404 George Meredith's Letters [ 1 9 12 



book with a fuller sympathy to-day than would have been the case 

 two years ago. Apart from this, Tyrrell's account of the Jesuit 

 system is certainly the most convincing that has been published, and 

 this was the chief theme of my letter to Miss Petre. 



' iyth Nov. (Sunday). — I have talked over ' Egypt ' with Ryan, and 

 persist in my intention to resign my chairmanship of the Committee 

 and future connection with the paper. Not that the paper has not 

 been a success on its own lines. On the contrary, it has exercised a 

 wide influence in Mohammedan lands, if little here. But it is clear that 

 under the new conditions brought about by the collapse of the Ottoman 

 Empire, Egyptian patriotism must take a new direction, and I am too 

 old to begin with a fresh policy. Others may do so without inconsis- 

 tency ; I cannot. 



" Belloc dined with us. The Turkish army is still fighting in defence 

 of the Chatalja lines. But the result of the war will be the same — 

 the loss of all the European provinces. 



" 20th Nov. — My resignation of the Chairmanship has been notified 

 to the Egyptian Committee in London, and Rutherford will, I hope, 

 succeed me. In some ways they will get on better without me, as 

 my anti-Imperialism is so notorious that it frightens moderate English 

 Nationalists, and prevents all help being given us in the House of 

 Commons, even among the Irish. Indeed the Irish parliamentarians 

 have become more Imperialistic than our own. It is the Fenians and 

 Sinn Feiners that are pleased with me now, not the men with whom 

 I worked in 1887 ; all these have been converted to English Liberalism 

 Thus I find myself left a solitary figure, pleading an absolutely lost 

 cause among Englishmen, that of Conservative Nationalism. All the 

 rest have gone their ways as Whig Unionists, or Socialistic Interna- 

 tionalists. I console myself as I can by repeating the line, Causa 

 dels placuit victrix sed victa Catoni, but it does not help me far. 



" 22nd Nov. — I have been reading George Meredith's letters, just 

 published. They give one the impression of a tender-hearted man 

 and playful companion, rather than the profound thinker his extreme 

 admirers would have him to be. His style, jerky and obscure though 

 it is, is I think the best feature of his prose. His knowledge of 

 human nature as shown by his novels is quite superficial, a theory of 

 what life ought to be, not of what life is. His only one great work 

 is in verse, his ' Modern Love,' and this he drew as a young man 

 from his own personal experience. The fine ladies in his novels, 

 with their odd characters, are entirely fanciful. They do not exist 

 in English, or any other feminine life, yet they have had a considerable 

 influence on our modern ladies — who like to think themselves as he 

 represents them. He has certainly had a great deal to do with their 

 present sex emancipation. Such women, however, as he describes in 



