The New York herald., 1922-11-26
CHRONICLE AND
COMMENT pAaTII4F fI af1Hus MAURICE
NTEssRs. LoNGMANs, GREEN & co.

MESSRS. LoNGMANS, GREEN & co.
AsA have just published George Gis-
sing; an Appreciation" by May Yates.
For years in the United States there have
been many ayowed admirers of Gissing's
work, and through glib and frequent allu-
sion his name has become fairly familiar
to American readers in general. But for
all that there has never been real Gis-
sing audience In this country, and there is
never likely to be one. In the first place
to understand Gissing superficial knowl-
edge of London is. not enough. Mere ac-
quaintance with Trafalgar Square, the
hotels OF Northumberland avenue, the
Tower, the Bank and Piccadilly Circus
leaves the reader who dips into "Thyrza"
or "The Year of Jubilee" or "The Town
Traveller" as puzzled as If he had never
strayed from his west Pennsylvania fire.
side. For it is not London but the vari-
Gus component parts of London that live
In Gissings books.
( NlSSlNG wrote of Lambeth, or Gambler
~ well, or Hoxton as the mood or the
particular residence of the month or year
moved him. Much more than the New
Yorker ever thought of Harlem or York
vile or Chelsea the Londoner thinks of
the particular sections of his own city.
The name Bayswater conjures up in his
mind highly respectable, monotonous
drah irxcf of
Rotherhithe suggests a monotonous drab-
ness that is not essentially respectable
Gissings favorite milieu was a world of
endless streets of "decently depressing"
houses shabby, dirty, neglected, obscure;
a world where shrubs and trees are rarely
TO be seen, where flowers are quite un-
known. "The streets of London are ter
rible to one who is both lonely and un-
happy" he makes one of his characters
say, 'the Indifference of their hard
egotism becomes fierce hostility; instead
of merely disregarding they crush"
ONELY and unhxppy! Gissing was
- always lonely ard unhappy. Occa-
sionally he tried to think OF his life as
romantic but the ffort required to do
so was painfully and patiently artificial
At one period in the seventies he was for
a time in America and Germany; then he
returned to London to write literally for
daily bread. He has recorded: Il see
the alley hidden on the west side of Tot
tenham Court road, where, after living
m a hq had ho 10 10 Il
to exchange to the front cellar; there
was difference, If l remember rightly,
of sixpence week, and sixpence in those
days was very great consideration
why, it meant couple OF mealsi
The front cellar was stone floored: it's
furniture was a table, chair. a wash
stand and bed; the window, which, of
course, had never been cleaned since it
had been put in, received light through
fiat grating in the alley above Here l
lived; here sorote. Yes literary work
was done at that filthy deal table, on
which, by the bye, lay my Homer, my
Shakespeare and the few other books |
then possessed"
TNHERE is unquestionably a great deal
of humbug written about the joys of
the literary and artistic bohemia Of
course it is not Intentionally humbug.
But the writing man or the painter who
has achieved affiuenee sees the privations
of his youth through a softening haze
Thackeray, for example, receiving 100
guineas apiece from the COfnhiH for his