Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 13.djvu/372

* MEBEDITH. 338 MEREDITH. the dilettante, whimsical work of his father-in- law. After The Shacing of lihagpat, 'an Arabian entertainment' (1850), and Farina, a bit of German fairy-lore (1857), he published his lirst novel in 185!) — strange as it now seems to asso- ciate the two dates, the year of the publication of (ieorge Eliot's lirst novel, Adam licdc. This book. The Ordeal of Richard Fevercl, which many of his admirers think he has never surpa.ssed, is, almost as much as Rousseau's Emile, a formal treatise on methods of education, and at the same time contains some of his most beautiful passages in its tender love-episodes. Eran Har- rington (1801) was a more ))urely humorous treatment of the psychological problems in- volved in the great question whether a tailor could be a gentleman. A year later appeared Modern Lore, and Foems of the English Koad- side. The splendid sonnet-sequence. Modern Love, is now recognized as probably its author's high- est and most <lurable achievement in the poetic form: but at the time it was severely criticised, especially by the Spectator, in which .Swinburne replied wilb a fervid eulogy. .Among the few accessible biographical data, the close associa- tion of three of the foremost writers of the cen- tury is worth mentioning; for a short time in 180,3, after the first two had lost their wives, Meredith. Kossctti, and Swinburne shared a house in Cheyne Walk. Chelsea. Emilia in England (afterwards called Handra Belloni) came out in 1804, and the next year Rhoda Fleming, as a story the simplest and the Itest told from an artistic point of view; a savage onslaught on the idols of fatuous respectability, a digging down to the elemental and primitive passions. When the war between Austria and Italy broke out in 1806, Meredith, who had already done consider- able work in Journalism, went out as the corre- spondent of tlie Morning Fost. He turned to good account the knowledge of Italy thus gained and his sympathy with Mazzini and the caise of Italian independence in his next book, Vittori<i, a secpiel to Emilia in England (1807). For some thirty years he acted as literary adviser to the pidilisliiiig house of Chapman & Hall, and helped many a young author by his wise and kindly criticism. Thomas Hardy, in particular, has said that he would ])robably never have per- severed in the ])ath of literature without the eneourngement which Jteivdilh gave him when he subniiltcd his first manuscript. Mcanwliile Meredith was going on steadily with his own work. In 1871 he Irrouglit out The Adrrn tiircs of Harrg Ilichmond. a fascinating romantic novel, whicii is rcconuuiMided to bi'ginners as easier reading than the meta]ihysical, subtle, enigmatic style of his later books. It had undoubtedly no small inlluence on younger writers, and the class of romantic stories at the head of which stands Prince Otto may be clearly derived from it. lieiiuehamii's Career (1870) is largely occupied with English pfditics. While standing aloof as usual from questions of actual detail, Meredith allowed his philosophic liberalism to be seen almost distinctly, thou'jh he did not declare for either side, .ftcr two short but brilliant studies in romedy. The House on the fieach anil The Case of (lenrrul Opie and hndg Camper (1877). he made, in The Egoist (1S7!1). a pitiless analysis of the selfishness innate in humanity as a whole. In its central figure, Sir W'illougbby Patterne. the abstract egoist takes on final shape and becomes typical. In fact, it may be said o£ Jleredith generally that, unlike most psychologi- cal novelists, he gives us a psychology of types, not of individuals. Xext came The Tale of Chloe (1S7'J); The Tragic Comedians (1880), recounting in the guise of fiction a decisive episode in the life of Ferdinand Lassalle, the tier- man Social-Democrat; and another volume of verse. Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth (1883). All this time, in spite of such a bulk of admirable work, and though recognized by an increasing number of cultivated i)eo|>le, Mere- dith had remained strangely unknown to the public at large — in this like Browning, with whom in many ways his genius had strong allinitics. The publication of Uiana of the Cross- icay.? (1885), partly, perhaps, because its central episode bore a strong resemblance to an actual occurrence in English political life of a genera- tion earlier, made a general impression. From this time he came more and more to be recog- nized as the head of the profession of letters in England. He was elected president of the Brit- ish Society of Authors on the death of Tennyson in 1892: and his appearance as the guest of honor at the meeting of the Omar Khayj'um Club (an organization including many of the best-known men of letters) in 1895 was an event of singular interest, from the universal homage paid to him, as well as from the fact that he then made what he called his first public speech. Three more novels remain to l)e mentioned: One of Our Con- querors (1891), Lord Ormont and His Aminta (1894), and The Amazing Marriage (1895), as well as three notable volumes of verse. Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life (1887), A Heading of Earth (1888), and The Empty Purse (1892). His poems, like his novels, will probably never be popular; and for the same reason, that they require too nuich thought on the part of the reader. Yet as a poet lie has many remarkable . achievements to his credit, and none more signal than the expression of a perfect luidcrstanding of nature — nature as she is in herself, not, as with Byron and so many others, the mere reflex of the poet's temperament and moods. His fiction is characteristic of an age of analy- sis and introspection, when every art must take account of the results of psychology and meta- physics. He is before all things a student of life. His attitude, as illuminated by the Essay on Comedy (1877), is not unlike that of his own Adrian Harley in Fererd : with an annised but not unkindly cynicism he stands olT and waldios his characters act on each other as deliberately, as inevitably, and often thnnigh situations as apparently unimportant as in life. He shows us the progress from act to act of dramas subtly philosophical, in the manner of Hamlet. We are reminded of Shakespeare again as we think of one of .Meredith's strongest points — his gallery of fair women, types of the best in their age. for jiarallels to which we are driven to recur to ]!entrice and Rosalind and Portia. His style is frequently obscure — not because he cannot write simply, for (like Browning again) he can give us "English as ripe and sound and unatrected as the heart could wish." Hi» aim. however, is not simplicity: it is to pack as much thought as possible into a phrase, to say only what is worth saying, and to say it in terms charged to the fullest with significance. The final verdict of his contemporaries, slowly