ABSTRACT
Not exactly optimism, but a certain colourable imitation of optimism gradually found its way into George Gissing's later novels, which were written far away from London, in the sunshine, and in comparative prosperity. It is, however, the irony ofhis career that his work, though always good, was only great when it was gloomy. The final word of criticism will surely be that his best books were those which he wrote 'in exile'-the books, that is to say, in which he expressed the hopeless yearnings after the life ofleisure, culture, and ideals ofsome weak but high-minded hedonist, detained in the prison of sordid and banal circumstances. He wrote as a man who had rung all the changes on that joyless experience. It was his one great emotional discovery-his one new and original contribution to the common stock of fiction. It would be hard to name anyone of his novels except Veranilda in which the note is not sounded, more or less loudly; but those of them which leave the most ineradicable impression on the reader's mind are those like New Grub Street, in which the ironies of the situation are most elaborately worked out. One remembers such books as one remembers some hideous nightmare. They depend for their effect altogether upon the theme, and the point of view, and the bitter perception ofthe ironies, and not in the least upon the drama, or the dialogue,
or the drawing of character. The same helpless hedonist reappears in book after book, and goes under in the struggle, much as do the helpless idealists in Tchekoff's short stories. The secret of their power lay in the author's proximity to his subject; he not only had been, but actually was, at the time ofwriting, a part ofwhat he told. In the end, more successful than his own heroes, he found his way back from exile, and was able to live, ifnot exactly as he would have liked to live, at least in a manner approximately in consonance with his aspirations; but, from the point ofview ofhis art, he had escaped too late. He was tired, and had lost his receptivity. His first generalization about life had lost the poignant actuality which gave the earlier books the painfully true ring. No second generalization of equal force and value came to take its place. The technical skill remained. The stories were always well written and well constructed; the life, when it was within the range of the writer's observation, was always well observed. He tended, however, more and more, to write of things and persons beyond the reach of his experience, with a certain forced cheerfulness which seemed clumsy, like a man who was weary and had no longer anything particular to say. We should praise Will Warburton highly if anyone but Gissing had written it; but he himself set the standard by which he must be judged. Estimated by that criterion, it must take a lower place among his novels; for he only says in it feebly what, in other books, he has said forcibly. The best thing in it is the study ofthe girl-we must not call her the heroine-Rosamund Elvan, drawn to illustrate Gissing's favourite theory about women-to wit, that those of them whom successful men find most charming are in reality selfseeking creatures, blind to ideals, and incapable ofsacrifice. It is a theory, like another, easy to support by generalizing from a single instance. The weakness of Gissing's exposition of it is always the same; he makes such a woman's selfishness so much more apparent than her charm that we are left wondering what on earth was the secret of her fascination. That is certainly the case with Rosamund; and Rosamund, after all, is only an inferior replica ofanother similar character, studied with much more care, in New Grub Street. This last reflection, in fact, might be passed on the book as a whole. It is characteristic Gissing, but not good Gissing. His familiar effects are reproduced in a fainter form than of old, and there are no new effects indicating how, with further experience of life, his talents would have developed.
