New-York tribune., 1905-07-01
GEORGE GISSING.
The Last Book Left By a Brilliant
NoUehst.

By George Gissing 12mo, pp SS2. E. P Dutton
& Co.
THE GOLDEN FLooB 3;uss BY Edwin IN LefeVre' lSr'0'
THE HoITsE IN THE MIST. BY Anna Katharine
Green 12rno PIP. 1i9. Indianapolis: The booDS-
Merrill Company.
The late George Gissing enjoyed Ialr
measure of success before he died Ihoush ne
did not make his fortune. he was aPpiecid'eu
by readers whose opinions were worth having
he was taken seriously, and that must nave
given him pleasure which no reward in money
o,,a bave enualled Yet even among those
who for years had been faithful TO MN d ne"
sentiment was created by his later books Ihey
saened 10 deepen the friendliness which hao
come to be his portion. and at his death crlucs
found themselves regretting the loss Win d
keenness which they had scarcely eApeceeo e'ei
to confess The explanation lies III ehe ie9'
that as Gissng neared the END Oh MS Cal eei
he ,,ut into his work an extraordinary poignancy
of feeling To say that Ii was the sauiieSS u
his own physical condition. the melanchoiy SUI
perinduced by prolonged Ill health that mace
his books touching, is to appreheno oiis |
most obvious side of the matter. No doubt the
depression of the invalid had some erect upon
his work but the source of the charm OF MS
ing of his heart and brain
IF "Rv the Ionian Sea" is beautiful DOOR, IL
"a hecause the author Of it had deVeiopeo' pe-
cause be had seen more of life, had felt more
and had found more to say. 1t is the same WIN
.eThe Private Papers of Henry RyecroIt 1t 10
the same with "Veranilda, and 1t is the saiiie
with the last book Of all, "W1u Warourton'
This romance OF real life, as it is called IN a
subtitle is the perfected and purified sequel
To all those gray stories of London In whlch
Gissing too persistently struck the note OF lIIoi
erable squalor. Those were good DOCKS, poohS
we are glad to possess, but there Is no denying
that with all their merit, they leave bad
taste in the mouth. Their truth lies on the sur
face. and so, they command ourzrespect; puI
their bitterness. their pessimisn. cannot but
keep us from taking genuine delight in their
pages The facts are sound; the perspective is a
trihe distorted With "Win Warburton" all Is
changed 1t is as If, in his last few years, Gls-
sing came into his own. saw life steadily and
saw it whole, and raised himself to a higher
plane OF literary creation. The hero is the klnd
of man one would naturally look for in a book OF
Gissing's, and he has Just such prosaic advent
ures as we have been accustomed to observe in
this authors works. But Will Warburton's
character is better balanced than is that of any
of his old predecessors, and his adventures, If
prosaic, are never touched by that utterly op-
pressive dinginess which at one time had
thought inseparable from everything that Gis
sing wrote Warburton is an honest man. and
he thoroughly engages our sympathies. He be-
gins life in business of some Importance. we
take leave of him behind a grocer's counter,
but never for moment does he lose his essen
tial dignity of soul. On the contrary, Warbur
ton is nobler at the end than at the beginning.
There are other figures in the book from whom
part with less liking, but here as elsewhere
we realize how much the novel owes to the
spirit in which it written. Gissing had not
lost sight Of the dreary conditions which for so
many years cost him so much pain as a student
of his fellow men, He had not ceased to know
the face of sorrow. But, looking into that face
with more and more insight, he learned richer
lesson, and watched the travail of the world
with a wiser, a stronger and sweeter feeling
Consciously or unconsciously, he gives us a
glimpse Of his philosophical growth in this
passage wherein his hero looks back in adver-
sity to what. in a worldly sense, were better
days:
for hour after hour TIL his head whired and pi his
ing sunshine upon the wet roofs; a pale blue now
like this with eyes for nothing but the beauty and
self, a wiser now than then? Did he not see
into the truth OF things whereas, formerly he had
seen only the deceptive surface? There should he
some solace in this reflection if he took it well to
heart.
All through the book are aware of Gissins's
own frmer grasp on the truth of things, of his
own broadening and melIowing. AT the same
time it is not, repeat, the appeal of his per-
sonality that concerns US; the power of the
book is of that wholly impersonal character
which we find, rule, only in the art Of the
masters. Something kept Gissing from rising In
every respect to the stature of a master Per
haps We must look for his limitations in mat
ters of style; perhaps he failed to achieve the
very finest triumphs. because he had not the
ample sweep, the magical variety; of sheer
genius. Yet, within his limits, he was an un-
commonly gifted man, and his later books
show, he had. above all things. the gift of heart
There is an almost painful tenderness in ''Will
Warburton" it is painful in its intensity. Giss-
ing's whole nature interpenetrated with
sympathy when he wrote it. and he clothed the
fabric of his imagination in fine feeling as in
garment. He is grave and humorous by turns in
this book. and always he is man full of under
standing and compassion.
''The Golden Flood is the story of a young
man who. for reasons of his own took to MAX
ing weekly descents upon great New-York
bank and depositing in its care little slips of
paper representing millions of dollars. The
special point to these dollars resided in the fact
that they stood for much actual gold. The
president of the bank could not, for the life of
him. guess where his depositor got the metal
When the richest man in the world was called
in to assist the president in solving the mys-
terry he too nonpiussed. And still the
tide of gold rolled in. Where did it come from?
What was IT for? Why it brought into the
field by a young having no obvious rela-
ton to the financial affairs of his time? To an