She is
irreligious, and you are deeply religious. I wish I could say I was too,
but I lag far behind you. And though I am sure she does her best--and so
do we--her presence is a continual friction. I feel she always drags us
down."
Mr. Gresley was too much absorbed in his own thoughts to notice the
diffident plea which his wife was putting forward that Hester might
cease to live with them.
"I was not thinking of that," he said, "so much as of this novel which
she has written. It is a profane, immoral book, and will do incalculable
harm if it is published."
"I feel sure it will," said Mrs. Gresley, who had not read it.
"It is dreadfully coarse in places," continued Mr. Gresley, who had the
same opinion of George Eliot's works. "And I warned Hester most solemnly
on that point when I found she had begun another book. I told her that I
well knew that to meet the public taste it was necessary to interlard
fiction with _risque_ things in order to make it sell, but that it was
my earnest hope she would in future resist this temptation. She only
said that if she introduced improprieties into her book in order to make
money, in her opinion she deserved to be whipped in the public streets.
She was very angry, I remember, and became as white as a sheet, and I
dropped the subject.
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