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 clashing with the old full tide. About him there could be nothing artless or naïve, nothing unconscious or preoccupied. Ripeness of judgment, deliberation in method, are stamped on every line, giving an effect of purposefulness without dogmatism, and profundity without owlishness. Whatever he does is done intentionally, and if some lack of spontaneity is the result, it is amply compensated for by the strength and sureness that come from a man's command of himself and his material. In so far as he is obscure, involved, compactly sententious, his malice is, like Browning's, aforethought. Not in ignorance nor indifference does it arise, but from independent choice and a certain scorn of any other procedure.

Accordingly while direct satire is not wanting in his novels, it is restrained in amount and sophisticated in nature. It does not take the shape of facile application of obvious conditions, nor of flamboyant portraiture, but of concentrated analyses of phases of life, from a scientific point of view, rather than ethical, and presented with calm detachment.

Meredith is quite capable of telling pure story, as in Vittoria and Harry Richmond, but he is also capable of putting in some personal seasoning, particularly evinced in the openings of Beauchamp's Career, and ''An Amazing Marriage, and throughout The Egoist''.

Of these two discursive introductions, the former is more amenable to quotation. It deals with the situation incident to a rumor of French invasion, and personifies Panic as a sleepy old spinster roused into brief hysteria, and lapsing back into comfortable stupor.