The Inglises, by Margaret Murray Robertson.
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Margaret Robertson generally wrote about rather religion-minded people,
and this is no exception. The women in her stories tend to moan on a
good bit, and this book is also no exception to that. Having said that,
don't say I didn't warn you. However, like all novels of the second
half of the nineteenth century, they are about a bygone age, and things
were different then. For that reason it is worth reading books of that
period if you want to know more about how people lived in those days.
One very big difference was illness. Nowadays, you go to the doctor,
and very probably he or she will be able to cure you. In those days you
either died or were confined to your bed for a long time. If you died
but had been responsible for income coming into the house, in many cases
that stopped, too. The women-folk and the children would be left
without support. No wonder they moaned a lot, and turned to religion,
to comfort themselves. It is hard for us to realise what huge progress
has been made in social reforms. Reading this book, and others of that
period (this book was published in 1872) will teach a lot about how
lucky we are to live in the present age, despite all its other faults.
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THE INGLISES, BY MARGARET MURRAY ROBERTSON.