After luncheon, a short walk over one of Surrey's most beautiful hills brought us to the haven of our desires. Here, nestled under the shade of hill and foliage, stood Flint Cottage, the charming but unpretentious residence of Friar George Meredith.
Above the house stands the Châlet, the workshop of the great novelist, eloquent in its stillness and solitude. In this Châlet many of his masterpieces have been written.
Every one at some period in their lives has probably experienced that extreme tension of feelings when they are about to realize that which a vivid imagination has created and built up until it has become a veritable brain picture.
We entered the grounds surrounding Flint Cottage, passing in single file along the paths of a well-kept garden to a rustic seat in a small meadow-like enclosure where the great novelist sat. With a hearty shake of the hand as each visitor was introduced and a cheery word of greeting to many an old friend, we passed before our host, then stood about in groups or sat buoyantly expectant of what was to follow.
While waiting for the sound of a voice that will never be forgotten, time was given to reflect upon our first impression of the man whose name is honoured wherever English literature is known or read. To the mind which admires all that is great in the world of reality or imagination, it almost savours of sacrilege to attempt to describe or analyse that which one looks up to and venerates. It is therefore with the greatest humility that reference is here made to that lofty embodied intelligence which until then had been known only through the medium of George Meredith's writings.
Judging from appearances, the world-renowned novelist was quite an ordinary-looking man of between sixty and seventy years of age. He was dressed in a dark blue holiday suit, with a red tie, and held a grey wideawake hat in his hand. His white but luxuriant hair partly covered a high and noble forehead, which indexed a striking and characteristic personality. All these details, however, were the outside man. It was when he began to talk that our attention became riveted, for in the deep resonant flexibility of his voice one became almost electrified. Its penetration, as it conveyed the measured periods of the speaker, immediately attracted attention, and a hush of expectancy stole over the listening company. Early in the proceedings, Prior Robert Leighton read the following address:
"Friar George Meredith,—We, members of the Whitefriars Club and our friends, are gratefully conscious of the honour you accord to us in permitting us a second time to call upon you here at your home. Be assured we come to you to-day not with any feeling approaching vulgar curiosity to invade and peep within the sanctities of your chosen seclusion. We come with the reverence of pilgrims journeying to a hallowed shrine; content if you do but allow us to enter at your gates to offer you our respectful homage, to take your hand and listen for some moments to the living voice of one to whom we individually and the world in general owe so much.
"The work that you have done has become a part of English life and of our own personal lives. It represents the highest blossom of the tree of civilization, and it has come to mean so much that to-day no man or woman can attain to a maturity of culture without having absorbed your teaching and your spirit. You have taught us to appreciate everything that is good in life, enhancing its sparkle and flavour. You have sharpened our wits, polished our manners, advanced our happiness by widening our comprehension. You have given us a new perception of the social structure, and especially have you given us a key to the maze and mystery of women's souls.