ABSTRACT
Mr George Gissing is the English Balzac of middle-class suburban life. The tragedy of its respectability, its genteel inanities, its dulness and vulgarities is depicted with convincing and unexaggerated truthfulness. The stamp of sincerity is on all that Mr Gissing writes. His last story, The Paying Guest, the new volume of Messrs Cassell's Pocket Library, contains in a minute compass many ofhis frnest qualities. It is a faithful record of what is, after all, not much worth recording; its worth comes in that it is all so finely observed, so admirably well executed. The scene is a genteel suburban residence in Sutton. A young, not too well off: couple sufficiently refined are tempted to take a 'paying guest' . Louise Derrick, the guest in question, is the fatherless daughter of a grossly vulgar and violent-tempered mother, who has lately married again a rich City man. Between Louise and her stepsister there is no love lost. Miss Derrick herselfhas been fairly educated, she is lawless, self-willed. She has no distinction or delicacy of perceptions, but she is good-natured, has a certain rough sense of justice, and she recognises and is impressed by the superior manners and culture ofher host and hostess. She takes a liking to them and to her new surroundings. The irruption of this young woman into the well-ordered domestic household is as that of the familiar bull in a china shop, and the consequences are as disastrous. Her unromantic love affairs are presented with touches ofquiet humour that help somewhat to relieve the sombre sordidness of an ignoble comedy. Mr Thomas Cobb, the successful suitor, with his brutality of plain speech, his commonness and sturdy honesty, is not attractive, yet he interests us. Almost every figure in the book interests, only because it is so alive. Mr Gissing's style is admirable. There is not a bungling touch throughout marring the clearness of his execution.
