Leslie Stephen forwarded him a parchment bearing the felicitations of the authors of the day upon the attainment of his seventieth birthday. A similar tribute was paid him ten years later on his eightieth birthday. Among other honours were the vice-presidency of the London Library in 1902 and the Order of Merit in 1905, together with the rarely bestowed gold medal of the Royal Society of Literature.

In 1905 Meredith had the misfortune to break his leg, but he made an excellent recovery. Keenly alert and abreast of modern movements and interested in the work of the younger men, he envied only the power to be one of the active workers. On 13 April 1909 he wrote his last letter — an expression of condolence — to Mr. Watts-Dunton, on Swinburne's death. He insisted on being taken out in his bath-chair in all weathers. On 14 May 1909 he caught a slight chill; on the 16th he was taken ill. He died quietly on 18 May at Flint Cottage in the presence of his son, William Maxse, his daughter, Marie Eveleen ('Dearie'), wife of Henry Parkman Sturges, and his faithful nurse, Bessie Nicholls. A request from leading men of the day (and the expressed wish of Edward VII) for Meredith's burial in Westminster Abbey was refused by the dean. After cremation his ashes were laid beside his wife in Dorking cemetery (23 May), as he had himself arranged that they should be. On the day of his funeral some verses in terza rima by Mr. Thomas Hardy appeared in 'The Times,' and a memorial service was held in the Abbey. At Browning's funeral he had expressed the sentiment 'better the green grass turf than Abbey pavements.' On the headstone of his simple grave reclines an open book with the lines from 'Vittoria,' 'Life is but a little holding. Lent to do a mighty labour.' His will, dated Aug. 1892, was proved by his son, Lord Morley, and Mr. J. C. Deverell of Pixham Firs, Dorking (see The Times, 26 June 1909), his property being divided between son and daughter, with remainder to their children.

Meredith inherited a fine figure, and (strikingly good looking as a young man, when his abundant hair was chestnut red) his face grew handsomer as he grew older. He was in his heyday vividly and victoriously alive and had the optimism of high vitality. 'When I ceased to walk briskly part of my life was ended.' He was devoted to English fare; a connoisseur of cigars, he glowed over a generous wine and was proud of his small cellar; his hospitality was exquisite. He had a delicate, untrained ear for good music, and could play well by ear. He talked rotundly and resonantly (and several good phonographic records of his reading voice are preserved) on every topic discussed in Burton's 'Anatomy.'