GEORGE MEREDITH'S LETTERS 239 realist and idealist in one : luckier than Shakespeare, than Goethe, he came at an hour when the mists were melting from the face of knowledge and it had become possible for an heroic spirit to test all things anew for itself. More inveterately honest than any man of his time save Carlyle, and with far more than Carlyle's power of brain and steady, sanguine pressure of soul, Meredith set himself to prove know- ledge anew, and built up his vision of life block by block, shirking nothing from sentiment or shame, beginning with the pagan roots and rising to a clear height above the creeds — and to read these letters is to watch him actually making that tremendous traverse. He begins with the earth and builds up. " For my part, I love and cling to the earth as the one piece of God's handiwork that we possess."
- ' The way to the spiritual life lies in the complete
unfolding of the creature, not in the nipping of his passions. An outrage to Nature helps to extinguish his light. To the flourishing of the spirit through the healthy exercise of nature." " Never attempt to dissociate your ideas from the real of life. It weakens the soul ; and, besides, it cannot be done — and again, it is a cowardly temporary escape into delusion, clouding the mind." These are thoughts, indeed, that recur in the novels, they form the quick heart of his songs ; yet we are so framed that the sight of them in the making and in action moves us more than exhortations and swift verse. Here are the poems before condensation. We watch the creed being carved. He is not floated marvellously into the empyrean, there to orate. He climbs before our eyes ; we count the steps as they are cut and hear the ring of the axe. The body and the body's needs come first; its dependence on soils and outer airs and coloured skies : *' Let men make good blood, I constantly cry. I hold that to be rightly materialist
