Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads

by George Meredith

  [quotes “Modern Love” XLIX, lines 13–16]

  We have already intimated that “Modern Love” contains passages of true beauty and feeling; but they are like the casual glimpses of a fair landscape in some noxious clime, where the mists only break to gather again more densely. Besides, the best gifts of expression would be wasted on a theme so morbid as the present. It is true that poetic genius has often revealed to us the diseases of our nature; but they have been only a portion of the exhibition. The causes which produced them, and the results in which they were expiated or subdued, have also been given. The bane has shown the virtue of the antidote. In “Modern Love” we have disease, and nothing else.

  With a sense of relief we turn to the more wholesome poems in the volume. “Grandfather Bridgeman” is a pathetic story, told with fair effect and with some success in the delineation of character. In his portrait of the farmer, however, Mr. Meredith does not always discriminate between the homely and the coarse. The poem is disfigured, too, by abrupt transitions, and, at times, by a vagueness of style inexcusable in one who can write to the point when he pleases. “The Old Chartist,” again, is well drawn upon the whole; but the lesson which he derives from a water-rat, though correct, is not sufficiently obvious. A moral of this kind should not have to be reasoned out, but, like that of the fable, should seize the reader at once. Of Mr. Meredith’s character-pieces the best is “Juggling Jerry.” Jerry is a conjuror struck with mortal sickness: he pitches his tent on a familiar spot, where his old horse has been used to graze, and where the gorse blooms from which he has often hung his kettle. In this scene he recalls to his wife the story of their lives, and strives to comfort her in the closing hours of their union. The pathos and humour of this conception enhance each other, while the poor juggler’s love of nature is true in itself and expressed in the graphic idioms that befit the speaker. The lyric of “Cassandra” embodies a fine conception of the dying prophetess, and is free from the blemishes of caprice and obscurity. We cannot say as much for “Phantasy,” which is founded on the poetical superstition of The Willis. “Phantasy” is written with spirit, and contains some striking though grotesque pictures. We grant that the subject admits of fantastic treatment; but freedom is here pushed into licence. In poetry, even humour should not be prosaic and coarse; but Mr. Meredith’s is both. His dancing Phantom has nothing of the supernatural charm that belonged to her in the original legend, which, by the way, formed some years since the groundwork of a ballet for Taglioni.3 The danseuse might have taught a lesson to the poet. She raised the invention of the maître de ballet4 into poetry; Mr. Meredith takes a poetical conception and degrades it into that of a ballet-girl:—

  [quotes “Phantasy” VIII, lines 2–4]

  This whim of thrusting bald realities into poetry reaches its climax in the lines headed “By the Rosanna.” The poem opens with a life-like description of the “torrent river,” and the dash of its waters is caught happily in the verse. The grandeur of nature, however, only suggests to Mr. Meredith London by gaslight; and, for the Naiad5 who should haunt the solitude, he invokes the “Season-Beauty,” who, in this case, seems to be an inveterate jilt. After other profound questions touching the lady, he demands,—

  [quotes “By the Rosanna,” lines 73–76]

  Of course there is a philosophy running through this doggerel, and we subscribe to the writer’s doctrine when he says,—

  If Sentiment won’t wed with Fact,

  Poor Sentiment soon needs perfuming. [“By the Rosanna,” lines 93–94]

  —Still, the “fact,” however plain, must have a poetic life in it. Of course there may be such life in a cabman; but to find it we must see the man’s nature, not merely the “short neck” and “many capes” which represent him here. Mr. Meredith’s forced transitions from the ideal to the prosaic are merely an outrage upon taste. The versatility at which he aims is admirable when shown within the limits of Art, but worthless as easy when it transgresses them.

  The absurdities of this volume are the more to be lamented because, in spite of them, it displays some fine qualities. There is an Autumnal Ode, for instance, which, though not free from the author’s besetting vagueness, has noble passages. The wild evening finds its faithful mirror and the wind its own turbulent chant in the lines that follow:—

  [quotes “Ode to the Spirit of the Earth in Autumn,” lines 28–46]

  Few readers, we think, will deny the poetic feeling and the truth of observation which our extract reveals. But if these gifts are to produce a lasting result, Mr. Meredith must add to them a healthier purpose, a purer taste and a clearer style.

  Notes

  1. “Modern Love and Poems of the English Roadside, with Poems and Ballads,” Athenaeum (31 May 1862): 719–20. In Meredith: The Critical Heritage (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1971), Ioan Williams attributes the review to J. W. Marston, but Athenaeum’s index does not corroborate this.

  2. See excerpt of Massey’s essay in the “Nineteenth-Century Poetics” section for more details regarding the Spasmodic school of poetry.

  3. ballet for Taglioni: Giselle, ou Les Wilis, first performed in Paris in 1841 and in London in 1842. Marie Taglioni (1804–1884) was a leading ballerina of the Romantic era, but Giselle was created for ballerina Carlotta Grisi, not Taglioni.

  4. maître de ballet: ballet master

  5. Naiad: water nymph

  A. C. Swinburne, Spectator (1862)1

  Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) was a cosmopolitan poet, playwright, and literary critic who wrote for the Fortnightly Review, the Athenaeum, and the Spectator—among other periodicals. His poetry, starting with his Poems and Ballads (1866), is associated with the Decadent and Art for Art’s Sake movements. A friend of D. G. Rossetti’s since their Oxford days, Swinburne shared a house in London with him, William Michael Rossetti, and Meredith from 1862 to 1863. A direct response to Hutton’s Spectator review (provided earlier), Swinburne’s passionate defense of Modern Love asks readers to judge the quality of Meredith’s verse for themselves and censures Hutton’s review for (what Swinburne regards as) its insolence and old-fashioned demand that poetry take conventionally moral positions thereby limiting its “scope of sight” to “the nursery walls.” We include here Hutton’s printed editorial response to this letter.

  Sir,—I cannot resist asking the favour of admission for my protest against the article on Mr. Meredith’s last volume of poems in the Spectator of May 24th. That I personally have for the writings, whether verse or prose, of Mr. Meredith a most sincere and deep admiration is no doubt a matter of infinitely small moment. I wish only, in default of a better, to appeal seriously on general grounds against this sort of criticism as applied to one of the leaders of English literature. To any fair attack Mr. Meredith’s books of course lie as much open as another man’s; indeed, standing where he does, the very eminence of his post makes him perhaps more liable than a man of less well-earned fame to the periodical slings and arrows of publicity. Against such criticism no one would have a right to appeal, whether for his own work or for another’s. But the writer of the article in question blinks at starting [sic] the fact that he is dealing with no unfledged pretender. Any work of a man who has won his spurs, and fought his way to a foremost place among the men of his time, must claim at least a grave consideration and respect. It would hardly be less absurd, in remarking on a poem by Mr. Meredith, to omit all reference to his previous work, and treat the present book as if its author had never tried his hand at such writing before, than to criticize the Légende des Siècles,2 or (coming to a nearer instance) the Idylls of the King, without taking into account the relative position of the great English or the greater French poet. On such a tone of criticism as this any one who may chance to see or hear of it has a right to comment.

  But even if the case were different, and the author were now at his starting-point, such a review of such a book is surely out of date. Praise or blame should be thoughtful, serious, careful, when applied to a work o
f such subtle strength, such depth of delicate power, such passionate and various beauty, as the leading poem of Mr. Meredith’s volume: in some points, as it seems to me (and in this opinion I know that I have weightier judgments than my own to back me) a poem above the aim and beyond the reach of any but its author. Mr. Meredith is one of the three or four poets now alive whose work, perfect or imperfect, is always as noble in design as it is often faultless in result. The present critic falls foul of him for dealing with “a deep and painful subject on which he has no conviction to express.” There are pulpits enough for all preachers in prose; the business of verse-writing is hardly to express convictions; and if some poetry, not without merit of its kind, has at times dealt in dogmatic morality, it is all the worse and all the weaker for that. As to subject, it is too much to expect that all schools of poetry are to be for ever subordinate to the one just now so much in request with us, whose scope of sight is bounded by the nursery walls; that all Muses are to bow down before her who babbles, with lips yet warm from their pristine pap, after the dangling delights of a child’s coral;3 and jingles with flaccid fingers one knows not whether a jester’s or a baby’s bells. We have not too many writers capable of duly handling a subject worth the serious interest of men. As to execution, take almost any sonnet at random out of the series, and let any man qualified to judge for himself of metre, choice of expression, and splendid language, decide on its claims. And, after all, the test will be unfair, except as regards metrical or pictorial merit; every section of this great progressive poem being connected with the other by links of the finest and most studied workmanship. Take, for example, that noble sonnet, beginning

  We saw the swallows gathering in the skies, [“Modern Love” XLVII]

  a more perfect piece of writing no man alive has ever turned out; witness these three lines, the grandest perhaps of the book:

  [quotes “Modern Love” XLVII, lines 5–7]

  but in transcription it must lose the colour and effect given it by its place in the series; the grave and tender beauty, which makes it at once a bridge and a resting-place between the admirable poems of passion it falls among. As specimens of pure power, and depth of imagination at once intricate and vigorous, take the two sonnets on a false passing reunion of wife and husband; the sonnet on the rose; that other beginning:

  [quotes “Modern Love” XX, lines 1–3]

  And, again, that earlier one:

  All other joys of life he strove to warm, [“Modern Love” IV, line 1]

  Of the shorter poems which give character to the book I have not space to speak here; and as the critic has omitted noticing the most valuable and important (such as the “Beggar’s Soliloquy,” and “The Old Chartist,” equal to Béranger4 for completeness of effect and exquisite justice of style, but noticeable for a thorough dramatic insight, which Béranger missed through his personal passions and partialities), there is no present need to go into the matter. I ask you to admit this protest simply out of justice to the book in hand, believing as I do that it expresses the deliberate unbiassed opinion of a sufficient number of readers to warrant the insertion of it, and leaving to your consideration rather their claims to a fair hearing than those of the book’s author to a revised judgment. A poet of Mr. Meredith’s rank can no more be profited by the advocacy of his admirers than injured by the rash or partial attack of his critics.

  —A. C. Swinburne

  [We insert this gladly, from personal respect to our correspondent, whose opinion on any poetical question should be worth more than most men’s, but must reiterate that it was not after a hasty, but the most careful study of Mr. Meredith’s book that we passed our judgment upon it, a judgment which would not have been so severe had not Mr. Meredith earned a right to be judged as a man of some mark. We do not know to what school Mr. Swinburne may allude as writing the childish-moral poetry. No eminent poets of the kind are known to us. —Ed. Spectator.]

  Notes

  1. Algernon C. Swinburne, “Letter to the Editor,” Spectator (7 June 1862): 632–33.

  2. La Légende des Siècles: a poem by French author Victor Hugo

  3. child’s coral: teether

  4. Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780–1857), French poet, songwriter, political satirist; Chapman and Hall published a translation of his songs in 1847.

  Frederick Maxse, Morning Post (1862)1

  Although he dedicated Modern Love to his friend Frederick Maxse, Meredith nevertheless asked the young captain to review the volume for the Morning Post. Maxse’s review was based upon a partial manuscript of the volume, and despite minor criticisms, is little more than a puff piece. “You should have whipped me on the score of the absurdities, obscurities, and what not. I feel you have been sparing me, and though I don’t love the rod, I don’t cry for mercy,” Meredith wrote to Maxse after reading it.2

  All lovers of literature have long been aware that among the large group of authors now distinguishing the country, there is no more rising man than Mr. George Meredith; neither is it necessary with them, as it may be with the ordinary reader, to warn against the confusion of his name with that of Mr. Owen Meredith.3 George Meredith has been slow in acquiring his audience; but the audience once gained remember his last words and wait patiently for the next, their number steadily increasing, and desertion not known among them. Excepting a small but remarkable volume of verse which appeared 10 years ago, his claim on the public has been purely as a prose writer, first in the Shaving of Shagpat, where, in the license of Oriental romance, he gave legitimate proof of a brilliancy of imagination which he has since, however tempting the circumstances, sternly subdued to the requirements of art; secondly, in the Ordeal of Richard Feverel, perhaps somewhat too blunt in its truth, too indifferent in a better stuff to the mere velvet of morality, and injudiciously interrupted by the contents of a certain “Scrip of Proverbs,” which, though original and striking by themselves, serve to trip the heels of most readers without obtaining the attention which is their due; yet, notwithstanding these drawbacks, a book wherein a real master seizes the mind with Carlyle-like fascination from the first page to the last, and niches one character, that of Adrian, the stomach-philosopher, a permanent figure in memory; and, lastly, in Evan Harrington, in which, the rapidity of work for weekly issue allowing no time for that vigorous condensation Mr. George Meredith has the rare strength to apply, the public received a better opportunity of learning the prolific conception and vast store of humour, pathos, and fancy he has so abundantly and unrestrictedly at command, and impressing both reader and critic with the richness yet reserved.

  In the present instance it is a volume of poetry with which Mr. George Meredith favours us, dedicated to Captain Maxse, R. N. Hitherto it has been the poet writing prose; but if an author possesses the power of being concrete with any sense of music, there can be no doubt but what his proper field is that of verse, no there can be none that it is the higher form of expression and the surer mode of influence. This, notwithstanding Mr. Disraeli’s dissertation on the matter,4 and his dictum that it is time to have done with the “barbaric clash of rhyme”—a sentiment implying a preference for the diffuseness of little to the concentration of much, and of fatal encouragement to several voluminous writers, who would be so much improved were they occasionally to exercise themselves with the trammels of verse. It is a good sign when a writer returns to poetry after a due performance in prose; it shows an increase of power and a genuine vitality in the muse, in contradistinction to the mere lyrical exuberance of youth which puts out at 19 the one thin volume of verse, and henceforth finds an easy exhaustion in prose. It is the later desire for the concentration of “thick coming fancies” away from prose that marks the true poet, and which with high satisfaction we find in George Meredith. Also, because poetry is so much worthier of the twofold nature perceivable in this author’s writings, the “androgynal”5 nature which Coleridge has remarked as appertaining to great, but which more properly belongs to “poetical,” minds, and which feminine intuit
ion is indispensable to the poet, the two married natures combining largeness of sympathy with keenness of instinct. The volume now published is characterised by this qualification, and it is the more striking on account of the rugged force there is in the verse. There is a strength reactionary from the tenderness, a tenderness approved by the strength, and a creation arising from the two which, if taken up in any way but superficially, must permanently establish its author’s reputation. But, alas! there is so much smooth and glib verse current that it is doubtful whether there is any very large public left with a sense of what is fine and subtle. The slightest obscurity or difficulty in a passage, though the passage contain a true diamond, will intimidate those who have become accustomed to seize paste with avidity; and, therefore, while George Meredith’s poetry is appreciated by the few preserving their purity, it is doubtful whether it will become popular until these leaders have made it standard.

  Still, while certain of the eventual acknowledgement of this writer’s claim to repute, we may in common with other well-wishers desire that he would cast less often mantles of obscurity over some of his very finest passages. It may be desirable perhaps that all readers should equally enjoy cerebral exercise with poetic sympathy; but the combination of taste is not that of any large public, as Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Robert Browning both discovered, though but the former to profit by. It is not want of simplicity with which Mr. George Meredith can be charged as a rule, for it exists in the most frequent and homely manner; but apparently only spontaneously. There seems some obstinacy to adopt that high essential when the idea has once fallen in its first crude and vigorous obscurity.

  The present publication opens with a ballad entitled “Grandfather Bridgeman”—stirring and bright as only an English brook can be, and equally strong and healthy under its passing cloud; after which comes the most important piece in the volume, a poem in 50 sonnets, entitled “Modern Love.” The tale told is the hidden and inner tragedy of a false love which is flowing blackly beneath the semblance of a happy married life:—