, his speech differed little from that of the
Loamshire people around him."[2] In short, except that lucifer matches
are twice introduced as familiar things in days when the tinder-box was
the only resource in general use for obtaining a light,[3] we have not
observed anything in which the authoress could be "caught out."

[2] "Adam Bede," i. 302.
[3] "Adam Bede," i. 219, 362.

But this conscientious fidelity has very serious drawbacks. It seems as
if the authoress felt herself under an obligation to give everything
literally as it took place; to shut out nothing which is superfluous; to
suppress nothing which is unfit for a work of fiction (for not only have
we a report of Dinah Morris's sermons, but the very words of the prayer
which she put up for Hetty in the prison); to abridge nothing which is
tiresome. People and incidents are described at length, although they
have little or nothing to do with the story. We may mention as instances
the detailed history and character which are given of Tom Tulliver's
tutor, the Reverend Walter Stelling, and the account of Mr. Poyser's
harvest-home, which, however good in itself, is utterly out of place
between the crisis and the conclusion of the story. But most especially
we complain of the fondness which the authoress shows for exhibiting
uninteresting and tiresome people in all their interminable tediousness;
and if the morbid tone which we have already mentioned reminds us of a
French school of novelists, her passion for photographing the minutest
details of dullness reminds us painfully of those American ladies who
contribute so largely to the literature of our railway-stalls, by
flooding their boundless prairies of dingy paper with inexhaustible
masses of blotchy type. We quite admit the naturalness of the
tradespeople and other small folks whom this writer has perhaps explored
more deeply than any earlier novelist; but surely we have far too much
of them. It has indeed been said that we are spoiled by the activity of
the present day for enjoying the faithful picture of what life was in
country parishes and in little country towns fifty years ago; but we
really cannot admit the justice of this attempt to throw the blame on
ourselves. Dullness, we may be sure, has not died out within the last
half century, but is yet to be found in plenty; and, if times were dull
fifty or a hundred years ago, the novelists of those days--Scott and
Fielding, and Smollett, and even Goldsmith