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Itwould have to fall back upon the immensity of the soul and upon
thebrotherhood of man. For it becomes clear as we read that, whatever Mrs. His
cooks are too ripe and rotund; his farmers tooruddy and earthy.
The desire to
deal with modern life in poetry was not confined toMiss Barrett.
Though he had
sunk immobileinto an arm-chair, his aspect was still vigorous and alert.
The
rising novelist is never pestered to come togin and winkles with the plumber
and his wife.
He received the shock of her rank upon a naked surface.
He would
rush off to school with asharp herring bone in his throat for fear of missing
his lesson. They are thusdifferently poised from the majority of fictitious men
and women.
We are galloped to them over every obstacle on thepounding hoofs of
rhapsodical prose. She waited, wisely, until her escape had given hersome
measure of knowledge and proportion. There is no animosity, perhaps, but
thereis no communication.
A birds-eye view of fictionshows us no gentlemen in
Dickens; no working men in Thackeray.
She raced through folios because she
wasforbidden to scamper on the grass.
It cannot be said that his daring
isaltogether successful. Thepast, with its literature and its civilization,
solidifies thepresent.
A General in those circumstances would certainly have
givenhis coat an extra brush.
Books were to her not an end in themselves but
asubstitute for living. It is useless to suppose that social distinctions have
vanished.
We tend to get moreand more portraits of the successful and the
distinguished.
The writer has dined upon lentils; he gets up at five; hewalks
across London; he finds Mr.
No, the general conclusion would seem to be,
Meredith has not wornwell.
Romney, in short, rants and reels like any of
thoseElizabethan heroes whom Mrs. Only natural differences such as those of
brain and characterwill serve to distinguish us. Books were to her not an end
in themselves but asubstitute for living. Yet it is a capricious power and
highly intermittent.
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