owes his unmasking first to Clara Middleton, then to Letitia Dale. Vernon Whitford and Matey Weyburn, poor pedagogues though they are, are given the opportunity to show themselves true men because they have the approbation of two noble women. These women, all of them, to which many of the minor characters may be added, from the buxom, bustling Mrs. Berry to the faithful Madge, constitute a gallery that few novelists can equal.

At this point the figure breaks down, for these people are not mere portraits in a gallery; they are living beings in the everyday world not outlined profiles on white paper, not flat flesh tints on canvas, not even daguerreotypes in cases, not crayons on the walls, not photographs in albums - they are women in the home, on the train, in the ballroom, in the parlor, at country picnics, in continental cities, in fact, everywhere. No one has ever suggested an illustrated edition of Meredith's novels. Could any artist improve our own picture of Mrs. Berry pulling off her own wedding ring for Richard to marry Lucy? Could any book illustrator draw for us Clara Middleton, "a dainty rogue in porcelain"? Who wants any more vivid picture of Lady Mountfalcon than the novelist himself draws? This power of the writer, this power of fixing vividness in words, of forcing reality into print, is so apparently one of his greatest merits that an entire study might be made of it alone. We believe this faculty to be keener at seizing fine shades, in appreciating subtleties of the characters and dispositions of women than it is in grasping these same things in the natures of men. Men's characters offer few chances of nice discrimination, it is true; and Meredith may not have attempted in this instance a feat he may have considered unnecessary. When he does need to delineate the delicate nuances of men's feelings he does it, we believe, better than other novelists, but not quite so well as when he treats women. Meredith approaches more nearly to Shakespeare through the characters of his women than he does through the characters of his men - though, of course, the approach in this single detail leaves a wide gap. We consider this statement more fitly applicable to Meredith than to M. Maeterlinck, of whom it has been unreservedly hinted by many reviewers, and positively asserted by more than one critic.

Realizing that it is an ungracious, as well as an ungrateful, task to group the characters of an author in distinctive classes nicely labelled, we believe that all readers can distinguish a change among people conceived by the same mind during a peroid of fifty years. We may not insist on any acceptance of the change we are about to indicate, therefore we shall do hardly more than indicate it. This development of the natures of heroines can be made plainer by a comparison with three women delineated by M. Maeterlinck. Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande loves naturally, simply; we shall add, thoughtlessly; yet none the less entirely, forgetfully, passionately. Joyzelle, in the drama of the same name, loves in all three ways except thoughtlessly. She knows what her love for Lancéor means, she really understands every word that Merlin speaks to her. Yet she loves naturally, simply, entirely, forgetfully, passionately. Monna Vanna is an older woman than either Joyzelle or Mélisande; she loved simply, naturally, thoughtlessly as a girl; but that love was long ago, was almost forgotten. When she loves again, she loves as a woman. She loves Prinzwalle not thoughtlessly, not forgetfully, not unknowingly.

The heroines of many of the novels of Meredith suggest a similar intention. Lucy in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel loves Richard passionately; this youth was all mankind to her. Even her maternity, to her only a part of her affection, she almost forgets, much to the pompous regret of Sir Austin. She is not unlike Tennyson's Elaine who died for love of Lancelot, though any comparison accords the superiority to the novelist. In both these sweet young girls there is only one love - the first desire in youth that can be satisfied only with what it demands, that can survive no loss.

The women of the later novels are foreshadowed by Diana who, according to the estimate already quoted from the book, has all the girlish qualities changing to those of the woman. She is endowed with all the impetuousness of the admirer, the steadfastness of the lover, but in addition all the knowledge, independence, intelligence of the mature woman. She furnishes none of the "sweet sensual excitement pertaining to her spotless rival"; her appeal is by another channel, "she

knocks at the mind and the mind must open to be interested in her."

It is through this same channel that the women of the later novels make their appeal. Their lovers open their minds to become interested in Clara, Aminta, and Carinthia, who love not alone where fancy leads; even before their hearts are aware of any choice being made, they pour out their wealth of affection before the men their own minds choose. Peculiarly each woman makes a mistake in a first choice; Clara is dazzled by the egoistic halo about Sir Willoughby, Aminta admires a faroff hero in Lord Ormont, Carinthia makes a supposedly brilliant match. They followed too blindly the advice of their romantic hearts, they did not love with enough mind. From the standpoint of the world, which considers only the material conditions of the men they later choose, how little romance, how small a chance for real love in a life bound with that of a schoolmaster, as Clara's and Aminta's are bound, or with the life of the widower of a former friend, as the life of Carinthia is bound! Not great matches, these, from a material aspect, surely; but great in mutual confidence, in mutual sacrifice, in common purpose. These noble, clear-browed, straight-in-the-eye women must have beamed with a kindliness, a quickness, a humor, worthy of Meredith's best-loved immortal, the Muse of the Comic Spirit herself.

IV

As Meredith has not clearly explained his idea of Fate we dare not read our own opinions into his utterances. For the future, he bids us strive on to some better condition of society, a condition he suggests by showing its need, not its nature. He would have all of us working like his own good teachers and schoolmasters, "plowing to make a richer world."

Pausing for an instant to apply Coleridge's dictum of æsthetic criticism, what are the portions of these novels that we recall most vividly, that we return to with greatest pleasure? The scenes that are remembered best are lyrical in nature, or in treatment the product of the poet. Longest perhaps will remain that scene of budding love in Richard Feverel and Lucy.

Two other incidents from the same book come to mind; the winning of the hero by the beautiful erring Lady Mountfalcon; and Richard's lonely night in the German mountains, finding peace after storm in the sense of protection over the little coney. The passionate love scenes of Emilia will not soon fade away, contrasted as they are so vividly with Wilfrid Pole's weakness in affection. In Beauchamp's Career there is the beautiful dawn upon Venice. Finally, everyone who thinks of Lord Ormont and His Aminta feels the clasp of the waters and the warmth of the sun as Matey and Browney swim out to sea together.

It would be difficult to make an admirer of Meredith believe that he preaches a creed of pessimism, or loss of hope. What his faith is makes no difference, it has the spirit of true religion. Into the mouth of Diana he puts these comforting words for us to remember and cherish:

"Who can really think, and not think hopefully? When we despair or discolor things it is our senses in revolt, and they have made the sovereign brain their drudge. There is nothing the body suffers that the soul may not profit by, with that I sail into the dark; it is my promise of the immortal."

St. Louis, Missouri.

CLARENCE STRATTON.

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

The idea has always prevailed that an attempt to acquire new knowledge is a sin against God; that knowledge is the exclusive right of Deity. Nowhere do we find this brought out more clearly than in the old Hebrew story of Adam and Eve, the story of man's first reaching after knowledge.

For uncounted

ages man has been reaching out, his hunger for truth overcoming his fear of God's voice; but it is only in the light of man's latest discoveries that we can begin to appreciate the meaning of this world-old passion for finding out the secrets of the Most High. It is only by the aid of that science which religion has so feared and condemned that we can find the deeper spiritual significance of this simple folk-tale told by a primitive people to explain the facts of life-temptation, sin, death, labor, sorrow, and pain.

It is a strange thing that the act which theology labels "The Fall of Man" was man's first attempt to become "as God." It is a strange thing that in the mind of the scriptural writer God's first "Thou shalt not" shut humanity away from the Tree of Knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge which has brought man up from the beasts of the field and made him "a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor."

Yet this story, repeated perhaps through centuries of oral tradition, written down at last by some scribe whose name we do not know, is possessed of such wondrous appeal that millions of people of all times and races have accepted it as the Word of God. Why? Because there is something in the soul of man, whether he be primitive or modern, savage or enlightened, that responds, an inborn sense of guilt that makes him hide himself from his Maker.

And yet in strange contrast to this is the fact that man has always known that knowledge was man's right. Throughout all the ages the path of progress has been the path of knowledge, and the literature and history of all times have extolled wisdom and exalted wise men. How then shall we reconcile this con