'
"'What do you want to find out for? What ails him?'
"'Suppose he hasn't done nothin'. Is that the sort o' man to teach
litteratur in Pattaquasset?'
"'Now, Sam Deacon, what do you expect to do by all this fuss you're
making?' said his sister, judicially.
"'What's the use of cross-examining a man at that rate? When I do
anything, you'll know it.'"
The characters are all invested with reality by skilfully introduced
anecdotes, or by personal traits carelessly and happily sketched. But
it is a costly expedient to give this reality, when our authors bring
in pet names, and other "love-lispings," which are sacred in privacy
and painfully ridiculous when exposed to the curious light. Many of
us readers find all this mawkish and silly, and others of us are
pained that to such scrutiny should be exposed the dearest secrets of
affection, and are not anxious to have them exposed to our own gaze.
It is too trying a confidence, too high an honor, to be otherwise
than unwelcome. With this criticism we close our notice of "Say and
Seal," in which we have been sparing neither of praise nor blame,
earnestly thanking the authors for a book that is worth finding fault
with.
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