Tennyson once sat up far into the night, utterly glued to a novel by Charlotte M Yonge. Finally, in the small hours, he declared, ‘Thank God – he’s getting confirmed!’ and slapped the book shut. Suspense is suspense, even when created by a situation most people would consider piffling, and Yonge was a devoutly Christian writer who took the internal dramas of religious faith very seriously. 

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