THE TRAGIC COMEDIANS

A STUDY IN A WELL-KNOWN STORY

By George Meredith

1892



BOOK 1.


The word 'fantastical' is accentuated in our tongue to so scornful an
utterance that the constant good service it does would make it seem an
appointed instrument for reviewers of books of imaginative matter
distasteful to those expository pens. Upon examination, claimants to the
epithet will be found outside of books and of poets, in many quarters,
Nature being one of the prominent, if not the foremost. Wherever she can
get to drink her fill of sunlight she pushes forth fantastically. As for
that wandering ship of the drunken pilot, the mutinous crew and the angry
captain, called Human Nature, 'fantastical' fits it no less completely
than a continental baby's skull-cap the stormy infant.

Our sympathies, one may fancy, will be broader, our critical acumen
shrewder, if we at once accept the thing as a part of us and worthy of
study.

The pair of tragic comedians of whom there will be question pass under
this word as under their banner and motto. Their acts are incredible: