New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-12-30
GEORGE GISSING.

1t is just twenty years since the late George
Gissing published his first book, THE I'm
classed,' and, through the individuality and
sincerity of the work, convinced discerning
readers that writer worth watching had arisen
in English fiction. Down to the time of his
death, which was reported in yesterdays papers,
he had put something over twenty volumes TO
his credit, nearly all of them novels. These
novels stamp their author as an uncompromis-
ing realist, preoccupied with the gloomier and,
we may even say, the more squalid aspects OF
middle class life in London. Yet it would be
an injustice to place him. now that his work is
ended in the category to which. at first sight,
he might seem to belong. 1t is true that he
had a prediction for sordid themes. and that
many of his books profoundly depressing
But George Gissing differed from most of his
fellow realists in that he never left the impress
sion Of being enamoured Of the commonplace
for its own sake.
He had no kinship with the slum photog
rapher. The last thing in the world that he
ever thought of was the mere surface aspect
Of things. Always he was moved by genuine
sympathy for mankind. by passionate interest
in the great human drama If he gravitated
chiefly toward the scenes in that drama which
are laid in a huge city's obscurer quarters, it
was largely, we believe, because he had heart
gested by the poignant feeling which marks
his stories One may be saddened by them,
but one is never bored or disguised, for in
every one Of these books a serious issue is
handled in all good faith. The author does not
drive at Grass pessimism; he seeks ever to make
his reader acquainted with life on thoughtful
grounds. Gissing had, too, unusual power as
writer. he gave vitality to '"The UnclaSSed,"
THE whirlpool and the rest, not simply be-
cause he packed them with the fruits of accu-
rate observation, but because he knew how to
| handle his instruments, and, in exhibiting the
| play of character, used the expedients OF a
literary artist. In its kind there has never been
better book written than his New Grub
| Street" work which ought long ago to have
been reprinted in this country. If he had the
/ instincts of humanitarian he had also, in full
measure, those of the born novelist.
| Late in his career he disclosed gifts which
suggested that even If he had never written
| fiction he would have earned for himself an
| honorable place among men Of letters. Travel,
according to 'Who's Who" was his recrea-
| ton, and as the end drew near he was driven
more than once to the South in search OF health.
1t was, in fact, at St Jean-de-Luz, in the
| Pyrenees, that he died last Monday. In 1901
| he went to Sicily, and in the papers his
| sojourn there, which he brought out under the
| title Of "By the Ionian Sea-" he set forth the
| impressions of a scholar, man Of ina glnation,
| a poet and a romanticist All his life long, it
| was made plain, he had nourished an enthusi-
asm for the classics and for beauty in every
! form. He wrote Of ancient literature and his
toric scenes with the rapture of the devotee to
! whom a page from the heroic past has SAVIOR
which nothing in the present can hope to give,
| and though now and then his ingrained mel
ancholy would make itself felt, his tone, in the
MAN, was one of deep joy in the things Of the
| spirit. His last book, THE Private Papers of
Henry RyecrOft," a collection of meditative
| fragments attributed to a fictitious character,
but obviously photographed to a great ex-
tent, is in places almost gloomy the novels,
| but it contains, too, much OF the spiritual
stimulus which makes "By the Ionian Sea" so
charming. Looking back over Gissing's work,
and realizing all that the two books just cited
| imply in his nature, we cannot but feel that
in him we have lost realist Of far nobler quail
tiles than are usually suggested by the term.