The corrected catalogue

An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.

Miss Calder had spent twelve years arranging the collection, and now the members of the Natural History Society moved between its glass cases with newly printed catalogues in their hands. At the centre of the lecture room stood the white shell upon which her reputation chiefly rested. According to its label, her uncle had found it on the northern coast, although no second example had ever been discovered there.

The chairman was expected to announce Miss Calder's medal after her address. Ten minutes before she was due to speak, her niece Ruth entered the preparation room carrying an old shipping ledger. Beside the number forty-six was a record of a crate received from Jamaica. The same number, almost rubbed away, remained on the underside of the shell's wooden stand.

Miss Calder compared the two herself. Then she closed the ledger and asked, "Who sent you to look for this?"

"Mr Pelham noticed the number yesterday," Ruth replied. "He is in the lecture room."

Miss Calder glanced towards the door. Mr Pelham had disputed her account of the shell for years. On the table lay a spare cloth large enough to cover the case, while the catalogues could still be collected on the excuse of a printing fault. She lifted the cloth, tested its weight between her fingers, and laid it down again.

When the chairman called her name, Miss Calder carried the ledger into the crowded room. She did not begin with the address she had prepared. Instead, she opened a catalogue and said that its most celebrated entry contained a claim she could no longer defend. She showed the faded number, explained what Ruth had found and drew a firm line through the words "northern coast" in her own copy.

For a moment, nobody moved. Mr Pelham watched her over the edge of his spectacles. Then the chairman declared that the Society should value a truth corrected above a discovery merely defended. The applause that followed was louder than the welcome Miss Calder had received. She bowed once, and the chairman placed the medal case beside her hand.

Later, Ruth found her replacing the shell's label. The medal case remained open on the table.

"Would you have corrected it tonight," Ruth asked, "if Mr Pelham had taken the afternoon train?"

Miss Calder pressed the new label flat, although it was already straight. At last she said, "But he did not take it."

“Miss Calder’s public correction is admirable, but the writer prevents it from seeming wholly selfless.”

Evaluate how successfully the writer presents this idea. Support your judgement with detailed references to the passage.