'I wonder whether the world is as bad as a certain class of writers tell us!' she sighed in weariness, and mused on their soundings and probings of poor humanity, which the world accepts for the very bottom truth if their dredge brings up sheer refuse of the abominable.

The world imagines those to be at our nature's depths who are impudent enough to expose its muddy shallows.

She was in the mood for such a kind of writing: she could have started on it at once but that the theme was wanting; and it may count on popularity, a great repute for penetration.

It is true of its kind, though the dredging of nature is the miry form of art.

When it flourishes we may be assured we have been overenamelling the higher forms.