The plot is not so good as that of the Macdermots; nor are there
any characters in the book equal to those of Mrs. Proudie and the
Warden; but the work has a more continued interest, and contains
the first well-described love-scene that I ever wrote. The passage
in which Kate Woodward, thinking that she will die, tries to take
leave of the lad she loves, still brings tears to my eyes when I
read it. I had not the heart to kill her. I never could do that.
And I do not doubt but that they are living happily together to
this day.
The lawyer Chaffanbrass made his first appearance in this novel,
and I do not think that I have cause to be ashamed of him. But this
novel now is chiefly noticeable to me from the fact that in it I
introduced a character under the name of Sir Gregory Hardlines, by
which I intended to lean very heavily on that much loathed scheme
of competitive examination, of which at that time Sir Charles
Trevelyan was the great apostle. Sir Gregory Hardlines was intended
for Sir Charles Trevelyan,--as any one at the time would know who
had taken an interest in the Civil Service. "We always call him
Sir Gregory," Lady Trevelyan said to me afterwards, when I came
to know her and her husband. I never learned to love competitive
examination; but I became, and am, very fond of Sir Charles Trevelyan.
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