The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-10-08

Oo0
George Meredith is a very able, very
brilliant man. Some OF his novels. with
marked blemishes, are yet indicative of
high Intellectual power, and perhaps
even genius. His prose style has been
much discussed and often ridiculed.
He writes with much of splendor n
power, while very obscure and almost
rugged at times. OF his poetry WE know
so little we may wen admit we know
nothing. We have read two or three
short poems that have appeared from
time to time. He is ambitious to be
considered a poet, and there are those
who write in somewhat an enthusiast
tic strain of his best productions. He
published a long time 6 n little
poem he called Love in h Valley
that gave hin fame and was highly
priced. He published a volume Of
verse as far back as 1857; another vol
ume followed in 1862; again in 1883, and
afterwards in 1887 other volumes fol-
lowed. OF these various volumes we
suppose not n reader in 1000 in the
United States ever so much as heard.
Recently he has published a volume of
selections, and he is up for fresh dis
cussion among the critics of leading
newspapers and magazines. One of the
questions considered is, Is Meredith
really a poet or a mere
builder Of verse by force of mental re-
sources? Mr.. Stoddard, now nearly IA,
is an American poet and critic, and we
are often impressed with the purity of
his taste as with the sanity and sober
sincerity of his critical judgments. We
give our readers the benefit of a very
recent deliverance of his on Meredith's
new vOlume-the best of what he has
written. We copy only a few sentences
but it is very intelligent, clearly and
cleverly done He writes in the New
York Mail and Express:
"Is Mr.. Meredith a poet? Nc. Not in
the sense that Keats was, that Lord
Tennyson. was, that Browning was,
and the proof of this want of poetic
capacity and poetic mastery on his
part is the fact that he has not written
poems which are SO complete in them
selves, and so satisfactory to their
readers, that they never think Of criti-
1919 ~ SAAAA ASNSA LIN ~ ~
tiful, so noble, so perfect, that the
world will not willingly let them die.
And yes. But only in the sense that
Wolfe was, that Beddoes was, that
barley was, among the mOderns; and
among the ancients at intervals, at
least, Carew, Lovelace, Sucking and
one or two more gifted ~JacObeans and
CarOlinians. = : Their worst defect
or one of their worst defects-is a lack
of intellectual clarity, and uncertainty
of vision, an obscurity of expression
and an irritating ignorance of fluent
melodies. They are hard to read; some
times they are hard to understand.
s. They do not interest us, they do
not compel us to sympathize with
them. They are willful, they are OBJ
scure; they lack distinctiveness, and
they lack distinction The lyrics do not
sing in the ear of their readers; the
mythology is meaningless; the medic
valism is monotonous; the personality
is not pOetical."
If you would read an old fashioned
novel, full of love and purity, Of home
life and human life, sweet and health
full, and worth a dozen Of the latter
day psychological and semi-scientifc
stories, read John Halifax" It has
been read with exceeding pleasure by
sensible, educated people for a half CEN
fury, it preserves all of it's old, pure,
home like charm, for we read it again
not very long since, and it is still read
by a large clientage who prefer the
moral and elevating and domestic and
simple and real to the high-flown, in
tensely passionate, efflorescing stories
that come from the press by the scores
and hundreds.
Kipling's novel-his first-"Captains
Courageous"-has appeared in book
form. When appearing serially it was
sharply, and we think, unwisely criti-
cised. We read a part and found it full
of life and mental vigor and very spir-
tied and robust. In fact it revealed in a
new field the marvellous powers of this
original writer. He shows he is at
home in a long as in a short story. We
hope to read all of it. We fall back
upon the critic of The New York Tri-
bune for his opinion:
1.-The picture of American fisher-life
is fa~scinatingly true and captivating;
Kipling's humOr shines through the
book IND in a dozen other directions it
makes a strong appeal. But the passion
of the sea is in the story, and it is this
that gives it an incomparable charm"