George Meredith, Novelist

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue XXXXV, 10 December 1903, Page 4

George Meredith, Novelist

AN APPRECIATION. In the course of a lecture at Dunedin recently, in which the He v. A. F. M. Koiyb addressed a large and appreciative audience of literary enthusiasts and reading people, some very interesting points in the works of this author were mentioned. The lecturer opened bis subject with the remark that nobody merely "likes" or "approves" Mr Meredith's writings. They love or they hote—they freeze or they burn. Mr Aferadith makes a line of cleavage in literary taste ; and herein consists his one resemblance to some authors with whom he has little else in common. Shelley is a case in point, for in regard to ihim we lind cither intense enthusiasm such as Browning's or Swinburne's, or else stern depreciation such as Carlyle's or Matthew Arnold's. Jion like Shelley or Meredith or Browninb hinif.elf will ha(ve men either cold or Uiot. To them a lukewarm love is as impossible as a languid disparagement. Louis Stevenson says of 'lihoda. Fleming' : "This is the strongest thing in letters since Shakespeare died." Mr William Watson thinks it an inartistic, disjointed, patchy, unconvincing, intolerable bore ; and another says of it (in common with his other works) : "It is chaos illumined with flashes of lightning." Meredith, t'ne writer and man, is always more interesting than even his men and women. It is how lie develops them, what he thinks of them, his 'inimitable asides and epigrams that we look for most. After eulogistic references to Meredith's earlier works, the lecturer said ' The Egoist,' published in 1879, was a memorable triumph of art, a remorseless, naked, uncompromising satire of selfishness, which is the despair of'anti-Meredi'thians, but which every lover of the author holds in a place apart from all other books he has ever read. It is not given to many artists to produce one (lawless work. There can be only one Sir Willougliby, only ono Egoist. It is all triumphant art, and art in obedience to law. Meredith's style is vividly suggestive, rather than carefully definite. He does not set out on a quest for the proper word ; so it is brilliant beyond example, but at time 6 equally obscure. To those who love splendour, subtlety, am! felicity of diction, combined with penetrating and suggestive thought, George Meredith's writing is an unbounded paradise. Ifoam tvhere you will, a profusion of things dear to the delicate and discerning palate is found. The page perpetually breaks in star spangles ; it flashes with all sorts of fireworks displays—it is volcanic with eruptive fire. Greater artists there have been in prose and verse, but in the one quality of flashing a picture in a phrase—writing in lightning one could almost call it—who are Mr Meredith's rivals ■? Meredith's humour, satire, searching criticism, power of human analysis, originality and inde|>endence 01" literary style, imagery, and fearlessness in with the weaknesses of mankind, were illustrated by extracts from his numerous works, and the "wild oats" theory and its effects upon posterity were handled with literary judgment and telling moral force.