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thesis entitled

THE CRITICAL RECEPTION OF
MRS. GASKELL'S NOVELS

presented by
Andrew Weston Hart

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Major professor

Date November 27: 1950

 

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THE CRITICAL RECEPTION OF MRS. GASKELL'S NOVELS

By

Andrew Hart
M

A THESIS

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of
. MASTER OF ARTS
Department of English

1950

TH ESLS

TABLE OF CON TENTS

Page

Backgrounds and Influences Upon Mrs. Gaskell's
’flritings O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 1

Marl Barton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
North and South . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34
figih . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .'. . . . . . . .40
Silvia's Lovers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
Wives and Daughters. . . .'. . . . . . . . . . . . . .55
. Cranford . . a. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58

The Life 2; Charlotte Bronte . . . . . . . . . . . . .61

 

conc1u81on O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O .69

BibliograDhy . O O O O O O O O O O O C O O O O O O C .72

344572.

Preface

My purpose in making this study is twofold. First,
I hope to add to the fund of available information con-
oerning Hrs. Gaskell's writings by presenting a detailed
account of the critical reception tendered her major
works by the periodical reviewers. Secondly, by study-
ing the reaction of the reviewers toward her social
novels, I hOpe to gain insight into the general atti-
tudes of the Victorians toward social, moral, and
political problems of their day.

For the most part, I have confined my investiga-
tions to those reviews which dealt with a single work,
and which appeared shortly after publication of the
work they discussed. However, when a particular book
received very little or no attention from the review-
ers, I have included material taken from general esti-
mates of her work, nearly all of which appeared after
her death.

I have preceded the discussion of the reviews
themselves with a brief sketch of Mrs. Gaskell's life,
giving particular attention to the more important in-
fluences which helped shape her work. Such a brief
sketch cannot, of course, be regarded as serving the
purpose of a full-length biography. Its only function

is to furnish a general background for the studies of

the reviews. The studies are not arranged chronologically

in order of the appearance of Mrs. Gaskell's novels;
rather, those dealing with a particular type of work,
such as the social novel, are grouped together.

I am grateful to Dr. Orbeck for suggesting the
t0pic, and to Dr. Rust for assisting me in the actual

writing of the thesis.

Ao'foHo

Backgrounds and Influences Upon
Mrs. Gaskell's Writings

Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson was born September 29,
1810, in London. Her father, William Stevenson, had
been a Unitarian minister, but had given up his post
because of scruples against preaching for money, an action
which his daughter later utilized in her characterization
of Mr. Hale in m _a_n§._ S9333, who, like Mr.Stevenson,
gave up his pulpit for ethical reasons.

After leaving the ministry, Stevenson sought un-
successfully to make a living as a scientific farmer,
then as a boardinghouse keeper. After these attempts
at making a living had failed, he became editor of 2h;
‘gggtg Magazine, at the same time contributing to 2h;
Edinburgh Review and tutoring at Edinburgh University.
It was there that he met and married Elizabeth Holland,
a woman of well-to-do Unitarian antecedents. In 1806,
through the influence of the Earl of Lauderdale, he was
appointed Keeper of the Records of the Treasury and
moved his family to London. The move, however, didn't
mean the end of his literary career. Even after his
children were born he continued to do literary research,
and wrote articles on such topics as scientific agri-
culture, surveying, and classical learning. Just what

specific effect her father's literary activities had

2

upon Elizabeth would be difficult to say. Certain it
is that the literary and cultural atmosphere she grew
up in did nothing to inhibit her own writing activities,
and it is equally certain that she must have shared same-
thing of her father's taste for research, else she could
never have carried out the patient search of old records
in connection with the writing of Sylvia's Lovers and
.ghg.gdgg_gf Charlotte Bronte.
. When Elizabeth was thirteen months old her mother
died, and an Aunt, Mrs. Lumb, took the child to live
with her at Knutsford. This small, old—fashioned
village, where Elizabeth spent the remainder of her
childhood, figures in many of her stories, notably as
Cranford, and as Hollingsford in fllz§§_gng Daughters.
Its buildings, inhabitants, and many events which took
place within its environs appeared in her works so
vividly drawn that persons familiar with Knutsford had
no difficulty in recOgnizing the originals.

In 1827, news came that Elizabeth's brother John,
a lieutenant in the merchant service, had disappeared
at sea, and that her grief-stricken father was 111 and
needed her. She returned to him and remained until hi.
death in 1829. This brother later appeared in EEEEEHEEE
.EQEEE as Frederick Hale, Margaret Hale's brother, a
sailor who had been involved in a mutiny aboard one of

the King's vessels and had later taken refuge in Spain.

In September, 1829, Elizabeth returned to Knutsford,
but soon left it to live at the home of the Reverend
William Turner at Newcastle-on—Tyne with a view of pre-
paring herself for teaching. This experience she later
drew upon in figth, Mr. Turner and his household probably
being the originals for Mr. Benson and his household.
Indeed, Mrs. Gaskell called figth her INewcastle story."
After some two years in the Turner household, she, togeth-
er with Mr. Turner's daughter Ann, left for Edinburgh

in order to escape a cholera epidemic that had broken
out in Newcastle. They remained there only a few months,
then went to Manchester on a visit to Ann's sister, wife
of the Reverend John G. Robberds, minister at the Cross
Street Unitarian Chapel.

It was here that the future authoress met her hus-
band-to-be, the Reverend William Gaskell, also a guest
at the Robberds's home. A courtship began which culmin-
ated in their marriage on August 50, 1852. There is not
the slightest doubt that her husband had a profound in—
fluence upon her work. In many respects he closely re-
sembled Mrs. Gaskell's father. He was not only a minister,
but a scholar as well. From 1846 to 1852 he was professor
of English history and literature at Manchester New-

' College and later a lecturer in English literature at
Workingman's College and Owens College. He studied and
wrote articles on the Lancashire dialect, and it is quite

possible that this interest in dialects is responsible
for Mrs. Gaskell's accurate and extensive use of them
in her works.

After their marriage, the young couple left for a
honeymoon near Festiniog, Wales, later to be used as
the setting for portions of figgh, as well as for several
of the short stories. Afterwards they settled in Manchest-
er, where their children -- six in all -- were born. The
children's invluence as well as that of Victorian senti-
mentality, is seen in the many tender scenes involving
babies and youngsters, which dot the pages of her works.

As the wife of a Unitarian minister, Mrs. Gaskell
moved in the most cultivated, intellectual circles in
Manchester, and consequently met many leading personages
of the time. She met and talked with prison reformers,
Christian Socialists, and Abolitionists, as well as
notable literary figures, thus coming into contact with
many of the most important ideas and movements of the
day. It was almost inevitable, therefore, that she
should have become interested in the problems caused
by the rise of an industrial economy. These problems
had resulted in a number of literary productions prior.
to the publication of MEEZ Barton in 1848.

In 1840, Mrs. Frances Trollope had written Michael

Armstron , the Factory Boy, a book dealing with industrial

conditions in Mrs. Gaskell's own Manchester, in which she
contrasts the life of a factory boy adopted by a rich
manufacturer, with the poverty-stricken lot of his

mother and brother. Two other, more important, works
were Disraeli's Coningsby and S bil, published respective-
ly in 1844 and 1845. The first centered upon political
ideals and alignments rather than social conditions,

but the second dealt directly with class relations,
although it didn't discuss the cause of industrial

misery and hinted only vaguely at remedies. In the

realm of non-fiction, Harriet Martineau had in 1854
written a nine volume Illustrations of Political Economy
which dealt with some aspects of the social problem,

but probably the most important works were those of
Thomas Carlyle. In 1869, he published Chartism, dealing
with what he called the "Condition of England Question"
and denouncing the laissez-faire philosOphy. He con-
demned the violence of the Chartist demonstrations,

but he nevertheless saw the Justice of their revolt and
the inadequacies of the reforms already accomplished.
In.§§§t and Present, published in 1843, he again attacked
existing conditions. He depicted the shocking misery

of the masses; he deplored the indifference of the more
fortunate classes, leaders who had failed to lead, and

he reviled the campaign oratory of the politicians.

Carlyle proposed no simple remedy for these evil condi-
tions; rather, he tried to awaken the dormant conscience
of the people.

Just how much influence these various works had
upon Mrs. Gaskell is difficult to say. As a member of
the leading intellectual circle in Manchester, it is
likely that she was aware of the work of Mrs. Trollope
and Disreeli,1 and the fact that the 1948 edition of
'ngy Barton contained a Carlyle quotation as a motto
indicates that she had read at least some of his works.
It is also known that she read Sir James Kay Shuttle-
worth's report to parliament, The Unsanitary Horrors 2f
Manchesteg, and an 1850 Sadler work, the Petition £2;

E 1§g_§ggg‘2gy, which brought instances of the exploita-
tion of factory workers to the attention of parliament.

Mrs. Gaskell herself, in the preface to Mggy Barton,
tells us that firsthand experience with conditions in
Manchester was the motivating force behind the novel.
Living in the city, she learned to feel a deep sympathy
with the careworn men thronging its busy streets, men
who looked as if doomed to struggle through their lives
in strange alternations of work and want, tossed to and
fro by circumstances, apparently in even a greater de-

gree than other men. She tells how this sympathy Opened

 

lWilliam Minto, writing in the Fortnightly
Review for Sept. 1878, attempts to show that Mary Barton

was inspired by Sybil.

to her the hearts of one of two of the more thoughtful
among them, how she saw that they were angry and irri-
tated against the prosperous, especially against the
_masters whose fortunes they had helped to build, and
how they were possessed by a strong belief that the
miseries and privations they suffered were the result
of the injustice and hardness of the rich, whose smooth
and seemingly happy lives seemed to increase the an-
guish caused by their own miserable existences. She
saw the thoroughness of this belief manifested from
time to time in acts of deadly revenge, and the con-
sequences were so bad for all that the more she thought
on them the more anxious she became to give utterance
to the 'dumb agony" of the peeple who seemed to be ”in
a state wherein lamentations and tears were put aside,
for curses" and where the hand appeared ready to strike
the objects of its hatred.l In 1845, her only son,
Willie, died of scarlet fever, and it was in an attempt
to ease the grief caused by his death that she began
the actual writing of the novel which was published in
1848.

As a result of Mary Barton's success, Mrs. Gaskell
found herself suddenly famous. She met such personages
as Dickens, the Carlyles, Thackeray, and Charlotte

Bronte. None of these persons had much direct influence

 

IPreface, dated October, 1848, to the original
edition of Mary Barton.

upon her work, although in a sense Dickens might be
said to have influenced its form and artistic quality,
since he offered her an opportunity of writing for his
magazine, Household Words, which she accepted, an
acceptance which made all the work she intended for
publication in it subject to the restrictions and
limitations of magazine fiction. Her relationship
with Charlotte Bronte was important in that it led
to her later writing of Egg ELIE 9; Charlotte Bronte,
which is rec0gnized as a classic example of biography.
In December, 1851, there appeared in Household
.flgydg a short idyllic sketch called ”Cranford," which
dealt humorously with the lives and foibles of certain
feminine inhabitants of a small village. Mrs. Gaskell
intended to develop this idea no further, but Dickens,
struck by the gentle, ironic humor of the piece, per-
suaded her to do others in similar vein. She complied,
turning out seven more by the middle of 1855. These
sketches she then collected, rewrote a few sentences
to insure continuity of theme, and had them published
in book form later that same year under the title of
the earliest. As has been stated before, these sketches
were based upon material drawn from Mrs. Gaskell's

early life in Knutsford. Because of its gentle, ironic

humor blended with pathos and its timelessness, Cranford
has remained Mrs. Gaskell's most pOpular work.

With the publication of figgh in January 1855, Mrs.
Gaskell returned to the realm of the social novel. This
book exemplifies Christianity as it should be applied to
life and is a plea for the single standard of morality
for men and women for a change in the attitude of
society toward misconduct in men. It vividly contrasts
the ideal Christian, Thurstan Benson, with Mr. Bradshaw,
the narrow, dogmatic, unforgiving, conventional Christian
and leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that Mrs.
Gaskell preferred the former. A number of influences
have been discovered. The title was possibly suggested
by George Crabbe's story of Ruth in‘gglgg‘ggig‘ggll,
with which Mrs. Gaskell was familiar, and which has
several elements in common with her work, while.part
of the action takes place in Wales, where Mrs. Gaskell
spent her honeymoon. It is very possible that she first
became interested in the problems of women who had been
seduced and deserted through actual contacts she might
have had with them as a minister's wife. Sir Adolphus
Ward, in his introduction to figgh in the Knutsford edi-
tion of Mrs. Gaskell's works, tries to show that the
whole novel is a chain of ideas growing out of the
death of Mrs. Gaskell's son, and not an effort to deal

with moral problems. This supposition has, however,

10

been generally discredited.

.Ngygh.ggd'§ggth, her next full-length work, was
in effect a sequel to Mary Barton, although it concerns
itself with an entirely new set of characters, and
even the town where the action takes place is dis-
guised under a fictitious name, Milton Northern.
During the years that had elapsed since Mggy Barton
was published, conditions had generally improved. In
1846, the Corn Laws were repealed, allowing foreign
grain to be shipped into England practically duty-
free, thus enabling the working classes to purchase
bread at much lower rates. The social legislation
passed by a parliament becoming increasingly aware of
the necessity for taking legislative action if long-
standing abuses were to be corrected, had somewhat im-
proved the conditions under which the workmen lived.
Add that prosperity prevailed at the time and it is
easily seen that the period as a whole was more con-
ducive to a thoughtful study of industrial conditions
than was that of ngy Barton. .

Mrs. Gaskell, seeing these changes for the better,
was more inclined to present a sympathetic picture of
the mill owner than she had been previously. She had
had many Opportunities to see his side. As we shall

see later, Mary Barton had called forth many changes

 

11

that she had misrepresented the employers. She listened
attentively to all these arguments and her views regarding
factory owners began to change. As a result, Ngyth.ggg
gggth spoke primarily for the manufacturer rather than

for the worker.

This novel, in contrast to ygyy Barton, attracted
no critical notice. The reasons for the indifference
with which it was received are not difficult to ascertain.
In the first place, the fact that it showed-the manu-
facturer in a better light lessened the chances that it
would be attacked by the predominately pro--employer
periodicals. In the second place, a number of other
social novels had been written since Mayy_Barton and the
reviewers would not be so likely to take notice of one
more as they would of a pioneer work. And finally, the
revolutionary movements on the Continent had drawn the
attention of the public away'from industrial disputes.

Th3 L; gig; Charlotte Bronte, the next important
work by Mrs. Gaskell, was published in 1857. Mrs.
Gaskell first met Charlotte in 1850, and a warm friend-
ship soon sprang up between them. Between the time of
their first meeting and Charlotte's death in 1855, the
two writers exchanged many letters; Charlotte visited
Mrs. Gaskell three times, while the latter was a guest
at Haworth once. After Charlotte's death, her father,

12

desirous of correcting numerous misstatements about his
daughter that had appeared in obituary articles, asked
Mrs. Gaskell to do a biography that would counteract the
falsehoods with facts. Mrs. Gaskell accepted the commis-
sion. In order to make sure that her work would be as
accurate as possible, she went to primary sources for her
material. She wrote and visited Charlotte's lifelong
friends, her schoolmistress, her publisher, her literary
agent, and even the Brussels school-teacher, N. Heger, at
whose school Charlotte had studied. From these peOple
she obtained not only anecdotes, but also much early
Bronte correspondence. Finally, she interviewed old
family servants, the neighbors at Haworth, and Charlotte's
father and husband. She let Charlotte tell her own story
through her correspendents, and added only a few chapters
at the beginning dealing with Charlotte's antecedents and
youth, besides the necessary connecting links between_
chapters. As has been previously suggested, she may very
well have gained her penchant for such research from her
father.

During the six years that elapsed between the publi-
cation of the biography and Sylvia's Lovers, her next long
work, in 1865, Mrs. Gaskell wrote but little, a partial
reason for this literary inactivity being that she began
collecting materials for the novel in 1859. Once again

she went to primary sources, spending part of a summer in

13

Whitby, a town which had been a center of the pressegang
activities dealt with in the novel, talking to old in-
habitants who furnished many anecdotes about them. She
also investigated the literature on the subject at the
British Museum, as well as that in the admiralty records.
Finally, she spoke with numerous authorities on press-
gangs. So carefully did she go about securing informa-
tion that no error has ever been detected in her data
concerning historical and naval events, a high tribute

to the quality of her research.

‘fliygg andugaughterg, her final novel, began appear-
ing in the August, 1864, Cornhill Ma azine, and the last
installment, which on account of her death lacked a
chapter or two of being complete, appeared in the January,
1866, issue. It is the only full-length novel in which
Mrs. Gaskell drew from the aristocracy for her characters,
although in a previous work of novelette length, "My Lady
Ludlow,” she had done so.

Mrs. Gaskell's early years at Knutsford had an in-
fluence upon this work; Lord and Lady Cunmor are modeled
after Lord and Lady Egerton, who lived at Tatton Park,
near Knutsford, while the beginning of the work is an exact
description of the garden parties given at Tatton Park for
the village school-teachers. It is thought that the early
life of Molly, the heroine of the work, is a reflection
of Mrs. Gaskell's own childhood. She said that the time

14

she spent at her father's after his second marriage

was very unhappy, and Molly's grief when she hears of
her father's engagement is so realistic and handled with
such sympathy that it is almost impossible to believe it
is not based upon Mrs. Gaskell's own experience.

Mrs. Gaskell died very suddenly November 12, 1865,
while taking tea at her home in Alton, Hampshire. Al—
though she had apparently been in perfect health, there
is some evidence that she felt all was not well, since
only three weeks earlier she had expressed fears she
might not live long enough to do anything with a plot she
had just been given. She was buried in the yard of
Inutsford's Unitarian Church; the large number of Man-
chester citizens who journeyed there to pay final tribute
eloquently attested to the esteem in which she was held
by the peOple of that city.

Mary Barton

As has been previously stated, this novel deals with
conditions in Manchester. The period covered_is the
"hungry forties,l a time of acute distress in the in-
dustrial districts. John Barton, a steady and thought-
ful, although rather improvident, worker is one of the
sufferers, and the conditions of squalor and starvation
under which he is forced to exist have made him into an
active and embittered unionist. A‘group of workmen,
driven to desperation by these conditions and by the
indifference of parliament to their plight, decide to
kill one of the employers, young Henry Carson, as a
warning to his class. Lots are drawn to determine who
shall carry out the murder and Barton is chosen. Mean-
while, Barton's daughter, Mary, has attracted the admira-
tion of Henry Carson. She has become so flattered by
his attentions and so enamoured with the idea of making
a grand marriage that she has rejected Jem Wilson, her
former lover, a man belonging to the working classes.

Later, however, she has come to realize that her
real love is for Jam, and has broken off her relation with
Carson, who, she discovers, has no intention of marrying
her. At this juncture, Carson is shot and Jem, who has
been seen quarreling with him over Mary, is arrested and
brought to trial for the murder. Mary discovers that her

' father is the murderer, and it is only through her success-

16

ful efforts to track down and bring into court the
sailor who can account for Jem‘s whereabouts at the
time of the trial that Jen is saved. John Barton,
conscience-wracked and dying, confesses his guilt to
the revenge-seeking father of Henry Carson, who finally
forgives him just before he dies.1

The reviews which greeted the publication of Mayy '
Barton were almost without exception equal mixtures of
high approval and severe censure. The praise was
generally elicited by the artistic merits of the work,
while the condemnation was chiefly leveled at the
pictures of industrial conditions and.worker-owner
relations presented by the novel.

Nearly all the reviewers recognized that the novel,
published anonymously, was the work of a woman. They saw
that it had higher pretensions than an ordinary novel,
that it aimed not only at a 'definition of the joys and
sorrows, loves and hates of our common humanity,“ but
also professed to give a picture of the "feelings,
opinions, characters, and social conditions of a par-

ticular class of people."2 It was praised for the vivid

 

1The book summaries included in this thesis
are expanded versions of thoseappearing in The Oxford

Companion £3 English.;dterature.

 

2William Rathbone Greg, "Review of Mary Barton,"
Edinburgh Review, LXXXXIX (April, 1849), 402.

17

descriptions of nature with which it is sprinkled,
complimented because of its excellent construction which
permitted the incidents of the tale to "flow so easily
and naturally out of each other with the progress of the
narrative,"1 ‘Mrs. Gaskell's humor also came in for some
attention, it being noted that there were "passages
where the humor and the pathos are intermixed and pass

into each other."2

The passage dealing with John Barton's
account of his deputation to London was cited as an
example. The reviewers recognized the dialect as
"giving a peculiar raciness to the speech of shrewd and
earnest men, and diffusing a warm local hue ... over the
whole narrative.'5 Cne reviewer4 thought that the many
cottage scenes depicted with such Itouching simplicity
and force“ were derived, at least in part, from actual
observation by the author.

Of all the artistic aspects of the novel, the one
most discussed was character delineation. Even the

minor figures were said to be "touched with the fidelity

of a Daguerreotype."5 Much interest centered in the

 

1J. J. Taylor, "Review of Mary Barton," The
Prospective Review, V (Feb., 1849), 41.

2Ibid., p. 46.
31bid., p. 45.

4"Review of Mary Barton," British Quarterly
Review, IX (Feb., 1849), 151.

5"Review of Mary Barton," The Athenaeum,
(Oct. 21, 1848), 1050.

 

18

portrayal of Esther, the prostitute aunt of Mary, who was
said to be "drawn with a fidelity and truth really terrible,"
and in old Alice, the servant whose ”unconscious goodness,
her faith in a God never forsaking her, her unselfish de-
votion to the service of others, her gratitude for the
smaller mercies ...“ were "truly delightful."1

The leading character, Mary Barton herself, naturally
came in for much critical comment. Most of the reviewers
puzzled over and regarded as an artistic flaw the strange
combination of unlike elements in her nature, the ”pure“
element that was in love with Jem Wilson and the “impure,”
flirtatious element which for a time allowed her to carry
on an affair with young Carson, the millowner's son, and
blinded her to the real merits of Jem.

The character of John Barton was handled rather
severely by some reviewers, who wondered that a man of his
character and intelligence should know nothing of economics,
should have been so improvident in prosperous times as not
to save a cent, and should have participated in such an
affair as the murder plot. °

One reviewerg noted that the melodramatic parts, the
fire at Carson's mill, the pursuit of the ship containing
the witness whose testimony would save Jem Wilson from the

gallows, and the scene in which the witness appeared at the

 

1J.J. Taylor, op. cit., p. 42-5.
2Ibid., p. 45.

19

trial, were not those furnishing “the clearest proof of
genius, because they were too commonly met with in purely
melodramatic writings." Several complained that the
number of deaths, eight not counting the murder, was
excessive.

Without a single exception the reviewers stated
their belief that Mrs. Gaskell presented a one-sided and
erroneous picture of conditions existing in industrial
towns and of the relationship between masters and workers,
although they attributed the supposed errors to insufficient
familiarity with the facts for the country as a whole,
rather than willful misrepresentation.

Because the review by William Rathbone Greg1 contains
all the arguments present in the others, as well as a few
not presented elsewhere, I shall base my summary of the
criticism leveled at the picture of social conditions
given in Magy Barton upon it alone. It should be kept
in mind, however, that nearly everyone of these arguments
were offered by several critics.

Before he began his criticism, he complimented Mrs.
Gaskell upon the accuracy with which she had depicted
what Monckton Milnes had called “the sacred patience of
the poor," their meek submissiveness as shown in George

Wilson and old Alice.

 

_ 1Edinbur h figylgg, LXXXIX (April, 1849), 402-455.

20

The first representation which Greg believed to be
wrong was the one Mrs. Gaskell made in her preface in
which she disclosed an animosity against masters to be
common among the workers. He felt that although there
did exist a considerable amount of ”hard feelings,” it
was exceptional, not general-lOcal, limited and transient --
and certainly not entertained by the working populace at
large." Further, he thought that such hatred was be-
coming “more and more exclusively confined to the
irregular, dissolute and discontented ex-workmen who
form the acting staff of trades' -uni0ns and delegations,"l
and was directed only at "the meanest of employers.“ He
remarked that contrary to the impression given by Mrs.
Caskell's novel, there was a feeling of kindness existing
between workers and owners, and that the owners did not
entirely neglect the welfare of their workers. In support
of this contention he pointed to the large number of chari-
ties, such as hospitals and infirmaries, that existed in
Manchester, and stated that during periods of unemployment
in 1842 and 1847 soup kitchens gave daily relief to
thousands.2
Greg doubted whether times really had been as diffi-
cult as Mrs. Gaskell indicated. He felt that not only had

 

1Ibid., p. 412.

2Greg, Op. cit., p. 425.

21

employment been generally steady and regular, but that
wages had been comparatively very high. He noted that
due to the light, easy nature of the work in textile
mills, several individuals from a single family could be
employed, and that the earnings of such a family would
sometimes reach 100 pounds per year.1

Many of the workmen's difficulties sprang from their
own faults, Greg thought. He characterized many of them
as shiftless and improvident persons who spent money as
fast as they got it, without putting by a single penny
for a "rainy day," and cited John Barton's spendthrift
habits as an example. Next to their careless, improvident
ways, he felt that the characteristic which caused them
the most suffering was their want of moral courage, Of
resolute, individual will. Because of this defect, the
group sometimes fell under the control of minorities. He
believed that most strikes (as well as other disorders
which increased the workers' misery) were fomented by
these minorities against the wishes of the majority.2

The reviewer took Mrs. Gaskell to task for counten-
ancing the double error of believing that labor is a curse
and that the poor only are ordained to toil. He felt that
labor is a blessing to which man Owes the progress he has

made and to which he will owe any progress made in the

 

1Ibid., p. 417.
21bid., p. 425.

22

future. In denying that the poor have any reason to
complain of excessive toil, he commented on the far harder
mental toil of the student, lawyer, statesman, and
scientist.l
The notion that the poor should look to the rich

or to the legislatures rather than to themselves for help
was attacked strongly by Greg, who believed that each
worker must look to himself for aid, that only through the
exercise of his own intellect and virtues could be hope to
rise in the social scale. Greg believed that for a person
to improve himself in this manner he first needed "a
better education to give purer tastes and higher aims --
strength and sense to resist present temptation -- the
courage to differ from (his) associates, and to pursue
unflinchingly (his) chosen course."2

1 Greg discussed at some length the question of wages
and profits, and their fair distribution between workers
and Owner. His contention was that the wage the worker
received was actually just as much profit as the owner's
share of company income, but that the worker got his in
fixed amounts at stated intervals to meet expenses as they
arose, which he, unlike the capitalist, couldn't otherwise
do. In support of his belief that the profits of the owner

aren't ordinarily too large, Greg cited use risks they ran

 

1Ibid., p. 424.
2Ibid., p. 421.

25

and mentioned several instances where manufacturers had
gone broke during periods of depression.

In discussing the possibility of coOperative Owner-
ship of factories by workers, the reviewer said that if
it was true that the workers were receiving a fair share
of the profits in the form of wages, then the only way
they could become sharers in annual profits would be by
foregOing a certain portion of the money paid periodical-
1y as wages. Greg wondered what the workmen would do in
years when the factory Operated at a loss. He said that
not only would the workers draw lower wages during such
a year but they would find themselves in debt at the end
of the year, rather than with a profit showing. Further-
more, the problem of determining fair shares for drunken,
shiftless workers and for those who quit to work elsewhere
would be difficult to solve. 0n the whole, Greg felt the
sysgem of profit distribution through wages, as it then
existed, to be the most practicable.l

That the reviewers were right in contending that
‘Mg§y_Barton had higher pretensions than an ordinary novel
cannot be doubted, since Mrs. Gaskell herself admitted in
the preface that her aim was no less than “to give some
utterance to the agony" which from time to time convulsed
the working peOple. They were also acute in recognizing

the skill with which Mrs. Gaskell depicts nature, a skill

 

lIbide, pe 426-52e

24

which almost every modern critic discussing her works
finds it necessary to dwell upon at some length. The
humor at times delicately blended with pathos which the
reviewers reOOgnized in this novel can‘be regarded as
pointing toward the more fully developed examples of the
type to be found in Cranford. The accuracy of her report-
ing of dialectal forms is attested to by file extent to
which the English anle t Digtionary relied on her and
her husband's work in illustrating Lancashire usage.1

Although contemporary Opinion would agree with the
early reviewers that Mrs. Gaskellls depiction of character
is on the whole excellent, it would disagree with the
opinions expressed about certain specific portrayals. The
Esther whom the critics of a century ago declared to be
drawn with a terrible fidelity and truth seems to the
modern reader to be a most unreal stock figure, a minister's '
wife's conception of a street-walker. The character of
Alice is still considered by many critics to be-a finely
drawn portrait of a servant, but to some persons the un-
conscious goodness, the faith in God, the unselfish devo-
tion to others and the childlike innocence add up to a
person too good to be true.

The character of John Barton makes a better showing

today than it did at the time Mary Barton was published.

 

1Gerald Dewitt Sanders, Elggabeth Gaskell, Yale
University Press., New Haven, 1929, pp. 154-5.

25

His change from a man of simple and trusting faith, one
who looked with a friendly eye upon his fellow-man, to a
person whose mind became so warped and embittered by ad-
versity that he could consider murder itself as an act of
justice, being regarded by a modern critic as done with
”marked ability rarely shown in a first creation."l In-
cidentally, this early trusting, Optimistic nature might,
in part, explain his failure to save during periods of
prosperity. As for Barton's willingness to commit murder,
it can easily be imagined that the calamities which he had
experienced, plus the fact that the world seemed to condone,
even approve, the injustice of a moral standard that allowed
many to starve while a few prospered, should lead to a per-
version of other moral standards in Barton's mind. The
fact that this approval was based upon current economic
doctrine would account for Barton's failure to treat the
economics of his day with the respect to which his early
reviewers thought it was entitled.

Mary Barton's confused emotions in connection with
Jan Wilson and young Carson might be laid to female "change-
ability,I but there is an even better explanation. We
must remember that Mary was exposed to all the poverty and
horror that existed in the Manchester of her day. Carson

to her represented a chance to escape the drudgery of her

 

1Ibid., p. 28.

26
position, to enter into the world of luxury -- or Jewels
and carriages and beautiful homes. Is it any wonder then
that she became temporarily blinded to the good qualities
of Jem?

The answer to the charge that Mrs. Gaskell had mis-
represented conditions in industrial towns and.the re-
lationship between factory-owner and workman can be found
in such a book as J. L. and Barbara Hammond's lbs Age 2;
the Chartists.l This book, fully documented with the re-
ports of many commissions of inquiry appointed by parlia-
ment to investigate conditions in factories and industrial
towns, reveals that Mrs. Gaskell's portrayal is essential-
ly correct. .

Housing was extremely bad. Since there were no
building restrictions of any kind, landlords, in order to
get the greatest possible number of houses on a given plot
of ground, Jammed buildings as closely together as they
could, putting in an absolute minimum of narrow, crooked
roads. The houses in one of the newer sections of Man—
chester were described2 as being of the most superficial
character, having walls only half a brick thick and no
cellars or foundation. They were built back to back, with-
out ventflation or drainage, and formed courts with a pump
at one end and a privy at the other, serving perhaps twenty
houses. Other, older sections of the town were thickly

crowded with basement dwellings which sometimes measured

 

1Longmans, Green & 00., London, 1950
21b1d0 ' p. 80.

27

no more than eight feet square and six feet high. Be-
cause of a tax on every house having more than eight
windows, windows were few, ventilation was poor, and
health hazards correspondingly increased. Usually the
cellar house and often other dwellings as well were un-
provided with privies and refuse of all kinds went into
the street. Streets in Manchester were theoretically
cleaned once a week, but we must remember that by "street“
was meant only those thoroughfares dedicated to the public.
Courts and alleys were not cleaned at all, and undedi-
cated ones only occasionally. It is not surprising,
therefore, that a survey of the Manchester area by the
District Boards of Health during an 1852 cholera epidemic
should show that in 552 out of 687 streets visited there

1 A survey of

were heaps of refuse and stagnant pools.
factory conditions will show that the work was far from
being I'1ight and.easy“ as Cred stated, even though some

of the worst abuses had been done away with. These abuses
had been uncovered by a number of parliamentary investiga-
tions of industrial conditions, notably that conducted by
the Badler committee in 1852. The committee uncovered in—
stances of young girls being made to work as many as nine-
teen hours a day in a textile "rush” season; of workers

'who were no more than five minutes late for work being

fined or "dockedI a quarter of a day's pay; of brutal

 

lIbido, pp. 95-950

28

beatings administered by factory overseers to girls who
fell behind in their work or who made small blunders. In
one instance a girl's back was "beat nearly to a Jelly“
because she was aiding a fellow worker during a short lull
in her own work. Conditions in other industries and occu-
pations, notably mining, were found to be as bad or even

worse.

Such evidence was largely responsible for the pass—
age of the Factory Act of 1855, which introduced inspec-
tion of factories. This act was superseded eleven years
later by the Factory Act of 1844. This piece of industri-
al legislation, the last important one prior to fine pub-
lication of Magy Barton, reduced to six and one half the
number of working hours a day for children between the
ages of eight and thirteen, and limited this work period
to either the morning or afternoon. However, children
could be worked ten hours a day on alternate days. Young
persons -- those between the ages of thirteen and.eighteen --.
were to work no more than twelve hours a day on week days
and nine on Saturday. .Dangerous machines were to be
screened; a physician's report was to be made out for
every accident that occurred, the physician himself in-
vestigating the accident; schooling was to be provided

for factory children at the employer's expense; and a

 

14. E. Bland, English Economic History, Select
Documents, London: Bell, 1921, pp. 851-2,—1Report of
Committee Factory Children's Labour, (XV) p. 192ff.)

29

number of half-holidays were to be granted annually.1
However, even with the improvements provided for by this
legislation, Victorian working conditions were extremely
bad.

It might be well for us to examine at this point the
education available to the young of the working classes
at this period. In 1934 the Statistical Society of Man-
chester, formed to start an inquiry into the state of ed-
ucation in that town, discovered that compulsory education
for children existed only on paper. There were available
eighty—four Sunday schools at which they might be taught
to read after a fashion, and in ten of these schools they
might learn writing. In the Dame schools they might learn
reading, writing, and arithmetic, with grammar and geOgra-
phy added for an extra penny a week. The schools depend-
ing on public subscription were in a sense the worst of
them all. In these schools, through the use of monitors,
student teachers who had themselves only recently learned
the lessons they taught, two masters could handle a thousand
pupils. Lessons were learned by rote. The monitor would
ask questions in a certain sequence and the pupils would
repeat the answers until they knew them by heart. If, by
chance, the questions were then asked out of sequence,
chaos ensued, the pupil still answering the original se-

quence.2 One can easily see that the "better education

 

- 11bid., pp. 612-14 (Factory Act of 1844 (Statutes
7 and 8, sgction 15))
Hammond, pp. cit., pp. 168-176.

30

to give purer tastes and higher aims" was not to be ob-

tained without drastic revision of the school "system"

as it existed in that day. Neither were purer tastes to

be gained by the worker through visits to libraries, mu—

seums, and botanical gardens. These institutions either

did not exist or were closed on holidays and Sundays, the

only times when workmen could visit them. Even recreation

was denied them, since playgrounds and commons had been

to a large extent enclosed and crowded out by tenements.
Such conditions undoubtedly accounted fer much of the

shiftlessness which Greg mentioned as a characteristic of

many persons belonging to the working classes. With cul-

tural and recreational outlets closed to them, and with a

mockery of an education, they found refuge for their suffer-

ing only in the gin-shOps, where, for a few pence, they

could purchase temporary forgetfulness of their miserable

lot. As for the contention of Greg and others that only

the worst elements of the working class hated the owners

and that such a feeling was exceptional and not general,

one has only to pdint to such rebellions as the Luddite

riots, the Spa Fields riots of 1816, the Manchester Massacre

of 1819, and the Chartist movement which culminated in the

abortive demonstration of 1848, to confute it. It is true,

however, that many manufacturers had their workers' interests

as well as profit-making at heart. Mr. Edmund Ashworth,

for example, sponsored a housing préject for his workers,

51

building cottages containing a living room 15 by 9 feet,
a back kitchen the same size, and three bedrooms over
them.1

In contending that workmen should look to themselves
rather than to the rich or to parliament for help, the re-
viewers overlooked a number of important considerations.
In the first place, the handicap of living under the con—
ditions described above presented grave obstacles to self—
help. The employer, it is also important to remember, did
not himself depend entirely upon self—help. He organized
manufacturers‘ associations which he used to further his
interests, and entering into politics, became a dominant
political force in the country, promoting legislation
favorable to capitalism. In other words, the manufacturers
were guilty of the same activities regarded as so repre-
hensible when attempted by the laboring classes. But even
if each factory-owner had been content to stand on his own
two feet, the individual worker would still have been at
a tremendous disadaantage in bargaining with him. The man-
ufacturer would merely have had to state his terms, however
unfair to the employee they might be, and the only course

Open to the employee would have been to accept them or

 

lIbid., pp. 81-85.

32

seek another Job. Under such circumstances, the laborer
had no choice but to follow the example set by the manu-
facturer, to organize unions and seek aid through political
action.

Greg's arguments to show the impracticality of c00pera-
tive ownership appear fallacious on several grounds. In
the first place, they assume that the workmen were getting
their fair share of profits -- i.e. wages -— an assumption
decidedly Open to question, in view of present-day real
wages of workers as compared to the real wages of a cen-
tury ago. Greg apparently envisioned a cooperative com-
pany with one large-share owner plus many other owners
whose incomes were about equal to those of workers of die
time. If this were the situation, and if Greg's assertion
that the worker was getting a fair share of the profits
were correct, then his argument might be valid. But if a
group of men actually formed a cooperative, it is more than
likely that they would hold more or less equal shares in
the enterprise, in which case the profits, over and above
wages, which would normally go to one man would be split
into many shares, thus increasing the income of each indi-
vidual shareholder very substantially. To make this point
more clear, let us give a greatly simplified example. Let
us assume that a mill employs one hundred men at an average
wage of one pound per week, the owner's profits being fifty

pounds per week. Under a cOOperative set up with each

53

worker holding equal shares, the fifty pounds per week

that in the above case went to the owner alone would be
divided among the one hundred workmen. Each workman under
the cooperative set up would thus be getting fifty percent
more income than the man working under the old system.

Of course the workers might hire a trained administrator

to perform the duties formerly carried out by the owner,
but even in this event his salary would not be expected to
be as large as were the profits fonnerly going to the owner.
The problems of labor turnover and drunken, lazy workmen
would be of much less importance in a cooperative enter-
prise than in a conventionally owned factory. After all,.
there is much less likelihood that a man having a share in
a business will quit and go to work somewhere else, than
that a man whose only connection with his Job is his pay
envelOpe will do so. Drunken, lazy workmen would probably
be almost non-existent in c00perative setups such as the
above, since it is unlikely they would be able to save
enough money to participate in the first place. In con-
clusion, it is probably unnecessary to point out that the
chief evidence of the unsoundness of Greg's argument is the
existence of thousands of flourishing codperatives in con-

tinental EurOpe and his own Britain.

North and South

 

This novel not only deals with conditions in industrial
towns in England but also contrasts the industrial areas
with rural southern England. Margaret Hale, a girl who
has lived in London and in a quiet parsonage in the south
of England and who is thoroughly imbued with the common
prejudices against trade of every sort, accompanies her
father, who has given up his pulpit for doctrinal reasons,
and her ailing mother to Milton-Northern, a grimy industrial
town. Here, she comes into contact with the workers and
their employers, and in particular with John Thornton, a
stubborn, hard-headed leader of the employers. In spite
of Margaret's advocacy of a more sympathetic attitude to-
ward the workers, Thornton is fascinated by her beauty
and proud bearing. At this point a strike breaks out,
and the courage with which Margaret acts to protect Thorn-
ton from a dangerous mob of strikers leads him, from a
misunderstanding of her motives, to pr0pose to her, and
her refusal hurts him deeply. An incident then occurs
which further widens the breach between them. Thornton
sees Margaret under equivocal circumstances with an un-
known man, in reality her brother Frederick, a fugitive who
has secretly returned hom to visit his dying mother. She,
in order to protect Frederick, who is in danger of arrest,
is forced to lie and say that she has been with no man,

and this denial intensifies Thornton's suspicions.

35

Margaret now discovers from her unhappiness at being degraded
in Thornton's eyes, that she is in love with him. Meanwhile,
the fortunes of the two have changed. Margaret has inherited
a considerable sum of money, while Thornton has been brought
to the brink of ruin by the strike. His misfortunes have,
however, taught him the need of more humane relations be-
tween workers and owners. They meet in London, where Mar-
garet has gone to live, and die is able to clear up the
misunderstanding over Frederick, who has by this time es-
caped safely from England. He again proposes, and this time
is accepted.

North and South, unlike Mary Barton, attracted prac-
tically no critical notice when it was published. This
lack of attention was probably occasioned by the change of
industrial conditions that was described in the introduc-
tory section. Since there are no reviews available dating
from the time of the novel's publication, material has been
used that appeared somewhat later, some of it in general
appraisals of her work.

The comments upon North and South were much more uni-
formly favorable than those which greeted Mggy Barton. Mrs.
Gaskell was regarded with high approbation for her attempts
to show that the ”higher elements" in the man of business
hadn't all been trodden down in the race for wealth; that
1

he was capable of understanding the man of speculation,

and that he had idealistic hOpes for man‘s improvement

56
through the mastery of the material world by means of
science and technology.

The characters came in for a great deal of praise;
the subordinate ones were said to be touched with "force
and distinctiveness,'2 while G. B. Smith characterized
Margaret Hale as "one of the most charming personages in
fiction," and a girl who was “cast in a heroic mold."
"Sweetness without too much sentimaitality; strength
without losing any of her femininity" -- these were
called her most prominent characteristics}5 The same
writer commented upon the way she could act quickly when
rapidity of action was necessary, and cited as an example
the occasion when she threw her arms around Mr. Thornton
to shield him from the wrath of his striking workmen, and.
by doing so endangered her own life. Minto felt that it
was a deliberate degradation of Margaret's character to
put her into circumstances where she was forced to tell a
lie in order to save her brother's life, and took Mrs.
Gaskell to task for resorting to such a "tricky expedient

for arousing interest."4 Though Thornton was recognized

 

1William Minto, “Mrs. Gaskell's Novels," Fort-
nightly Review, XXX (Sept., 1878), 353.

2Ibid., p. 407
3Minto, 2p. cit., p. 406.
41bid.

37

as being a well-drawn character, he did not arouse the
admiration of the critics as did Margaret. He was thought
to be ”too cold and self-sustained" for a woman such as
she, although it was conceded that she was probably able
to see good qualities beneath his rugged exterior.1 The
ending of the story was criticized for appearing hasty,
while the reasons behind Mr. Hale's giving up his pulpit
were said to be too vaguely presented.

No critic commented adversely upon the structure of
the novel, and yet it is quite apparent that it contains
numerous flaws. Not only is the motivation behind Mr.
Hale's resigning from the church too hazy, but Frederick's
visit to Margaret and her father is also made too much of,
There is much discussion of his impending secret visit,
but when he finally comes all he does is complicate rela-
tions between Margaret and Thornton, then passes out of the
picture.

Contemporary cpinion seems.to agree pretty much with
the earlier estimates of characters in the novel. The
writer is inclined to agree with the reviewers in their
opinions of the characters, but would add that the dialogue
of Margaret, like so much of the feminine dialogue in Vic-
torian novels, is stilted and artificial, as well as being

far too melodramatic. Granted that the speech of the Vic-

 

lSmith, op. cit., p. 208.

2Gerald Dewitt Sanders, Elizabeth Gaskell,
Yale University Press, New Haven, 1929, p. 69.

58

torians was more flowery than our own, it is still hard to
conceive of a real person of that are saying, "let them
insult my maiden modesty as they will, I walk pure before
God!“ as Margaret is made to after her encounter with the
strikers.

It is difficult to see how the lie that Margaret told
degraded her character in the least. Few persons would
deny that a lie told for the purpose of taking an unfair
advantage of the person to whom it is told degrades the
character of the teller. But Margaret's lie was not of
this type. She gained nothing, nor did she expect to gain
anything, from Mr. Thornton through her falsehood. Her
only purpose was to insure her brother's safety, a motive
surely not to be condemned. Viewed in this light, the lie
is no more worthy of censure than the "tall story,” another
type of falsehood which aims at harming nobody. If anything,
Margaret is to be complimented for daring to take an action
she knew would lower her in Mr. Thornton's estimation.

In this novel, Mrs. Gaskell presented the same solu-
tion for misunderstanding and strife between worker and
factory-owner -- creation of a better understanding through
closer contact between individuals of both groups —- as she
did in Mary Barton. However, when it came to implementing
the doctrine through concrete action, all Mrs. Gaskell could
suggest was the establishment of a community dining hall at

Mr. Thornton's factory, where food might be cooked in large

quantities and sold cheaply to the men.

59

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to prove
that Mrs. Gaskell's remedy would not work if it could be
applied, but there are certain obstacles which would
weaken its chances for success. It is apparent that any
plan for aiding the worker and improving his lot short
of replacement of capitalism with some other economic sys-
tem must insure that the worker's share of the money which
industry divides into profits and wages must be increased.
Since any such increase, unless compensated for by improved
machinery, better production methods, or some other means,
must necessarily decrease profits, management has a very
powerful motive for not wanting “to get tOgether" with
labor. This fundamental conflict between labor and
management was in Mrs. Gaskell's day, still is, and will

. probably always be, the great weakness of her plan.

Ruth

Rgth, Mrs. Gaskell's second novel, is, like 3222
Barton, a special novel, but it deals with the ethical
problems raised by seduction and illegitimacy rather
thanvvith those resulting from the industrial revolution.
Ruth Hilton, a young and innocent orphan and dressmaker's
assistant, is seduced by Henry Bellingham. His mother
discovers the relationship and persuades him to desert
Ruth. Alone and friendless, she is found by Thurstan
Benson, a dessenting minister, and his sister, Faith,
and taken into their home after her child is born. Benson,
at his sister's insistence and in order to lighten Ruth's
burden, advises her to pose as a widow, and in that
character she obtains employment in the house of the ty-
rannical Mr. Bradshaw. Here she remains for several years
as governess, on good terms with everyone especially with
Jemina, Mr. Bradshaw's daughter. However, Mr. Bradshaw
learns her past history, and in spite of the protests of
Jemina, dismisses her from her teaching job and publishes
the news abroad. The next two years Ruth lives in misery,
as her opportunity for teaching has gone and she can earn -
but a pittance with her needle. Finally, she decides to
become a nurse. By her devoted service to the sick, she
gradually wins over the peOple who have previously shunned
and condemned her. A terrible fever breaks out and Ruth

becomes town heroine by taking over the post of matron of

41

the fever ward when the other nurses refuse the job.

Here, while nursing her former lover, Bellingham, who

has previously by chance re-met Ruth and hasjguccessfully
proposed marriage to her, she herself is stricken with the
feVer and dies. It has been said1 that when Rggh was
published it created a greater stir than did Mary Barton,
the prudish and the ignorant finding in the work only in-
decency. This violent reaction is not, however, reflected
in the reviews, which, though far from expressing unquali-
fied approbation, were nevertheless generally friendly.

The quietness and sobriety of its style, as compared
to that of Mary Barton was commented upon numerous times.
The treatment was characterized as ”thoughtful and tender,“
with no “exaggeration or impassioned denunciation.'2 and
with a rare unity which kept the story moving 'resistlese-
ly towards the end.'3 Mrs. Gaskell's "imaginative approach
to nature" received much favorable comment, and a number
of descriptive passages were quoted as illustrative of her

ability to catch a vivid scene.4 Her handling of dramatic

 

lIbid., p. 57.

2George W. Curtis, "Villette and Ruth," Putnam's
Monthly, 1 (May, 1853), 559.

5Ibid., p. 537.

4"The Story of Ruth," Tait's Edinburgh Magazine,
XX (April, 1853), 217.

42

scenes was said to be excellent: Ruth's abandonment by

Mr. Bellingham, her rescue by Thurstan Benson and his
sister, and their return to the Benson home were singled

out for special approbation.1 The theme 0f.BE£B was said to
be greater than that of Mary Barton, since the latter dealt
with more or less transient phenomena while the former dealt
with a more eternal problem, the regeneration of a "fallen
woman."

Mrs. Gaskell's powers of characterization did not es-
cape the reviewers. Sally, the Bensons' servant, was de-
scribed as "racy, full of human, womanly heart and womanly
prejudice," and was more than once singled out as being
the best drawn in the book. Ruth's character, understand-
ably enough, was discussed more thoroughly than that of
any other person in the novel. Much was made of the fact
that at the time of her escapade she was an innocent girl,
ignorant of die meaning of her behavior, and therefore could
hardly have been a sinner. "Only when higher morality is
inculcated by the example, love, and devotion of Mr.

Benson and his sister does Ruth realize that the period
she spent with Bellingham was one of sin," and bears
the "life-long penance of self-abasement always as the

just wages of her fault." The very consequences

 

1(Review of Ruth) The Athenaeum, (Jan. 15, 1855),

77° 2(Review of Ruth) The North British Review, XIX
(May, 1855), p. 164.

3The Athenaeum, Ibid., p. 77.

45

of her fault were said to have made a Christian out of
her. The sense of responsibility to her child after he
was born, the feeling of the wrong she had_done to him
coupled with the joy he brought her -- these were held to
be "the means of her sanctifieation."1

The "rigid, bloodless anatomy...which is called Mr.
Bradshaw"2 came in for much condemnation. Not one critic
had a favorable word to say of him, but all united in
declaring his conduct to be the very antithesis of
Christianity.

Nearly all the critics found fault with Mrs. Gaskell
for portraying Benson as a man who deliberately told a
lie, passing off Ruth as a widow. They found it hard to
believe that an actual minister would be guilty of such
an act, and felt that it injured the character of Benson
quite badly. Onereviewer,5 however, took comfort in
asserting that Mrs. Gaskell could hardly be charged with
lax morals, since Benson was severely punished for his lie.

The question of whether Ruth had done right in re-
fusing the offer of marriage which Bellingham made her
came up in one review.4 The critic argued that the offer
meant Bellingham wanted to atone for his wrong and that

for her not to allow him to do so was in itself a sin.

 

lNorth British Review, ibid., 152-55.

ZCurtis, 2p. cit., p. 558.

5(Review of Ruth) The English Review, XVIII
(April, 1855), 195.

4The Athenaeum, ibid., p. 78.

44

He further argued that Ruth had no positive proof
Bellingham would corrupt their child, that he might as
easily be regenerated by it.

Numerous interpretations of the moral purpose of
the novel were put forward. It was said to be no more
than the “old tale and often told of a woman's fall and
man's desertion" and of the "process by which the sin is
expiated."1 Another reviewerz felt it taught that the
difference between those who commit and those who do not
commit "certain offenses against God and man" was to be
found in circumstances rather than in the persons them-
selves, and that we should never jump to conclusions
concerning the enormity of the offense without also
taking into account the circumstances surrounding the
temptation. He went on to suggest that it was want of
charity toward persons who, like Ruth, erred through ig-
norance that turns them into habitual sinners. The re-
viewer for Tait's Edinburgh Magazines expressed almost
identical sentiments, and severely condemned the Bradshaw
brand of Christianity which “damns and persecutes the

fallen, even when the fault was done in ignorance, weakness

 

1The English Review, ibid., p. 195.

"Contem orary Literature,” Bentley's Miscelleny,
XXVIII (Feb., 1855 , 257.

5"The Story of Ruth,” ibid., p. 219.\

45

and indiscretion." He also condemned the society which
will shun a woman who engages in a clandestine love affair,
but which will condone and even smile at the man's actions.
He maintains that the "monstrous disproportion of the pun-
ishment as visited on the two sexes, has no reasonable
ground." Two other interpretations of his moral purpose
of this novel are worthy of mention. The first1 stated
that the purpose of the novel was to show that unchastity
'is above all the loosening of the family bond -- a treason
. against the family order of God's world,” and that the
”restoration of the sinner" consisted mainly in the renewal
of that bond, the realization of that order. ‘The second
declared the story was meant to show that a woman can be
rehabilitated only "through the means of women, who, noble
'and pure in their own lives, can speak with authority"
to those who have gotten into difficulties.2

The reviewers made a number of minor criticisms of
,figth. The scene in which Ruth tells her son Leonard fliat
he is illegitimate and his one which immediately follows
describing his reaction to this information were criticized
as being too exaggerated and melodramatic, the comment
being made that a child of eleven couldn't have grasped
the significance of such aidisclosure.3 Finally, the
length of the work and.the undue importance given to the

romance of Jemima, Mr. Bradshaw's daughter, and Mr.Farquhar

 

1(Review of Ruth) North British Review, ibid.,p.l55.
2“Ruth and Villette“,The Westminister Review,ibid.,

485‘4' 51515., p. 485.

46

were adversely commented upon.

It is apparent that no reviewer grasped the full
moral purpose of the work, although nearly every one was
able to see part of it. The story is that of a girl who
is seduced and deserted, but it is certainly more than
that. It makes the point that "circumstances alter cases"
and definitely attacks the narrow pharisaical Christianity
represented by Mr. Bradshaw while exalting the true
Christianity exemplified by Thurstan Benson. Finally, it
is an attack on the double standard of morality. It is
difficult to see, however, how it can be considered as
showing that a woman can be rehabilitated only through
another woman: Thurstan Benson, after all, was the only
person who was spontaneously willing to help Ruth after
her desertion by Bellingham; he had to convince his sister
that he was doing the right thing and he unflinchingly took
the very serious step of lying about her past to save her
from the sneers of his neighbors. To be sure Ruth had many
women friends who stood by and helped her, but Faith Benson,
as we have already said, only followed her brother's lead
in offering assistance, and Jemima was called upon to de-
fend her only after they had been acquainted for a number
of years, during which time she had come to know and fully
appreciate Ruth's fine qualities. Whether she would have
come to Ruth's assistance under the same circumstances

that Thurstan Benson did is decidedly cpen to question.

 

1(Review of Ruth) North British Review,ibid.,p.l60.

47

Mrs. Gaskell tried hard to convince her readers that sin
could.be expiated through good works and repentance, but

in the end, and in spite of the fact that she had strongly
condemned the conventional Christian morality of Mr. Brad-
shaw, she herself invoked a conventional maxim, "the wages
of sin is death" and killed her heroine off. The moral

was made even more explicit by virtue of the fact that.

the agent responsible for bringing about her death was
Bellingham, the man with whom she had sinned. There are

a number of reasons why such an ending is extremely un-
satisfactory. For example, one can argue that the outcome
depicted by Mrs. Gaskell is very unrealistic. Not only

is the penalty for adultery not death (except in those in-
frequent cases when the girl becomes pregnant as the result
of the relationship and dies in childbirth or because of
the after-effect of an abortion, or when the injured person
seeks and gets fatal revenge -- as a man who avenges his
"honor".) but in the vast majority of cases there is no
penalty at all. If we neglect the element of unreality

and regard the work as a tragedy, the ending is still un-
satisfactory. In a tragedy, every situation must come
about as an inevitable consequence of what has gone before.
In figgh this does not happen. The events at the end of the
book take place as a consequence of the lie told by Thurstan

Benson. But the consequences of the lie are by no means

48

inevitable. It was only by chance that Mr. Bradshaw found
out.the truth about Ruth and fired her; hence, the subse-
quent nursing career which led to her death is also the
result of chance, rather than the inevitable consequence
of her affair with Bellingham, as Mrs. Gaskell, consciously
or unconsciously, would have the reader believe.

There is no need to enter into a discussion of the lie
told by Thurstan Benson; it belongs to the same class as

the one told by Margaret Hale in North and South, and the

 

same statements apply to it as applied to the former.

Sylvia's Lovers

This work, Mrs. Gaskell's only historical novel,
deals with the activities of the press-gangs during the
latter part of the 18th century. Sylvia is the daughter
of Daniel Robson, a farmer on the Yorkshire coast, who
has been a sailor and smuggler and who bears a bitter
grudge against press-gangs. Sylvia is deeply loved by
her cousin, Philip Hepburn, a rising young clothing mer-
chant, but she doesn't love him. She is in love with
Charlie Kinraid, a dashing young sailor who is a local
hero because of the courage he has displayed in resisting
a press-gang. Philip, on his way to London on business,
sees Charlie seized by a press-gang, and takes a message
from him to be delivered to Sylvia. By the time Philip
returns from London, Sylvia is mourning Charlie as dead,
for his cap has been found along the seashore and he is
believed drowned. ,Philip witholds his knowledge of Charlie
from Sylvia. Meanwhile, Sylvia's father leads an attack
upon a press-gang which has its headquarters in a village
inn, and is hanged for his part in the affair. Philip
persuades the grief-stricken Sylvia to marry him. A year
later, after a child has been born to them, Charlie returns
and Philip's treachery is revealed. Sylvia denounces
Philip, and he flees town and enlists in the marines.
Charlie also leaves town after Sylvia, though admitting

her love for him, refuses to see him again. At the siege

50

of Acre, the two men meet again, Philip saves Charlie's
life, but is badly wounded himself. Broken in health

and so disfigured that Sylvia cannot recognize him, he
returns to the village to be near her and his child.
Sylvia meanwhile has learned that Charlie married within

a few weeks after leaving her and has forgiven Philip.

She and Philip are finally brought together but he is on
his deathbed and there is time only for mutual forgiveness
before he dies.

Sylvia'g Lovers, like North and South, was not reviewed
when it first appeared. The reasons for fills neglect are
somewhat difficult to ascertain, but it is probably chief—
1y due to the fact that the work is non-controversial.

The few,writers who, in the next few years, did
mention Sylvia's Lovers had nothing but praise for it, and
one1 rated it as the best novel that Mrs. Gaskell ever
wrote. Once again Mrs. Gaskell's powers of scenic descrip-
tion were recOgnized; one critic made the important obser-
vation that these descriptions of nature were primarily
didactic in purpose. They were presented "not to touch
our imagination" but rather to "show us peOple and how

they live in their setting."2

 

1"Mrs. Gaskell's Novels,“ The Literary World,
XIII (July, 1882), 217.

2Minto, “Mrs. Gaskell's Novels," Fortnightly
Review, XXX (Sept., 1878), 558.

Although the critics recognized that there was ”a
distinct and perfect naturalness about every character
in the book,"1 they quite naturally gave almost all their
attention to Sylvia herself. She was recognized as being
no ordinary portrait. In spite of the fact that she was
a "charming rustic lass" with a sweet warmheartedness and
sympathy," the imperfections in her character, for example,
obstinacy, as shown in her refusal to learn to read, were
pointed out. However, the critics felt that these touches
of human weakness served to "make Sylvia a part and parcel
of that common race to which we all belong,“ and to keep
her from being exalted "up_to a sphere into which so many
heroines are translated, but which none of the living women
ever attain.”

Several of the writers had some comment to make about
the artistic powers Mrs. Gaskell displayed in Sylvia's
Lovers. The reviewer for The Literary World was impressed
by the ”display of tragic power" in the novel, and stated
that the story was not injured but rather gained in life-
likeness by being told at length. He also remarked favorably
upon the way the story's interest was sustained throughout

and increased gradually to the close.

 

lMrs. Gaskell's Novels" The Literary World, ibid.

2%. . Smith, “Mrs. Gaskell and her Novels,"

Cornhill Magazine, XXIX (Feb., 1874), 191-192.
3Mrs. Gaskell's Novels,“ The Literary World, ibid.

52

Smith, writing in the Cornhill Magazine, noted that
the novel showed Mrs. Gaskell's artistic powers were
maturing. He cited as evidence her greater grasp of both
character and expression, the perfect delineation of life
on the northeastern coast, the graphic manner in which the
story of the press—gang is told, and the unexaggerated
presentation of the horrors attending press-gang Opera-
tions.1 .

Sylvia's Lovers, although usually dismissed by earlier
critics with a few short sentences, has later come in for
more attention. A modern biographerz agrees that there
is better technique displayed in this novel than in any of
Mrs. Gaskell's earlier works. He praises the way she leads
up to the climax, Philip's decision not to tell Sylvia
that her lover, Charlie Kinraid, has been captured by the
press-gang, and then works out the rest of the story
"with masterful skill and with no turning aside from the
direct action." He notes also that the changes in Sylvia
and the growth in her character are perfectly marked, every

change being accounted for.

 

13. B. Smith, 3p. cit., p. 206/

2Gerald D. Sanders, Elizabeth Gaskell, Yale Uni-
versity Press, New Haven, pp. 119-128.

Wives and Daughters

Eiyes and Daughters, the last of Mrs. Gaskell's novels,
is written in a much lighter vein than any of fine others.
Mr. Gibson, the simple, hardworking doctor of the little,
town of Hollingsford, is a widower when the story begins.
He has a daughter, Molly, an honest, unselfish girl who
is devoted to her father. In order to give his daughter
the benefits of a "mother“, as well as to please himself,
Dr. Gibson marries a widow, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, formerly a
governess in the nearby home of Lord Cunmor. The new Mrs.
Gibson is a superficially attractive woman, but she has
all of the vices of a shallow, selfish nature. The
marriage of her father does much to spoil Molly's previous-
ly happy life, but she does her best to accept the new
situation. Her lot is improved when Mrs. Gibson's own
daughter, Cynthia, a fascinating girl without her mother's
vices but also without Molly'scnpacity for deep love,
returns from the continent where she has been educated.

She has entangled herself, when sixteen, with Mr. Preston,
Lord Cunmor's clever but ill-bred agent, from whom she has
borrowed money and has in turn given a secret promise to
marry him. Since making the promise, however, she has
come to hate him. Another family figures prominently in
the story: Mr. Hamley, a hot-tempered but good—natured
old squire; his gentle wife, and their two sons, Osborn

and Roger. The parents have high hOpes for the future of

54

the handsome and clever Osborne, whom they envision dis-
tinguishing himself at Cambridge and afterward making a
brilliant marriage. But he fails miserably in his studies
and secretly marries a French governess. As a result, he
becomes estranged from his father. Osborne's health fails
and he dies, leaving a baby son, and the father realizes
too late that he was overly harsh in his treatment of
Osborne. Roger, the younger son, though lacking his .
brother's outward charm, is made of sterner stuff. He
reaps academic honors and becomes an eminent man of
science. The Hamleys are devoted to Molly, who falls in
love with Roger. Roger at the same time falls in love
with Cynthia, who in spite of her engagement to Preston,
accepts him without loving him. Cynthia, however, soon
realizes that their characters are incompatible, gives
Roger up, and marries a man more suitable to herself,
after Molly has liberated her from Preston. There is a
promise of a happy ending when the unfinished work closes,
for Roger has become aware of Molly's good qualities and
will evidently marry her.

Wives and Daughters received as little attention from
the reviewers when it appeared as did Sylvia's Lovers.
One review appeared in The Nation early in 1866; the re-

mainder of the remarks in this section come from general

55

appraisals of her work which appeared later.

The length of the work, its "quietness of interest,"
and the great amount of detail presented were mentioned1
as qualities which might cause many readers to lay the
book aside as dull, but these features were nevertheless
defended as leading the reader to a “realization of the
central ideal" of a character, as enabling him to know
the character more intimately because of an acquaintance
with the minutiae of his daily life. The moral atmos-
phere of the work was regarded by the reviewer as "sweet,
bracing, invigorating,” and the human feeling as "good
and kind throughout."2

The characters in the novel were acknowledged to be
well-portrayed, but a certain element, perhaps best de-
scribed as a "generalization of character" was noted,
which, although it permitted the reader to have an inti-
mate ecquaintance with them, prevented him from getting
to know them as well as he might know Jane Eyre or Adam
Bede.5 .

Molly Gibson was held to command a slighter degree
of interest than the companion figure of Cynthia Kirkpatrick

 

1"Wives and Daughters,“ The Nation, II (Feb., 1855),

245'7~ 2"The Works of Mrs. Gaskell," The British anrterly
Review, XLV (April, 1867), 424.

David Masson, "Mrs. GaskelL"'Macmillans Magazine,
x111 (Dec., 1865) 155-5.

 

56
since Cynthia had a greater genius for fascination,l
Cynthia's prejudice against a husband who would "keep
her always on moral tiptoes, straining to more purely
good than complex nature meant her to be" elicited sympathy
from at least one reviewer, who was apparently aware that
she couldn't help being a flirt and breaking men's hearts.2

The reviewer for The Nation felt that the "strongly marked,

 

masculine, middle-aged" men, Dr. Gibson and Squire Hamley,
were as ”forcibly drawn as if a masculine hand had drawn
them“ but felt Osborne Hamley to "hardly more than a sugges-
- tion.“ In contrast, another reviewer6 thought Hamley was
one of the most abiding impressions left upon the memory.
Comment was made upon Mrs. Gaskell's portrayal of aristo-
crats and the aristocratic life, the reviewer stating that
her aristocrats were human beings and not “mere eccentrici-
ties and monstrosities,“ end that her glimpses of aristo-
cratic life were true.4

Oddly enough, no reviewer mentioned the element of
humor in Kizgg and Daughters, and yet the work shows Mrs.
Gaskell's humor in its happiest phase. Cranford has often

been called her most humorous work, but there the humor is

too deeply tempered with pathos to be considered pure. 0n

 

1The Nation, ibid., p. 247.

2The British.§Larterly Review, ibid., p. 425.
38—.— BO smith,0 9E0 Clto, pp. 191’20
41bid., p. 209.

57

the other hand, the whole theme of Wives and Daughters is
happy, cheerful, and Optimistic. There is not a single
figure in the story that could be called truly tragic;

even though Mrs. Hamley and Osborne Hamley die, their
deaths are normal and do not detract from the happy progress
of the story. The excellence of the novel is attested to
by the fact that those present-day persons who know Mrs.
Gaskell's works most intimately rank it second only to
Cranford -- which is, prOperly speaking, not a novel at

all -- in merit. At least one critic holds that it shows
Mrs. Gaskell not only as a great portrayer of character

but as a master technician, and that it lifts her to a
level with such other great novelists of the nineteenth
century as Austen, Thackeray, and Dickens. Taken as a
whole, the novel may be said to rank with the best comedies

l
of English fiction.

 

lSanders,gp. cit., p. 138. o

Cranford

Cranford, today the most pOpular of Mrs. Gaskell's
works, received practically no critical notice when it
first appeared in book form. Only one periodical, The
London Daily Times, reviewed the book upon its publication.
All other comments appeared in general estimates of Mrs.
Gaskell's work, most of which were published after her
death..

The reaction of the critics was practically one
hundred percent favorable. Onel commented upon the
qualities of the work, declaring that although Mrs. Gaskell
had written many things having greater power and more inter-
est than Cranford, she had produced nothing that would
better bear constant re-reading. He also mentioned the
rich humor of the work and its ”warm, genuine, womanly
kindness." Still other reviewers took note of the humor.
Anotherz characterized it as "delicious," and felt that
its combination with a "calm and yet flowing" style pro-
duced a work whose distinguishing features were "ease and
humour." The element of pathos is mentioned more than once.

The reviewer for Colburn's MonthlyMagazine5 conceded that

—-—-

 

1"The Works of Mrs. Gaskell,“ The Quarterly Re-
view, XLN (April, 1867), 411.

2G. B. Smith, "Mrs. Gaskell and Her Novels,"
Cornhill Magazine, XXIX (Feb., 1874), 200. ‘

5"The Author of Mary Barton,“ Colburn's New
Monthly Magazine, CV (Dec., 1855), 452.

 

 

59

the pathos might be “less demonstrative than in the other
tales,” but felt, nevertheless, that its'hatural and un-
strained character merits particular attention.” Smith1
expressed his belief that the pathos displayed in the work
would fully stand comparison with that in others of Mrs.
Gaskell's works.

Most of the discussion centered around the characters
in the work. The statement of one reviewer2 that anyone
who has ever read Cranford "knows the inhabitants of that
little sleepy town as well as if he had been in the habit
of paying visits there for years" bears eloquent witness
to Mrs. Gaskell's delineation cf the characters. Smith
singles out two characters for special mention.~ One was
Mr. Hoggins, the village doctor, who refused to change his
”coarse" name to something more genteel, and who, "careless
of his own interests," disclaimed any relationship to the
Marchioness of Exeter, whose name was Molly Hoggins. The
other was Mrs. Forrester, who, because to admit being poor
was considered a disgrace, made desperate attempts to con-_
ceal her poverty from her friends, although she knew they .
were equally poor and were, in their turn, trying to con-

ceal their true condition.

The "kindly underlying moral" of the work did not

 

1G. B. Smith, loc. it.
2

David Masson, "Mrs. Gaskell,“ Macmillan's
Magazine, XIII (Dec., 1865), 154.

 

6O

escape Minto's1 notice. He declared that the "makeshifts
and affectation of decayed gentility" had long been a
favorite subject for ridicule, but that Mrs. Gaskell,
while not inferior to Jane Austen herself in the power of
making her readers laugh at the foibles of old ladies,
took care to emphasize their good qualities. He gave as
an example of their kind-heartedness the efforts they made
under the leadership of the "prying, man-hunting, tart
Miss Pole" to raise a fund which would be contributed “in
a secret and concealed manner" to aid their impoverished
friend, Miss Matty.

One criticz, commenting upon the sort of reader that
Cranford appealed to, said that it was a prime favorite
with ”those cultivated peOple who can do without plot or
incident“ and who can Frelish the humour of the book and

its charming ease of style.”

 

1

Minto, 2p. cit., p. 356.
2

"Mrs. Gaskell's Novels," The Literary World,

The Life 2; Charlotte Bronte

 

Egg §i£§.g£ Charlotte Bronte, Mrs. Gaskell's only
important work outside the field of fiction, was the last
one which elicited a great deal of comment and criticism
from the reviewers. The reasons for the attention it re-
ceived are not difficult to ascertain. The Bronte sisters'
work had taken England by storm, Charlotte's Jane Eyre in
particular being highly successful. Hence, it is not sur-
prising that there should have been a great deal of interest
displayed in the life of the young authoress. Further, the
biography was controversial in at least two instances. It
presented an unfavorable view of Cowan Bridge School where
Charlotte and her sisters had spent some very unpleasant
months during their childhood, months of ill-treatment
which Charlotte believed was responsible for the death of
two of her sisters. Mrs. Gaskell's remarks about the in-
stitution led the Reverend Carus Wilson, who had figured
in the affair as the school's chief administrator, to
protest. His friends rose to his defence and he started
an action in court, but others maintained the truth of Mrs.
Gaskell's statements and the affair ended in a draw. The
other controversy had to do with statements made concerning
Branwell Bronte's relations with a Mrs. Robinson, in whose
home he had been a tutor. Mrs. Gaskell, relying upon un—

supported statements made by Charlotte Bronte, asserted

62

that Branwell had been seduced by Mrs. Robinson. She did
not use Mrs. Robinson's name, but indicated her identity
so clearly that anyone familiar with the history of the
Bronte family couldn't help knowing who was meant. Mrs.
Robinson began a court action against Mrs. Gaskell, and
when the latter attempted to find evidence to back up her
statements, she not only failed but saw that everything
pointed to their falsity. The result was that Mrs. Gaskell
apologized publicly to Mrs. Robinson through an advertise-
ment in The Times. 1

One might expect that those reviewers who were in-
clined to side with Mr. Wilson in the Cowan Bridge contro-
versy would censure Mrs. Gaskell quite severely because
of her unfavorable picture of the institution and its
head. To be sure, she was taken to task by them, but the
bitterest attack of all was one which did not mention this
controversy at all. The reviewer1 making it charged that
she was "by no means clear of the charge of considerable
indifference to the injunction of the Ninth Commandment,”
and cited her "gross distortion” of the relationship be-
tween Branwell and Mrs. Robinson as corroborating evidence.
He went further, saying that Mrs. Gaskell's taste "was by
no means refined“ and that the moral influence of her novels

was ”to say the least, very doubtful." Finally, he attacked

 

1(Reviefi of the Life 2; Charlotte Bronte), The
Christian Observer, LVII (July, 1857), 487-90.

63

her religious orthodoxy, saying that there was little
evidence to show she ”embraced the whole religion of the
New Testament" and advancing the cpinion that she accepted
only so much of it as she saw fit and was more inclined to
be rationalistic than orthodox.

Such a review not only displays poor taste but also
displays at least one example of erroneous reasoning.
Granted Mrs. Gaskell presented false charges that were
harmful to the reputation of Mrs. Robinson, it does not
necessarily follow that she deliberately lied. Had the
reviewer not been overly anxious, as he apparently was,
to attack the character of a person whose religious and
moral views were less hidebound than his own, he might have
reflected that Mrs. Gaskell's charges could conceivably have
been based upon faulty information and not on any deliberate
desire to deceive. _The preoccupation of the Fictorians with
religious questions that is reflected in this attack upon
Mrs..Gaskell's religious views seems to the modern reader
to be quite as pointless as the long debates held by the
medieval schoolmen on such questions as "how many angels
can dance on the point of a needle?" Hence, he cannot
help regard almost with amusement the charges leveled
against Mrs. Gaskell's orthodoxy. But regardless of their
importance or unimportance, the fact remains that the 1
comments were irrelevant to the consideration of the book

under scrutiny, and classifiable as invectives.

64

The style of the biOgraphy elicited much favorable
comment. The reviewers recognized that Mrs. Gaskell had
spared no pains to draw a "faithful and true portrait of a
friend,“ and saw evidence of her warm sympathy with
Charlotte's works and character in her refusal to criticize
and her willingness to let the facts of Charlotte's brief
career speak for themselves. Her excellent description of
the “wild place, the rough, primitive state of society in
which the subject of her biography was cradled“ was noted
by one reviewer.1 Mrs. Gaskell's inclusion in the biography
of letters containing "private conversation of still living
peOple" was criticized by one reviewer who, although ad—
mitting that she had used discretion, nevertheless felt
that such a procedure furnished precedent for others who
“might not prove so fastidious."

Only one reviewer5 attempted a reasonably detailed
interpretation of Charlotte's character, using Mrs. Gaskell's
biography as a basis. The seriousness of the life depicted
was the first thing that struck him. Its qualities of

earnestness, truth, conscientiousness, and habitual self—

 

1(Review of the Life of Charlotte Bronte, ) The
Athenaeum,2 (April 4,1857), 427—

2(Review of the Life of Charlotte Bronte, ) The
Living Age, LII (June, 1857 7), 780. ‘

5(Review of the Life of Charlotte Bronte, ) The
Christian Remembrancer, XXXIV _(July, 1857), 87-145.

65

sacrifice aroused his respect and admiration. He was
aware, however, that side by side with these good qualities
existed defects of equal magnitude. One of these defects
was Charlotte's reticence. This he classified not as shy-
ness, which he said would please if it could, but as re-
serve, which doesn't care whether it pleases or not.
Charlotte's reserve, he remarked, like the reserve of sll
persons, is selfish. It exalts, for selfish reasons, those
whom it takes into its confidence, while degrading and
disparaging those whom it rejects. Charlotte manifested
her reserve, the reviewer said, by not fraternizing with
or feeling any general obligation to society, and by her
non-hesitancy in making a simple business-like use of it.
He said that rather than let her heart go out to others,
she brooded over her wrongs, studied her Oppressors, and
impaled them in her books. Time, he remarked, never
"softened a difference or a prejudice in Miss Bronte,"

but "hardened dislike into antipathy, Opposition into
rancor.“ He conceded her letters showed that she had

the ability to make friends, but said they exhibited a
"strange mistrust for one so young in the stability of

the tie.“ The reviewer advanced a theory which accounts
for some of Charlotte's traits. He felt that she was out
of balance, because she had a masculine mind in a weak,
nervous, body. Because her mind was prevented from

carrying out its impulses by the weakness beyond endurance

66

by its efforts to obey the mind, became more racked and
feeble than it would otherwise have been.1

Other reviewers arrived at more favorable estimates
of Charlotte's character.. Onez characterized her as being:
“truly good,“ having “genuine benevolence" and "true
charity," and harboring "no real bitterness in all her
distrust of society,” while another3 mentioned with
approbation her “unconquerable will” and the sense of duty
to which everything in her life was subordinated."

Since the biography was chiefly concerned with .
Charlotte Bronte, the reviewers confined themselves mainly
to analyses of her personality, although the characters
of Emily and Branwell also came in for a certain amount
of attention. On the whole, Emily received harsher treat-
ment at the hands of the reviewers than her sister. One4
characterized her as being "reserved to the utmost degree,
obstinate and contentious” citing as evidence for this
Opinion an instance when the sisters lost money in a
railroad investment because Emily wouldn't accede to her
sisters' wish to sell their shares of stock. Several re-

ferred to her almost pathological shyness, stating it

showed evidence of a diseased mind.

 

lIbid., pp. 89-90.

2(Review of the Life 2; Charlotte Bronte) The Living
Age, LIII (June, 1857), 780. (Reprinted from The London
Examiner, April 11, p. 228-9)

3(Review of the Life 9; Charlotte Bronte) The Living
.Age LIII ne 1857 59
’ £1 eview of)the Life

of Charl tt B
4&5?» LIII (June, 1857), 773:--- 0 e ronte) The Living

 

67

It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say
that the critics considered Branwell as beneath contempt.
Several reviewers felt that the coarseness of the men de-
picted by the Bronte sisters in their novels could be
traced to Branwell. Branwell, they said, was the only
man the sisters saw anything of; therefore he, with all
his coarseness acquired in a life of debauchery, would be
the model for any men appearing in the novels.

Most of the reviewers appear to have believed that
the picture of conditions at Cowan School presented by
Mrs. Gaskell was essentially correct. Onel, however,
characterized Charlotte's depiction of the Reverend
Wilson as exaggerated"portrait painting” and expressed
the Opinion that if Charlotte had known the impression it
would convey, she would have "greatly modified or altogether
blotted out the caricature she had sketched." Still
another2 felt that Charlotte shouldn't have let the
episode rankle in her mind for twenty years without a
softening in her attitude toward the institution.

In commenting upon Mrs. Gaskell's handling of the

3

Branwell-Mrs. Robinson episode, one reviewer stated that

 

1Review of the Life 9: Charlotte Bronte, The
Christian Observer, LIII (June, 1857), 489.

2Review of the Life of Charlotte Bronte, The
Christian Remembrancer, XXXIV Tiuly, 1857), 104.

5Ibid., p. 95.

 

68

her reliance upon the unsupported statements of Charlotte
and her subsequent rashness in using the information with-
out taking the simplest and easiest means of ascertaining
the truth could only lead to a general loss of confidence
in the biographer. Both the tone and the mode of Mrs,
Gaskell's final apology came under attack by another re-
viewer1 who expressed the Opinion that a formal apology
presented through an attorney, was not the mode in which
"a lady of Mrs. Gaskell's high character ought to retract
the accusation." About half the reviewers who commented
upon the episode accepted Mrs. Gaskell's version of it
as correct.

In closing the discussion of the biography it is
only necessary to say that the work has enjoyed a very
high reputation ever since its publication, being pOpular
with both scholars and general readers. After Cranford,
it is the best known and most widely read of-her works.
Clement K. Shorter placed it next to Boswell's Lifg 9;
Johnson and Lockhart's lgfgflgg‘gggtt in merit, and held
that these two were greater only because the authors had
greater subjects to deal with. Many critics agree with him.
Such praise is more than sufficient to establish a position
for Mrs. Gaskell in the front rank of English biographers.2

 

1'SMrs. Gaskell's Recantation," The Living Age,
LIV (Sept., 1857), 721-3.

2Gera1d De Witt Sanders, Elizabeth Gaskell, Yale
University Press, New Haven, p. 105.

Conclusion

From our consideration of the reviews of Mrs. Gaskell's
social novels, it is apparent that the concept of individual
morality played a much larger {Ole in Victorian thinking
on moral questions than it does in the moral thinking of
the man of today. The remarks by William Rathbone Greg,
in his review of Marnyarton, that the want of moral courage,
Of resolute individual will causes most Of the suffering
of the working classes, and that only through exercise of
their own intellect or virtues can they hope to rise in
the social scale, certainly minimize the part which society
plays in the individual's moral development. His adverse
comments upon labor unions are in part, also a reflection
Of the prevailing distrust of a social morality, although,
as will be pointed out later, there are also other reasons
for this unfavorable attitude.

As a matter Of fact, the Victorians of Mrs. Gaskell's
day were Obsessed with the question of mOrality in general
to an extent which today seems to border on fanaticism.

Now fanaticism of any sort tends to produce certain common
results. The fanatic, of course, unshakably convinced that
his viewpoint is the only correct one, becomes extremely
intolerant of viewpoints which differ only slightly from
his own. Thus, when the greatest prOportion of a country's
pOpulation is fanatically concerned with morals, it may be

expected that the moral code will be narrow and bigoted,

70

that the population as a whole will be unable to dis-
tinguish between different degrees of moral trangression,
and that any transgression will be severely dealt with.

The rigid moral outlook which prevailed among the Victori-
ans is illustrated by the comments which the reviewers of
figgh made concerning Thurstan Benson's lie. As has al-
ready been pointed out, there is a great deal of difference
between a lie told to deceive others in order that a
laudable and may be achieved, and one told to deceive
others in order to take advantage of them. The reviewers'
failure to see that Benson's lie belonged in the former
category is a reflection of the intolerant Victorian moral
code. Narrow as this moral outlook was, however, it would
be a mistake to think that no tolerance at all existed.

The fact that Ruth, because Of her ignorance of the signi-
ficance of her behaviour, was not condemned by the review-
ers for her affair with Bellingham, shows that there existed
a certain degree of tolerance.

The criticisms of Mary Barton reveal that Victorian

 

periodicals were strongly procapital, and that they should
be so is not surprising when we consider certain facts.

In the first place, the reading public served by the
periodicals was largely made up of middle-class tradesmen
and manufacturers whom the publishers dared not risk dis-
pleasing. On the other hand, since most persons belonging

to the working class were illiterate or could read only a

71

little, and since those who were capable Of understanding
the periodicals could not afford to buy them anyway, the
publishers did not have to fear offending them. It must
not be forgotten either, that the publishers themselves
belonged to the classes they supported. Then as now it
was impossible to start a magazine or newspaper without
considerable capital, and capital was to be found only in
possession of those classes whose interests conflicted
with those of the working classes. Therefore, anyone who
began publishing a periodical was likely to have views

similar to those of the reading public he served.

Bibliography
I
Texts
(Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn), Marnyarton: A Tale Of
Manchester Life, London: Chapman and Hall, 1848.

(Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn), Ruth. A Novel. By the
Author Of Mary Barton, London: Chapman and Hall, 1855.

(Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn), Cranford: By the Author of
Marnyartogy Ruth, etc., London: Chapman and Hall, 1855.

(Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn), North and South. By the
Author of Mary BartonLyRuthy CranfordL etc., London:
Chapman and Hall, 1855.

(Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn), The Life of Charlotte
Bronte..., London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1857.

 

(Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn), Sylvia's Lovers..£, London:
Smith, Elder and Company, 1865.

(Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn), Wives and Daughters. An
Every-day Storyy.., London: Smith, Elder and
Company, 1856.

 

II
Bibliographies

Axon, William E. A. and Ernest, “Bibliography of the
Writings of Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell,“ in
Papers of the Manchester Literary Club, Manchester,
1895, Vol. XXI, appendix.

Bateson, F. W. ed., Cambridge Bibliography of English
Literature, Cambridge, 1941, Vol. III, pp. 427-9.

Northrup, Clark 8., in Eligabeth Gaskell, by Gerals De Witt
Sanders, Yale, 1929, pp. 165-262.

75 -
III
Biographies
Dulleman, J. J. van, Mrs. Gaskell, Novelist and Biggrapher,
Amsterdam, 1924.

Holdane, Elizabeth S., Mrs. Gaskell and Her Friends, London:
Hodder and Stoughton, 1951.

Sanders, Gerald De Witt, Elizabeth Gaskell, Yale, 1929.
Whitfield, A. Stanton, Mrs. Gaskell. Her Life and Work,
London: Routledge, 1929.
IV
Periodicals:
Criticisms of Specific Works
Mary Barton

‘Bradford, J. E., (Review of Mary Barton), The Christian
Examiner, XLVI (March, 1849): 295-506.

E., W., (Review of Mary Barton), The Westminister Review,
LI (April, 1849), 48-63.

Greg, William Rathbone, (Review of Mary Barton), The Edin-
burgh Review, LXXXIX (April, 1849), 402—55.

 

 

Landor, Walter Savage, "To the Author of Mary Barton," The
Eclectic Magazine, XVII (June, 1849), 261.

Taylor, J. J., (Review of Mary Barton), The Prospective
Review, v (Feb., 1849), 56-57.

(Review of Mary Barton), The Athenaeum,
(Oct., 1848, 1050-1.

 

 

(Review of Mar Barton), The British Quarterly
Review, IX, (Feb. 184 , l7— .

(Review of MaryBarton), The Inquirer,(Nov. 1848)

74

(Review of MaryBarton), The Manchester
Guardian, (Feb., 1849)7

 

Ruth
Curtis, George William, "Villette and Ruth, " Putnam' s
Monthl I (May 1855), 555- 59.
(Review of Ruth The Athenaeum, (Jan. 1855), 76-78.

(Review of Ruth), Bentley' 8 Miscelleny, XXXIII (Feb.
1855), 257- 40.

(Review Of Ruth), Eliza Cook's Journal, VIII
(Feb., 1855), 277- 80.

(Review of Ruth), The English Review, (April, 1855),
193‘4 0

(Review of Ruth), The Literary Gazette, (Jan., 1855)

(Review of Ruth), The Literary World, XIII (August,
1855), 59.

(Review of RLth), The North British Review, XIX
(May, 1855), 151-74.

(Review of Ruth), Sharpe's London Magazine (Jan.,
1855 .

”The Story Of Ruth, " Tait| s Edinburgh Magazine,
H(Apri1, 1855), 217-20.

”Ruth and Villette,“ The Westminister Review, LIX
(April, 1855), 474-91.
Cranford

"Mrs. Gaskell and Her Sketches of Cranford, " The Literary
World, XIII (Sept., 1855), 92.

 

The Life of Charlotte Bronte

(Review Of The Life of Charlotte BrOnte), The American
Church Monthly, II (1857) 115.

 

75

(Review of The Life of Charlotte Bronte), The
Athenaeum, (April, 1857) 427—9.

(Review of The Life of Charlotte Bronte), The
Christian Observer, LVII(July, 1857) 487-90.

(Review of The Life of Charlotte Bronte), The
Christian Remembrancer, XXXIV (July, 1857)— 87-145.

(Review of The Life of Charlotte Bronte), The
Economist, XV‘(April, 1857) 425- 6.

"Mrs. Gaskell's Recantation,“ The Living Age,

LIV (Sept., 1857) 721—5. (Reprinted from The
Evening Post. Quotes the advertisement in the
London Times; summarizes the statements retracted.)

(Review of The Life of Charlotte Bronte), The London
Examiner, (April, 185777228-9. (Reprinted in The
Living Age , LIII (June, 1857) 777-80.)

(Review of The Life of Charlotte Bronte), The Ne ew
Monthly Magazine, CX (1857)5517- 55.

(Review of The Life of Charlotte Bronte), The Press,
(1857) (Reprinted in The Living_Age, LIII (May,
1857) 585- 402. )

 

(Review of The Life of Charlotte Bronte), Tait' 3
Edinburgh Magazine, XXIV (May, 1857) 292-5.

Wives and Dagghters

(Review of Wives and Daughters), The Nation, II (Feb.,
1856) 246-7;

 

IV
General Criticisms

Masson, David, "Mrs. Gaskell, " Macmillan' s Magazine, XIII
(Deco , 1,865), 153.60

Minto, W. "Mrs. Gaskell's Novels," Fortnightly Review,
XXX (Sept., 1878) 555-69.

Smith, G. E., "Mrs. Gaskell and Her Novels, "The Cornhill
Ma azine, XXIX (Feb., 1874), 191-212.

’76

"The Works of Mrs. Gaskell," The British Quarterlx
Review, XLV (April, 1867), 599-429.

"The Author of Marx Barton," Colburn's New Monthlx
Magazine, CV (Dec., 18557, 427-55.

"Mrs. Gaskell's Novels," The Literary World, XIII
(July, 1882), 216-17.

 

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