True, a year or two ago there appeared a fairly successful novel the heroine of which resided in Onslow Gardens.
An eminent critic observed of it that: "It fell short only by a little way of being a serious contribution to English literature." Consultation with the keeper of the cabman's shelter at Hyde Park Corner suggested to me that the "little way" the critic had in mind measures exactly eleven hundred yards.

When the nobility and gentry of the modern novel do leave London they do not go into the provinces: to do that would be vulgar.
They make straight for "Barchester Towers," or what the Duke calls "his little place up north"-- localities, one presumes, suspended somewhere in mid-air.
In every social circle exist great souls with yearnings towards higher things.

Even among the labouring classes one meets with naturally refined natures, gentlemanly persons to whom the loom and the plough will always appear low, whose natural desire is towards the dignities and graces of the servants' hall.

So in Grub Street we can always reckon upon the superior writer whose temperament will prompt him to make respectful study of his betters.

A reasonable supply of high-class novels might always have been depended upon; the trouble is that the public now demands that all stories must be of the upper ten thousand.
Auld Robin Grey must be Sir Robert Grey, South African millionaire; and Jamie, the youngest son of the old Earl, otherwise a cultured public can take no interest in the ballad.