The subtlety of the portraiture and the economy
of the author's sympathy for his hero impart a subacid flavour of peculiar
delicacy to the book, which would occupy a high place in the repertoire of
any lesser artist. It well exhibits the conflict between an exaggerated
contempt for, and an extreme susceptibility to, the charm of women which
has cried havoc and let loose the dogs of strife upon so many able men. In
_The Whirlpool_ of 1897, in which he shows us a number of human floats
spinning round the vortex of social London,[21] Gissing brings a
melodramatic plot of a kind disused since the days of _Demos_ to bear upon
the exhausting lives and illusive pleasures of the rich and cultured middle
class. There is some admirable writing in the book, and symptoms of a
change of tone (the old inclination to whine, for instance, is scarcely
perceptible) suggestive of a new era in the work of the
novelist--relatively mature in many respects as he now manifestly was.
Further progress in one of two directions seemed indicated: the first
leading towards the career of a successful society novelist 'of circulating
fame, spirally crescent,' the second towards the frame of mind that created
_Ryecroft_.
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