George Meredith

From Philosopedia

Meredith, George (12 February 1829 - 18 May 1909)

One of England’s greatest novelists, Meredith wrote cerebral works that contained psychological character studies. Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) is one of the Hampshire-born writer’s best-known works.

Even in his “late boyhood,” he “detested religion,” but not, according to his biographer R. E. Sencourt, Christianity as he interpreted it for himself. In his novels as well as in his poetry, he includes his belief in evolution - in life as a process of becoming.

Of Meredith, Joseph Mazzini Wheeler in 1889 said,

• Deep thought and fine grace characterise his writings. As a poet Mr. Meredith is not popular, but his volumes of verse are marked by the highest qualities and give him a place apart from the throng of contemporary singers.

Meredith made numerous references to Darwin, Swinburne, and Renan as well as emphasized “the creative activity of nature” as the sole source of life and energy.

He was one of the earliest members of the General Council of the Secular Education League, according to Nineteenth Century (April 1911), and he corresponded with freethinker G. W. Foote as well as “gave his name as well as his cheque” to the support of the Freethinker. In 1883, he protested against Foote’s imprisonment for blasphemy, and in one of his letters spoke of the fight against the priests as the best of causes.

Contemporary critics praise Meredith for his joyful belief in life as a process of evolution. Edward Clodd, who knew Meredith well, wrote in his Memories that Meredith wrote to him,

• When I was quite a boy I had a spasm of religion that lasted six weeks, but I never since have swallowed the Christian fable.

Meredith worked as a reporter, read for a book publishing company, and was a war correspondent. Among the writers he encouraged was Thomas Hardy and Olive Schreiner.

In 1849, he married widow Mary Ellen Nichols, who was seven years older than he - she became the role model for many of his heroines. It was not a successful marriage. She eloped with an artist in 1858, leaving their one surviving child with him, and shedied three years later.

On 13 April 1909, Meredith wrote a letter to Theodore Watts-Dunton on the death of Swinburne, which had taken place three days previously.

• He was the greatest of our lyric poets - of the world, I could say, considering what a language he had to wield.

On April 23, he wrote to Foote, enclosing a contribution to the Freethinker Fund, and this was almost certainly the last letter he ever wrote. On May 4, he said: “Nature is my God and I trust in her.”

His remains were cremated at Woking. There was no religious service, but when the ashes were buried at Darking Cemetery, Foote reported, “a clergyman muttered some Anglican prayers.” That same day, in Westminster Abbey, “the Dean conducted with great ceremony a requiem service.”

Freethinkers, however, have been most inspired by Meredith’s own thought about finality:

Into the Earth that gives the rose

Shall I with shuddering fall?

{BDF; CE; CL; FO; Freethinker (20 October 1912); Freethinker, January 1998; FFRF; JM; RE; TRI; TYD}