rested
attention, but it did not at once in all, or in many, cases fix it, even
with critical readers: and for a long time the general public turned an
obstinately deaf ear. He followed _The Ordeal_ itself--a study of very
freely and deeply drawn character; of incident sometimes unusual and
always unusually told; of elaborate and disconcerting epigram or rather
of style saturated with epigrammatic quality; and of a strange ironic
persiflage permeating thought, picture, and expression in the same
way--unhastingly but unrestingly with others. _Evan Harrington_ (1861)
is generally lighter in tone; and should be taken in connection with the
ten years later _Harry Richmond_ as an example of what may be called a
sort of new picaresque novel--the subjects being exalted from the
gutter--at least the street gutter--to higher stories of the novel
house. _Emilia in England_ (1864), later called _Sandra Belloni_, and
its sequel _Vittoria_ (1866), embody, especially the latter, the
Italomania of the mid-century. Between them _Rhoda Fleming_ (1865),
returning to English country life, showed, with the old characteristics
of expression, tragic power superior perhaps to that of the end of
_Feverel_. In fact some have been inclined to put _Rhoda_ at the head.
In 1875 _Beauchamp's Career_ showed the novelist's curious fancy for
studying off actual contemporaries; for it is now perfectly well known
who "Beauchamp" was: and four years later came what the true Meredithian
regards as the masterpiece, _The Egoist_. Two other books followed, to
some extent in the track of _Beauchamp's Career, Diana of the Crossways_
(1886), utilising the legend of Mrs. Norton's betrayal of secrets, and
_The Tragic Comedians_ (1881), the story of the German socialist
Lassalle. The author's prediction, never hurried, now slackened, and by
degrees ceased, but the nineties saw three books, _One of Our
Conquerors_ (1891), _Lord Ormont and his Aminta_ (1894), and _The
Amazing Marriage_ (1895).

No bibliography of Mr. Meredith being here necessary or possible,
smaller and miscellaneous things need not detain us; and we are not
concerned with his sometimes charming verse. It is the character, and
especially the "total-effect" character, of the major novels with which
we have to do. This has been faintly adumbrated above, but the lines
must be a little deepened and the contour filled in to some extent here.

By invoking (practically at the outset of his work) "the Comi