ul's
Tragedy_, _Fra Lippo Lippi_ and _Rabbi Ben Ezra_. Very few readers in
these days have time or patience to read _The Ring and the Book_, but
it will repay your attention, as it is the most remarkable attempt in
all literature to revive the tragedy of the great and innocent love of
a woman and a priest.

Among the many fine passages in Browning, I think there is nothing
which equals these lines in _O Lyric Love_, the beautiful invocation
to his wife:

O lyric Love, half angel and half bird
And all a wonder and a wild desire--
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue
And sang a kindred soul out to his face--
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!
Never may I commence my song, my due
To God who best taught song by gift of thee,
Except with bent head and beseeching hand--
That shall despite the distance and the dark,
What was, again may be; some interchange
Of grace, some splendor once thy very thought,
Some benediction anciently thy smile.

The songs in _Pippa Passes_ should be read, as they are as near
perfect as Shakespeare's songs or the songs of Tennyson in _The
Princess_.

MEREDITH AND A FEW OF HIS BEST NOVELS

ONE OF THE GREATEST MASTERS OF FICTION OF LAST CENTURY--"THE
ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL," "DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS" AND OTHER
NOVELS.

George Meredith is acknowledged by the best critics to be among the
greatest English novelists of the last century; yet to the general
reader he is only a name. Like Henry James, he is barred off from
popular appreciation by a style which is "caviare to the general."
Thomas Hardy is recognized as the finest living English novelist, but
there is very little comparison between himself and Meredith.
Professor William Lyon Phelps, who is one of the best and sanest of
American critics, says they are both pagans, but Meredith was an
optimist, while Hardy is a pessimist. Then he adds this illuminating
comment: "Mr. Hardy is a great novelist; whereas, to adapt a phrase
that Arnold applied to Emerson, I should say that Mr. Meredith was not
a great novelist; he was a great man who wrote novels."

It is only within the last twenty-five years that Meredith has had any
vogue in this country. At that time a good edition of his novels was
issued, and critics gave the volumes generous mention in the leading
magazines and newspapers. But the public did not res