"George Meredith aet 72"
Mortimer Menpes (1860-1938)
Dry point etching
Source: frontispiece to the Memorial Edition of Diana of the Crossways
Volume XVI (1910)
This is one of the best likenesses of Meredith, by a fine artist. Raymond Blathwayt, a journalist, memoirist and minor celebrity of the silent screen, recalls meeting him the artist's studio, in the company of his old friend Admiral Maxse (the inspiration for the title character in Meredith's Beauchamp's Career of 1876). [Commentary continues below.]
Scanned image and text by Jacqueline Banerjee.
Maxse had brought Meredith along to see Menpes' new portrait of Lady Lytton. Meredith was not very impressed at first, but then his enthusiasm was kindled:
"There, George!" cried the Admiral, as Menpes placed the beautiful picture in a fitting light — "there, George, isn't that something too perfect for this world at all?"
Mr. Meredith said: "Yes, oh yes ; it's a very nice picture of a very charming woman."
"' A very nice picture of a very charming woman!'" groaned the Admiral; " why, you talk as if it wasn't Pamela at allI"
"But, my dear Fred, I think she is beautiful, but you don't seem to think she belongs to this earth at all."
"Well, George, if you had seen her getting out of that cab last night in the amber light of a street lamp, as I saw her, you wouldn't have thought she belonged to this earth either. Now, George, after looking at Menpes' picture of her, I feel sure you must be roused enough to write a nice verse to go with the portrait, and another one afterwards to go with Lady Granby's portrait of her."
George Meredith was evidently smitten with the idea, and he argued out all the details with the Admiral in that wonderfully resonant voice of his, a voice beside which even [the actor] Lewis Waller's magnificent organ paled its comparatively ineffectual fires, and with a superb use of the English language, to which it was a real intellectual treat to listen, though not always very easy to follow. And what a picture the old man presented, with his singularly beautiful head and a tie of a certain quality of red, exactly, whether by careful design or sheer haphazard, calculated to emphasize and bring out and contrast with the charming silver hair and beard and' the artistic grey of his loose and easy-fitting suit. (216-17)
This invaluable portrait of Meredith is little known but perfectly accords with what what we do know about him — the quick enthusiasm, the quality of his voice, the way he held forth (impressive but "not always very easy to follow!), and the fine figure he struck (not at all by chance or "sheer haphazard"). Menpes has caught him wonderfully well, looming out of shadow, perhaps in that same "easy-fitting suit," leaning forward with his usual intensity of gaze and with his right hand forward as if he is ready to grasp his pen for the next poem.
Sources
Blathwayt, Raymond. Through Life and Round the World, Beingthe Story of My Life. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1917. Internet Archive. Web. 5 May 2013.
Meredith, George. Diana of the Crossways. Memorial Edition. Vol. XVI. New York, Scribner's, 1910. Internet Archive. Web. 5 May 2013.
Last modified 5 May 2013