EGOIST, The (originally published in 1879), may be described as the quintessence of Meredithism. That °acute and honorable mi nority," which in the eighteen-nineties made it their business to °discover" the great obscure novelist, with James Thomson, Stevenson and Henley, as their earliest proselytizers, pro claimed 'The Egoist' as the supreme and oc cult masterpiece of its author. Appreciation of it was made the touchstone of literary intelli gence, much as the later novels of Henry James, a decade or so afterward, were regarded by "the precious" of the day. When one says that in those novels of Henry James we have the method and manner of The Egoist' run to seed, we go far toward characterizing the book from which James learned not wisely but too well. The Egoist' is an exceedingly elabor ate, and so to say microscopic, study of a sort of sophisticated modern Lovelace, Sir Willoughby. Patterne of Patterne Hall, handsome, culti vated, rich, charming, and yet dissected under the pitiless eye of that °Comic Spirit,' which Meredith invokes as his muse, a muse that loves °to uncover ridiculousness in imposing figures,' supremely and mathematically absurd in his very perfection and complacency. °Comedy,* says Meredith by way of prelude, °is a game played to throw reflections upon social life, and It deals with human nature in the drawing room of civilized men and women, where we have no dust of the struggling outer world, no mire, no violent crashes, to make the correct ness of the representation convincing.' In other
words, the atmosphere of The Egoist' is one of intense social rarefaction, and the drama, such as it is that of 'Fire Shades,' only per ceptible by the highly specialized beings accus tomed to draw health in that social ether. The hard brilliancy of 'The Egoist' is undeniable. It is more like one of Congreve's comedies than anything else in English, but it is Congreve psychologized; for instead of human beings for dramatis persona*, we have highly attenuate states of mind; and the philosopher takes the place of the man of the world. The style and mood also too frequently remind one of John Donne, fantastically metaphysical and perversely obscure. While we admit that it is an amazing tour de force, one cannot but ask whether it was worth doing, after all? That such great powers should have expended themselves, with such an array and exuberance, upon so slight a theme — a theme, of course, so essentially human, but in the case of 'The Egoist,' at tacked in so frivolous a manifestation. It is probable, as time goes on, that 'The Ego ist' will be regarded chiefly as a "curiosity of literature," one of those cryptic great books such as the 'Titan' of Jean Paul Richter—a writer who, with Carlyle, exercised great influ ence for the bad on Meredith's style. Book lovers here and there may pick out this and that fine thing and passage, but posterity, on the whole, will scarcely have time or patience to read The Egoist.'