women are his quarry, and the test of a civilization the degree in which it has developed the mind for an enlightened control over the emotions and the bodily appetites.  Neither does this mean, as with Henry James, the disappearance of plot:  a healthy objectivity of narrative framework is preserved; if anything the earlier books—­“Feverel,” “Evan Harrington,” “Rhoda Fleming” and the duo “Sandra Belloni” and “Vittoria”—­have more of story interest than the later novels.  Meredith has never feared the use of the episode, in this suggesting the older methods of Fielding and Smollett.  Yet the episodic in his hands has ever its use for psychologic envisagement.  Love, too, plays a large role in his fiction; indeed, in the wider platonic sense, it is constantly present, although he is the last man to be called a writer of love-stories.  And no man has permitted himself greater freedom in stepping outside the story in order to explain his meaning, comment upon character and scene, rhapsodize upon Life, or directly harangue the reader.  And this broad marginal reservation of space, however much it is deplored in viewing his work as novel-making, adds a peculiar tonic and is a characteristic we could ill spare.  It brings us back to the feeling that he is a great man using the fiction form for purposes broader than that of telling a story.

Because of this ample personal testimony in his books it should be easy to state his Lebensanschauung, unless the opacity of his manner blocks the way or he indulges in self-contradiction in the manner of a Nietzsche.  Such is not the case.  What is the philosophy unfolded in his representative books?

It will be convenient to choose a few of those typical for illustration.  The essence of Meredith is to be discovered in such works as “The Ordeal of Richard Feverel,” “Evan Harrington,” “Harry Richmond,” “The Egoist,” “Diana of the Crossways.”  If you know these, you understand him.  “Lord Ormont and his Aminta” might well be added because of its teaching; but the others will serve, with the understanding that so many-sided a writer has in other works given further noble proof of his powers.  If I allowed personal preference to be my sole guide, “Rhoda Fleming” would be prominent in the list; and many place “Beauchamp’s Career” high, if not first among his works;—­a novel teeming with his views, particularly valuable for its treatment of English politics and certainly containing some of his most striking characterization, in particular, one of his noblest women.  Still, those named will fairly reflect the novelist and speak for all.

“Richard Feverel,” which had been preceded by a book of poems, the fantasia “The Shaving of Shagpat” and an historical novelette “Farina,” was the first book that announced the arrival of a great novelist.  It is at once a romance of the modern type, a love-story and a problem book; the tri-statement makes it Meredithian.  It deals with the tragic union of Richard and Lucy, in a setting that shifts