wrote about women and marriage. He is not, however, a "stock" figure
in English literary allusion, either learned or popular, and the fact
suggests at least familiarity with the literature of other countries.

But there can be no doubt of the English character of the text both in
general and in detail. It is redolent of English middle-class life as
it was in the days before our grandfathers decided that the human body
was an obscene thing and its functions deplorable. It has the
middle-class love of good food--Colchester oysters (famous then as
now), asparagus, peaches, apricots, candied ginger, China oranges,
comfits, pancakes--enough to make the mouth water. It has the solid
English furniture, with all its ritual of solemnity; "vallians"
(valences), "daslles" (tassels), big bedsteads, Chiny-ware, plush
chairs, linen cupboards. It has all the fuss of preparation for
childbirth--the accumulations of wrappings, the obstetric furniture,
the nods and winks of the midwife and the gossips, authentic ancestors
of Mrs Sarah Gamp and Mrs Elizabeth Prig--why, the haste to fetch the
midwife at the crisis might almost be the foundation upon which
Dickens built the visit of Seth Pecksniff, Esq., to Kingsgate Street,
High Holborn.

It has likewise many touches which show knowledge of the average
fairly prosperous English life--the merchant's, the shopkeeper's, the
sea-captain's. The author clearly knew the routine of trade. He knew
that at New Year's Day the "day-book" had to be fully written up for
scrutiny and stock-taking and sending out of accounts. (But the
pleasures or torments of love are such that "the squire is so full of
business that he can't spare half-an-hour to write it out." The brief
description of his feelings which follows, conventional, perhaps, to
some extent, has a certain life in it, as if the writer, embittered,