GEORGE MEREDITH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19986, 30 June 1928, Page 7 (Supplement)

GEORGE MEREDITH.

INTERESTING TALKS. Writing of Ceorgo Meredith the late 5Ur. J. A. Spender said: —'" Meredith bad come to London for an operation. He asked me to come and see him when he was convalescing, and joyfully I went. He described himself as a man who had been hurled over a torrent, and been caught first on one ledge and then on a i,lot her. Now lie was on the third ledge, awaiting the final plungo into ' the great deep pool of all-being.' Tie said •if was a sort of enthusiasm, arid it was clear that the fin.it adventure had no ttrror for him. Happily he had lived fcr several years after that, and I went again, this time with my wife, to see hin at Box Hill. Then ho was very doaf, but ..his talk was as wonderful as ever.

" Somehow we got talking of the senfetions of the condemned criminal on the morning of his hanging. ' I know,' he cried. ' I know, for ! have been through it all, and T tell you, he is dead before lie is hanged.' Swift character sketches citnie from him at the mention of individuals —this of John Morlev, ' Cut him open, and you will find a clergyman inside;' and of someone else I have forgotten, ' He is plaster without laths.' " Some writers surprise one by their onlikeness to their writing selves', but Meredith was the Meredith of the novels and poems, only more so. Hearing his talking was to realise that his style was not a wilful obscurity, but. a breathless effort to capture his own thoughts, which never could be quite run down,.".