ABSTRACT
In A Life's Morning, as in the book last considered, we have an illustration ofthe Second Commandment in the shape ofan innocent daughter suffering vicariously for a blameworthy father; and the two works resemble each other also in making study of character their primary object. Yet though the object is the same, the manner of treating it differs widely. For in A Life's Morning, motives are exhaustively gone into and examined, instead of merely glanced at from the outside; the sketches are not lightly outlined, but painted in laboriously with a multiplication of touches that occasionally produces the heaviness liable to result from over-elaboration; the prevalent tint is rather sombre than cheerful; existence is seen to be a serious, often painful, and not at all humorous affair, affording ample food for reflection, but little or none for laughter. And though Mr Gissing's performance may be the result of more thought and care than that of Mr" Christie Murray,* and display talents of a deeper and more SQlid nature, we doubt its being as much approved of as the other by the majority of readers. * Author of The Weaker Vessel, a drawing-room comedy which had been earlier considered by the reviewer as clever, entertaining and irremediably superficial.
