3. His Novels. Meredith’s first novel of importance is The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859). Almost at one stride he attains to his full strength, for this novel is typical of much of his later work. In plot it is rather weak, and almost incredible toward the end. It deals with a young aristocrat educated on a system laboriously virtuous; but youthful nature breaks the bonds, and complications follow. Most of the characters are of the higher ranks of society, and they are subtly analyzed and elaborately featured. They move languidly across the story, speaking in a language as extraordinary, in its chiseled epigrammatic precision, as that of the creatures of Congreve or Oscar Wilde. The general style of the language is mannered in the extreme; it is a kind of elaborate literary confectionery—it almost seems a pity on the part of the hasty novel-reader to swallow it in rude mouthfuls. Nevertheless, behind this appearance of artificiality there ranges a mind both subtle and sure, an elfish, satiric spirit, and a passionate ideal of artistic perfection. Such a novel could hardly hope for a ready recognition; but its ultimate fame was assured.
The next novel was Evan Harrington (1860), which contains some details of Meredith’s own family life; then followed Emilia in England (1864), the name of which was afterward altered to Sandra Belloni, in which the scene is laid partly in Italy. In Rhoda Fleming (1865) Meredith tried to deal with plebeian folks, but with indifferent success. The heroines of his later novels—Meredith was always careful to make his female characters at least as important as his male ones—are aristocratic in rank and inclinations. Vittoria (1867) is a sequel to Sandra Belloni, and contains much spirited handling of the Italian insurrectionary movement. Then came The Adventures of Harry Richmond (1870), in which the scene is laid in England, and Beauchamp’s Career (1874), in which Meredith’s style is seen in its most exaggerated form. In The Egoist (1879), his next novel, Meredith may be said to reach the climax of his art. The style is fully matured, with much less surface glitter and more depth and solidity; the treatment of the characters is close, accurate, and amazingly detailed; and the Egoist himself, Sir Willoughby Patterne—Meredith hunted the egoist as remorselessly as Thackeray pursued the snob—is a triumph of comic artistry. The later novels are of less merit. The Tragic Comedians (1880) is chaotic in plot and over-developed in style; and the same faults may be urged against Diana of the Crossways (1885), though it contains many beautiful passages; One of our Conquerors (1890) is nearly impossible in plot and style, and The Amazing Marriage (1895) is not much better.
We add a short typical specimen of Meredith’s style. Observe the studied precision of phrase and epithet, the elaboration of detail, and the imaginative power.
She had the mouth that smiles in repose. The lips met full on the centre of the bow and thinned along to a lifting dimple; the eyelids also lifted slightly at the outer corners and seemed, like the lip into the limpid cheek, quickening up the temples, as with a run of light, or the ascension indicated off a shoot of colour. Her features were playfellows of one another, none of them pretending to rigid correctness, nor the nose to the ordinary dignity of governess among merry girls, despite which the nose was of fair design, not acutely interrogative or inviting to gambols. Aspens imaged in water, waiting for the breeze, would offer a susceptible lover some suggestion of her face; a pure smooth-white face, tenderly flushed in the cheeks, where the gentle dints were faintly intermelting even during quietness. Her eyes were brown, set well between mild lids, often shadowed, not unwakeful. Her hair of lighter brown, swelling above her temples on the sweep to the knot, imposed the triangle of the fabulous wild woodland visage from brow to mouth and chin, evidently in agreement with her taste; and the triangle suited her; but her face was not significant of a tameless wildness or of weakness; her equable shut mouth threw its long curve to guard the small round chin from that effect; her eyes wavered only in humour, they were steady when thoughtfulness was awakened; and at such seasons the build of her winter-beechwood hair lost the touch of nymph-like and whimsical, and strangely, by mere outline, added to her appearance of studious concentration. Observe the hawk on stretched wings over the prey he spies, for an idea of this change in the look of a young lady whom Vernon Whitford could liken to the Mountain Echo, and Mrs Mountstuart Jenkinson pronounced to be “a dainty rogue in porcelain.”
The Egoist
OTHER NOVELISTS
1. Charlotte Brontë (1816–55) is the most important of three sisters, the other two being Emily Brontë (1818–48) and Anne Brontë (1820–49). They were the daughters of an Irish clergyman who held a living in Yorkshire. Financial difficulties compelled Charlotte to become a schoolteacher and then (1832) a governess. Along with Emily she visited Brussels in 1842, and then returned home, where family cares kept her closely tied. Later her books had much success, and so she was released from many of her financial worries. She was married in 1854, but died in the next year. Her two younger sisters, brilliant but erratic creatures, had predeceased her.
The three sisters began their career jointly with a volume of verse, in which they respectively adopted the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. The poems, which appeared in 1846, are unusually fine in parts, especially the pieces ascribed to Emily. Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, which was written before the poems were published, had no success, and was not published till after her death. Jane Eyre (1847), which was given to the world after The Professor had failed to find a publisher, created a stir by its unusual candor, passion, and power. It was based on the work of Thackeray, whom Miss Brontë, in the second edition of the book, acknowledged as her Master in the art of fiction. Her other novels were Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853).
The truth and intensity of Charlotte’s work are unquestioned: she can see and judge with the eye of a genius. But these merits have their disadvantages. In the plots of her novels she is largely restricted to her own experiences; her high seriousness is unrelieved by any humor; and her passion is at times overcharged to the point of frenzy. But to the novel she brought an energy and passion that gave to commonplace people and actions the wonder and beauty of the romantic world.
Emily wrote a novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), a wild effort, hit or miss, at the tragical romance. Where she is successful she attains to a tragical emphasis that is almost sublime; but as a whole the book is too unequal to rank as very great.