Los Angeles herald., 1909-09-19
Ry w. HERBERT BLAKE

George Meredith and Thomas
Il Hardy comes, of course, from the
jaunty and carefree Gilbert X. Chester
ton. 1 say "of COURSE" because one is
getting used, nowadays, to hearing
that proverbial last word on any con-
ceivable subject in theology, sociology
or the ordinary facts of life said most
convincingly and buoyantly by the au-
thor of "Heretics' and The Napoleon
of Noting Hill" This facility and
finality of style-a kind of dare devil
authenticity, or hilarious conventional
ity-is about the freshest and most de-
lightful thing in present day criticism.
To those who share Mr.. Chesterton'5
joyously orthodox viewpoint, his philo-
sophy alone atones for the sometimes
elaboration of his tantalizing par
adoxes. For those who do not accept
his premises the tremendous dynamics
of the man-his vivid and valorous op-
timism and his keen-edged repartee-
disarm when sometimes they may not
convince Here is his contrast between
Hardy and Meredith, from the current
Contemporary Review, as incsive in
thought as it is slyly mischievous in
expression:
Hardy and Meredith" says Mr..
Chesterton, ARE, in fact, almost typ
ical antagonists. Mr.. Hardy's stories
always have a moral, and the moral
is that morality has an uncommonly
rotten chance of it. The universe is
made in some dark way a separate
entity which upsets the plans of
blameless and pathetic human beings.
God is the villain in Mr.. Hardy's nov
els; God behaves extraordinarily bad
ly, considering that He does not exist
This queer and irritated attempt to
fix personal responsibility upon an i'm
personal force is little bit shaky in
logic; but it produces a genuine and
passionate atmosphere in art. But
Meredith though in no way orthodox,
is the very antithesis of all this. That
impersonal deity which is Hardy's viii
lain is Meredith's hero and champion.
Nature betrays all the heroines of
Hardy. Nature enters to save all the
heroines of Meredith. The argument
of Hardy is that human beings, with
their brief joys and brittle ideals,
might get on very we'll if the general
wave of the world did not overturn
them or smash them into sticks. The
argument of Meredith is that our little
| lives always stagnate into hypocrisy
or morbidity, unless the general wave
of the world continually refreshes and
recreates US. Hardy maintains that
man is a mere game of the gods.
Meredith on the other hand, maintains
that the gods are a necessity of man.
/ I16 pItlCIS W Scy lliG 6Oho ldhllCA
than Cod but that is a nineteenth
/ century prejudice"
AS an admirer of Hardys unques-
| toned artistry without sharing in the
least his philosophical viewpoint, I
would only add that Mr.. Chesterton
seems to treat too lightly one peculiar
attribute of the author of THE Dy-
| nasts" and "Tess." I mean the search
| ing sorrow of the Hardy style-a grief
as of one who passionately clings to
some overwhelming synthesis of good
| in creation despite what to him are
: overwhelming evidences of cosmic woe
and disaster This lyric note one
catches repeatedly in the piteous story
of "Tess" and also in THE Return of
the Native" 1t is by no means un-
heard in the drab and irrational trag--
edy of Jude" 1t is voiced sadly and
| cunulatively in the choruses of the
Pities in 1.-THE Dynasts." However
much he sneered, Hardy could never
suppress his agony-the anguish of an
| idealist unable to reconcile the mlser1es
of life with his own agnostic and scorn-
full view of the universe. A poet con-
strained by his mental attitude to be .
nationalist, his is perhaps the most
tragic figure in modern literature.
Had Hardy's viewpoint been one OF
affirmative faith rather than suicidal
doubt which destroyed without Great
| ing, what masterpieces HC LAiShb CFoh
| now be writing in that old age which
one imagines must be one long twi-
light of despair! That hazard of what
have been may be futile, and even
rather impertinent, when the novelist
actual achievements are reviewed, but
the thought is inevitable to one who
sorrowfully reads through the miry
pages of Jude" after experiencing the
zest and glee of Far from the Mad
| ding Crowd" and the other earlier
Wessex tales.
| Chesterton and Hardy! There is the
| true antithesis Of present day literary
London-an antithesis which would de-
velop many points of surprising like
ness up to the point at which their
paths diverge, the one on into the fairy
land of faith and assurance, the other
down the darkened way to desperation
and safety!
"The Crime Problem"
A clearly defined distinction between
kindliness and sentimentality is at the
base of the criticism of existing penal
methods as voiced by Col. Vincent
Myron Masten, military instructor at
the New York state reformatory, Ell
mira, N Y, in his book, THE Crime
Problem" A contrast with the British
prison system is made and an earnest