Miss Mitford would have appreciated these
ladies and loved them as did Mrs. Gaskell, only



292 Woman's Work in Fiction

she would have been so interested in the flowers
and birds and clouds that she would have for-
gotten all about the Cranford parties, and would
probably have ignored the presence in their
midst of the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson, the
sister-in-law of an earl. So we must conclude
that only Mrs. Gaskell could make immortal this
village of femininity, where to be a man was
considered almost vulgar, but into which she
has introduced one of the most chivalrous
gentlemen in the person of Captain Browne,
and one of the most faithful of lovers in the
person of Mr. Holbrook, while no book has
a more lovable heroine than fluttering, indeci-
sive Miss Matty, over whose fifty odd years the
sorrows of her youth have cast their lengthening
shadows.
Mary Barton is a work of genius. Only a
woman of high ideals could have drawn the
character of Margaret Hale, an earlier Marcella,
or Molly Gibson, or Mr. Thornton, or Mr. Hol-
man. Only a woman of deep insight could have
created a woman like Ruth : a book which in its
problem and its deep earnestness reminds one
of Aurora Leigh. But her readers will always
love Mrs. Gaskell for the sake of the gentle
ladies of Cranford.
