Professor Minto
“Mrs Gaskell was indeed a born story-teller, charged through and through with the story-teller’s peculiar element, a something which may be called suppressed gipsiness, a restless instinct which impelled her to be constantly making trial in imagination of various modes of life. Her imagination was perpetually busy with the vicissitudes which days and years brought round to others; she entered into their lives, laughed with them, wept with them, speculated on the cardinal incidents and circumstances, the good qualities and the ‘vicious moles of nature,’ which had made them what they were, schemed how they might have been different, and lived through the windings and turnings of their destinies, the excitement of looking forward to the unknown.…
“‘Sir,’ she seems to say to the nature-worshipper, ‘let us take a peep into some English household. Let us watch its inmates in comfort and in distress, I will tell you their history. You shall see how a Lancashire mechanic entertains his friends, how a country doctor gets on with his neighbours, how a coquettish farmer’s daughter behaves to her lovers. I have no strange experiences to reveal to you, only the life that lies at your doors; but I will show you its tragedies and its comedies. I will describe the characters of your countrymen to you, and I will tell you things about them that will interest you, some things that will make you weep and many that will make you smile.’” (Fortnightly Review, 1878.)