No More Learning

So great a prince was not to be ill received at court. They
gave him a most cordial welcome. For a whole week there were
carousals, and balls, and all kinds of festivities in his honor.
But these pleasures did not absorb him. Every hour of the day
and night he thought of Rosalind. When he saw her he felt
his heart overflow with delight. When she spoke he thought he
»


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CATULLE MENDÈS
9903
heard divine music; and once he almost swooned with joy when
he gave her his hand to dance a pavan. One thing vexed him
a little: she whom he loved so much did not seem to heed the
pains he took for her. She usually remained silent and melan-
choly. He persisted, nevertheless, in his plan of asking her
in marriage; and naturally Rosalind's parents took care not to
refuse so illustrious a match. Thus the former vagabond was
about to possess the most beautiful princess in the world! Such
extraordinary felicity so agitated him that he responded to the
King's consent by gestures hardly compatible with his rank, and
a little more and he would have danced the pavan all alone
before the whole court. Alas! this great joy had only a short
duration. Hardly had Rosalind been informed of the paternal
will, when she fell half dead into the arms of her maids of
honor; and when she came to, it was to say, sobbing and wring-
ing her hands, that she did not want to marry, that she would
rather kill herself than wed the prince.
More despairing than can be expressed, the unhappy lover
precipitated himself in spite of etiquette into the room where
the princess had been carried; and fell on his knees, with arms
stretched toward her. .
“Cruel girl! ” he cried: "take back the words which are kill-
ing me!
She slowly opened her eyes, and answered languidly yet
firmly:-
Prince, nothing can overcome my resolve: I will never
marry you. "
«What! you have the barbarity to lacerate a heart which is
all your own? What crime have I committed to deserve such a
punishment ? Do you doubt my love ? Do you fear that some
day I may cease to adore you? Ah! if you could read within
me, you would no longer have this doubt nor these fears. My
passion is so ardent that it renders me worthy even of your
incomparable beauty. And if you will not be moved by my
complaints, I will find only in death a remedy for my woes!
Restore me to hope, princess, or I will go to die at your feet. ”
He did not end his discourse there. He said everything that
the most violent grief can teach a loving heart; so that Rosalind
was touched, but not as he wished.
“Unhappy prince,” she said, “if my pity instead of my
love can be a consolation to you, I willingly grant it. I have as
»
(
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9904
CATULLE MENDÈS
»
much reason to complain as you; since I myself am enduring
the torments which are wringing you. "
«What do you mean, princess ? ”
"Alas! if I refuse to marry you, it is because I love with a
hopeless love a young vagabond with bare feet and hair blowing
in the wind, who passed my father's palace one day and looked
at me, and who has never come back! ”
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
From the Contes du Rouet)
IT
is not alone history which is heedlessly written, but legend
as well; and it must be admitted that the most conscien-
tious and best-informed story-tellers - Madame d'Aulnoy, good
Perrault himself — have frequently related things in not exactly
the fashion in which they happened in fairyland. For example,
Cinderella's eldest sister did not wear to the prince's ball a red
velvet dress with English garniture, as has been hitherto sup-
posed: she had a scarlet robe embroidered with silver and laced
with gold. Among the monarchs of all the countries invited
to the wedding of Peau d'Ane some indeed did come in sedan
chairs, others in cabs, the most distant mounted on eagles, tigers,
or elephants; but they have omitted to tell us that the King
of Mataguin entered the palace court between the wings of a
monster whose nostrils emitted flames of precious stones. And
don't think to catch me napping by demanding how and by
whom I was enlightened upon these important points. I used to
know, in a cottage on the edge of a field, a very old woman;
old enough to be a fairy, and whom I always suspected of being
As I used to go sometimes and keep her company when
she was warming herself in the sun before her little house, she
took me into friendship; and a few days before she died, - or
returned, her expiation finished, to the land of Vivians and
Melusinas,- she made me a farewell gift of a very old and
very extraordinary spinning-wheel. For every time the wheel is
turned it begins to talk or to sing in a soft little voice, like that
of a grandmother who is cheerful and chatters.
It tells many
pretty stories: some that nobody knows; others that it knows
better than any one else; and in this last case, as it does not
lack malice, it delights to point out and to rectify the mistakes of
those who have taken upon themselves to write these accounts.
one.


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CATULLE MENDÈS
9905
You will see that I had something to learn, and you would
be very much astonished if I were to tell you all that has been
revealed to me. Now you think you know all the details of
the story of the princess, who having pierced her hand with a
spindle, fell into a sleep so profound that no one could wake
her; and who lay in a castle in the midst of a park, on a bed
embroidered with gold and silver. I am sorry to say that you
know nothing at all about it, or else that you are much mistaken
as to the end of this accident; and you will never know if I do
not make it my duty to inform you.
Yes, yes, - hummed the Wheel,- the princess had been sleep-
ing for a hundred years, when a young prince, impelled by love
and by glory, resolved to penetrate to her and to waken her.
The great trees, the thorns and brambles, drew aside of their
own accord to let him pass. He walked toward the castle, which
he saw at the end of a broad avenue; he entered; and what
surprised him a little, none of his company had been able to fol-
low him, because the trees had grown together again as soon as
he had passed. At last, when he had crossed several courts paved
with marble,- where porters with pimpled noses and red faces
were sleeping beside their cups, in which were remaining a few
drops of wine, which showed plainly enough that they had gone
to sleep while drinking; when he had traversed long vestibules
and climbed staircases where the guards were snoring, his car-
bine on his shoulder,- he finally found himself in a gilded
room, and saw on a bed with open curtains the most beautiful
sight he had ever beheld, - a princess who seemed about fifteen
or sixteen, and whose resplendent beauty had something lumi-
nous and divine.
I grant that things happened in this way, it is the Wheel
who is speaking, - and up to this point the author has not been
audaciously false. But nothing is more untrue than the rest of
the tale; and I cannot admit that the awakened Beauty looked
lovingly at the prince, or that she said to him, "Is it you? you
have kept me waiting a long time. ”
If you want to know the truth, listen.
The princess stretched her arms, raised her head a little, half
opened her eyes, closed them as if afraid of the light, and sighed
long, while Puff her little dog, also awakened, yelped with rage.
«What has happened ? ” asked the fairy's goddaughter at last;
« and what do they want of me ? ”
XVII-620


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CATULLE MENDES
The prince on his knees exclaimed:-
"He who has come is he who adores you, and who has brared
the greatest dangers” (he flattered himself a little) to draw you
from the enchantment in which you were captive. Leave this
bed where you have been sleeping for a hundred years, give me
your hand, and let us go back together into brightness and life. ”
Astonished at these words, she considered him, and could not
help smiling; for he was a very well made young prince, with
the most beautiful eyes in the world, and he spoke in a very
melodious voice,
"So it is true,” she said, pushing back her hair: “the hour is
come when I can be delivered from my long, long sleep? ”
“Yes, you can. ”
"Ah! ” said she.
And she thought. Then she went on:-
“What will happen to me if I come out of the shadows, if I
return among the living ? ”
« Can't you guess ? Have you forgotten that you are the
daughter of a king? You will see your people hastening to wel-
come you, charmed, uttering cries of pleasure, and waving gay
banners. The women and children will kiss the hem of your
gown. In short, you will be the most powerful, most honored
queen in the world. ”
"I shall like to be queen,” she said. «What else will happen
to me? ”
“You will live in a palace bright as gold; and ascending
the steps to your throne, you will tread upon mosaics of dia-
monds. The courtiers grouped about you will sing your praises.
The most august brows will incline under the all-powerful grace
of your smile. ”
“ To be praised and obeyed will be charming,” she said.
"Shall I have other pleasures ? »
« Maids of honor as skillful as the fairies. Your godmothers
will dress you in robes the color of moon and sun.
They will
powder your hair, put tiny black patches at the brink of your
eye or at the corner of your mouth. You will have a grand
golden mantle trailing after you. ”
"Good! ” she said. “I was always a little coquettish. ”
I
“Pages as pretty as birds will offer you dishes of the most
delicious sweetmeats, will pour in your cup the sweet wines which
are so fragrant. ”
((
»


## p. 9907 (#315) ###########################################

CATULLE MENDÈS
9907
»
(
»
«That is very fine,” she said. “I was always a little greedy,
”
Will those be all of my joys ? ”
"Another delight, the greatest of all, awaits you. "
"Ah! what ? »
« You will be loved. ”
By whom? ”
« By me! - Unless you think me unworthy to claim your af-
fection. ”
“You are a fine-looking prince; and your costume is very
becoming. ”
"If you deign not to repel my prayers, I will give you my
whole heart for another kingdom of which you shall be sovereign;
and I will never cease to be the grateful slave of your cruelest
caprices.
"Ah! what happiness you promise me! ”
"Rise then, sweetheart, and follow me. ”
«Follow you ? Already? Wait a little. I must reflect. There
is doubtless more than one tempting thing among all that you
offer me; but do you know if I may not have to leave better in
order to obtain it ? »
« What do you mean, princess ? ”
"I have been sleeping for a century, it is true; but I have
been dreaming too, for a century. In my dreams I am also a
queen, and of what a divine kingdom! My palace has walls of
light. I have angels for courtiers, who celebrate me in music of
infinite sweetness. I tread on branches of stars. If you knew
what beautiful dresses I wear, the peerless fruits I have on my
table, and the honey wines in which I moisten my lips! As for
love, believe me, I don't lack that either; for I am adored by a
husband who is handsomer than all the princes of the earth, and
who has been faithful for a hundred years. Everything con-
sidered, I think, my lord, that I should gain nothing by coming
out of my enchantment. Please let me sleep. ”
Thereupon she turned toward the side of the bed, drew her
hair over her eyes, and resumed her long nap; while Puff the
little dog stopped yelping, content, her nose on her paws.
The prince went away much abashed. And since then, thanks
to the protection of the good fairies, no one has come to disturb
the slumbers of the Sleeping Beauty.


## p. 9908 (#316) ###########################################

9908
CATULLE MENDES
THE CHARITY OF SYMPATHY
From (The Humor of France)
N
O"
THE Spanish high-road, where the pretty lasses and the
handsome lads arm-in-arm were returning from the Cor-
rida, a young beggar, wrapped in his ragged cloak, asked
alms, saying he had eaten nothing for two days. Judging from
his miserable appearance and his hollow cheeks, it was plain he
did not lie. However, no one took any heed of him, occupied
as they were with singing and love. Must he be left to die of
hunger, the handsome beggar, by the roadside ?
But three girls of twenty years, plump, laughing, stopped and
took pity on him.
The first gave him a real.
“ Thank you,” he said.
The second gave him a smaller coin.
"May God reward you,” he said.
The third — the poorest and the prettiest — had neither small
coins nor reals; she gave him a kiss. The starving man spoke
never a word; but a flower-seller happening to come by, he
spent all the money they had just given him on a big bunch of
roses, and presented it to the pretty girl.
Translated by Elizabeth Lee.
THE MIRROR
From "The Humor of France)
I
I was in a kingdom in which there was no mirror. All the
mirrors — those you hang on the walls, those you hold in
your hand, those you carry on the châtelaine — had been
broken, reduced to the tiniest bits by order of the Queen. If the
smallest glass was found, no matter in what house, she never
failed to put the inhabitants to death with terrible tortures. I
can tell you the motives of the strange caprice. Ugly to a
degree that the worst monsters would have seemed charming
beside her, the Queen did not wish when she went about the
town to run the risk of encountering her reflection; and knowing
herself to be hideous, it was a consolation to her to think that
others at least could not see their beauty. What was the good


## p. 9909 (#317) ###########################################

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9909
of having the most beautiful eyes in the world, a mouth as fresh
as roses, and of putting flowers in your hair, if you could not see
your head-dress, nor your mouth, nor your eyes? You could not
even count on your reflection in the brooks and lakes. The
rivers and ponds of the country had been hidden under deftly
joined slabs of stone; water was drawn from wells so deep that
you could not see their surface, and not in pails in which reflec-
tion would have been possible, but in almost flat troughs. The
grief was beyond anything you can imagine, especially among the
coquettes, who were not rarer in that country than in others.
And the Queen did not pity them at all; but was well content
that her subjects should be as unhappy at not seeing themselves
as she would have been furious at sight of herself.
However, there was in a suburb of the town a young girl
called Jacinthe, who was not quite so miserable as the rest, be-
cause of a lover she had. Some one who finds you beautiful, and
never tires of telling you so, can take the place of a mirror.
«What, truly ? ” she asked, "there is nothing unpleasant in
the color of my eyes ? "
« They are like corn-flowers in which a clear drop of amber
has fallen. ”
“My skin isn't black ? »
“Know that your brow is purer than snow crystals; know that
your cheeks are like roses fair yet pink! "
“What must I think of my lips ? »
« That they are like a ripe raspberry. ”
“And what of my teeth, if you please ? ”
“That grains of rice, however fine, are not as white. ”
“But about my ears, haven't I reason for disquiet ? »
“Yes, if it disquiets you to have in a tangle of light hair, two
little shells as intricate as newly opened violets. ”
Thus they talked, -she charmed, he more ravished still; for
he did not say a word which was not the very truth. All that
she had the pleasure of hearing praised, he had the delight of see-
ing. So their mutual tenderness grew livelier from hour to hour.
The day he asked if she would consent to have him for her hus-
band, she blushed, but certainly not from fear; people who seeing
her smile might have thought she was amusing herself with the
thought of saying no, would have been much mistaken. The
misfortune was, that the news of the engagement came to the
ears of the wicked Queen, whose only joy was to trouble that of
(


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9910
CATULLE MENDÈS
(
>>
others; and she hated Jacinthe more than all, because she was
the most beautiful of all.
Walking one day, a short time before the wedding, in the
orchard, an old woman approached Jacinthe asking alms; then
suddenly fell back with a shriek, like some one who has nearly
trodden on a toad.
"Ah, heaven! what have I seen?
What's the matter, my good woman, and what have you
seen? Speak. ”
« The ugliest thing on the face of the earth. ”
"Certainly that isn't me,” said Jacinthe, smiling.
"Alas! yes, poor child, it is you. I have been a long time in
the world, but I never yet met any one so hideous as you are. ”
“Do you mean to say that I am ugly — I? ”
“A hundred times more than it is possible to express! »
«What! my eyes ? »
“They are gray as dust; but that would be nothing if you
did not squint in the most disagreeable way. ”
My skin ?
“One would say that you had rubbed your forehead and
cheeks with coal-dust. ”
My mouth?
“It is pale like an old autumnal flower,”
My teeth ? »
“If the beauty of teeth was to be large and yellow, I should
not know any more beautiful than yours. ”
"Ah! At least my ears
They are so big, so red, and so hairy, one cannot look at
them without horror. I am not at all pretty myself, and yet I
think I should die of shame if I had the like. "
Thereupon the old woman, who must have been some wicked
fairy, a friend of the wicked Queen, fled, cruelly laughing; while
Jacinthe, all in tears, sank down on a bench under the apple-
trees.
Nothing could divert her from her affliction. “I am ugly! I
am ugly! ” she repeated unceasingly. In vain her lover assured
her of the contrary with many oaths.
« Leave me! you are lying
out of pity. I understand everything now. It is not love but
pity that you feel for me.
The beggar-woman had no interest
in deceiving me; why should she do so? It is only too true: I
am hideous. I cannot conceive how you even endure the sight
((
»
(c


## p. 9911 (#319) ###########################################

CATULLE MENDÈS
9911
>>
of me. ” In order to undeceive her, it occurred to him to make
many people visit her: every man declared that Jacinthe was
exactly made for the pleasure of eyes; several women said as
much in a fashion a little less positive. The poor child persisted
in the conviction that she was an object of horror.
« You are
planning together to impose upon me! ” and as the lover pressed
her, in spite of all, to fix the day for the wedding, "I your
wife! ” she cried, “never! I love you too tenderly to make you
a present of such a frightful thing as I am. ” You can guess the
despair of this young man, so sincerely enamored. He threw
himself on his knees, he begged, he supplicated. She always
answered the same thing, that she was too ugly to marry. What
was he to do? The only means of contradicting the old woman,
of proving the truth to Jacinthe, would have been to put a mir-
ror before her eyes. But there was not a mirror in the whole
kingdom; and the terror inspired by the Queen was so great that
no artisan would have consented to make one.
“Well, I shall go to court,” said the lover at last. « However
barbarous our mistress is, she cannot fail to be moved by my
tears and Jacinthe's beauty. She will retract, if only for a few
hours, the cruel command from which all the harm comes. ”
was not without difficulty that the young girl allowed herself to
be conducted to the palace. She did not want to show herself,
being so ugly; and then, what would be the use of a mirror
except to convince her still more of her irremediable misfor-
tune? However, she finally consented, seeing that her lover was
weeping.
“Well, what is it? ” said the wicked Queen. “Who are these
people, and what do they want of me? ”
“Your Majesty, you see before you the most wretched lover
on the face of the earth. ”
That's a fine reason for disturbing me. ”
Do not be pitiless.
“But what have I to do with your love troubles ? ”
“ If you would allow a mirror — "
The Queen rose, shaking with anger.
«You dare to talk of a mirror! ” she said, gnashing her teeth.
"Do not be angry, your Majesty. I beseech you, pardon me
and deign to hear me. The young girl you see before you labors
under the most unaccountable error: she imagines that she is
ugly->
It
C
»
>>


## p. 9912 (#320) ###########################################

9912
CATULLE MENDÈS
“Well! ” said the Queen with a fierce laugh, she is right! I
never saw, I think, a more frightful object. ”
At those words Jacinthe thought she should die of grief.
Doubt was no longer possible, since to the Queen's eyes as well
as to those of the beggar she was ugly. Slowly she lowered her
eyelids, and fell fainting on the steps of the throne, looking like
a dead woman. But when her lover heard the cruel words, he
was by no means resigned; he shouted loudly that either the
Queen was mad, or that she had some reason for so gross a lie.
He had not time to say a word more; the guards seized him and
held him fast. At a sign from the Queen some one advanced,
who was the executioner. He was always near the throne, be-
cause he might be wanted at any moment.
“Do your duty,” said the Queen, pointing to the man who had
insulted her.
The executioner lifted a big sword, while Jacinthe, not know-
ing where she was, beating the air with her hands, languidly
opened one eye, and then two very different cries were heard.
One was a shout of joy, for in the bright naked steel Jacinthe
saw herself, so deliciously pretty! and the other was a cry of
pain, a rattle, because the ugly and wicked Queen gave up the
ghost in shame and anger at having also seen herself in the
unthought-of mirror.
THE MAN OF LETTERS
From The Humor of France)
L
Ast evening, a poet, as yet unknown, was correcting the last
sheets of his first book. A famous man of letters, who
happened to be there, quickly caught hold of the young
man's hand, and said in a rough voice, «Don't send the press
proofs! Don't publish those poems! »
“ You consider them bad ? »
“I haven't read them, and I don't want to read them. They
are possibly excellent. But beware of publishing them. ”
“Why? ”
“Because, the book once out, you would henceforth be irre-
mediably an author, an artist — that is to say, a monster! ”
“A monster ? »
Yes. "


## p. 9913 (#321) ###########################################

CATULLE MENDÈS
9913
"Are you a monster, dear master ? »
« Certainly! and one of the worst kind; for I have been writ-
ing poems, novels, and plays longer than many others. ”
»
The young man opened his eyes wide. The other, walking
up and down the room, violently gesticulating, continued :-
“True, we are honest, upright, and loyal! Twenty or thirty
years ago it was the fashion for literary men to borrow a hun-
dred sous and forget to return them; to leave their lodgings
without giving the landlord notice; and never to pay, even in a
dream, their bootmaker or their tailor. To owe was a sort of
duty. Follies of one's youth! The Bohemians have disappeared;
literature has become respectable. We have cut our hair and
put our affairs in order, We no longer wear 'red waistcoats;
and our concierge bows to us because we give him tips, just as
politely as he does to the banker on the ground floor or the law-
yer on the second. Good citizens, good husbands, good fathers,
we prepare ourselves epitaphs full of honor. I fought in the last
war side by side with Henri Regnault; I have a wife to whom
I have never given the slightest cause for sorrow; and I myself
teach my three children geography and history, and bring them
up to have a horror of literature. Better still: it happened to
a remarkable turning of the tables — to lend six thousand
francs to one of my uncles, an ironmonger at Angoulême, who
had foolishly got into difficulties, and not without reading him a
severe lecture. In a word, we are orderly, correct persons. But
I say we are monsters. For isn't it indeed a monstrous thing,
being a man, not to be — not to be able to be — a man like other
men? to be unable to love or to hate, to rejoice or to suffer,
as others love or hate, rejoice or suffer ? And we cannot,- no,
no, never, - not under any circumstances! Obliged to consider
or observe, obliged to study, analyze, in ourselves and outside
ourselves, all feelings, all passions; to be ever on the watch for
the result, to follow its development and fall, to consign to our
memory the attitudes they bring forth, the language they inspire,-
we have definitely killed in ourselves the faculty of real emotion,
the power of being happy or unhappy with simplicity. We have
lost all the holy unctuousness of the soul! It has become impos-
sible for us, when we experience, to confine ourselves to expe-
riencing We verify, we appraise our hopes, our agonies, our
anguish of heart, our joys; we take note of the jealous torments
that devour us when she whom we expect does not come to the
me-


## p. 9914 (#322) ###########################################

9914
CATULLE MENDÈS
tryst; our abominable critical sense judges kisses and caresses,
compares them, approves of them or not, makes reservations;
we discover faults of taste in our transports of joy or grief; we
mingle grammar with love, and at the supreme moment of pas-
sion, when we say to our terrified mistress, 'Oh, I want you to
love me till death! ' are victims of the relative pronoun, of the
particle. Literature! literature! you have become our heart, our
senses, our flesh, our voice. It is not a life that we live - it is
a poem, or a novel, or a play. Ah! I would give up all the
fame that thirty years of work have brought me, in order to
weep for one single moment without perceiving that I am
weeping! ”
Translation of Elizabeth Lee.


## p. 9915 (#323) ###########################################

9915
GEORGE MEREDITH
(1828–)
BY ANNA MCCLURE SHOLL
M
HAT Robert Browning is among English poets, George Mere-
dith is among English novelists. A writer of genius who
had no predecessors and who can have no posterity, the
isolation of Meredith is inherent in the very constitution of his re-
markable novels. These are so completely of the man himself that
their kind will perish with him. Their weaknesses elude the imi-
tation of the most scholarly contortionists
of English. Their strength is altogether
superlative and unique.
In the preface to a late work Meredith
writes: «The forecast may be hazarded that
if we do not speedily embrace philosophy
in fiction, the art is doomed to extinction. ”
The Meredithian principle of the novel is
summed up in this prophecy. There have
not been wanting critics to whom the lusty
embraces of art with philosophy in Mr.
Meredith's novels seem productive of little
but intolerable weariness to the reader.
Be this as it may, the writer of 'The Egoist GEORGE MEREDITH
and of the Tragic Comedians) has been
scrupulously faithful to his ideal of what constitutes vitality in fiction.
He never descends to the deadening vulgarity of an intricate plot,
nor does he swamp character in incident. His men and women
reveal themselves by their subtle play upon one another in the slow
progress of situations lifelike in their apparent unimportance. They
are actors not in a romance nor in a melodrama, but in a drama of
philosophy. Sometimes this philosophy of Meredith's lies like a cloak
of lead about the delicate form of his rare poetical imagination.
The enchanting lines can only be faintly traced through the formless
shroud. The man who wrote this love passage in (Richard Feverel?
might seem to have made sad uses of philosophy in his later books:-
«The sweet heaven-bird shivered out his song above him. The gracious
glory of heaven fell upon his soul. He touched her hand, not moving his eyes



## p. 9916 (#324) ###########################################

9916
GEORGE MEREDITH
from her nor speaking: and she with a soft word of farewell passed across the
stile, and up the pathway through the dewy shades of the copse, and out of
the arch of the light, away from his eyes. ”
From the delight of pure beauty like this, the reader passes to
sentences where the metaphysician has buried the artist and poet
under the unhewn masses of his thought.
“A witty woman is a treasure: a witty beauty is a power. Has she actual
beauty, actual wit ? not an empty, tidal, material beauty that passes current
among pretty flippancy or staggering pretentiousness ? Grant the combination:
she will appear a veritable queen of her period, fit for homage, at least meriting
a disposition to believe the best of her in the teeth of foul rumor; because the
well of true wit is truth itself, the gathering of the precious drops of right
reason, wisdom's lighting; and no soul possessing it and dispensing it can
justly be a target for the world, however well armed the world confronting
her. Our contemporary world, that Old Credulity and stone-hurling urchin
in one, supposes it possible for a woman to be mentally active up to the point
of spiritual clarity, and also fleshly vile — a guide to life and a biter at the
fruits of death — both open mind and a hypocrite.
Between these two passages there is apparently a great gulf fixed,
but they are equally expressive of the genius of George Meredith.
He is a poet whose passion for mind has led him far enough away
from the poetical environment. Of all English novelists, none ap-
proach him in his absorption in the minds of men. He weaves his
novels not around what men do, but what they think. Mental sensa-
tions form the subject-matter of his chapters. He delights in minute
analyses, which, as in “The Egoist,' reveal human nature unclothed.
He laughs over his own amazing discoveries, but he seldom victim-
izes a woman. What sympathy he has with his creations falls to the
lot of his heroines. The minds of women are to George Meredith
the most fascinating subjects of research in the universe.
jest at times over their contradictions; but he attributes their worst
features to man, who should have been the civilizer of woman, but
who has been instead the refined savage, gloating over veiled, vir-
ginal dolls. ”
Meredith, who was born in 1828, was many years in revealing
himself to the British public, who loved him not. He had published
a volume of verse in 1851, and he was known to the narrow circle of
his friends as a poet only. His first wife was the daughter of Thomas
Love Peacock, who was in a sense the spiritual progenitor of George
Meredith the novelist. The' eccentric author of Headlong Hall' and
(Maid Marian,' whose novels are peopled with “perfectibilians, dete-
riorationists, statu-quo-ites, phrenologists, transcendentalists, political
economists, theorists in all sciences, projectors in all arts, enthusiasts,
lovers of music, lovers of the picturesque, and lovers of good dinners,”
might well have influenced the author of "One of Our Conquerors.
He may


## p. 9917 (#325) ###########################################

GEORGE MEREDITH
9917
Among the earlier works of Meredith “The Shaving of Shagpat'
and 'Farina' witness to the splendor of his imagination, but not to
the wealth of his psychological experience. "The Shaving of Shagpat'
is an extravaganza which puts the Arabian Nights) to shame.
(The
Ordeal of Richard Feverel’ is his first typical novel, and in a sense
one of his greatest, because it combines his passion for philosophical
estimates of character with his passion for beauty Beauty to George
Meredith means women and nature. The genius of the man forgets
theories when under this double inspiration.
One of the most perfect love scenes in the whole range of fiction
is that between Richard and Lucy alone together in the sweet fields.
Richard Feverel was a youth with whom it was intended that nature
should have little to do. He was reared upon a system, the fruit of
the dejected brain and hurt heart of his father, Sir Austin Feverel.
This system in its sublimated perfection overlooks human nature,
and provides for marriage as a play of Hamlet' with Hamlet left
out. Richard, young, ardent, living in his youth as in a halo, breaks
through the paddock of the appointed order to marry Lucy, a farm-
er's daughter, the one woman of George Meredith adjusted to the
sentimental type. Separated from his bride, Richard is plunged
into his fiery ordeal. He comes out of it spotted, wretched, unwill-
ing to return to his girl bride, whose love had not held him from un-
faithfulness. The book closes in the sombreness of tragedy; an
ending unusual with Meredith, who inclines naturally to the comedy
of human nature. There is not a little of this comedy in Richard
Feverel. ' The household of Sir Austin is essentially the fruit of the
author's humorous insight into the eccentricities of men and women.
In his portrayal of the wise youth Adrian Harley, who will speak
only in epigrams; of Algernon Feverel, to whom dinner is both
heaven and hell; of the scheining mother; of the pale Clare, the type
of feminine submission to the inevitable, — Meredith exhibits his com-
prehension of twisted and damaged human nature and his detach-
ment from it.
No author ever took his creations less seriously, unless indeed
they are women, full of rich, vibrant life. Meredith's characters must
be a match for him, else he will hold them up to the subtle ridicule
of those who are in his secret. The men and women of 'Evan Har-
rington' are thus put on the stage. Parts of this novel are supposed
to be pages from Meredith's own experience when living in a village
near London. The struggles of Evan and his sisters, who have been
hampered in their social career by their father, a tailor of foppish
pretensions, are related with delicate gusto. About these central
figures come and go a host of Meredith's own people, enveloped one
and all in the rose light of a dainty comedy of manners.


## p. 9918 (#326) ###########################################

9918
GEORGE MEREDITH
In Sandra Belloni? and in its sequel Vittoria) the transition be-
comes marked from the well-tempered realistic romance of Richard
Feverel,' and the frank comedy of Evan Hai ston,' to the meta-
physical, enigmatic, subtle novels of Meredith's later manner. Yet
(Sandra Belloni' and Vittoria’ are brilliant with “noble strength on
fire. ” The heroine Emilia is the daughter of great passions. Her
meteoric life is traced by flashes through heavy clouds of profound
and lengthy epigrams, - epigrams after the manner of Meredith, whole
paragraphs long.
In Diana of the Crossways the peculiar genius of Meredith finds
more complete expression. This is a year-long novel for the reading,
and like The Egoist requires perhaps a lifetime for digestion. The
career of Diana, an Irish gentlewoman, strong and beautiful, pure and
fervid, made for love and leadership, is the subject of this remark-
able novel. The men who love her are seen and judged less by a
light of their own making than by the radiance of Diana. They are,
as is usual with Meredith's men, the dependents of the woman. The
author introduces his reader to his heroine by a preface unintelligible
to the uninitiated :-
« To demand of us truth to nature excluding philosophy is really to bid
a pumpkin caper. As much as legs are wanted for the dance, philosophy
is required to make our human nature credible and acceptable. Fiction
implores you to heave a bigger breast and take her in with this heavenly
preservative helpmate, her inspiration and her essence. There is a peep-
show and a Punch's at the corner of every street: one magnifying the lace-
work of life, another the ventral tumulus; and it is there for you, dry bones,
if you do not open to Philosophy. ”
Philosophy, the guiding star of Meredith's artistic pilgrimage, leads
him in The Egoist' into heavy quagmires of mannerisms. Yet this
novel is the most typical of his intricate genius. It reveals to the
full his passion for unveiling man to the gaze of man. Sir Willoughby
Patterne, the egoist, might be embodied satire on the dearest frailty
of man, were he not too lifelike and too remote from the region of
the abstract. His monstrous selfishness is set forth in such exquisite
detail that the lesson cannot possibly fail of its purpose through un-
due exaggeration. Clara Middleton, “the dainty rogue in porcelain,”
too precious for the clumsy fingers of Sir Willoughby, ranks with
Diana as one of the most finished creations of Meredith. She gives
to (The Egoist whatever charm it has. It is mainly for the sake
of George Meredith's women that the reader adventures o'er moor
and fen and crag and torrent of his philosophical mysteries of style.
The prize is worth the quest. No one but Hardy has approached
Meredith in the portrayal of woman nature, and Hardy falls short of


## p. 9919 (#327) ###########################################

GEORGE MEREDITH
9919
Meredith, because the creator of Diana has done what the creator of
Tess omits doing. He has given to the world its own nineteenth-
century women of the best type, - brilliant but not neurotic, thought-
ful but not morbid. Renée and Cecilia in Beauchamp's Career,'
Clara Middleton in "The Egoist,' Aminta in Lord Ormont,' Diana,
Vittoria, and others of their kin, are in their mentality women of no
century but the present; yet in their capacity for noble passion they
might be placed with Elaine in the airy tower of a forgotten castle,
or with Penelope in the sea wanderer's palace, or with Senta in the
fisherman's hut. The milkmaid type of woman Meredith drew but
once, in Lucy. She is much more of a pink-and-white country lass
than Dahlia and Rhoda in 'Rhoda Fleming. These sisters are in no
sense country women, unless the straightforward passionate career of
Rhoda seeking to right a ruined sister establishes her as a child of
nature. To George Meredith it is the woman who combines heart
and intellect who is to be worshiped on bended knees. His ideal of
women- and perhaps the best description of his own
- is
summed up in this passage from his essay on Comedy':-
women
(
« But those two ravishing women, so copious and so choice of speech, who
fence with men and pass their guard, are heartless! Is it not preferable to
be the pretty idiot, the passive beauty, the adorable bundle of caprices,- very
feminine, very sympathetic of romantic and sentimental fiction ? Our women
are taught to think so. The Agnès of the (École des Femmes) should be
a lesson for men. The heroines of comedy are like women of the world:
not necessarily heartless from being clear-sighted; they seem so to the sen-
timentally reared only for the reason that they use their wits, and are not
wandering vessels crying for a captain or a pilot. Comedy is an exhibition
of their battle with men, and that of men with them; and as the two, however
divergent, both look on one object, — namely, Life,- the gradual similarity of
their impressions must bring them to some resemblance. The comic poet
dares to show us men and women coming to this mutual likeness: he is for
saying that when they draw together in social life their minds grow liker; just
as the philosopher discerns the similarity of boy and girl until the girl is
marched away to the nursery. Philosopher and comic poet are of a cousinship
in the eye they cast on life; and they are equally unpopular with our willful
English of the hazy region, and the ideal that is not to be disturbed. ”
George Meredith explains himself and his doctrine so lucidly in
this paragraph, that it seems impossible ever again to join forces
with the “willful English of the hazy region. ” Yet in his latest nov-
els he sometimes compels his most penetrative disciples to apostasy.
Professor Dowden has well said that the obscurity of an author is
a matter for subsequent generations to decide; yet the obscurity of
Meredith in One of Our Conquerors,' in the Amazing Marriage,'
or in Lord Ormont and his Aminta,' can scarcely be due to the


## p. 9920 (#328) ###########################################

9920
GEORGE MEREDITH
smoked glasses of his contemporaries. A writer like Meredith, who
possesses in the highest degree the unique gift of the comic insight
into life, with all that it implies of delicate sympathy and subtle
comprehension of human nature, must be expected to tell of his
extraordinary discoveries in an extraordinary tongue. The question is
pertinent, however, of whether supreme genius might not be able to
relate the same marvelous stories of humanity in a simpler speech.
George Meredith the novelist cannot overshadow George Meredith
the poet.