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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Plaint Speaking Is Both A Difficult And ...
on a , Georgian . IPlanta'tion in 1838 _^ 9 I" The one professes , 'in tike ;« hape of aifiction , to _^ expose a crying sin in English ; fashionable life ;
_< the other jots down day hy day the _olives of female negro slaves as - the they wife came of under their master "the domestic . The p ob lain servation -speaking of a in married the first woman -named ,
book cannot be more eloquently defended than in the letter by its author which appeared in the Times of the 18 th , from which we
make the following extracts . After alluding to criticism of parts of the plotand saying that she believes educated and intelligent
men have , no conception of the confusion in the mind of a girl which may exist in regard to the legal forms necessary to constitute
marriage , she notices the supposition that the characters of this -distressing tale are " drawn from real life , " as being a very poor
_compliment to the author ; implying that he cannot create any personage graphically consistent enough to resemble nature— " It
is like telling an artist he has no knowledge of anatomical drawing , and can only copy a draped figure . "
" _iA-s to the general tenour and usefulness of purpose of Lost and allowing & aved , it is that obj partietilar ected that I societ have y spoken calling out itself too p the lainl world y ; and ? to that be ,
what it is , no single voice can hope to amend the vicious injustice and general contempt of right and wrong which exist there . What
¦ may be done by a single protest is matter of opinion . The opinion of © r . Johnson was that no man ever achieved anything who did
not greatly overrate his own power to influence others . I think that , so far from individual protests being worthless , they are the
. small hinges on which the great doors of change for ever turn . " _OSfo earnest writing or earnest striving , in any cause is entirely
without result ; and a novel is as likely a mode as any other ( a more likely mode with some minds ) of waking attention to certain
facts . It is complained that this is not a book for the very young . I did aiot write it for the very young ; I should not give novels to
the "vexy young , any more than I should teach my daughter French out of Gil Bias , though that was a general fashion in the last
generation . I myself read no novels—saw no plays— -nor ever attended the opera till I was married . And to those who object
to a story of the cruel vices of fashionable life , written with a moral purpose and an effort at warning , I must say that this last
amusement struck me then with a surprise which no after familiarity has ever obliterated . The opera is unquestionably the favourite
amusement of the English aristocracy . Now , what are the plots of the principal operas ? _"
Mrs . _^ Norton then briefly analyses these plots . Don Giovanni , so well known that the name has " passed into a byeword for
profligacy ; " Norma , La Sonnambula , and La Favorita , all tuning on disgraceful stories ; Lucrezia Borgiabased on a tale too shocking
to be quoted in these pages ; Higo , letto , and La Traviata _, stories
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), July 1, 1863, page 342, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01071863/page/54/
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