Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell [read this if TXT] 📗

ht, the only light was derived from theglaring, flaring oil-lamps, hung above the doors of the morearistocratic mansions; just allowing space for the passers-by tobecome visible, before they again disappeared into the darkness,where it was no uncommon thing for robbers to be in waiting fortheir prey.

The traditions of those bygone times, even to the smallest socialparticular, enable one to understand more clearly thecircumstances which contributed to the formation of character.The daily life into which people are born, and into which theyare absorbed before they are well aware, forms chains which onlyone in a hundred has moral strength enough to despise, and tobreak when the right time comes--when an inward necessity forindependent individual action arises, which is superior to alloutward conventionalities. Therefore, it is well to know whatwere the chains of daily domestic habit, which were the naturalleading strings of our forefathers before they learnt to goalone.

The picturesqueness