m in this relation, to anticipate what
time may bring to pass. It is enough here to say that this
extreme view does not represent Meredith's best fiction nor his
most fruitful period of production.

Perhaps the most original thing about Meredith as a novelist is
the daring way in which he has made an alliance between romance
and the intellect which was supposed, in an older conception, to
be its archenemy. He gives to Romance, that creature of the
emotions, the corrective and tonic of the intellect "To preserve
Romance," he declares, "we must be inside the heads of our
people as well as the hearts ... in days of a growing activity
of the head." Let us say once again that Romance means a certain
use of material as the result of an attitude toward Life; this
attitude may be temporary, a mood; or steady, a conviction. It
is the latter with George Meredith; and be it understood, his
material is always realistic, it is his interpretation that is
superbly idealistic. The occasional crabbedness of his manner
and his fiery admiration for Italy are not the only points in
which he reminds one of Browning. He is one with him in his
belief in soul, his conception of life is an arena for its
trying-out; one with him also in the robust acceptance of earth
and earth's worth, evil and all, for enjoyment and as salutary
experience. This is no fanciful parallel between Meredith and a
man who has been called (with their peculiarities of style in
mind) the Meredith of Poetry, as Meredith has been called the
Browning of Prose.

Thus, back of whatever may be the external story--the Italian
struggle for unity in "Vittoria," English radicalism in
"Beauchamp's Career," a seduction melodrama in "Rhoda Fleming"--there
is always with Meredith a steady interpretation of life, a
principle of belief. It is his crowning distinction that he can
make an intellectual appeal quite aside from the particular
story he is telling;--and it is also apparent that this is his
most vulnerable point as novelist. We get more from him just
because he shoots beyond the fiction target. He is that rare
thing in English novel-making, a notable thinker. Of all
nineteenth century novelists he leads for intellectual
stimulation. With fifty faults of manner and matter, irritating,
even outrageous in his eccentricities, he can at his best
startle with a brilliance that is alone of its kind. It is
because we hail him as philosopher, wit and poet that he fails
comparative