Critical Reading For Exams / Short Reading Comprehension 33

The main purpose of this story is to appeal to the reader’s interest in a subject which has been the theme of some  of the greatest writers, living and dead—but which has never been, and can never be, exhausted, because it is a sub-  ject eternally interesting to all mankind. Here is one more book that depicts the struggle of a human creature, under  those opposing influences of Good and Evil, which we have all felt, which we have all known. It has been my aim  to make the character of "Magdalen,” which personifies this struggle, a pathetic character even in its perversity and  its error; and I have tried hard to attain this result by the least obtrusive and the least artificial of all means—by a  resolute adherence throughout to the truth as it is in Nature. This design was no easy one to accomplish; and it  has been a great encouragement to me (during the publication of my story in its periodical form) to know, on the  authority of many readers, that the object which I had proposed to myself, I might, in some degree, consider as an  object achieved. 

Round the central figure in the narrative other characters will be found grouped, in sharp contrast—contrast, for  the most part, in which I have endeavored to make the element of humor mainly predominant. I have sought to im-  part this relief to the more serious passages in the book, not only because I believe myself to be justified in doing  so by the laws of Art—but because experience has taught me (what the experience of my readers will doubtless  confirm) that there is no such moral phenomenon as unmixed tragedy to be found in the world around us. Look  where we may, the dark threads and the light cross each other perpetually in the texture of human life.