and always looked forward to a savage life as to a bath that would cleanse him, so that it did not much matter his being unclean for the present."
The present sorry scheme of things also suffers him to
wander the streets in temporary bankruptcy:[1]
"He continued strolling on, comparing the cramped misty
London aspect of things with his visionary free dream of the
glorious prairies, where his other life was: the forests, the mountains,
the endless expanses; the horses, the flocks, the slipshod
ease of language and attire; and the grog-shops. Aha! There
could be no mistake about him as a gentleman and a scholar out
there! Nor would Nature shut up her pocket and demand innumerable
things of him, as civilization did. This he thought
in the vengefulness of his outraged mind."
Meredith keeps on the trail of this luckless youth with
something of the relentlessness with which Blifil, Reverend
Collins, Mrs. Norris, and Mrs. Proudie are pursued;
but he gives a good Meredithian reason for it. Twice
he takes the trouble to explain him, both times on the
grounds of realism:[2]
"So long as the fool has his being in the world, he will be a
part of every history, nor can I keep him from his place in a narrative
that is made to revolve more or less upon its own wheels.
- * * for the fool is, after his fashion, prudent, and will
never, if he can help it, do himself thorough damage, that he may learn by it and be wiser."
Again, an incident is followed by comment. Algernon,
being loggy after a dinner at the Club, fancies himself melancholy
and profound:[3]
"'I must forget myself. I'm under some doom. I see it now.
Nobody cares for me. I don't know what happiness is. I was
