George Meredith aet 68

George Meredith at 68

Mrs Seymour Trower

1896

Photograph

Source: Frontispiece, Vol. XXII of the Memorial Edition

The Seymour Trowers of Weybridge, Surrey, were close friends: Meredith's nickname for Mrs Henry Trower, who took this photograph, was "Lady Bytheway." He had been reluctant to sit for her, asking her if she really wished for "a portrait of a sick ancient, with a dead eye of the two under the crumbling brows" — he complained in other letters of suffering from ulcerated or inflamed eyelids (Letters II: 486).

Image obtained from the Internet Archive (see below), and text by Jacqueline Banerjee.