dred years ago." Plausible, ingenious, quite in the spirit of Mr.
James's mind; I can almost hear him reason so; nor does the argument
displease me, for it is conceived in a scholarly spirit. Now my conception
of W.D. Howells is quite different--I see him the happy father of a
numerous family; the sun is shining, the girls and boys are playing on the
lawn, they come trooping in to a high tea, and there is dancing in the
evening.

My fat landlady lent me a novel by George Meredith,--"Tragic Comedians"; I
was glad to receive it, for my admiration of his poetry, with which I was
slightly acquainted, was very genuine indeed. "Love in a Valley" is a
beautiful poem, and the "Nuptials of Attila," I read it in the _New
Quarterly Review_ years ago, is very present in my mind, and it is a
pleasure to recall its chanting rhythm, and lordly and sombre
refrain--"Make the bed for Attila." I expected, therefore, one of my old
passionate delights from his novels. I was disappointed, painfully
disappointed. But before I say more concerning Mr. Meredith, I will admit
at once frankly and fearlessly, that I am not a competent critic, because
emotionally I do not understand him, and all except an emotional
understanding is worthless in art. I do not make this admission because I
am intimidated by the weight and height of the critical authority with
which I am overshadowed, but from a certain sense, of which I am as
distinctly conscious, viz., that the author is, how shall I put it? the
French would say "quelqu'un," that expresses what I would say in English. I
remember, too, that although a man may be able to understand anything, that
there must be some modes of thoughts and attitudes of mind which we are so
naturally antagonistic to, so entirely out of sympathy with, that we are in
no true sense critics of them. Such are the thoughts that come to me when I
read Mr. George Meredith. I try to console myself with such reflections,
and then I break forth, and crying passionately:--jerks, wire splintered
wood. In Balzac, which I know by heart, in Shakespeare, which I have just
begun to love, I find words deeply impregnated with the savour of life; but
in George Meredith there is nothing but crackjaw sentences, empty and
unpleasant in the mouth as sterile nuts. I could select hundreds of phrases
which Mr. Meredith would probably call epigrams, and I would defy anyone to
say they were wise, graceful or witty. I do not know any book more tedious
th