[1] In temperament and
vitality he is palpably inferior to the masters (Dickens, Thackeray, Hugo,
Balzac) whom he reverenced with such a cordial admiration and envy. A 'low
vitality' may account for what has been referred to as the 'nervous
exhaustion' of his style. It were useless to pretend that Gissing belongs
of right to the 'first series' of English Men of Letters. But if debarred
by his limitations from a resounding or popular success, he will remain
exceptionally dear to the heart of the recluse, who thinks that the scholar
does well to cherish a grievance against the vulgar world beyond the
cloister; and dearer still, perhaps, to a certain number of enthusiasts who
began reading George Gissing as a college night-course; who closed _Thyrza_
and _Demos_ as dawn was breaking through the elms in some Oxford
quadrangle, and who have pursued his work patiently ever since in a
somewhat toilsome and broken ascent, secure always of suave writing and
conscientious workmanship, of an individual prose cadence and a genuine
vein of Penseroso:--
'Thus, Night, oft see me in thy pale career...
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings.
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