ABSTRACT
This is striking, and its force is greatly increased by the numerous other illustrations of the same contention which Mr Gissing's book contains. Yet we remain unconvinced. In the first place, Mr Gissing proves too much. If no novelist ever drew a picture which was not idealized, then the question is one of degree, and we may admit Mr Gissing's premises without drawing his conclusion. Moreover, those other figures of Dickens will not be banished from the mind. Neither can we forget his admiration of George Colman's description of Covent-garden. 'He remembered,' says Forster, 'snuffmg up the flavour of the faded cabbage-leaves as if it were the very breath of comic fiction.' Does not this admiration throw light on Dickens' own art? and, if so, does it point towards idealism?
