[1] A quasi-editorial footnote alerts us to the way her narrative is intended to have "unquestionable value as an instrument for the exhibition of Miss Clack's character"; and when she describes her eavesdropping as "A martyrdom was before me", or exclaims "Sorrow and sympathy!
[2] However, there was another side to her presentation: Collins – like Dickens, aware of the power behind Victorian evangelicanism, and of how spite and aggression could be concealed under a philanthropic cloak – mingled the serious with the comic in his portrayal of Miss Clack.
[3] The issue comes to a head with regard to her apparently endless distribution of tracts – extracts in pamphlet form of evangelical literature – to the modern eye, a seemingly unique eccentricity.
[6] Thus it is only in the context of the strength of the evangelical mobilisation of public opinion behind the enforcement of Victorian morality,[7] and the opposition to this influence in some quarters, that the significance of Miss Clack can be fully appreciated.
Writers like Collins and G. M. Trevelyan opposed what they saw as "the peculiarly nauseous form of charity as a vehicle for tracts and enforced religion",[8] judging that it was generally applied to social inferiors, with aggression masquerading as generosity.