If I could have written on any matter out of my press of work when I received your Pharais, there would have been no delay with me to thank you for such a gift to our literature. This book on the “Mountains” promises as richly. Whether it touches equally deep, I cannot yet say. I find the same thrill in it, as of the bard on the three-stringed harp, and the wild western colour over sea and isles; true spirit of the mountains. How rare this is! I do not know it elsewhere. Be sure that I am among those readers of yours whom you kindle. I could write more, but I have not recovered from the malady of the degoût de la plume, consequent on excess—and I pray that it may never fall on you. For though it is wisdom at my age to cease to write, it is not well to be taught to cease by distaste. That is a giving of oneself to the enemy. I have to be what I am, and I disclose it to win your pardon for my inexpressiveness when I am warmly sensible of a generous compliment.
I am, Yours most faithful
George Meredith.
It was in 1895 that the Omar Khayyam Club under the Presidentship of Mr. Edward Clodd, who was an old personal friend of Mr. Meredith, elected to hold its summer dinner at the Burford Bridge Hotel. Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. Watts-Dunton, Mr. George Gissing and William Sharp were among the guests. Mr. Clodd knew that it would be difficult to persuade Mr. Meredith to be present at the dinner. Nevertheless he lured him to the Hotel, and when coffee was served, (I quote from a contemporary account) “the beautiful face of the great novelist appeared within the doorway, and he was welcomed with enthusiasm by all present. The president extended to Mr. Meredith the right hand of fellowship on behalf of the Club, in a charming and eloquent speech not devoid of pathos. Mr. Meredith in his reply declared that Mr. Clodd was the most amiable of Chairmen but the most dastardly of deceivers. Never before, he added, had he been on his legs to make a speech in public, now before he knew it he was bustled over the first fence, and found himself overrunning the hounds. ‘I have my hands on the fellow at this moment’ he continued laughingly ‘and I could turn on him and rend him, but I spare him.’ After a few graceful and characteristic sentences concerning the Club and its object, and Omar, and expressing his appreciation of his reception Mr. Meredith said in conclusion: ‘I thank you from my heart, everyone of you.’”
Much to William Sharp’s satisfaction he was elected member of the Omar Khayyam Club in the autumn of the same year. On receipt of the announcement of the fact the new member wrote to the President:
Rutland House,
2d Nov., 1895.
Dear Brother-in-Omar,
On my return from Scotland the other day I found a note informing me that I had been elected an Omarian on the nomination of your distinguished self.