Look back then at Harry Richmond, and it is obvious that Harry himself
is all the subject of the book, there is no other. His father and his
grandfather, Ottilia and Janet, belong to the book by reason of him;
they stand about him, conditions of his life, phases of his career,
determining what he is and what he becomes. That is clearly Meredith's
thought in undertaking this chronicle; he proposes to show how it
makes the history, the moral and emotional history, of the man through
whom it is uttered. Harry's adventures, ambitions, mistakes,
successes, are the gradual and elaborate expression of him, complete
in the end; they round him into the figure of the man in whom Meredith
saw his book. The book started from Harry Richmond, the rest of it is
there to display him. A youth of considerable parts and attractions,
and a youth characteristic of his time and country, and a youth whose
circumstances are such as to give him very free play and to test and
prove him very effectually--there is the burden of Meredith's saga, as
I call it, and he never forgets it, though sometimes he certainly
pushes the brilliant fantasy of the saga beyond his strict needs. The
romance of the blood-royal, for instance--it would be hard to argue
that the book honestly requires the high colour of that infusion, and
all the pervading thrill that Meredith gets from it; Richmond Roy is
largely gratuitous, a piece of indulgence on Meredith's part.
Pages:
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144