"The Ordeal of Richard Feverel — Volume 4" by George Meredith is a novel published in 1859. After his wife abandons him, Sir Austin Feverel raises his son Richard under "the System"—a strict educational plan designed to control every aspect of the boy's life, especially contact with women. When Richard secretly marries Lucy Desborough against his father's wishes, Sir Austin's efforts to separate them set off a chain of events involving seduction, betrayal, and a fateful duel that tests whether human passion can truly be controlled by rational systems. (This is an automatically generated summary.)