His imaginative sympathy enabled him to see the woman's point of view in poetry and fiction; it does not seem to have extended to his life. Thus, his biography is to a great extent a "showing-up" of George Meredith. He proved as incapable of keeping the affection of his son Arthur, as of keeping that of his wife. Much as he loved the boy he had not been married again long before he allowed him to become an alien presence. The boy felt he had a grievance. He said--probably without justice--that his father kept him short of money. Possibly he was jealous for his dead mother's sake. Further, though put into business, he had literary ambitions--a prolific source of bitterness. When Arthur died, Meredith did not even attend his funeral. Mr. Ellis has shown Meredith up not only as a husband and a father, but as a hireling journalist and a lark-devouring gourmet. On the whole, the poet who could eat larks in a pie seems to me to be a more shocking "great man" than the Radical who could write Tory articles in a newspaper for pay. At the same time, it is only fair to say that Meredith remains a sufficiently splendid figure in. Mr. Ellis's book even when we know the worst about him. Was his a generous genius? It was at least a prodigal one. As poet, novelist, correspondent, and conversationalist, he leaves an impression of beauty, wit, and power in a combination without a precedent. (2) THE OLYMPIAN UNBENDS Lady Butcher's charming _Memoirs of George Meredith_ is admittedly written in reply to Mr. Ellis's startling volume. It seems to me, however, that it is a supplement rather than a reply. Mr. Ellis was not quite fair to Meredith as a man, but he enabled us to understand the limitations which were the conditions of Meredith's peculiar genius. Many readers were shocked by the suggestion that characters, like countries, must have boundaries. Where Mr. Ellis failed, in my opinion, was not in drawing these as carefully as possible, but in the rather unfriendly glee with which, one could not help feeling, he did so. It is also true that he missed some of the grander mountain-peaks in Meredith's character. Lady Butcher, on the other hand, is far less successful than Mr. Ellis in drawing a portrait which makes us feel that now we understand something of the events that gave birth to _The Egoist_ and _Richard Feverel_ and _Modern Love_. Her book tells us nothing of the seed-time of genius, but is a delightful account of its autumn.