But it is not worth while to linger here; the use of the
first person has other and more interesting snares than this, that it
pretends to disguise unmeaning, inexpressive form in a story.
Now with regard to Harry Richmond, ostensibly it _is_ rather like a
chronicle of romantic adventure--not formless, far from it, but freely
flowing as a saga, with its illegitimate dash of blood-royal and its
roaring old English squire-archy and its speaking statue and its quest
of the princess; it _contains_ a saga, and even an exceedingly
fantastic one. But Harry Richmond is a deeply compacted book, and
mixed with its romance there is a novel of another sort. For the
fantasy it is only necessary that Harry himself should give a picture
of his experience, of all that he has seen and done; on this side the
story is in the succession of rare, strange, poetic events, with the
remarkable people concerned in them. But the aim of the book goes far
beyond this; it is to give the portrait of Harry Richmond, and that
is the real reason why the story is told. All these striking episodes,
which Harry is so well placed to describe, are not merely pictures
that pass, a story that Meredith sets him to tell because it is of
high interest on its own account. Meredith's purpose is that the hero
himself shall be in the middle of the book, with all the interest of
the story reflected back upon his character, his temper, his growth.
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