By the roadside you pass
occasionally a mantled pool, where perchance ducks or geese are
enjoying themselves; and at times there is a pleasant glimpse of
farmyard, with stacks and barns and stables. All things as simple as
could be, but beautiful on this summer afternoon, and priceless when
one has come forth from the streets of Clerkenwell.
* * * * *
'Danbury Hill, rising thick-wooded to the village church, which is
visible for miles around, with stretches of heath about its lower
slopes, with its far prospects over the sunny country, was the
pleasant end of a pleasant drive.'--(_The Nether World_, pp.
164-165.)
The first part of this description is quite masterly--worthy, I am inclined
to say, of Flaubert. But unless you are familiar with the quiet,
undemonstrative nature of the scenery described, you can hardly estimate
the perfect justice of the sentiment and phrasing with which Gissing
succeeds in enveloping it.
Gissing now turned to the submerged tenth of literature, and in describing
it he managed to combine a problem or thesis with just the amount of
characterisation and plotting sanctioned by the novel convention of the
day.
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