It is true, again, that his London-street novels lack certain
artistic elements of beauty (though here and there occur glints of rainy or
sunset townscape in a half-tone, consummately handled and eminently
impressive); and his intense sincerity cannot wholly atone for this loss.
Where, however, a quiet refinement and delicacy of style is needed as in
those sane and suggestive, atmospheric, critical or introspective studies,
such as _By the Ionian Sea_, the unrivalled presentment of _Charles
Dickens_, and that gentle masterpiece of softened autobiography, _The
Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft_ (its resignation and autumnal calm, its
finer note of wistfulness and wide human compassion, fully deserve
comparison with the priceless work of Silvio Pellico) in which he indulged
himself during the last and increasingly prosperous years of his life, then
Gissing's style is discovered to be a charmed instrument. That he will _sup
late_, our Gissing, we are quite content to believe. But that a place is
reserved for him, of that at any rate we are reasonably confident. The
three books just named, in conjunction with his short stories and his _New
Grub Street_ (not to mention _Thyrza_ or _The Nether World_), will suffice
to ensure him a devout and admiring group of followers for a very long time
to come; they accentuate profoundly the feeling of vivid regret and almost
personal loss which not a few of his more assiduous readers experienced
upon the sad news of his premature death at St.
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