begin
to realize its greatness. Stevenson was a doughty admirer of
Meredith, finding the elder "the only man of genius of my
acquaintance," and regarding "Rhoda Fleming" as a book to send
one back to Shakspere.

That "The Egoist" is typical--in a sense, most typical of the
fictions,--is very true. That, on the other hand, it is
Meredith's best novel may be boldly denied, since it is hardly a
novel at all. It is a wonderful analytic study of the core of
self that is in humanity, Willoughby, incarnation of a
self-centeredness glossed over to others and to himself by fine
gentleman manners and instincts, is revealed stroke after stroke
until, in the supreme test of his alliance with Clara Middleton,
he is flayed alive for the reader's benefit. In this power of
exposure, by the subtlest, most unrelenting analysis, of the
very penetralia of the human soul it has no counterpart; beside
it, most of the psychology of fiction seems child's play. And
the truth of it is overwhelming. No wonder Stevenson speaks of
its "serviceable exposure of myself." Every honest man who reads
it, winces at its infallible touching of a moral sore-spot. The
inescapable ego in us all was never before portrayed by such a
master.

But because it is a study that lacks the breadth, variety,
movement and objectivity of the Novel proper, "The Egoist" is
for the confirmed Meredith lover, not for the beginner: to take
it first is perchance to go no further. Readers have been lost
to him by this course. The immense gain in depth and delicacy
acquired by English fiction since Richardson is well illustrated
by a comparison of the latter's "Sir Charles Grandison" with
Meredith's "The Egoist." One is a portrait for the time, the
other for all time. Both, superficially viewed, are the same
type: a male paragon before whom a bevy of women burn incense.
But O the difference! Grandison is serious to his author, while
Meredith, in skinning Willoughby alive like another Marsyas, is
once and for all making the worship of the ego hateful.

It is interesting that "Diana of the Crossways" was the book
first to attract American readers. It has some of the author's
eccentricities at their worst. But it was in one respect an
excellent choice: the heroine is thoroughly representative of
the author and of the age; possibly this country is sympathetic
to her for the reason that she seems indigenous. Diana furnishes
a text for a dissertation on Meredith's limning of the