GEORGE MEREDITH'S READING OF EARTH.
ABOUT a year ago^ I recollect reading somewhere that Mr. George Meredith could write poetry but could not write a poem. The distinction is somewhat too obscure for most people^ I fancy : at any rate it is significant that the enunciator of the dictum proceeded to explain what he did mean. The upshot of it was that Mr. Meredith was a poet in mind and soul, but without the faculty of expression; that he was in this respect comparable with Emerson ; that, in a word, he was a musicless song-bird. It has probably been the lot of no contemporary poet to meet with such prevalent misapprehension, and such too often fatuous criticism, as has been encountered by Mr. Meredith. To judge by a good many reviews of Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Life and BciUads and Poems of Tragic Life, genuine criticism was an unknown quantity to the reviewers. There was little or no attempt to judge these books from the author's standpoint, to discern the poet's aim, to apprehend his artistic method. The 'Poems and Lyrics' were good or bad to the reviewer as they suggested the work of this, that, or the other poet; the 'Lark Ascending' was solemnly compared with Shelley's lyric, forgetful of the circumstance that the two minstrels were not in rivalry at all; 'Phoebus with Adraetus,' and 'Melampus,' suggested Mr. Matthew Arnold — why or how I know not, nor can conjecture, for whatever else George Meredith may be he is absolutely original. This method of relative appraisement — for it is not criticism — is misleading to the reader and unjust to the poet. We do not want to be told that a lyric is a failure, because it is not so thrilling as something quite distinct by Shelley, any more than we care to be informed that Burns's 'Twa Dogs' is inferior to some delicate little chanson by Musset. There is, in the science of literary criticism — if anything but the inchoate material for such science exist at present, which is open to doubt — no compromise with the philistinism of inartistic, of irrelevant, in a word, of impossible comparisons.
That Mr. George Meredith is in degree not less
remarkable as a poet than as a novelist has long been maintained by a few capable judges ; but there is no doubt that the same parrot-cry which clamours against the unintelligibility of his novels has affected the popularity of his verse. ' He cannot write musically, and therefore he is not a poet,' remarked some sagacious critic of the Ballads of Tragic Life. I need not stop to point out wherein the first clause is inadequate or
liable to misconstruction : it will be sufficient to controvert it — for those who recollect the contents of the book in question — by mention only of ' The Woods of Westermain,' 'The Lark Ascending,' and ' Love in the Valley.' The last-named is, for richness of colour and what an art-critic would call mellowness of tone, and for free lilt of music, one of the mo,st beautiful of contemporary poems. All the author's deep love and knowledge of nature, his phenomenal observation, and his polished concision, ai-e exemplified in these ' valley ' stanzas, three of which I now feel under compulsion to quote:—
'Lovely are the ciu-ves of the white owl sweeping,
W.avy in the dusk lit by one large star,
Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried,
Brooding o'er the gloom, spins the brown eve-jar.
Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting;
So were it with me if forgetting could be willed.
Tell the grassy hollow that holds the bubbling well-spring.
Tell it to forget the source that keeps it filled.
Happy, happy time, when the white star hovers
Low over dim fields fresh with bloomy dew,
Near the face of dawn, that draws athwart the darkness,
Threading it with colour, like yewberries the yew.
Thicker crowd the shades as the grave East deepens
Glowing, and with crimson a long cloud swells.
Maiden still the morn is ; and strange she is, and secret ;
Strange her eyes ; her cheeks are cold as cold sea-shells.
Mother of the dews, dark eyelashed twilight.
Low-lidded twilight, o'er the valley's brim,
Rounding on thy breast sings the dew-lighted skylark,
Clear as though the dewdrops had their voice in him.
Hidden wgere the rose-flush drinks the rayless planet,
Fountain-full he pours the spraying fountain-showers.
Let me hear her laughter, I would have her ever
Cool as dew in twilight, the lark above the flowers.'
I think it is Paul Bourget who has said that a single
couplet — a single line, often — can afford ample warrant
of the quality of a poet's genius. For the adoption of such a test, one could not do better than quote that most exquisite couplet —
'Maiden still the morn is ; and strange she is, and secret;
Strange her eyes ; her cheeks are cold as cold sea-shells.'
So much for one of the most frequent parrot-cries about George Meredith's lack of music in past books of his. In his new volume, A Reading of Earlh,^ there is, it would seem to be necessaiy to say, ample proof that the quality of music is in no abeyance. It must, of course, be remembered that Mr. Meredith is not content to make a sweet sound about nothing : if he did so desire, it would probably be of little avail, for it is undeniable that his poetic work does not in the main possess a certain charm, that of rhythmic spontaneity. He is not a singer for the sake of singing, so much as a poet for the sake of poetry. There are thoughts and aspirations which he prefers to give forth in verse, concepts of abstract, renderings and interpretations of concrete beauty for which he cannot adequately or even aptly find expression in prose; but the passion of song, for song's sake, irrespective of its significance, does not seem to be his. It is difficult to say what is and what is not his dominant impulse: for, above all writers of the day, he has his falcon of poetry as much as his steed of prose in magic restraint— and we may be sure
4 Reading of Earth. By George Meredith. (Macmillan & Co. )
