Before we pass on to the two expansive movements in which the Victorian
Age really ended, the accident of a distinguished artist is available
for estimating this somewhat cool and sad afternoon of the epoch at its
purest; not in lounging pessimism or luxurious aberrations, but in
earnest skill and a high devotion to letters. This change that had come,
like the change from a golden sunset to a grey twilight, can be very
adequately measured if we compare the insight and intricacy of Meredith
with the insight and intricacy of Mr. Henry James. The characters of
both are delicate and indisputable; but we must all have had a feeling
that the characters in Meredith are gods, but that the characters in
Henry James are ghosts. I do not mean that they are unreal: I believe in
ghosts. So does Mr. Henry James; he has written some of his very finest
literature about the little habits of these creatures. He is in the deep
sense of a dishonoured word, a Spiritualist if ever there was one. But
Meredith was a materialist as well. The difference is that a ghost is a
disembodied spirit; while a god (to be worth worrying about) must be an
embodied spirit.
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