242 GEORGE MEREDITH'S LETTERS clearly. When he is most generous (and the books abound in kingly praise) it seems but justice quick- ened, justice with unbandaged eyes. When his spirits are highest, riding gales of laughter, they are still securely poised : his very joviality is just. And when he speaks out of the night of his great sorrow, his mind numb with pain, the naked words have the nobility of music : — This place of withered recollections is like an old life to be lived again without sunshine. I cross and recross it. Sharp spikes where flowers were. Death is death, as you say, but I get to her by consulting her thoughts and wishes — and so she lives in me. This, if one has the strength of soul, brings the spirit to us. While she lingered I could not hope for it to last, and now I could crave any of the late signs of her breathing — a weakness of my flesh. When the mind is steadier, I shall have her calmly present — past all tears. . . . One need not shrink from turning such a cry into a quotation : it makes the mood that deserves it. And only quotations could speak unbrokenly of the strong tenderness, the royal pride, the fortitude and deliberate honour that greet us on these pages, offer- ing the soul a richer lesson than a creed. Each of the several sequences of letters traces the course of a friendship subtly varying, sensitively dipping and developing, yet leaving a track a delicate pen might still transcribe. But their complex interweaving makes a portrait that chokes utterance by the dear humanity of its charm. Like breathing virtues — like chivalry, gentleness, courage, actually experienced — the personal accents move us in the deep ways denied to art ; and the gratitude that would praise them only stammers. But space disallows renewed quota- tion here : it is to the books themselves that the reader must turn if he would see the silent hand- grips of friendship translated into words, and watch impetuous flights of affection and sudden ringing
