1870. Possibly, as M. Zola once suggested,
M. Edmond de Goncourt did at first intend to depict the circus-life,
after his wont, in true "naturalistic" manner, softening and
extenuating nothing: but "par une delicatesse qui s'explique, il a
recule devant le milieu brutal de cirques, devant certaines laideurs
et certaines monstruosites des personnages qu'il choisis-sait." The
two facts remain that in _Les Freres Zemganno_ M. de Goncourt (1) made
professional life in a circus the very blood and tissue of his story;
and (2) that he softened the details of that life, and to a certain
degree idealized it.

Turning to Mrs. Woods's book and taking these two points in reverse
order, we find to begin with that she idealizes nothing and softens
next to nothing. Where she does soften, she softens only for literary
effect--to give a word its due force, or a picture its proper values.
She does not, for instance, accurately report the oaths and
blasphemies:--

"The tents and booths of the show were disappearing rapidly like
stage scenery. The red-faced Manager, Joe, and several others in
authority, ran hither and thither shouting their orders to a
crowd of workmen in jackets and fustian trousers, who were piling
rolls of canvas, and heavy chests, and mountains of planks and
long vibrating poles, on the great waggons. Others were
harnessing the big powerful horses to the carts, horses that were
mostly white, and wore large red collars. The scene was so busy,
so full of movement, that it would have been exhilarating had not
the fresh morning air been full of senseless blasphemies and
other deformities of speech, uttered casually and constantly,
without any apparent consciousness on the part of the speakers
that they were using strong language. Probably the lady who
dropped toads and vipers from her lips whenever she opened them
came in process of time to consider them the usual accompaniments
of conversation."

There are a great many reasons against copious profanity of speech.
Here you have the artistic reason, and, by implication, that which
forbids its use in literature--namely, its ineffectiveness. But though
she selects, Mrs. Woods does not refine. She exhibits the life of the
travelling show in its habitual squalor as well as in its occasional
brightness. How she has managed it passes my understanding: but her
book leaves the impression of confide