copy in them.
He neither loves nor hates, nor, indeed, except for his own sake, is for
a. second even faintly interested. He is there to make a book, and
these people offer excellent material for a book. He is astonishingly
industrious, and his minuteness is without end, but he never warms to
his subject. His aim, in short, is one of total artistic selfishness.
It is very likely that he would accept this statement of his standpoint,
and would justify it as the only standpoint of an artist. But it is
answerable for the fact that his pages are sterile of laughter and
tears, of sympathy and of pity.

In 'A Modern Lover' and 'A Drama in Muslin' we find him dealing with a
life he knows. He is no longer on ground wholly foreign to him, and it
is no longer necessary that he should grope from one uncertain standing
place to another, verifying himself by the dark lantern of his note-book
as he goes. He moves with a more natural ease, views things with
a larger and more comprehensive eye, and has at least that outside
sympathy with his people which comes of community of taste and
knowledge, and of familiarity with a social _milieu_.

In 'Esther Waters' the earlier characteristics break out again, and
break out with greater force than ever. What he calls--with one of
those tumbles into foreign idiom which occasionally mark his pages--'the
fever of the gamble' has never been truly diagnosed in English fiction,
and the theme is undeniably fertile. He knows absolutely nothing about
the manifestations of the disorder, to begin with; but that is of no
consequence, for the world is open to observation; and the note-book,
the inquiring mind, and the sleuthhound patience are all as available
as ever. Then a combination occurs to him. Servantgalism awaits; its
painter. The life is picturesque from a certain point of view: it
impinges more or less on the lives of all of us, and nobody has hitherto
thought it worth while to search into its mysteries, and to tell us what
it is really like. He knows nothing at all about this either, but
he will make inquiries. He does make inquiries, and they result in a
picture which is, on the whole, a piece of surprising accuracy. But
still all the fire is for the work. The subject is sought for, the
details are gathered, the workman's patience and labour are truly
conscientious--at times they excite admiration and surprise--but the
net result is lifeless. In the way of waxwork--it would be hard to find
a