Between them _Rhoda Fleming_ (1865), returning to English country life, showed, with the old characteristics of expression, tragic power superior perhaps to that of the end of _Feverel_.

In fact some have been inclined to put _Rhoda_ at the head.
In 1875 _Beauchamp's Career_ showed the novelist's curious fancy for studying off actual contemporaries; for it is now perfectly well known who "Beauchamp" was: and four years later came what the true Meredithian regards as the masterpiece, _The Egoist_.

Two other books followed, to some extent in the track of _Beauchamp's Career, Diana of the Crossways_ (1886), utilising the legend of Mrs.Norton's betrayal of secrets, and _The Tragic Comedians_ (1881), the story of the German socialist Lassalle.

The author's prediction, never hurried, now slackened, and by degrees ceased, but the nineties saw three books, _One of Our Conquerors_ (1891), _Lord Ormont and his Aminta_ (1894), and _The Amazing Marriage_ (1895).
No bibliography of Mr.Meredith being here necessary or possible, smaller and miscellaneous things need not detain us; and we are not concerned with his sometimes charming verse.

It is the character, and especially the "total-effect" character, of the major novels with which we have to do.