Secondly, a paean half of praise and half of regret for the vanishing
England, passing so rapidly even as he writes into 'a new England which
tries so hard to be unlike the old.' A deeper and richer note of
thankfulness, mixed as it must be with anxiety, for the good old ways of
English life (as lamented by Mr. Poorgrass and Mark Clark[25]), old English
simplicity, and old English fare--the fine prodigality of the English
platter, has never been raised. God grant that the leaven may work! And
thirdly there is a deeply brooding strain of saddening yet softened
autobiographical reminiscence, over which is thrown a light veil of
literary appreciation and topical comment. Here is a typical _cadenza_,
rising to a swell at one point (suggestive for the moment of Raleigh's
famous apostrophe), and then most gently falling, in a manner not wholly
unworthy, I venture to think, of Webster and Sir Thomas Browne, of both of
which authors there is internal evidence that Gissing made some study.
[Footnote 24: 'I love and honour even the least of English landscape
painters.'--_Ryecroft_.]
[Footnote 25: 'But what with the parsons and clerks and school-people and
serious tea-parties, the merry old ways of good life have gone to the
dogs--upon my carcass, they have!'--_Far from the Madding Crowd_.
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