DOI article:
Street, George Slythe: Mr. Meredith in Little
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21806#0182
178 Mr. Meredith in Little
“ humble ”—the satire of that word is growing crude—“humble”
and uneducated people. But I notice a growing tyranny
which ordains that people who speak in dialect, people who live
in slums, and the more aggressive and anachronistic order
of Bohemians, and none but these, are fit subjects for books. I
read a story the other day which began, somewhat in the
manner of Mr. G. P. R. James, with two men leaving a club—a
sufficiently democratic Institution nowadays, one would have
thought—and I happened to see a criticism thereon which
objected, not that the story was bad, but that the author was a
snob for having anything to do—any “ truck,” should one say?-—-
with “ clubmen.” Surely there is more to be said for the blatant
snobbery of an earlier time, than for this proletarian exclusive-
ness. The accident of Mr. Meredith’s choice of material is a
consolation.
III
The Case of General Ople and Lady Camper is a brilliant and
delicious farce spoiled, and the uselessness of criticising it may be
mitigated by suggesting the question : Why did Mr. Meredith spoil
it ? It is one I cannot answer. You are presented to a General,
stupid, respectable, complacent. He has been a conqueror of
women in his time ; he is enormously pleased with himself. A
keenly humorous and delightfully malicious woman has reason to
punish him. The punishment she devises is a series of carica-
tures, the mere description of which is irresistibly comic, and the
wretched General is driven by outraged vanity, to show them
appealingly to his friends. The farce is furious as it proceeds, and
you wonder what fitting climax to the ludicrousness is to end it.
And lo ! the climax, a simple intensifying of the torture, is passed,
and
“ humble ”—the satire of that word is growing crude—“humble”
and uneducated people. But I notice a growing tyranny
which ordains that people who speak in dialect, people who live
in slums, and the more aggressive and anachronistic order
of Bohemians, and none but these, are fit subjects for books. I
read a story the other day which began, somewhat in the
manner of Mr. G. P. R. James, with two men leaving a club—a
sufficiently democratic Institution nowadays, one would have
thought—and I happened to see a criticism thereon which
objected, not that the story was bad, but that the author was a
snob for having anything to do—any “ truck,” should one say?-—-
with “ clubmen.” Surely there is more to be said for the blatant
snobbery of an earlier time, than for this proletarian exclusive-
ness. The accident of Mr. Meredith’s choice of material is a
consolation.
III
The Case of General Ople and Lady Camper is a brilliant and
delicious farce spoiled, and the uselessness of criticising it may be
mitigated by suggesting the question : Why did Mr. Meredith spoil
it ? It is one I cannot answer. You are presented to a General,
stupid, respectable, complacent. He has been a conqueror of
women in his time ; he is enormously pleased with himself. A
keenly humorous and delightfully malicious woman has reason to
punish him. The punishment she devises is a series of carica-
tures, the mere description of which is irresistibly comic, and the
wretched General is driven by outraged vanity, to show them
appealingly to his friends. The farce is furious as it proceeds, and
you wonder what fitting climax to the ludicrousness is to end it.
And lo ! the climax, a simple intensifying of the torture, is passed,
and