ABSTRACT
Mr George Gissing is the biographer of the Unfortunate. He looks at life through tinted spectacles from which every touch of rose-colour has been carefully excluded; all the world is drab to him, save for a black spot or two where wretchedness has led to crime. Being well acquainted with these facts we opened Human Odds and Ends with feelings the-reverse of those one entertains in releasing the cork of a champagne bottle; and we were not what is called 'pleasurably disappointed.' At the same time we have known Mr Gissing in a more depressed condition. Three out of the thirty short stories of which the volume is composed end quite cheerfully; this must have cost him something, and we thank him for it. Nevertheless, most of them, as is usual with his writings, strike one as true to life, which is indeed a sad business with too many people. Some ofthe stories are concerned with vagabonds, and it is curious to mark the contrast between himself and Stevenson when treating of this class of persons. The latter author makes them almost always cheery; with Mr Gissing they are as gloomy as undertakers when business is slack. They do not, indeed, take their pleasure sadly, but that is because they have no pleasures. When he has a very melancholy story to tell, such as 'A Day ofSilence', he seems to 'do his work injoy intense, as when an earthquake smacks its mumbling lips o'er some thick peopled city'; he thorougWy enjoys himself In the present work he has developed a new system of aggravating the reader; instead ofgiving a bad end to his story, he gives us none at all. At the same time he proves himself a most diligent student of human
