Since "Resemblances between the life and character of Hazard are not disclaimed but are much fewer than the author would like," we can take Hazard [of Hazard, the Painter] as Meredith's model of an admirable man as well as his opportunity to speak of himself in the third person—perhaps not such a surprising tactic in a poet so decorous and diffident, but a very surprising one in a poet who has spoken so beautifully for himself in his own person so often in the past.

In devising a persona through whom he will talk, Meredith places his voice at too far a remove from his experience (Hazard's experience is of course Meredith's, whether historically true or not); the voice becomes so elusive that Meredith is often in danger of vanishing from his own poetry…. [We] realize with acute discomfort that we're hearing Meredith talking about how Meredith...