MEREDITH TO MRS. MEYNELL.*

•

Press. [1 The Letters of George Illererlith to Alice Hornell. 1896-1907. The Nonesuch FEW people are without that variety of curiosity which makes

it so delightful tt• pry into the correspondence of others ; and it is not necessarily an unworthy curiosity, for letters may afford an insight into personality hardly to be had otherwise. Letters, therefore, of writers who are already familiar to us in their art are of a special and peculiar interest, for in them we

expect to discover the man who, even in the case of the simplest and least formal artist, is disguised in official robes- when he

writes for publication.

Although Meredith the correspondent is already known to us in the two volumes of letters published some years ago, these letters to Alice Meynell are of an interest which tho- roughly warranted publication, and it is a pity that this interest should not have been doubled by the inclusion of the other half of the correspondence—namely, the letters of Alice Meynell to Meredith.

The mature Meredith possessed a highly individual and artificial style which tended on the one side to an extraor- dinarily vivid and concentrated expression ; on the other to a dandified elaboration of the simple. We have called this style artificial, for it certainly gives an impression of artificiality ; yet it is evident from the letters that Meredith had made it so vital a part of himself that it eventually became his habitual mode of expression, both official and unofficial. It was natural to him even in its faults, for the elaboration and preciosity emerge not only in manner but also in matter, and represent a certain defect of character. The opening of a letter written on January 28th, 1897, is a horrible example :—

" My repressed fount of strength in gentleness would have made her wren's warble of a note the more welcome with some word of herself, and an assurance that she has not been, in her way, decor- ously indulging one of the sylphs of Pathos during this dark weather."

That shows him at his worst and—thank heaven l—forms only a small ingredient in the total impression. A good corrective to it are the instances of his frank and fearless criticism of her work. Here is the opening of a letter dated towards the end of 1900 :—

" Dearest Portia, the last line of the first vers cannot stand. It reads as if purposely dark for ushering in -a portentous rhyme— a very beadle instead of the Lord Mayor. Nor do I like ' musing steps to fold . . . an answer.' Again, the last line of the last verse is iteration masking a weakness under an appeal to the sympathetic. But as you please in that respect."

Another, earlier in the same year, rebukes her for a sneer at Gibbon :—

" ' A. M.' in the Pall Mall is good to see, and she may lash her Gibbon in those columns ; but when she darts a sneer at him in parenthesis out of a book, she seems under the public eye, to betray a sentiment deeper than the disapprobation of style, and this is inartistic on her part."

Another letter contains vigorous. and excellent criticism of Rostand's Cyrano, and a gentle rebuke to Alice Meynell for

her estimation of it in the Pall Mall

.

" I have got through ' Cyrano,' and I marvel at the cleverness of the hand which could hold me all but to the end over such a group of fantoches.' Near the end I chaffed [elided ?], and read only to have done with .a conscience. Then I bethought 'me of the extreme lightness of your critical touch when your spirit of kindness is or seems an atmosphere over tolerance. And I questioned. Is it her nature or the craftswoman P I fear I decided that she is not always to be taken too seriously."

Four days later comes a letter with a delightfully humorous account of an embarrassing situation. A young lady had painted for him a portrait of Alice Meynell, thinking that the present would please him. -Unhappily, the effect was pre- cisely the reverse :—

"A • portrait ' has come, a vision of sepulchral pathos. It recalls to confound an image of someone I know. But not she : it is a presentation of a Sister of Lazarus, risen beside him, with eyes looking out of the underworld, breathing of grave-mould. Yet there is a most pathetic effort to appear as the very person. I am generously asked to keep it for my own : I would voyage to Klondyke to escape the sight. After some sheepish glances, I had it covered, and to-morrow it journeys back. What to say to the damsel ! I can but admire her courage in attempting, and be grateful for the kind intention."

Here and there the letters satisfy our -cariosity as to the

writer's views of other writers. He speaks of Francis Thompson as " a true poet, one of the small band." Of Edith Wharton's The Greater Inclination he remarks that " she has only to rebuke her facility, and she will do very good work." Ack- nowledging a copy of Alice Meynell's anthology, The Flower of the Mind, he makes an interesting and amusing confession :— " I swallow the spoonful of Cowley and Crashaw, and hope I am the better for it." And reference to Coventry Patmore is characteristic in attitude and expression :-

" I have read the Patmore extracts. I think there is nothing you would like that I should not esteem. As to the ' Angel,' the beauty must be felt, but I have been impressed in old days by the Dean, and the measure of the verse, correct as- it is, with the occasional happy jerk, recalls his elastic portliness, as one of the superior police of the English middle class, for whom attendant seraphs in a visible far distance hold the ladder, not undeserved, when a cheerful digestion shall have ceased."

References to his own work are brief and rare. " Give no time to poetry of mine," he writes at the end of one of his letters. " You will rind no sentiment in it—except the tragedy of sentiment ; it is wild, hither and thither, following nature, opposed to your classic scheme." Such an estimate of his poetry was obviously a momentary whim and condi- tioned by the destination for which it was bound. The letters as a whole reveal a warm and frank disposition, great gene- rosity, an exquisite tact, thoughtfulness for others, and generally equable spirits. Depression seems to have been rare with him, and rarer still, happily, the bitterness which appears here in one of the later letters :-

" Please keep in health. All my friends are drooping or threaten- ing to drop to the dust about me. Why did I not go when I was so near to it last year f Friends are the leaves of the tree of life, and I am getting bare, fit only for cutting down. Say kind words from me to husband and children."

Those are bitter words—a momentary discouragement only, one hopes—for the patient philosopher of Mother Earth.

At the end of the book Meredith's article on two of Alice Meynell's collections of essays is reprinted from the National Review of August, 1896, and also two of her essays. The book is beautifully printed and produced and is limited to 850 copies.