Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/235

SIR W. ROBERTSON NICOLL 209 had the wisdom to quote Love in the Valley, which he justly called a very charming, rhythmical, and melodious poem. . . . Every boy finds out some lyrics which he takes to his heart, and Love in the Valley was chosen by me, along with Sydney Dobell'u In the Hall the Coffin waits, Alexander Smith's The Garden and the Child, and some of Tennyson's. Tennyson read the lines in The Critic, and said he could not get them out of his head, such was their magical music and melody. The poem, in fact, has its sure place in the golden scriptures of love. It should be reprinted in its original form, with the lines which Meredith added after publication, but never gave to the public. There is a copy of the 1851 book, interleaved with notes and corrections and additions by the author, which ought to be published in its completeness. I quote this — the opening paragraph of the opening essay on Meredith — because it seems to me to reflect, so exactly, the two leading qualities, blended so rarely, which we referred to just now — Claudius Clear's power, on the one hand, of minute, concrete recollection, and, on the other, exercised simul- taneously, the generous play of a soaring enthusiasm. There are not many men in England who could trace their knowledge of Meredith so exactly and with such an accompaniment of bookish facts ; but there are probably none who could pass instantly from the exercise of that faculty to that delighted acclama- tion about "the golden scriptures of love." Golden scriptures of love don't interest bibliographers. People capable of raptures for such scriptures have no heads for facts and dates. But sense and sensi- bility, in the case of Claudius Clear, work always happily together; and much of this book's special character springs directly from the constant inter- play of these two elements of exactness and enthusiasm — cold memory performing its business- like feats whilst emotion whirls passionately by its side. The combination recurs here, in a slightly different Men of Letters. 25