The work of
fine delicacy and reserve, the work that follows, lacking the real
originality, is liable to neglect, and _may_ become the victim of ill-luck,
unfair influence, or other extraneous factors. Yet on the whole, so
numerous are the publics of to-day, there never, perhaps, was a time when
supreme genius or even supreme talent was so sure of recognition. Those who
rail against these conditions, as Gissing seems here to have done, are
actuated consciously or unconsciously by a personal or sectional
disappointment. It is akin to the crocodile lament of the publisher that
good modern literature is neglected by the public, or the impressionist's
lament about the great unpaid greatness of the great unknown--the
exclusively literary view of literary rewards. Literature must be governed
by over-mastering impulse or directed at profit.
But _New Grub Street_ is rich in memorable characters and situations to an
extent unusual in Gissing; Biffen in his garret--a piece of genre almost
worthy of Dickens; Reardon the sterile plotter, listening in despair to the
neighbouring workhouse clock of St. Mary-le-bone; the matutinal interview
between Alfred Yule and the threadbare surgeon, a vignette worthy of
Smollett.
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