Review/comment: Fabulous Book!! Elizabeth Gaskell creates a brilliant picture of life's struggles and conflicts despite the smoky grayness of Milton. Setting Margaret Hale amidst a dull, rough setting is like working a diamond in the rough. From the beginning the reader knows it to be a diamond, but it requires the cutting and polishing process and a black background to display it at it's best. Mr. Thornton, also an unpolished gem, needs to meet Margaret, his equal, to see what he can still become.
