glorious savagery of Merovingian Courts, the kingdom of Frederick II., the
Moors in Spain, the magic of Renaissance Italy--to become a citizen of any
one age means a lifetime of endeavour. It is easy to fill one's head with
names and years, but that only sharpens my hunger.' In one form or another
it recurs in practically every novel.[12] Certain of the later portions of
this book, especially the chapter entitled 'Her Path in Shadow' are
delineated through a kind of mystical haze, suggestive of some of the work
of Puvis de Chavannes. The concluding chapters, taken as a whole, indicate
with tolerable accuracy Gissing's affinities as a writer, and the pedigree
of the type of novel by which he is best known. It derives from Xavier de
Maistre and St. Pierre to _La Nouvelle Héloïse,_--nay, might one not almost
say from the _pays du tendre_ of _La Princesse de Clèves_ itself.
Semi-sentimental theories as to the relations of the sexes, the dangers of
indiscriminate education, the corruptions of wretchedness and poverty in
large towns, the neglect of literature and classical learning, and the
grievances of scholarly refinement in a world in which Greek iambic and
Latin hexameter count for nothing,--such form the staple of his theses and
tirades! His approximation at times to the confines of French realistic art
is of the most accidental or incidental kind. For Gissing is at heart, in
his bones as the vulgar say, a thorough moralist and sentimentalist, an
honest, true-born, downright ineradicable Englishman. Intellectually his
own life was, and continued to the last to be, romantic to an extent that
few lives are. Pessimistic he may at times appear, but this is almost
entirely on the surface. For he was never in the least blasé or ennuyé. He
had the pathetic treasure of the humble and downcast and unkindly
entreated--unquenchable hope. He has no objectivity. His point of view is
almost entirely personal. It is not the _lacrimae rerum_, but the _lacrimae
dierum suorum_, that makes his pages often so forlorn. His laments are all
uttered by the waters of Babylon in a strange land. His nostalgia in the
land of exile, estranged from every refinement, was greatly enhanced by the