ONE OF THE GREATEST MASTERS OF FICTION OF LAST CENTURY--"THE
ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL," "DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS" AND OTHER
NOVELS.
George Meredith is acknowledged by the best critics to be among the
greatest English novelists of the last century; yet to the general
reader he is only a name. Like Henry James, he is barred off from
popular appreciation by a style which is "caviare to the general."
Thomas Hardy is recognized as the finest living English novelist, but
there is very little comparison between himself and Meredith.
Professor William Lyon Phelps, who is one of the best and sanest of
American critics, says they are both pagans, but Meredith was an
optimist, while Hardy is a pessimist. Then he adds this illuminating
comment: "Mr. Hardy is a great novelist; whereas, to adapt a phrase
that Arnold applied to Emerson, I should say that Mr. Meredith was not
a great novelist; he was a great man who wrote novels."
It is only within the last twenty-five years that Meredith has had any
vogue in this country. At that time a good edition of his novels was
issued, and critics gave the volumes generous mention in the leading
magazines and newspapers. But the public did not respond with any
cordiality. The novel with us has come to be looked upon mainly as a
source of amusement, and a writer of fiction who demands too keen
attention from his readers can never hope to be popular. Meredith, as
Professor Phelps says, was a great man who, among other intellectual
activities, wrote some good novels. Doubtless he did more real good to
literature as the inspirer of other writers than he did with his
books. For more than the ordinary working years of most men he was one
of the chief "readers" for a large London publishing house. To him
were submitted the manuscripts of new novels, and it was his privilege
to recognize the genius of Thomas Hardy, of the author of _The Story
of an African Farm_ and other now famous English novelists.
Meredith was a singularly acute critic of the work of others, but when
he came to write himself he cast his thoughts in a style that has been
the despair of many admirers. In this he resembled Browning, who never
would write verse that was easy reading. Meredith's thought is usually
clear, yet his brilliant but erratic mind was impelled to clothe this
thought in the most bizarre garments. Literary paradox he loved; his
mind turned naturally to metaphor, and despite the protests of his
closest friends he continued to puzzle and exasperate the public. He
who could have written the greatest novels of his age merely wrote
stories which serve to illustrate his theories of life and conduct. No
man ever put more real thought into novels than he; none had a finer
eye for the beauties of nature or the development of character. But he
had no patience to develop his men and women in the clear, orthodox
way. He imagined that the ordinary reader could follow his lightning
flashes of illumination, his piling up of metaphor on metaphor, and
the result is that many are discouraged by his methods, just as nine
readers out of ten are wearied when they attempt to read Browning's
longer poems. His kinship to Browning is strong in style and in
method of thought, in his way of leaping from one conclusion to
another, in his elimination of all the usual small connecting words
and in his liberties with the language. He seemed to be writing for
himself, not for the general public, and he never took into account
the slower mental processes of those not endowed with his own vivid
imagination.
[Illustration: GEORGE MEREDITH WITH HIS DAUGHTER AND
GRANDCHILDREN--FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN SHORTLY BEFORE HIS DEATH]
Meredith's life was that of a scholar; it contained few exciting
episodes. He was of Welsh and Irish stock. At an early age he was sent
to Germany, where he remained at a Moravian school until he was
fifteen. He then returned to England to study law, but he never
practiced it. For a number of years he was a regular contributor to
the London MORNING POST, and in 1866 he acted as correspondent during
the Austro-Italian war. For many years he served as chief reader and
literary adviser to Chapman & Hall, the English publishers, and in
that capacity he showed an insight that led to the development of many
authors whose first work was crude and unpromising. Meredith himself
began his literary career with _The Shaving of Shagpat_, a series of
Oriental tales the central idea of which is the overcoming of
established evil. Shagpat stands for any evil or superstition, and
Shibli Bagarag, the hero, is the reformer. This book, with its wealth
of metaphor, opened the door for Meredith, but he did not score a
success until he wrote _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_, two years
later. Despite its faults, this is his greatest book, and it is the
one which readers should begin with. It is overloaded with aphorism in
the famous "Pilgrim's Scrip," which is a diary kept by Sir Austin, the
father of Richard. The boy is trained to cut women out of his life,
and just when the father's theory seems to have succeeded Richard
meets and falls in love with Lucy, and the whole towering structure
founded on the "Pilgrim's Scrip" falls into ruin. The scene in which
Richard and Lucy meet is one of the great scenes in English fiction,
in which Meredith's passionate love of nature serves to bring out the
natural love of the two young people. Earth was all greenness in the
eyes of these two lovers, and nature served only to deepen the love
that they saw in each other's gaze and felt with thrilling force in
each other's kisses. But even stronger that this scene is that last
terrible chapter, in which Richard returns to his home and refuses to
stay with Lucy and her child. Stevenson declared that this parting
scene was the strongest bit of English since Shakespeare. It certainly
reaches great heights of exaltation, and in its simplicity it reveals
what miracles Meredith could work when he allowed his creative
imagination full play.
Another story which is usually bracketed with this is _Diana of the
Crossways_. This great novel was founded on a real incident in English
history of Meredith's time. Diana Warwick was drawn from Caroline
Norton, one of the three beautiful and brilliant granddaughters of
Sheridan, author of _The School for Scandal_. Her marriage was
disastrous, and her husband accused her of infidelity with Lord
Melbourne, Prime Minister at the time. His divorce suit caused a great
scandal, but it resulted in her vindication. Then later she was
accused of betraying to a writer on the TIMES the secret that Sir
Robert Peel had decided to repeal the corn laws. This secret had been
confided to her by Sidney Herbert, one of her admirers. Meredith's
novel, in which the results of Diana's treachery were brought out,
resulted in a public inquiry into the charge against Caroline
Norton, which found that she was innocent. But the fact that Meredith
used such an incident as the climax of his story gave _Diana of the
Crossways_ an enormous vogue, and did much to bring the novelist into
public favor.
[Illustration: FLINT COTTAGE, BOXHILL, THE HOME OF GEORGE
MEREDITH--HIS WRITING WAS DONE IN A SMALL SWISS CHALET IN THE
GARDEN]
No more brilliant woman than Diana has ever been drawn by Meredith,
but despite the art of her creator it is impossible for the reader to
imagine her selling for money a great party secret which had been
whispered to her by the man she loved. She was too keen a woman to
plead, as Diana pleaded, that she did not recognize the importance of
this secret, for the defense is cut away by her admission that she was
promised thousands of pounds by the newspaperman at the very time that
her extravagances had loaded her with debts.
Space is lacking here to do more than mention three or four of
Meredith's other novels that are fine works of art. These are _Rhoda
Fleming_, _Sandra Belloni_, _Evan Harrington_ and _The Egoist_. Each
is a masterpiece in its way; each is full of human passion, yet tinged
with a philosophy that lifts up the novels to what Meredith himself
called "honorable fiction, a fount of life, an aid to life, quick with
our blood." The novel to him was a means of showing man's spiritual
nature, "a soul born active, wind-beaten, but ascending."
A score of novels Meredith wrote in his long life. The work of his
later years was not happy. _The Amazing Marriage_ and _Lord Ormont and
His Aminta_ are mere shadows of his earlier work, with all his old
mannerisms intensified. But if you like Richard and Diana, then you
can enlarge your acquaintance with Meredith to your own exceeding
profit, for he is one of the great masters of fiction, who used the
novel merely to preach his doctrine of the richness and fulness of
human life if we would but see it with his eyes.