Meanwhile further instalments of poems—Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth (1883)—had struck anew the full, rich note of natural realism which is Meredith's chief poetic characteristic. "The Woods of Westermain," in particular, has that sense of the mysterious communion of man with nature which is found in the poetry of Wordsworth and Shelley. Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life (1887) and A Reading of Earth (1888) gave further evidence of the wealth of thought and vigour of expression which Meredith brought to the making of verse. His readers, of the verse even more than of the prose, must be prepared to meet him on a common intellectual footing. When once that is granted, however, the music and magic of such poems as "Seed-time," "Hard Weather," "The Thrush in February," "The South Wester," "The Lark Ascending," "Love in the Valley," "Melam pus," "A Faith on Trial," are very real, amid all their occasional obscurities of diction.
Meredith had now completed his 6oth year, and with his advancing years the angles of his individuality began to grow sharper, while the difficulties of his style became accentuated. The increase in mannerism was marked in One of Our Conquerors (1891), otherwise a magnificent rendering of a theme full of both tragedy and comedy, in the poem of "The Empty Purse" (1892) and in Lord Ormont and His Aminta (1894). In The Amazing Marriage (1895) he seemed to catch an afterglow of genius. In 1898 appeared his Odes in Contribution to the Song of French History, consisting of one ode ("France, Dec. 187o") reprinted from Ballads and Poems (1871), and three other previously un published ; a fine example of his lofty thought, and magnificent—if often difficult—and individual diction. In 19o1 another volume of verse, A Reading of Life, appeared. In later years, too, he con tributed occasional poems to newspapers and reviews and similar publications, which were collected after his death (Last Poems, 191o). His comedy, The Sentimentalists, was performed on March I,I9I o; his early but unfinished novel, Celt and Saxon, was also posthumously published in that summer.
Now famous, Meredith was chosen to succeed Tennyson as president of the Authors' Society; on his loth birthday (1898) he was presented with a congratulatory address by 3o prominent . men of letters; he received the Order of Merit ; and new editions of his books (both prose and verse), for which there had long been but scanty demand, were called for. One of the results was that Meredith, with very doubtful wisdom, recast some of his earlier novels; and in the sumptuous "authorized edition" of 1897 (published by the firm of Constable, of which his son, Wil liam Maxse Meredith, was a member) very large alterations are made in some of them. It meant the excision in old age of some
of the most virile passages of books that were written in the full glow and vigour of his prime. In Constable's memorial edition (191o) of his complete works the excisions were published separately.
Meredith's literary quality must always be considered in the light of the Celtic side of his temperament and the peculiarities of his mental equipment. His nature was intuitive rather than ratiocinative; his mental processes were abrupt and far-reaching; and the suppression of connecting associations frequently gives his language, as it gave Browning's, but even to a greater extent, the air of an impenetrably nebulous obscurity. This criticism applies mainly to his verse, but is also true of his prose in many places, though there is much exaggeration about the difficulties of his novels. When once, however, his manner has been properly understood, it is seen to be inseparable from his method of in tellection, and to add to the narrative of description both vivid ness of delineation and intensity of realization. But when Mere dith is at his best he is only involved with the involution of his subject; the aphorisms that decorate his style are simple when the idea they convey is simple, elaborate only in its elaboration. Pregnant, vividly graphic, capable of infinite shades and grada tions, his style is a much finer and subtler instrument than at first appears, and must be judged finally by what it conveys to the mind, and not by its superficial sound upon the conventional ear. It owes something to Jean Paul Richter; something, too, to Carlyle, with whose methods of narrative and indebtedness to the apparatus of German metaphysics it has a good deal in common. To the novelist Richardson, too, a careful reader will find that Meredith, both in manner and matter (notably in The Egoist and in Richard Feverel), owes a good deal; in "Mrs. Grandison" in Richard Feverel he even recalls "Sir Charles Grandison" by name; and nobody can doubt that Sir Willoughby Patterne, both in idea and often in expression, was modelled on Richardson's creation. Careful students of the early 19th century English novel will find curious echoes again in Meredith of Bulwer-Lytton's (Baron Lytton's) literary manner and romantic outlook.