He takes existence
sadly--too sadly, it may well be; but his drabs and greys provide an
atmosphere that is almost inseparable to some of us from our gaunt London
streets. In Farringdon Road, for example, I look up instinctively to the
expressionless upper windows where Mr. Luckworth Crewe spreads his baits
for intending advertisers. A tram ride through Clerkenwell and its leagues
of dreary, inhospitable brickwork will take you through the heart of a
region where Clem Peckover, Pennyloaf Candy, and Totty Nancarrow are
multiplied rather than varied since they were first depicted by George
Gissing. As for the British Museum, it is peopled to this day by characters
from _New Grub Street_.
There may be a perceptible lack of virility, a fluctuating vagueness of
outline about the characterisation of some of his men. In his treatment of
crowds, in his description of a mob, personified as 'some huge beast
purring to itself in stupid contentment,' he can have few rivals. In
tracing the influence of women over his heroes he evinces no common
subtlety; it is here probably that he is at his best. The _odor di
femmina_, to use a phrase of Don Giovanni's, is a marked characteristic of
his books.
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