"ELLEN: OR, FORGIVE AND FORGET."
We notice this coarsely-written little fiction because it is one of a
class which we see growing with pleasure. We see it with pleasure,
because, in its way, it is genuine. It is a transcript of the crimes,
calumnies, excitements, half-blind love of right, and honest
indignation at the sort of wrong which it can discern, to be found in
the class from which it emanates.
That class is a large one in our country villages, and these books
reflect its thoughts and manners as half-penny ballads do the life of
the streets of London. The ballads are not more true to the facts; but
they give us, in a coarser form, far more of the spirit than we get
from the same facts reflected in the intellect of a Dickens, for
instance, or of any writer far enough above the scene to be properly
its artist.
So, in this book, we find what Cooper, Miss Sedgwick and Mrs.
Kirkland, might see, as the writer did, but could hardly believe in
enough to speak of it with such fidelity.
It is a current superstition that country people are more pure and
healthy in mind and body than those who live in cities. It may be so
in countries of old-established habits, where a genuine peasantry have
inherited some of the practical wisdom and loyalty of the past, with
most of its errors.
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