'Gissing read as widely as ever, with the same unbridled curiosity as during his youth but now with an intelligence tempered by experience. Of course he continued to read the Latin, Greek, English and French classics, but of the particular titles he noted in his diary during the second part of 1889 there are a number that indicate fairly and squarely the direction in which his thoughts were carrying him. Besides books like J.P. Jacobsen's "Niels Lyhne" and Frederick [sic]Bremer's "Hertha", he also read Taine's "English Literature", Bourget's "Etudes et Portraits" as well as the "Essais Psychologiques", A.H. Buck's "Treatise on Hygiene", W. B. Carpenter's "Principles of Mental Physiology" and the books he just mentions as Ribot's "Hereditie".'