FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51  
52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   >>   >|  
erful skill in shadowing forth feminine types of lovelihood. Suggestive too of his oncoming passion for Devonshire and Western England are strains of exquisite landscape music scattered at random through these pages. More significant still, however, is the developing faculty for personal satire, pointing to a vastly riper human experience. Peak was uncertain, says the author, with that faint ironical touch which became almost habitual to him, 'as to the limits of modern latitudinarianism until he met Chilvers,' the sleek, clerical advocate of 'Less St. Paul and more Darwin, less of Luther and more of Herbert Spencer':-- 'The discovery of such fantastic liberality in a man whom he could not but dislike and contemn gave him no pleasure, but at least it disposed him to amusement rather than antagonism. Chilvers's pronunciation and phraseology were distinguished by such original affectation that it was impossible not to find entertainment in listening to him. Though his voice was naturally shrill and piping, he managed to speak in head notes which had a ring of robust utterance. The sound of his words was intended to correspond with their virile warmth of meaning. In the same way he had cultivated a habit of the muscles which conveyed an impression that he was devoted to athletic sports. His arms occasionally swung as if brandishing dumb-bells, his chest now and then spread itself to the uttermost, and his head was often thrown back in an attitude suggesting self-defence.' [Footnote 15: See page 260.] Of Gissing's first year or so at Owens, after leaving Lindow Grove School at Alderley,[16] we get a few hints in these pages. Like his 'lonely cerebrate' hero, Gissing himself, at school and college, 'worked insanely.' Walked much alone, shunned companionship rather than sought it, worked as he walked, and was marked down as a 'pot-hunter.' He 'worked while he ate, he cut down his sleep, and for him the penalty came, not in a palpable, definable illness, but in an abrupt, incongruous reaction and collapse.' With rage he looked back on these insensate years of study which had weakened him just when he should have been carefully fortifying his constitution. [Footnote 16: With an exhibition gained when he was not yet fifteen.] The year of this autobiographical record[17] marked the commencement of Gissing's reclamation from that worst form of literary slavery--the chain
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51  
52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Gissing

 

worked

 

marked

 

Footnote

 

Chilvers

 
Lindow
 

School

 

impression

 

leaving

 

Alderley


spread
 

brandishing

 

athletic

 

occasionally

 

uttermost

 

lonely

 

sports

 
attitude
 

thrown

 

suggesting


defence

 

devoted

 

sought

 

carefully

 

fortifying

 

exhibition

 
constitution
 
insensate
 

weakened

 
gained

literary

 

slavery

 

reclamation

 
commencement
 

fifteen

 

autobiographical

 

record

 

looked

 
shunned
 

companionship


walked

 

hunter

 

Walked

 

school

 

college

 

insanely

 
abrupt
 
illness
 

incongruous

 

reaction