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George Meredith in Anecdote and Criticism CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY r8"yLlbrary PR5U 13.ri2TW G edltn in anecdote and criticls ?miX 1 !!!,SI Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3524529 GEORGE MEREDITH IN ANECDOTE AND CRITICISM From she photogi aph by Thomson ' George Meredith IN ANECDOTE AND CRITICISM ^ BY J? a\ hammerton ' AUTHOR OF « STEVENSONIANA ILLUSTRATED WITH REPRODUCTIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND FROM DRAWINGS ST FAMOUS ARTISTS 'mS'- °. K (\ NEW YORK MITCHELL KENNERLEY LONDON : GRANT RICHARDS 1999 ri L I cTI *\ y*~ ??S W" RlCHAKD CLAV AND SONS, LIMITED, BKEAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. 2 2.^7$ PREFACE As each great writer moves to fame, his way is marked and its stages heralded by a succession of critical utterances. These become, as it were, rallying points and battle-cries of his partisans ; discussion crystallises round them ; they strike the key-notes for interpreters. Hence the importance, or the biographer and literary student, of histories of critical opinion. These words, taken from an old review, might very well be allowed to stand as an ' apology ' for the present volume. They give in happy and convincing phrase an excellent reason for such a work as that here attempted. The author's purpose has been to follow the career of a great figure in modern letters with some measure of critical detachment, that the result might be to disengage from the vast mass of contemporary criticism an even-tempered and well-considered estimate of the man and his work. Such an estimate should be at least as important as the personal opinion of any one critic, no matter how brilliant, and, in some ways, more valuable. But it is not for the writer to say whether he has succeeded in hitting the mark at which he has aimed. Criticism represents fully one half of the work yet my efforts ; to present for the first time in orderly narrative some slight account of Meredith's life and friendships may not, I trust, be considered ill-spent. Clearly, a ' life ' of Meredith, in the proper sense of the word, is a matter for some one of his intimate friends or of his own family ; a great undertaking and one to test severely the resources of whoever is called upon to achieve it. But what I have done has seemed to me well worth doing, for while I have strictly confined myself to quotation from and reference to already published matter, I have considered it better thus to present a survey of all that has been printed about George Meredith and his art, than to encroach upon the ground of the ' life ' which must some day be written, by using any of the unpublished matter that has been offered to me or availing myself of ample opportunity to record many unpublished anecdotes. In a word, I have preferred to vi PREFACE attempt a work that would be ' complete ' within the limits set to it, instead of producing a fragmentary biography by attempting some- thing of a more ambitious character. As it is, the present volume has involved not a little labour. This will be apparent to any intelligent reader. The research work and preliminary reading—in some cases the reading of a whole volume is represented by a passing reference of a few lines—to say nothing of the writing, have occupied much of my scanty leisure during the last five years. One who had not examined the Meredithiana of more than half-a-century would hardly credit what an immense amount of printed matter that represents. The constant difficulty, in seeking to capture the spirit of this, was to keep the present work within the compass of a single volume. The hope of the writer is that, to all Meredithians, it may prove a companionable and useful book, entering into competition with no existing work concerned with the great novelist and poet, but filling a niche of its own. To the many eminent authors from whom I have had occasion to quote some passage here or there, sometimes of the briefest, or again of considerable length, I gladly acknowledge my great indebtedness. In every case where I have felt it desirable to quote somewhat more than the average proportion of text I have endeavoured to get into communication with the author and to receive his or her permission—always, I need scarcely say, readily granted. It remains only to add that the completed work had been delivered to the publisher the week before Mr. Meredith was taken with his last illness. In view of his death, it has been necessary to submit the whole to further revision, and certain interesting matters have been touched upon which had previously been ignored, when it was hoped that the present tense would still apply to most that had been written. Although I have now employed the sad tense, there is really no sadness in the passing of George Meredith, whose voice is still strong in his written word. J. A. H. CONTENTS I'AGE PREFACE V 1. OUTLINE OF LIFE AND WORK, 1828-1873 II. OUTLINE OF LIFE AND WORK, 1874-I909 28 III. THE EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY . 45 IV. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 57 V. FRIENDSHIPS AND HOME LIFE 85 VI. SOME EARLY APPRECIATIONS 131 VII. LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS i54 VIII. IN PARODY AND CARICATURE 187 IX. THE NOVELS IN CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM 198 X. HIS HEROINES AND WOMEN-FOLK 231 XI. HIS POETRY . 257 XII. THE COMIC SPIRIT .... 290 XIII. HIS PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE . 3°4 XIV. JUDGED BY HIS FELLOW-NOVELISTS 327 XV. HIS PLACE IN LITERATURE 34o XVI. THE CONTINENTAL VIEW OF MEREDITH 355 XVII. ILLUSTRATORS OF THE POEMS AND NOVELS 374 INDEX 383 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Toface page George Meredith Frontispiece Neuweid on the Rhine .... 4 The Drachenfels 8 Meredith at the Parnell Commission .... 32 Meredith at the Eighty Club Banquet . 32 George Meredith : The Watts' Portrait 4° Returning from his Drive on his Eightieth Birthday . 48 Meredith in his Donkey-Chaise, with his Dog ' Sandy ' . 72 Sketch- Portrait of Meredith -76 Meredith carried to the Polling Booth . 82 Meredith and his son Arthur in 1861 ... ... 88 Sir William Hardman . 9° 112 Flint Cottage, Box Hill . Cotter Morison ... 120 The Swiss Chalet at Box Hill .... .... 128 Roy carrying Harry away from Riversley 136 Harry Richmond's Meeting with the Princess Ottilia . 144 ' . 152 Richmond Roy with his Son in High Germany ' LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS To fmce page Roy re-introduces Harry to Ottilia at Ostend 1 60 Richmond Roy meets Squire Beltham 168 Squire Beltham has his Last Innings 176 Janet Ilchester with Harry and his Father 184 Two Caricature Sketches from Punch 188 . 192 Caricature : Our First Novelist Tom and Andrew Cogglesby at the Aurora 200 Tom Cogglesb/s Arrival at Beckley Court 204 Evan's Meeting with Susan Wheedle 208 The Death of ' The Great Mel' . 212 Dr. Alvan : Ferdinand Lassalle 222 Meredith and some of his Famous Creations . 23O The Countess de Saldar • 234 Evan and Rose on board the Jocasta • 236 The Hon. Mrs. Caroline Norton 240 Clara Middleton . 246 Rhoda Fleming . 2 4 S Clothilde : Helena von Doenniges . 252 Ottilia ... 256 The Head of Bran 260 The Crown of Love . 264 The Last Words of Juggling Jerry . 270 The Old Chartist . 272 The Patriot Engineer 2SO LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi To /ace page Evan and Rose in the Conservatory ... ... 336 The Meeting 344 The Three Maidens 360 Evan's Encounter with Laxley and Henry ... 368 The Song of Courtesy 376 Over the Hills .... 381 OUTLINE OF LIFE AND WORK 1828-1873 Something of the author's aloofness to the personages of his fiction, which one feels in the novels of George Meredith, character- ises also his relations with the tangible world down to the later years of his life. ' Far off, withdrawn ' describes his relativeness to the living world of literature and affairs, certainly until his seventieth birthday is passed. In the later years of his life he seems to have warmed to the touch of his fellow-men in a way that his old-time austerity would never have led us to expect. Newspaper ' inter- viewers, ' curious visitors, pilgrim parties were cordially received, where before one had as lief thought of arranging an interview with the Dalai Lama. It is no part of my business here to account for this change of attitude, but it must be recorded, as his habit of strict and almost defiant seclusion, to all but his few intimates, extending over fifty years of his working life, has given rise to a mass of legend seldom equalled in the lifetime of an author. The remarkable outburst of newspaper comment which accompanied his eightieth birthday made the pages of the newspaper and periodical press to teem with the quaintest fables of his early life. When a man has sought and won public distinction, under his own name, yet persists in wrapping the cloak of mystery around himself, that is little short of a challenge to public curiosity. A certain female writer of our time has gained—no doubt unintention- ally—immense advertisement by this means. Advertisement was the last thought to enter the mind of George Meredith; of that we are all persuaded. But in a friendly age his long-maintained attitude of detachment from the life around him was bound to be mistaken by some for a pose, by others for a challenge, and, denied the facts, behold the fables of the newspaper writers ! I am no apologist for these much-inventing scribes, but I understand them.
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