[15] The white,
maidenish and silk-haired fairness of Sidwell, and Peak's irresistible
passion for the type of beauty suggested, is revealed to us with all
Gissing's wonderful skill in shadowing forth feminine types of lovelihood.
Suggestive too of his oncoming passion for Devonshire and Western England
are strains of exquisite landscape music scattered at random through these
pages. More significant still, however, is the developing faculty for
personal satire, pointing to a vastly riper human experience. Peak was
uncertain, says the author, with that faint ironical touch which became
almost habitual to him, 'as to the limits of modern latitudinarianism until
he met Chilvers,' the sleek, clerical advocate of 'Less St. Paul and more
Darwin, less of Luther and more of Herbert Spencer':--
'The discovery of such fantastic liberality in a man whom he could not
but dislike and contemn gave him no pleasure, but at least it disposed
him to amusement rather than antagonism. Chilvers's pronunciation and
phraseology were distinguished by such original affectation that it
was impossible not to find entertainment in listening to him. Though
his voice was naturally shrill and piping, he managed to speak in head
notes which had a ring of robust utterance.
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