Diana of the Crossways | Page 2

A BARELY WILLING
WOMAN WAS LED TO BLOOM WITH NUPTIAL SENTIMENT

A lady of high distinction for wit and beauty, the daughter of an
illustrious Irish House, came under the shadow of a calumny. It has
latterly been examined and exposed as baseless. The story of Diana of
the Crossways is to be read as fiction.

DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS

BY GEORGE MEREDITH 1897
BOOK 1.
I. OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE II. AN
IRISH BALL III. THE INTERIOR OF MR. REDWORTH AND THE
EXTERIOR OF MR. SULLIVAN SMITH IV. CONTAINING HINTS
OF DIANA'S EXPERIENCES AND OF WHAT THEY LED TO V.
CONCERNING THE SCRUPULOUS GENTLEMAN WHO CAME
TOO LATE VI. THE COUPLE VII. THE CRISIS VIII. IN WHICH IS
EXHIBITED HOW A PRACTICAL MAN AND A DIVINING
WOMAN LEARN TO RESPECT ONE ANOTHER
CHAPTER I
OF DIARIES AND DIARISTS TOUCHING THE HEROINE
Among the Diaries beginning with the second quarter of our century,
there is frequent mention of a lady then becoming famous for her
beauty and her wit: 'an unusual combination,' in the deliberate syllables
of one of the writers, who is, however, not disposed to personal irony
when speaking of her. It is otherwise in his case and a general fling at
the sex we may deem pardonable, for doing as little harm to
womankind as the stone of an urchin cast upon the bosom of mother
Earth; though men must look some day to have it returned to them,
which is a certainty; and indeed full surely will our idle-handed
youngster too, in his riper season; be heard complaining of a strange
assault of wanton missiles, coming on him he knows not whence; for
we are all of us distinctly marked to get back what we give, even from
the thing named inanimate nature.
The 'LEAVES FROM THE DIARY OF HENRY WILMERS' are
studded with examples of the dinner-table wit of the time, not always
worth quotation twice; for smart remarks have their measured distances,
many requiring to be a brule pourpoint, or within throw of the pistol, to
make it hit; in other words, the majority of them are addressed directly
to our muscular system, and they have no effect when we stand beyond
the range. On the contrary, they reflect sombrely on the springs of

hilarity in the generation preceding us; with due reserve of credit, of
course, to an animal vivaciousness that seems to have wanted so small
an incitement. Our old yeomanry farmers--returning to their beds over
ferny commons under bright moonlight from a neighbour's
harvest-home, eased their bubbling breasts with a ready roar not unakin
to it. Still the promptness to laugh is an excellent progenitorial
foundation for the wit to come in a people; and undoubtedly the diarial
record of an imputed piece of wit is witness to the spouting of laughter.
This should comfort us while we skim the sparkling passages of the
'Leaves.' When a nation has acknowledged that it is as yet but in the
fisticuff stage of the art of condensing our purest sense to golden
sentences, a readier appreciation will be extended to the gift: which is
to strike not the dazzled eyes, the unanticipating nose, the ribs, the
sides, and stun us, twirl us, hoodwink, mystify, tickle and twitch, by
dexterities of lingual sparring and shuffling, but to strike roots in the
mind, the Hesperides of good things. We shall then set a price on the
'unusual combination.' A witty woman is a treasure; a witty Beauty is a
power. Has she actual beauty, actual wit? --not simply a tidal material
beauty that passes current any pretty flippancy or staggering
pretentiousness? Grant. the combination, she will appear a veritable
queen of her period, fit for homage; at least meriting a disposition to
believe the best of her, in the teeth of foul rumour; because the well of
true wit is truth itself, the gathering of the precious drops of right
reason, wisdom's lightning; and no soul possessing and dispensing it
can justly be a target for the world, however well armed the world
confronting her. Our temporary world, that Old Credulity and
stone-hurling urchin in one, supposes it possible for a woman to be
mentally active up to the point of spiritual clarity and also fleshly vile;
a guide to life and a biter at the fruits of death; both open mind and
hypocrite. It has not yet been taught to appreciate a quality certifying to
sound citizenship as authoritatively as acres of land in fee simple, or
coffers of bonds, shares and stocks, and a more imperishable guarantee.
The multitudes of evil reports which it takes for proof, are marshalled
against her without question of the nature of the victim, her temptress
beauty being a sufficiently presumptive delinquent. It does not