The heroine of the ‘Ragged Lady’ is a New England type of young girl — strong, pure, uneducated, loyal, proud; a girl whose head always governs her heart, and whose moral sense permits no confusion in distinguishing right from wrong. She sees and acts, and by her quickness of apprehension causes confusion in the minds of those who differ with her. Into the world, under the care, or rather at the whim, of a vulgar, rich, selfish old woman, this little New England girl, who had never seen a city, goes. Her new life begins, but is never wholly separated from the days of semi-service in a summer hotel. The people of that summer drift across her life in the moments of her greatest social success, which her own charm and unconsciousness make. The little country girl learns worldly wisdom and social arts to meet that world, and protects the white light of truth lighted by a New England ancestor. The ‘Ragged Lady’ presents average life. There are neither great loves nor hates, nor temptations nor tragedies, save those of temperament. Perhaps Mr. Howells would claim that these are life’s real tragedies. This novel, with its definiteness of touch, its sense of values, its truth to life, is one of the most artistic of Mr. Howells’s books
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