Excerpt from The Writings of Mrs. Humphry Ward: The Testing of Diana Mallory That Marsham is a poor creature is only too evident to the spectators of such a story. But they will not persuade or hold back the Dianas of the world. And would the world be a better place if they could? The Assisi chapters record the impression of a spring visit to the Umbrian hill city in May, 1907; and, for the rest, the scenery of the book is the scenery of the Chilterns, though of a more easterly portion of them than that described in Marcella.' The lime-walk, 'and the encircling down, the church-tower, and the beech woods, are all the familiar and actual companions of a writer's day. But the village and its inhabitants, gentle and simple, belong to 'brookshire, ' and to dream. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.