Even the strong minister, although his is not
the old-fashioned way, seems to have more beef on his bones than brains
in his head, or he would not answer to a desperate exclamation of Mary
Smith,--"Don't say that. God only knows what is best for us all; even
you, and all like you, may begin to live for the good of society,
without being its bane." This is very true,--as true as Justice
Shallow's original observation, that "we must all die." But the idea of
attempting to impress a degraded woman of the town by telling her that
she, and all like her, might be brought to live _for the good of
society!_
But in spite of these faults, the book has one great merit, which is
not too common; it seems to be the truthful story of a real life. This
impression is partly the result of a peculiarity of style which is very
difficult to express otherwise than by saying that the use of language
seems to indicate that the writer is of the condition of life in which
Mary Smith professes to have been born, and has acquired a knowledge of
language and literature in the manner in which she relates that she
acquired hers. There is no vulgarity, but a certain air of constrained
propriety, and an absence of any elegance, or grace, or indications of
a slow and unconsciously acquired acquaintance with the phraseology of
cultivated society.
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