. George Meredith; his life and friends in relation to his work. d admitted. Thetwo kept up their airy Badminton of praise of theiridol, and particularly of The Egoist, until the end oflife. It was in April, 1882, that Stevenson wrotethat well-known letter: My dear Henley,—. . Talking of Meredith,I have just re-read for the third or fourth time TheEgoist. When I shall have read it the sixth orseventh, I begin to see I shall know about it. Youwill be astonished when you come to re-read it; Ihad no idea of the matter—hiunan red matter—hehas contriA-ed to plug and pack into that strangeand admira
. George Meredith; his life and friends in relation to his work. d admitted. Thetwo kept up their airy Badminton of praise of theiridol, and particularly of The Egoist, until the end oflife. It was in April, 1882, that Stevenson wrotethat well-known letter: My dear Henley,—. . Talking of Meredith,I have just re-read for the third or fourth time TheEgoist. When I shall have read it the sixth orseventh, I begin to see I shall know about it. Youwill be astonished when you come to re-read it; Ihad no idea of the matter—hiunan red matter—hehas contriA-ed to plug and pack into that strangeand admirable book. Willoughby is, of course, apure discovery ; a complete set of nerves, not here-tofore examined, and yet running all over thehuman body—a suit of nerves. Clara is the bestgirl I ever saw anywhere. Vernon is almost as 1 As James Thomson put it in his Diary : At length I Encourag-ing I A man of wonderful genius and a splendid writer may hope toobtain something like recognition after working hard for thirty years,dating from his majority I -•. The Chalet in the oe HereThe Enoisr, -Diana of the Crossways, am) the later BOOKS were WRITIKNPhotograph by J/r. Wood THE EGOIST 257 good. The manner and faults of the book greatlyjustify themselves on further study. Only MrMiddleton does not hang together; and LadiesBusshe and Culmer sont des monstruosities. . .I see more and more that Meredith is built forimmortality. . I am, Yours loquaciously, R. L. S. Certainly The Egoist must be immortal, for despiteits cold glittering artificiality and intellectual andphilosophical preciosity, the sheer cleverness of thebook, its wealth of epigram, the riot of outrageoussimile, the concatenation of antithesis and anti-peristasis, make it unique, a towering alpine peakin literature, crested with eternal gleaming is the most quotable of Merediths it anywhere at random and an acute phrasewill spring to light. To revert to the history of th
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