ly as artist. He shows throughout his work a sublime
carelessness of workmanship on the structural side of his craft;
but in those essentials, dialogue, character and scene, he rises
to the peaks of his profession.

Probably more readers are offended by his mannerisms of style
than by any other defect; and they are undeniable. The opening
chapter of "Diana" is a hard thing to get by; the same may be
said of the similar chapter in "Beauchamp's Career." In "One of
our Conquerors," early and late, the manner is such as to lose
for him even tried adherents. Is the trouble one of thought or
expression? And is it honest or an affectation? Meredith in some
books--and in all books more or less--adopts a strangely
indirect, over-elaborated, far-fetched and fantastic style,
which those who love him are fain to deplore. The author's
learning gets in his way and leads him into recondite allusions;
besides this, he has that quality of mind which is stimulated
into finding analogies on every side, so that image is piled on
image and side-paths of thought open up in the heat of this
mental activity. Part of the difficulty arises from surplusage
of imagination. Sometimes it is used in the service of comment
(often satirical); again in a kind of Greek chorus to the drama,
greatly to its injury; or in pure description, where it is
hardly less offensive. Thus in "The Egoist" we read: "Willoughby
shadowed a deep droop on the bend of his neck before Clara," and
reflection shows that all this absurdly acrobatic phrase means
is that the hero bowed to the lady. An utterly simple occurrence
and thus described! It is all the more strange and aggravating
in that it comes from a man who on hundreds of occasions writes
English as pungent, sonorous and sweet as any writer in the
history of the native literature. This is true both of dialogue
and narrative. He is the most quotable of authors; his Pilgrim's
Scrip is stuffed full of precious sayings, expressing many moods
of emotion and interpreting the world under its varied aspects
of romance, beauty, wit and drama. "Strength is the brute form
of truth." There is a French conciseness in such a sentence and
immense mental suggestiveness. Both his scenic and character
phrasing are memorable, as where the dyspeptic philosopher in
"Feverel" is described after dinner as "languidly twinkling
stomachic contentment." And what a scene is that where Master
Gammon replies to Mrs. Sumfit's anxious query conce