Status Updates From North and South

She writes more like a Victorian realist than a Regency stylist, and that means the pacing leans slower and the prose heavier. And because Gaskell lingers on description and moral feeling, it can feel like the plot is taking too long to arrive. At that almost 35% cut off I’ll either feel it spill over into something I can’t quite put down or something I forget about.

"Margaret fancied that he could not be well; but in answer to some enquiry of hers as to his health, he sent her a short note, saying there was an old-fashioned complaint called the spleen . . . but that he should like to indulge himself in grumbling, without being obliged to send a bulletin every time."