Complete Short Works of George MeredithMeredith, George
General
Complete Short Works of George Meredith
Meredith, George
English fiction -- 19th century
When that noble body of scholarly and cheerful pedestrians, the Sunday
Tramps, were on the march, with Leslie Stephen to lead them, there was
conversation which would have made the presence of a shorthand writer a
benefaction to the country. A pause to it came at the examination of
the leader’s watch and Ordnance map under the western sun, and void
was given for the strike across country to catch the tail of a train
offering dinner in London, at the cost of a run through hedges, over
ditches and fellows, past proclamation against trespassers, under
suspicion of being taken for more serious depredators in flight. The
chief of the Tramps had a wonderful calculating eye in the observation
of distances and the nature of the land, as he proved by his discovery
of untried passes in the higher Alps, and he had no mercy for pursy
followers. I have often said of this life-long student and philosophical
head that he had in him the making of a great military captain. He would
not have been opposed to the profession of arms if he had been captured
early for the service, notwithstanding his abomination of bloodshed.
He had a high, calm courage, was unperturbed in a dubious position, and
would confidently take the way out of it which he conceived to be the
better. We have not to deplore that he was diverted from the ways of
a soldier, though England, as the country has been learning of late,
cannot boast of many in uniform who have capacity for leadership. His
work in literature will be reviewed by his lieutenant of Tramps, one
of the ablest of writers!--[Frederic W. Maitland.]--The memory of it
remains with us, as being the profoundest and the most sober criticism
we have had in our time. The only sting in it was an inoffensive
humorous irony that now and then stole out for a roll over, like a furry
cub, or the occasional ripple on a lake in grey weather. We have nothing
left that is like it.
One might easily fall into the pit of panegyric by an enumeration of his
qualities, personal and literary. It would not be out of harmony with
the temper and characteristics of a mind so equable. He, the equable,
whether in condemnation or eulogy. Our loss of such a man is great, for
work was in his brain, and the hand was active till close upon the time
when his breathing ceased. The loss to his friends can be replaced only
by an imagination that conjures him up beside them. That will be no task
to those who have known him well enough to see his view of things
as they are, and revive his expression of it. With them he will live
despite the word farewell.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY
LETTERS WRITTEN TO THE MORNING POST FROM THE SEAT OF WAR IN ITALY FROM
OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
FERRARA, June 22, 1866.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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