GEORGE MEREDITH.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1726, 29 March 1905, Page 70 (Supplement)

GEORGE MEREDITH.

It is said, writes the “Critic,” that Mr George Meredith is the most difficult man in England to interview. In fact I have heard it positively affirmed that he will not submit to the inquisitorial process of the interviewer. I dare say that he is difficult to approach for purposes of interviewing; at the same time I read two interviews with him at not very long intervals apart. One was perhaps a year ago, and was published in the “Manchester Guardian”; the other appeared in the London “Gaily Chronicle” during the past month. The interviewer in the latter instance was Mr Henry W. Nevinson, a writer who is attracting considerable attention in England. Mr Meredith expressed himself freely and on a variety of subjects to the extent of three of the “Chronicle’s” broad columns. In spite of the serious illness of last, autumn, we are told that Mr Meredith was stronger and in higher spirits than for some time past. “Since this last illness,” he said to Mr Nevison, “I have felt a. peculiar disinclination for work of all kinds. The thought of taking up a pen is quite abhorrent. I am as receptive as ever. I read and enjoy hearing of new things. But my mind seems now as if it could not give out any more.” Then he continues in rather a pessimistic vein:—

“Besides, who. really cares for what I say? The English people know nothing about me. There has always been something antipathetic between them and me. With hook after book it was always the same outcry of censure and disapproval. The first time or two I minded it. Then I determined to disregard what people said altogether, and since that I have written only to please myself. But even if you could tell the world all I think, no one would listen.” Mr Meredith then went on to discuss the Japanese, whom he describes as: “artistic people full of invention; and the whole race feels a genuine love of nature —a sense of the beauty of landscape and flowers. The English people have little real love for nature. The highest English ideal of beauty in nature is the southerly wind and cloudy sky that proclaim it a hunting morning.”

Nevertheless Mr Meredith thinks that people are improving. “The whole world is improving—I am a litti© doubtful about the English race.” After a few remarks on the political situation, on the Church and the army, Mr Mefedith takes up literature and journalism. In the latter he is bothered by the “women’s pages,” with “their horrible fashion-plates and pictures of mincing, upholstered, and brainless creatures.” He says that women do not like ‘these “women’s pages” any more than men do :

“To the best of them it is an insolence, and the best of them are numerous! Women who want that sort of thing can get the papers that are specially written for them, with the kind of pictures that represent the kind of woman they want to be—.'the Lady’s This or the Lady’s That. As you know, there are many of them.” On the subject of criticism Air Meredith said :

used to lay about them with a will. To he sure it was rather broadsword and bludgeon stylo. The English have never had the mastery of the rapier thrust that you see in ■ any French critique. But. now, I think, criticism is becoming almost too urbane. It is true the general level of literature has immensely improved. In my youth we had a few great names —Dickens, Thackeray, George Fliot. I think you have nothing to compare to them now in the front rank. But in the rank close behind the front your attainment is certainly much higher than anything we then possessed.” At the end of the interview Mr Merelith apologised for talking too> much, adding, “Since my deafness increased I have become more talkative because I cannot listen.”