It was five or six
years since she had given up shop, so in any other place than
Cranford her dress might have been considered passé.
years since she had given up shop, so in any other place than
Cranford her dress might have been considered passé.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v11 - Fro to Gre
She lived with her aunt at Knutsford
in Cheshire, was sent to a private school in
Stratford-on-Avon, and visited London and
Edinburgh, where her beauty was much
admired. In 1832 she was married to the
Rev. William Gaskell, minister of a Unita-
rian chapel in Manchester. Mrs. Gaskell
did not begin to write until she had reached
middle age, and then chiefly to distract her
thoughts after the death of their only son
in 1844. Her first book, 'Mary Barton,'
published anonymously in 1848, achieved
extraordinary success. This was a "novel ELIZABETH S. GASKELL
with a purpose," for Mrs. Gaskell believed
that the hostility between employers and employed, which constantly
disturbed the manufacturing beehive of Manchester, was caused by
mutual ignorance. She therefore set herself the task of depicting
faithfully the lives of the people around her. It must be remem-
bered, too, that the social types chosen by her were at that moment
peculiarly interesting to a public weary of the novel of fashionable.
high life.
The story provoked much public discussion; and among
other critics, the social economist Mr. W. R. Greg, in his Essay on
Mary Barton,' published in 1849, took the part of the manufacturer.
'Mary Barton' has been translated into French, German, and other
languages, including Hungarian and Finnish. The story has for its
central theme the gradual degeneration of John Barton, a workman
who has a passionate hatred of the classes above him, and who, em-
bittered by poverty and the death of his son and wife, joins the
## p. 6206 (#176) ###########################################
6206
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
law-breakers of the town, and finally murders Henry Corson, a mas-
ter manufacturer. North and South,' published in 1855, was written
from the point of view of the masters, an admirable contrast to Barton
being found in Thornton, the hero of this novel.
In 1850, when Dickens was about to establish Household Words, he
invited Mrs. Gaskell to contribute. This magazine contained her story
'Lizzie Leigh' and those immortal pictures of village life known
as 'Cranford. ' Mrs. Gaskell's other novels are: 'Ruth,' the tragi-
cal story of a pretty young milliner's apprentice; 'Sylvia's Lovers,'
whose scene is Monkhaven (Whitby), at the end of the last century;
'Cousin Phillis,' a simple story of a farmer's daughter, which ap-
peared first in the Cornhill Magazine in 1863-64; and Wives and
Daughters,' also contributed to the Cornhill, and left unfinished by
her death in Manchester, November 12th, 1865. By many persons
the last novel is considered her best work, owing to its strength of
characterization. Molly Gibson, the heroine; Cynthia, a heartless
coquette; Squire Hamley and his sons Roger and Osborne, of Ham-
ley Hall; and the Earl of Cumnor and his family at the Towers,- all
are treated with impartial skill. Her famous Life of Charlotte
Bronté' appeared in 1857. She became acquainted with Miss Bronté
in 1850, and they were friends at once.
A collected edition of Mrs. Gaskell's works, published in seven
volumes in 1873, includes the short stories The Grey Woman,'
'Morton Hall,' 'Mr. Harrison's Confessions,' 'A Dark Night's Work,'
'The Moorland Cottage,' 'Round the Sofa,' 'The Old Nurse's Story,'
'The Well of Pen-Morfa,' 'The Sexton's Hero,' 'Lois the Witch,' and
others. Cranford is identified as the town of Knutsford.
Its popu-
lation consists of widows and maiden ladies, in bonds to their ancient
gentility. With deft touch Mrs. Gaskell brings out the humor and
pathos of these quaint characters, her finest creation being Miss
Matty Jenkyns.
OUR SOCIETY
From Cranford'
IN
IN THE first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all-
the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women.
If a
married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the
gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by
being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is
accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely
engaged in business all the week in the great neighboring com-
mercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad.
## p. 6207 (#177) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6207
In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not
at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The sur-
geon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but
every man cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens
full of choice flowers without a weed to speck them; for fright-
ening away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers
through the railings; for rushing out at the geese that occasion-
ally venture into the gardens if the gates are left open; for
deciding all questions of literature and politics without troubling
themselves with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining
clear and correct knowledge of everybody's affairs in the parish;
for keeping their neat maid-servants in admirable order; for
kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the poor, and real tender good
offices to each other whenever they are in distress, the ladies of
Cranford are quite sufficient. "A man," as one of them observed
to me once, "is so in the way in the house! " Although the
ladies of Cranford know all each other's proceedings, they are
exceedingly indifferent to each other's opinions. Indeed, as each
has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly
developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but somehow,
good-will reigns among them to a considerable degree.
The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel,
spurted out in a few peppery words and angry jerks of the
heads; just enough to prevent the even tenor of their lives from
becoming too flat. Their dress is very independent of fashion:
as they observe, "What does it signify how we dress here at
Cranford, where everybody knows us? " And if they go from
home, their reason is equally cogent: "What does it signify how
we dress here, where nobody knows us? " The materials of
their clothes are in general good and plain, and most of them
are nearly as scrupulous as Miss Tyler of cleanly memory; but I
will answer for it, the last gigot, the last tight and scanty petti-
coat in wear in England, was seen in Cranford - and seen with-
out a smile.
-
-
I can testify to a magnificent family red-silk umbrella, under
which a gentle little spinster, left alone of many brothers and
sisters, used to patter to church on rainy days. Have you any
red-silk umbrellas in London? We had a tradition of the first
that had ever been seen in Cranford; and the little boys mobbed
it, and called it "a stick in petticoats. " It might have been the
very red-silk one I have described, held by a strong father over
## p. 6208 (#178) ###########################################
6208
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
a troop of little ones; the poor little lady - the survivor of all
could scarcely carry it.
-
Then there were rules and regulations for visiting and calls;
and they were announced to any young people who might be
staying in the town, with all the solemnity with which the old
Manx laws were read once a year on the Tinwald Mount.
"Our friends have sent to inquire how you are after your
journey to-night, my dear" (fifteen miles in a gentleman's car-
riage); "they will give you some rest to-morrow, but the next
day, I have no doubt, they will call; so be at liberty after twelve
from twelve to three are our calling hours. "
Then, after they had called:-
"It is the third day: I daresay your mamma has told you, my
dear, never to let more than three days elapse between receiving
a call and returning it; and also, that you are never to stay
longer than a quarter of an hour. "
-
"But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out
when a quarter of an hour has passed? »
"You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not
allow yourself to forget it in conversation. ”
As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they re-
ceived or paid a call, of course no absorbing subject was ever
spoken about. We kept ourselves to short sentences of small-
talk, and were punctual to our time.
I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor,
and had some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were
like the Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face.
We none of us spoke of money, because that subject savored of
commerce and trade, and though some might be poor, we were
all aristocratic. The Cranfordians had that kindly esprit de corps
which made them overlook all deficiencies in success when some
among them tried to conceal their poverty. When Mrs. Forres-
ter, for instance, gave a party in her baby-house of a dwelling,
and the little maiden disturbed the ladies on the sofa by a re-
quest that she might get the tea-tray out from underneath, every
one took this novel proceeding as the most natural thing in the
world, and talked on about household forms and ceremonies as if
we all believed that our hostess had a regular servants' hall, sec-
ond table, with housekeeper and steward, instead of the one little
charity-school maiden, whose short ruddy arms could never have
been strong enough to carry the tray up-stairs if she had not been
## p. 6209 (#179) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6209
assisted in private by her mistress, who now sat in state, pretend-
ing not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and
we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she
knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making
tea-bread and sponge-cakes.
There were one or two consequences arising from this general
but unacknowledged poverty and this very much acknowledged
gentility, which were not amiss, and which might be introduced.
into many circles of society to their great improvement. For
instance, the inhabitants of Cranford kept early hours, and clat-
tered home in their pattens under the guidance of a lantern-
bearer about nine o'clock at night; and the whole town was abed
and asleep by half-past ten. Moreover, it was considered "vul-
gar" (a tremendous word in Cranford) to give anything expensive
in the way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening entertainments.
Wafer bread and butter and sponge-biscuits were all that the
Honorable Mrs. Jamieson gave; and she was sister-in-law to the
late Earl of Glenmire, although she did practice such "elegant
>>
economy.
"Elegant economy! " How naturally one falls back into the
phraseology of Cranford! There, economy was always "elegant,"
and money-spending always "vulgar and ostentatious "; a sort of
sour-grapeism which made us very peaceful and satisfied. I never
shall forget the dismay felt when a certain Captain Brown came
to live at Cranford, and openly spoke about his being poor-not
in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being
previously closed, but in the public street! in a loud military
voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a particular
house. The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning over
the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman. He
was a half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation on a
neighboring railroad, which had been vehemently petitioned against
by the little town; and if in addition to his masculine gender
and his connection with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen
as to talk of being poor- why then indeed he must be sent to
Coventry. Death was as true and as common as poverty; yet
people never spoke about that, loud out in the streets. It was a
word not to be mentioned to ears polite. We had tacitly agreed
to ignore that any with whom we associated on terms of visiting
equality could ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything.
that they wished. If we walked to or from a party, it was
XI-389
## p. 6210 (#180) ###########################################
6210
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
because the night was so fine, or the air so refreshing; not be-
cause sedan-chairs were expensive. If we wore prints instead of
summer silks, it was because we preferred a washing material;
and so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that we
were all of us people of very moderate means. Of course, then,
we did not know what to make of a man who could speak of
poverty as if it was not disgrace. Yet somehow Captain Brown
made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in
spite of all resolutions to the contrary. I was surprised to hear
his opinions quoted as authority at a visit which I paid to Cran-
ford about a year after he had settled in the town. My own
friends had been among the bitterest opponents of any proposal
to visit the captain and his daughters only twelve months before;
and now he was even admitted in the tabooed hours before
twelve. True, it was to discover the cause of a smoking chim-
ney, before the fire was lighted; but still Captain Brown walked
up-stairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the
room, and joked quite in the way of a tame man about the
house. He had been blind to all the small slights, and omissions
of trivial ceremonies, with which he had been received. He had
been friendly, though the Cranford ladies had been cool; he had
answered small sarcastic compliments in good faith; and with his
manly frankness had overpowered all the shrinking which met
him as a man who was not ashamed to be poor. And at last his
excellent masculine common-sense, and his facility in devising
expedients to overcome domestic dilemmas, had gained him an
extraordinary place as authority among the Cranford ladies. He
himself went on in his course, as unaware of his popularity as
he had been of the reverse.
I wondered what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown
at their parties. We had often rejoiced, in former days, that
there was no gentleman to be attended to and to find conversa-
tion for, at the card parties. We had congratulated ourselves
upon the snugness of the evenings, and in our love for gentility
and distaste of mankind we had almost persuaded ourselves that
to be a man was to be "vulgar"; so that when I found my
friend and hostess Miss Jenkyns was going to have a party in
my honor, and that Captain and the Miss Browns were invited, I
wondered much what would be the course of the evening. Card
tables, with green-baize tops, were set out by daylight, just as
usual: it was the third week in November, so the evenings closed
## p. 6211 (#181) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6211
in about four. Candles and clean packs of cards were arranged
on each table. The fire was made up; the neat maid-servant had
received her last directions: and there we stood, dressed in our
best, each with a candle-lighter in our hands, ready to dart at
the candles as soon as the first knock came. Parties in Cranford
were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely elated as
they sat together in their best dresses. As soon as three had
arrived, we sat down to Preference, I being the unlucky fourth.
The next four comers were put down immediately to another
table; and presently the tea-trays, which I had seen set out in
the store-room as I passed in the morning, were placed each on
the middle of a card table. The china was delicate egg-shell;
the old-fashioned silver glittered with polishing; but the eatables
were of the slightest description.
While the trays were yet on the tables, Captain and the Miss
Browns came in; and I could see that, somehow or other, the
captain was a favorite with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows
were smoothed, sharp voices lowered at his approach. Miss
Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to gloom. Miss Jessie
smiled as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her father.
He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the
room; attended to every one's wants, lessened the pretty maid-
servant's labor by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless
ladies; and yet did it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and
so much as if it were a matter of course for the strong to attend
to the weak, that he was a true man throughout. He played
for threepenny points with as grave an interest as if they had
been pounds; and yet in all his attention to strangers he had
an eye on his suffering daughter-for suffering I was sure she
was, though to many eyes she might only appear to be irritable.
Miss Jessie could not play cards, but she talked to the sitters-
out, who before her coming had been rather inclined to be cross.
She sang, too, to an old cracked piano which I think had been
a spinet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang Jock o' Hazeldean'
a little out of tune; but we were none of us musical, though
Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing to
be so.
It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen
that, a little before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss
Jessie Brown's unguarded admission (àpropos of Shetland wool)
that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a shop-
## p. 6212 (#182) ###########################################
6212
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
keeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confes-
sion by a terrible cough-for the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson was
sitting at the card table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she
say or think if she found out that she was in the same room with
a shopkeeper's niece! But Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as
we all agreed the next morning) would repeat the information,
and assure Miss Pole she could easily get her the identical Shet-
land wool required "through my uncle, who has the best assort-
ment of Shetland goods of any one in Edinbro'. " It was to take
the taste of this out of our mouths, and the sound of this out of
our ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music: so I say again, it
was very good of her to beat time to the song.
When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine, punctually
at a quarter to nine, there was conversation, comparing of cards,
and talking over tricks; but by-and-by Captain Brown sported a
bit of literature.
"Have you seen any numbers of The Pickwick Papers'? "
said he. (They were then publishing in parts. ) "Capital thing! "
Now, Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cran-
ford, and on the strength of a number of manuscript sermons
and a pretty good library of divinity considered herself literary,
and looked upon any conversation about books as a challenge to
her. So she answered and said, "Yes, she had seen them; in-
deed, she might say she had read them. "
"And what do you think of them? " exclaimed Captain Brown.
"Aren't they famously good? "
So urged, Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.
"I must say, I don't think they are by any means equal to
Dr. Johnson. Still, perhaps, the author is young.
Let him per-
severe, and who knows what he may become if he will take the
great Doctor for his model. ”
This was evidently too much for Captain Brown to take pla-
cidly; and I saw the words on the tip of his tongue before Miss
Jenkyns had finished her sentence.
"It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam," he
began.
"I am quite aware of that," returned she; " and I make
allowances, Captain Brown. "
་་
"Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month's num-
ber," pleaded he. "I had it only this morning, and I don't think
the company can have read it yet. "
## p. 6213 (#183) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6213
"As you please," said she, settling herself with an air of resig-
nation. He read the account of the "swarry" which Sam Weller
gave at Bath.
Some of us laughed heartily. I did not dare, be-
cause I was staying in the house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient
gravity. When it was ended, she turned to me, and said, with
mild dignity:-
"Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the book-room. "
When I brought it to her, she turned to Captain Brown:—
"Now allow me to read you a scene, and then the present com-
pany can judge between your favorite Mr. Boz and Dr. Johnson. ”
She read one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac,
in a high-pitched, majestic voice; and when she had ended she
said, "I imagine I am now justified in my preference of Dr.
Johnson as a writer of fiction. " The captain screwed his lips.
up, and drummed on the table, but he did not speak. She
thought she would give a finishing blow or two.
"I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature, to
publish in numbers. "
"How was The Rambler published, ma'am? " asked Captain
Brown, in a low voice, which I think Miss Jenkyns could not
have heard.
My
"Dr. Johnson's style is a model for young beginners.
father recommended it to me when I began to write letters—I
have formed my own style upon it; I recommend it to your
favorite. "
"I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any
such pompous writing," said Captain Brown.
Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a way of which
the captain had not dreamed. Epistolary writing she and her
friends considered as her forte. Many a copy of many a letter
have I seen written and corrected on the slate, before she "seized
the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure her friends" of
this or that; and Dr. Johnson was, as she said, her model in these
compositions. She drew herself up with dignity, and only replied
to Captain Brown's last remark by saying, with marked emphasis
on every syllable, "I prefer Dr. Johnson to Mr. Boz. "
It is said I won't vouch for the fact that Captain Brown
was heard to say, sotto voce, "D-n Dr. Johnson! " If he did, he
was penitent afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near
Miss Jenkyns's arm-chair, and endeavoring to beguile her into
conversation on some more pleasing subject. But she was in-
exorable.
-
## p. 6214 (#184) ###########################################
6214
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
VISITING
From Cranford >
Ο
NE morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our work- it was
before twelve o'clock, and Miss Matty had not changed the
cap with yellow ribbons that had been Miss Jenkyns's best,
and which Miss Matty was now wearing out in private, putting
on the one made in imitation of Mrs. Jamieson's at all times
when she expected to be seen Martha came up, and asked if
Miss Betty Barker might speak to her mistress.
Miss Matty
assented, and quickly disappeared to change the yellow ribbons
while Miss Barker came up-stairs; but as she had forgotten her
spectacles, and was rather flurried by the unusual time of the
visit, I was not surprised to see her return with one cap on the
top of the other. She was quite unconscious of it herself, and
looked at us with bland satisfaction. Nor do I think Miss Barker
perceived it; for putting aside the little circumstance that she
was not so young as she had been, she was very much absorbed
in her errand, which she delivered herself of with an oppressive
modesty that found vent in endless apologies.
Miss Betty Barker was the daughter of the old clerk at Cran-
ford who had officiated in Mr. Jenkyns's time. She and her
sister had had pretty good situations as ladies'-maids, and had
saved money enough to set up a milliner's shop, which had been
patronized by the ladies in the neighborhood. Lady Arley, for
instance, would occasionally give Miss Barkers the pattern of an
old cap of hers, which they immediately copied and circulated
among the élite of Cranford. I say the élite, for Miss Barkers
had caught the trick of the place, and piqued themselves upon
their "aristocratic connection. " They would not sell their caps
and ribbons to any one without a pedigree. Many a farmer's
wife or daughter turned away huffed from Miss Barkers' select
millinery, and went rather to the universal shop, where the prof-
its of brown soap and moist sugar enabled the proprietor to go
straight to (Paris, he said, until he found his customers too patri-
otic and John-Bullish to wear what the Mounseers wore) Lon-
don, where, as he often told his customers, Queen Adelaide had
appeared only the very week before in a cap exactly like the one
he showed them, trimmed with yellow and blue ribbons, and had
been complimented by King William on the becoming nature of
her head-dress.
-
## p. 6215 (#185) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6215
Miss Barkers, who confined themselves to truth and did not
approve of miscellaneous customers, throve notwithstanding. They
were self-denying, good people. Many a time have I seen the
eldest of them (she that had been maid to Mrs. Jamieson) carry-
ing out some delicate mess to a poor person. They only aped
their betters in having "nothing to do" with the class immedi-
ately below theirs. And when Miss Barker died, their profits
and income were found to be such that Miss Betty was justified
in shutting up shop and retiring from business. She also (as I
think I have before said) set up her cow,—a mark of respecta-
bility in Cranford almost as decided as setting up a gig is among
some people. She dressed finer than any lady in Cranford, and
we did not wonder at it; for it was understood that she was
wearing out all the bonnets and caps and outrageous ribbons
which had once formed her stock in trade.
It was five or six
years since she had given up shop, so in any other place than
Cranford her dress might have been considered passé.
And now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite Miss Matty
to tea at her house on the following Tuesday. She gave me
also an impromptu invitation, as I happened to be a visitor
though I could see she had a little fear lest, since my father had
gone to live in Drumble, he might have engaged in that "horrid
cotton trade," and so dragged his family down out of "aristo-
cratic society. " She prefaced this invitation with so many apolo-
gies that she quite excited my curiosity. "Her presumption"
was to be excused. What had she been doing? She seemed so
overpowered by it, I could only think that she had been writing
to Queen Adelaide to ask for a receipt for washing lace; but the
act which she so characterized was only an invitation she had
carried to her sister's former mistress, Mrs. Jamieson.
« Her
former occupation considered, could Miss Matty excuse the lib-
erty? " Ah! thought I, she has found out that double cap, and
is going to rectify Miss Matty's head-dress. No; it was simply
to extend her invitation to Miss Matty and to me.
Miss Matty
bowed acceptance; and I wondered that in the graceful action
she did not feel the unusual weight and extraordinary height of
her head-dress. But I do not think she did, for she recovered
her balance, and went on talking to Miss Betty in a kind, con-
descending manner, very different from the fidgety way she
would have had if she had suspected how singular her appear-
ance was.
## p. 6216 (#186) ###########################################
6216
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
"Mrs. Jamieson is coming, I think you said? » asked Miss
Matty.
“Yes. Mrs. Jamieson most kindly and condescendingly said
she would be happy to come. One little stipulation she made,
that she should bring Carlo.
I told her that if I had a weakness,
it was for dogs. "
"And Miss Pole? " questioned Miss Matty, who was thinking
of her pool at Preference, in which Carlo would not be available
as a partner.
"I am going to ask Miss Pole. Of course, I could not think
of asking her until I had asked you, madam the rector's
daughter, madam. Believe me, I do not forget the situation my
father held under yours. "
"And Mrs. Forrester, of course? "
"And Mrs. Forrester. I thought, in fact, of going to her
before I went to Miss Pole. Although her circumstances are
changed, madam, she was born a Tyrrell, and we can never for-
get her alliance to the Bigges of Bigelow Hall. "
Miss Matty cared much more for the little circumstance of her
being a very good card-player. Miss Barker looked at me with
sidelong dignity, as much as to say, although a retired milliner,
she was no democrat, and understood the difference of ranks.
"May I beg you to come as near half-past six to my little
dwelling as possible, Miss Matilda? Mrs. Jamieson dines at five,
but has kindly promised not to delay her visit beyond that time
half-past six. " And with a swimming curtsy Miss Betty Bar-
ker took her leave.
The spring evenings were getting bright and long, when three
or four ladies in calashes met at Miss Barker's door.
Do you
It is a covering worn over caps, not
on old-fashioned gigs; but sometimes
This kind of head-gear always made
know what a calash is?
unlike the heads fastened
it is not quite so large.
an awful impression on the children in Cranford; and now two
or three left off their play in the quiet sunny little street, and
gathered in wondering silence round Miss Pole, Miss Matty,
and myself. We were silent too, so that we could hear loud
suppressed whispers inside Miss Barker's house: "Wait, Peggy!
wait till I've run up-stairs and washed my hands. When I cough,
open the door; I'll not be a minute. "
And true enough, it was not a minute before we heard a
noise, between a sneeze and a crow; on which the door flew
## p. 6217 (#187) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6217
open. Behind it stood a round-eyed maiden, all aghast at the
honorable company of calashes, who marched in without a word.
She recovered presence of mind enough to usher us into a small
room, which had been a shop, but was now converted into a
temporary dressing-room. There we unpinned and shook our-
selves, and arranged our features before the glass into a sweet
and gracious company face; and then, bowing backwards with
"After you, ma'am," we allowed Mrs. Forrester to take precedence
up the narrow staircase that led to Miss Barker's drawing-room.
There she sat, as stately and composed as though we had never
heard that odd-sounding cough, from which her throat must have
been even then sore and rough. Kind, gentle, shabbily dressed
Mrs. Forrester was immediately conducted to the second place of
honor a seat arranged something like Prince Albert's near the
Queen's-good, but not so good. The place of pre-eminence
was of course reserved for the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson, who
presently came panting up the stairs-Carlo rushing round her
on her progress, as if he meant to trip her up.
And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy woman!
She stirred the fire, and shut the door, and sat as near to it as
she could, quite on the edge of her chair. When Peggy came
in, tottering under the weight of the tea-tray, I noticed that
Miss Barker was sadly afraid lest Peggy should not keep her
distance sufficiently. She and her mistress were on very familiar
terms in their every-day intercourse, and Peggy wanted now to
make several little confidences to her, which Miss Barker was on
thorns to hear, but which she thought it her duty as a lady to
repress. So she turned away from all Peggy's asides and signs;
but she made one or two very malapropos answers to what was
said; and at last, seized with a bright idea, she exclaimed, "Poor
sweet Carlo! I'm forgetting him. Come down-stairs with me,
poor little doggie, and it shall have its tea, it shall! »
In a few minutes she returned, bland and benignant as be-
fore; but I thought she had forgotten to give the "poor little
doggie" anything to eat, judging by the avidity with which he
swallowed down chance pieces of cake. The tea tray was abun-
dantly laden-I was pleased to see it, I was so hungry; but I
was afraid the ladies present might think it vulgarly heaped up.
I know they would have done at their own houses; but some-
how the heaps disappeared here. I saw Mrs. Jamieson eating
seed-cake slowly and considerately, as she did everything; and
## p. 6218 (#188) ###########################################
6218
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
I was rather surprised, for I knew she had told us on the occa-
sion of her last party that she never had it in her house, it
reminded her so much of scented soap. She always gave us
Savoy biscuits. . However, Mrs. Jamieson, kindly indulgent to
Miss Barker's want of knowledge of the customs of high life,
and to spare her feelings, ate three large pieces of seed-cake,
with a placid, ruminating expression of countenance, not unlike a
cow's.
After tea there was some little demur and difficulty. We
were six in number; four could play at Preference, and for the
other two there was Cribbage. But all except myself (I was
rather afraid of the Cranford ladies at cards, for it was the most
earnest and serious business they ever engaged in) were anxious
to be of the "pool. " Even Miss Barker, while declaring she did
not know Spadille from Manille, was evidently hankering to take
a hand.
The dilemma was soon put an end to by a singular
kind of noise. If a baron's daughter-in-law could ever be sup-
posed to snore, I should have said Mrs. Jamieson did so then;
for overcome by the heat of the room, and inclined to doze by
nature, the temptation of that very comfortable arm-chair had
been too much for her, and Mrs. Jamieson was nodding. Once
or twice she opened her eyes with an effort, and calmly but
unconsciously smiled upon us; but by-and-by even her benevo-
lence was not equal to this exertion, and she was sound asleep.
"It is very gratifying to me," whispered Miss Barker at the
card table to her three opponents, whom notwithstanding her
ignorance of the game she was "basting" most unmercifully-
"very gratifying indeed, to see how completely Mrs. Jamieson
feels at home in my poor little dwelling; she could not have paid
me a greater compliment. "
Miss Barker provided me with some literature, in the shape
of three or four handsomely bound fashion-books ten or twelve
years old; observing, as she put a little table and a candle for
my special benefit, that she knew young people liked to look at
pictures. Carlo lay and snorted and started at his mistress's feet.
He too was quite at home.
The card table was an animated scene to watch: four ladies'
heads, with niddle-noddling caps, all nearly meeting over the
middle of the table in their eagerness to whisper quick enough
and loud enough; and every now and then came Miss Barker's
"Hush, ladies! if you please, hush! Mrs. Jamieson is asleep. "
## p. 6219 (#189) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6219
It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs. Forrester's
deafness and Mrs. Jamieson's sleepiness. But Miss Barker man-
aged her arduous task well. She repeated the whisper to Mrs.
Forrester, distorting her face considerably in order to show by
the motions of her lips what was said; and then she smiled
kindly all round at us, and murmured to herself, "Very grati-
fying indeed; I wish my poor sister had been alive to see this
day. "
Presently the door was thrown wide open; Carlo started to his
feet with a loud snapping bark, and Mrs. Jamieson awoke; or
perhaps she had not been asleep-as she said almost directly,
the room had been so light she had been glad to keep her eyes
shut, but had been listening with great interest to all our amus-
ing and agreeable conversation. Peggy came in once more, red
with importance. Another tray! "O gentility! " thought I, "can
you endure this last shock? » For Miss Barker had ordered (nay,
I doubt not prepared, although she did say, "Why! Peggy, what
have you brought us? " and looked pleasantly surprised at the
unexpected pleasure) all sorts of good things for supper-scal-
loped oysters, potted lobsters, jelly, a dish called "little Cupids »
(which was in great favor with the Cranford ladies, although too
expensive to be given except on solemn and state occasions-
macaroons sopped in brandy, I should have called it, if I had not
known its more refined and classical name). In short, we were
evidently to be feasted with all that was sweetest and best; and
we thought it better to submit graciously, even at the cost of our
gentility-which never ate suppers in general, but which, like
most non-supper-eaters, was particularly hungry on all special
occasions.
――――――――――――
Miss Barker in her former sphere had, I daresay, been made
acquainted with the beverage they call cherry brandy. We none
of us had ever seen such a thing, and rather shrank back when
she proffered it us-"just a little, leetle glass, ladies; after the
oysters and lobsters, you know. Shell-fish are sometimes thought
not very wholesome. " We all shook our heads like female man-
darins; but at last Mrs. Jamieson suffered herself to be per-
suaded, and we followed her lead. It was not exactly unpalatable,
though so hot and so strong that we thought ourselves bound to
give evidence that we were not accustomed to such things by
coughing terribly-almost as strangely as Miss Barker had done,
before we were admitted by Peggy.
## p. 6220 (#190) ###########################################
6220
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
"It's very strong," said Miss Pole, as she put down her empty
glass; “I do believe there's spirit in it. "
"Only a little drop-just necessary to make it keep," said
Miss Barker. "You know we put brandy paper over preserves
to make them keep. I often feel tipsy myself from eating dam-
son tart. "
I question whether damson tart would have opened Mrs.
Jamieson's heart as the cherry brandy did; but she told us of a
coming event, respecting which she had been quite silent till
that moment.
"My sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire, is coming to stay with me. "
There was a chorus of "Indeed! " and then a pause.
Each one
rapidly reviewed her wardrobe, as to its fitness to appear in the
presence of a baron's widow; for of course a series of small fes-
tivals were always held in Cranford on the arrival of a visitor at
any of our friends' houses. We felt very pleasantly excited on
the present occasion.
Not long after this, the maids and the lanterns were announced.
Mrs. Jamieson had the sedan-chair, which squeezed itself into
Miss Barker's narrow lobby with some difficulty, and most liter-
ally "stopped the way. " It required some skillful manœuvring
on the part of the old chairmen (shoemakers by day, but when
summoned to carry the sedan, dressed up in a strange old livery
-long greatcoats with small capes, coeval with the sedan and
similar to the dress of the class in Hogarth's pictures) to edge,
and back, and try at it again, and finally to succeed in carrying
their burden out of Miss Barker's front door. Then we heard
their pit-a-pat along the quiet little street, as we put on our ca-
lashes and pinned up our gowns; Miss Barker hovering about us
with offers of help, which if she had not remembered her former
occupation, and wished us to forget it, would have been much
more pressing.
## p. 6221 (#191) ###########################################
6221
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
(1811-1872)
BY ROBERT SANDERSON
HEOPHILE GAUTIER was born in Tarbes (Department of the
Hautes-Pyrénées) in Southern France, August 31st, 1811.
Like all French boys, he was sent to the lycée (academy),
where he promised to be a brilliant scholar; but his father was really
his tutor, and to him Gautier attributed his instruction. Young Théo-
phile showed marked preference for the so-called authors of the
Decadence-Claudianus, Martial, Petronius, and others; also for the
old French writers, especially Villon and Rabelais, whom he says he
knew by heart. This is significant, in view
of the young man's strong tendencies, later
on, towards the new romantic school. The
artistic temperament was very strong in
him; and while still carrying on his studies
at college he entered the painter Rioult's
studio. His introduction to Victor Hugo in
1830 may be considered the decisive point
in Gautier's career: from that day he gave
up painting and became a fanatic admirer
of the romantic leader.
A short time afterwards, the first repre-
sentation of 'Hernani' took place (Febru-
ary 25th, 1830), an important date in the
life of Gautier. It was on this occasion that
he put on for the only time that famous red waistcoat, which, with his
long black mane streaming down his back, so horrified the staid
Parisian bourgeois. This red waistcoat turns out, after all, not to
have been a waistcoat at all, but a doublet; nor was it red, but pink.
No truer is the legend, according to Gautier, that on this memorable
occasion, armed with his two formidable fists, he felled right and
left the terrified bourgeois. He says that he was at that time rather
delicate, and had not yet developed that prodigious strength which
later on enabled him to strike a 520-pound blow on a Turk's-head. In
appearance Gautier was a large corpulent man with a leonine counte-
nance, swarthy complexion, long black hair falling over his shoulders,
black beard, and brilliant black eyes; an Oriental in looks as well as
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
## p. 6222 (#192) ###########################################
6222
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
in some of his tastes. He had a passion for cats. His house was
overrun by them, and he seldom wrote without having one on his
lap. The privations he underwent during the siege of Paris, doubly
hard to a man of Gautier's Gargantuesque appetite, no doubt hast-
ened his death. He died on October 23d, 1872, of hypertrophy of
the heart.
Gautier is one of those writers of whom one may say a vast deal
of good and a vast deal of harm. His admirers think that justice
has not been done him, that his fame will go on rising and his name
will live as one of the great writers of France; others think that his
name may perhaps not entirely disappear, but that if he is remem-
bered at all it will be solely as the author of 'Émaux et Camées'
(Enamels and Cameos). He wrote in his youth a book that did him
great harm in the eyes of the public; but he has written something
else besides 'Mademoiselle de Maupin,' and both in prose and poetry
we shall find a good deal to admire in him. One thing is certain: he
is a marvelous stylist. In his earliest poems Gautier already possesses
that admirable artistic skill that prompts him to choose his words as
a painter his colors, or a jeweler his gems and stones, so as to pro-
duce the most brilliant effects: these first compositions also have a
grace, a charm, that we shall find lacking later on, for as he pro-
ceeds with his work he pays more and more attention to form and
finish.
'Albertus, or Soul and Sin,' the closing poem of Gautier's first col-
lection, is a "semi-diabolic, semi-fashionable" legend. An old witch,
Veronica, a second Meg Merrilies, transforms herself into a beauti-
ful maiden and makes love to Albertus, a young artist- otherwise
Gautier himself. He cares for nothing but his art, but falls a victim
to the spell cast over him by the siren. At the stroke of midnight,
Veronica, to the young man's horror, from a beautiful woman changes
back to the old hag she was, and carries him off to a place where
witches, sorcerers, hobgoblins, harpies, ghouls, and other frightful
creatures are holding a monstrous saturnalia; at the end of which,
Albertus is left for dead in a ditch of the Appian Way with broken
back and twisted neck. What does it all mean? the reader may ask.
That "the wages of sin is death" seems to be the moral contained in
this poem, if indeed any moral is intended at all. Be that as it may,
'Albertus' is a literary gem in its way; a work in which the poet
has given free scope to his brilliant imagination, and showered by
the handful the gems and jewels in his literary casket. Gautier may
be said to have possessed the poetry of Death - some would say its
horrors. This sentiment of horror at the repulsive manner of man's
total destruction finds most vivid expression in 'The Comedy of
Death,' a fantastic poem divided into two parts, 'Death in Life' and
## p. 6223 (#193) ###########################################
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
6223
'Life in Death. ' The dialogue between the bride and the earth-
worm is of a flesh-creeping nature.
It is however as the poet of 'Émaux et Camées' (Enamels and
Cameos) that Théophile Gautier will be chiefly remembered. Every
poem but one in this collection is written in short octosyllabic verse,
and every one is what the title implies, -a precious stone, a chiseled
gem. Gautier's wonderful and admirable talent for grouping together
certain words that produce on one's eye and mind the effect of a
beautiful picture, his intense love of art, of the outline, the plastic,
appear throughout this work. You realize on reading 'Émaux et
Camées,' more perhaps than in any other work by this writer, that
the poet is fully conscious of his powers and knows just how to use
them. Any poem may be selected at random, and will be found a
work of art.
The same qualities that distinguish Gautier as a poet are to be
found in his novels, narratives of travels, criticisms,-in short, in
everything he wrote; intense love for the beautiful,-physically beau-
tiful,- wonderful talent for describing it. Of his novels, properly
speaking, there are four that stand out prominently, each very dif-
ferent in its subject,-a proof of Gautier's great versatility,—all
perfect in their execution. The first is 'Mademoiselle de Maupin'; it
is an immoral book, but it is a beautiful book, not only because
written with a rare elegance of style, but also because it makes you
love beauty. Briefly, 'Mademoiselle de Maupin' may be called a
pæan to beauty, sung by its high priest Théophile Gautier.
The other remarkable novels by this writer are 'Le Capitaine
Fracasse (Captain Smash-All), 'Le Roman de la Momie' (The Ro-
mance of the Mummy), and 'Spirite. ' 'Captain Fracasse,' although
not published until 1863, had been announced long beforehand; and
Gautier had worked at it, off and on, for twenty years. It belongs
to that class of novel known as picaresque romances of adventures
and battles. 'Captain Fracasse' is certainly the most popular of
Gautier's works.
-
'The Romance of the Mummy' is a very remarkable book, in
which science and fiction have been blended in the most artistic
and clever manner; picturesque, like all of Gautier's writings, but the
work of a savant as well as of a novelist. Here more than in any
other book by this author,-with the exception perhaps of Arria
Marcella, Gautier has revived in a most lifelike way an entire civ-
ilization, so long extinct. 'The Romance of the Mummy' abounds in
beautiful descriptions. The description of the finding of the mummy,
that of the royal tombs, of Thebes with its hundred gates, the tri-
umphal entrance of Pharaoh into that city, the crossing of the Red
Sea by the Israelites, are all marvelous pictures, that not only fill the
## p. 6224 (#194) ###########################################
6224
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
reader with the same admiration he would evince at the sight of a
painting by one of the great masters, but give him the illusion of
witnessing in the body the scenes so admirably described.
'Spirite,' a fantastic story, is a source of surprise to readers famil-
iar with Gautier's other works: they find it hard to conceive that so
thorough a materialist as Gautier could ever have produced a work
so spiritualistic in its nature. The clever handling of a mystic sub-
ject, the richness and coloring of the descriptions, together with a
certain ideal and poetical vein that runs through the book, make of
'Spirite' one of Gautier's most remarkable works.
Théophile Gautier has also written a number of nouvelles or short
novels, and tales, some of which are striking compositions. Arria
Marcella' is one of these; a brilliant, masterly composition, in which
Gautier gives us such a perfect illusion of the past. Under his magic
pen we find ourselves walking the streets of Pompeii and living over
the life of the Romans in the first century of our era; and 'Une Nuit
de Cléopâtre' (A Night with Cleopatra) is a vivid resurrection of the
brilliant Egyptian court.
Of his various journeys to Spain, Italy, and the Orient, Gautier
has given us the most captivating relations. To many this is not the
least interesting portion of Gautier's work. The same qualities that
are so striking in his poems and novels-vividness of description,
love of the picturesque, wonderful power of expression—are likewise
apparent in his relations of travels.
As a literary and especially as an art critic, Gautier ranks high.
Bringing to this branch of literature the same qualities that distin-
guish him in others, he created a descriptive and picturesque method
of criticism peculiarly his own. Of his innumerable articles on art
and literature, some have been collected under the names of 'Les
Grotesques,' a series of essays on a number of poets of the end of
the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries, ridiculed by
Boileau, but in whom Gautier finds some wheat among the chaff.
The History of Dramatic Art in France for the Last Twenty-five
Years,' beginning with the year 1837, will be consulted with great
profit by those who are curious to follow the dramatic movement
in that country. Of his essays on art, one is as excellent as the
other; all the great masters are treated with a loving and admiring
hand.
Among the miscellaneous works of this prolific writer should be
mentioned 'Ménagerie Intime' (Home Menagerie), in which the author
makes us acquainted in a most charming and familiar way with his
home life, and the various pets, cats, dogs, white rats, parrots, etc. ,
that in turn shared his house with him; la Nature chez elle (Nature at
home), that none but a close observer of nature could have written.
in Cheshire, was sent to a private school in
Stratford-on-Avon, and visited London and
Edinburgh, where her beauty was much
admired. In 1832 she was married to the
Rev. William Gaskell, minister of a Unita-
rian chapel in Manchester. Mrs. Gaskell
did not begin to write until she had reached
middle age, and then chiefly to distract her
thoughts after the death of their only son
in 1844. Her first book, 'Mary Barton,'
published anonymously in 1848, achieved
extraordinary success. This was a "novel ELIZABETH S. GASKELL
with a purpose," for Mrs. Gaskell believed
that the hostility between employers and employed, which constantly
disturbed the manufacturing beehive of Manchester, was caused by
mutual ignorance. She therefore set herself the task of depicting
faithfully the lives of the people around her. It must be remem-
bered, too, that the social types chosen by her were at that moment
peculiarly interesting to a public weary of the novel of fashionable.
high life.
The story provoked much public discussion; and among
other critics, the social economist Mr. W. R. Greg, in his Essay on
Mary Barton,' published in 1849, took the part of the manufacturer.
'Mary Barton' has been translated into French, German, and other
languages, including Hungarian and Finnish. The story has for its
central theme the gradual degeneration of John Barton, a workman
who has a passionate hatred of the classes above him, and who, em-
bittered by poverty and the death of his son and wife, joins the
## p. 6206 (#176) ###########################################
6206
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
law-breakers of the town, and finally murders Henry Corson, a mas-
ter manufacturer. North and South,' published in 1855, was written
from the point of view of the masters, an admirable contrast to Barton
being found in Thornton, the hero of this novel.
In 1850, when Dickens was about to establish Household Words, he
invited Mrs. Gaskell to contribute. This magazine contained her story
'Lizzie Leigh' and those immortal pictures of village life known
as 'Cranford. ' Mrs. Gaskell's other novels are: 'Ruth,' the tragi-
cal story of a pretty young milliner's apprentice; 'Sylvia's Lovers,'
whose scene is Monkhaven (Whitby), at the end of the last century;
'Cousin Phillis,' a simple story of a farmer's daughter, which ap-
peared first in the Cornhill Magazine in 1863-64; and Wives and
Daughters,' also contributed to the Cornhill, and left unfinished by
her death in Manchester, November 12th, 1865. By many persons
the last novel is considered her best work, owing to its strength of
characterization. Molly Gibson, the heroine; Cynthia, a heartless
coquette; Squire Hamley and his sons Roger and Osborne, of Ham-
ley Hall; and the Earl of Cumnor and his family at the Towers,- all
are treated with impartial skill. Her famous Life of Charlotte
Bronté' appeared in 1857. She became acquainted with Miss Bronté
in 1850, and they were friends at once.
A collected edition of Mrs. Gaskell's works, published in seven
volumes in 1873, includes the short stories The Grey Woman,'
'Morton Hall,' 'Mr. Harrison's Confessions,' 'A Dark Night's Work,'
'The Moorland Cottage,' 'Round the Sofa,' 'The Old Nurse's Story,'
'The Well of Pen-Morfa,' 'The Sexton's Hero,' 'Lois the Witch,' and
others. Cranford is identified as the town of Knutsford.
Its popu-
lation consists of widows and maiden ladies, in bonds to their ancient
gentility. With deft touch Mrs. Gaskell brings out the humor and
pathos of these quaint characters, her finest creation being Miss
Matty Jenkyns.
OUR SOCIETY
From Cranford'
IN
IN THE first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all-
the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women.
If a
married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the
gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by
being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is
accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely
engaged in business all the week in the great neighboring com-
mercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad.
## p. 6207 (#177) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6207
In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not
at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The sur-
geon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but
every man cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens
full of choice flowers without a weed to speck them; for fright-
ening away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers
through the railings; for rushing out at the geese that occasion-
ally venture into the gardens if the gates are left open; for
deciding all questions of literature and politics without troubling
themselves with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining
clear and correct knowledge of everybody's affairs in the parish;
for keeping their neat maid-servants in admirable order; for
kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the poor, and real tender good
offices to each other whenever they are in distress, the ladies of
Cranford are quite sufficient. "A man," as one of them observed
to me once, "is so in the way in the house! " Although the
ladies of Cranford know all each other's proceedings, they are
exceedingly indifferent to each other's opinions. Indeed, as each
has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly
developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but somehow,
good-will reigns among them to a considerable degree.
The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel,
spurted out in a few peppery words and angry jerks of the
heads; just enough to prevent the even tenor of their lives from
becoming too flat. Their dress is very independent of fashion:
as they observe, "What does it signify how we dress here at
Cranford, where everybody knows us? " And if they go from
home, their reason is equally cogent: "What does it signify how
we dress here, where nobody knows us? " The materials of
their clothes are in general good and plain, and most of them
are nearly as scrupulous as Miss Tyler of cleanly memory; but I
will answer for it, the last gigot, the last tight and scanty petti-
coat in wear in England, was seen in Cranford - and seen with-
out a smile.
-
-
I can testify to a magnificent family red-silk umbrella, under
which a gentle little spinster, left alone of many brothers and
sisters, used to patter to church on rainy days. Have you any
red-silk umbrellas in London? We had a tradition of the first
that had ever been seen in Cranford; and the little boys mobbed
it, and called it "a stick in petticoats. " It might have been the
very red-silk one I have described, held by a strong father over
## p. 6208 (#178) ###########################################
6208
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
a troop of little ones; the poor little lady - the survivor of all
could scarcely carry it.
-
Then there were rules and regulations for visiting and calls;
and they were announced to any young people who might be
staying in the town, with all the solemnity with which the old
Manx laws were read once a year on the Tinwald Mount.
"Our friends have sent to inquire how you are after your
journey to-night, my dear" (fifteen miles in a gentleman's car-
riage); "they will give you some rest to-morrow, but the next
day, I have no doubt, they will call; so be at liberty after twelve
from twelve to three are our calling hours. "
Then, after they had called:-
"It is the third day: I daresay your mamma has told you, my
dear, never to let more than three days elapse between receiving
a call and returning it; and also, that you are never to stay
longer than a quarter of an hour. "
-
"But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out
when a quarter of an hour has passed? »
"You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not
allow yourself to forget it in conversation. ”
As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they re-
ceived or paid a call, of course no absorbing subject was ever
spoken about. We kept ourselves to short sentences of small-
talk, and were punctual to our time.
I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor,
and had some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were
like the Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face.
We none of us spoke of money, because that subject savored of
commerce and trade, and though some might be poor, we were
all aristocratic. The Cranfordians had that kindly esprit de corps
which made them overlook all deficiencies in success when some
among them tried to conceal their poverty. When Mrs. Forres-
ter, for instance, gave a party in her baby-house of a dwelling,
and the little maiden disturbed the ladies on the sofa by a re-
quest that she might get the tea-tray out from underneath, every
one took this novel proceeding as the most natural thing in the
world, and talked on about household forms and ceremonies as if
we all believed that our hostess had a regular servants' hall, sec-
ond table, with housekeeper and steward, instead of the one little
charity-school maiden, whose short ruddy arms could never have
been strong enough to carry the tray up-stairs if she had not been
## p. 6209 (#179) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6209
assisted in private by her mistress, who now sat in state, pretend-
ing not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and
we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she
knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making
tea-bread and sponge-cakes.
There were one or two consequences arising from this general
but unacknowledged poverty and this very much acknowledged
gentility, which were not amiss, and which might be introduced.
into many circles of society to their great improvement. For
instance, the inhabitants of Cranford kept early hours, and clat-
tered home in their pattens under the guidance of a lantern-
bearer about nine o'clock at night; and the whole town was abed
and asleep by half-past ten. Moreover, it was considered "vul-
gar" (a tremendous word in Cranford) to give anything expensive
in the way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening entertainments.
Wafer bread and butter and sponge-biscuits were all that the
Honorable Mrs. Jamieson gave; and she was sister-in-law to the
late Earl of Glenmire, although she did practice such "elegant
>>
economy.
"Elegant economy! " How naturally one falls back into the
phraseology of Cranford! There, economy was always "elegant,"
and money-spending always "vulgar and ostentatious "; a sort of
sour-grapeism which made us very peaceful and satisfied. I never
shall forget the dismay felt when a certain Captain Brown came
to live at Cranford, and openly spoke about his being poor-not
in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being
previously closed, but in the public street! in a loud military
voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a particular
house. The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning over
the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman. He
was a half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation on a
neighboring railroad, which had been vehemently petitioned against
by the little town; and if in addition to his masculine gender
and his connection with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen
as to talk of being poor- why then indeed he must be sent to
Coventry. Death was as true and as common as poverty; yet
people never spoke about that, loud out in the streets. It was a
word not to be mentioned to ears polite. We had tacitly agreed
to ignore that any with whom we associated on terms of visiting
equality could ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything.
that they wished. If we walked to or from a party, it was
XI-389
## p. 6210 (#180) ###########################################
6210
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
because the night was so fine, or the air so refreshing; not be-
cause sedan-chairs were expensive. If we wore prints instead of
summer silks, it was because we preferred a washing material;
and so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that we
were all of us people of very moderate means. Of course, then,
we did not know what to make of a man who could speak of
poverty as if it was not disgrace. Yet somehow Captain Brown
made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in
spite of all resolutions to the contrary. I was surprised to hear
his opinions quoted as authority at a visit which I paid to Cran-
ford about a year after he had settled in the town. My own
friends had been among the bitterest opponents of any proposal
to visit the captain and his daughters only twelve months before;
and now he was even admitted in the tabooed hours before
twelve. True, it was to discover the cause of a smoking chim-
ney, before the fire was lighted; but still Captain Brown walked
up-stairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the
room, and joked quite in the way of a tame man about the
house. He had been blind to all the small slights, and omissions
of trivial ceremonies, with which he had been received. He had
been friendly, though the Cranford ladies had been cool; he had
answered small sarcastic compliments in good faith; and with his
manly frankness had overpowered all the shrinking which met
him as a man who was not ashamed to be poor. And at last his
excellent masculine common-sense, and his facility in devising
expedients to overcome domestic dilemmas, had gained him an
extraordinary place as authority among the Cranford ladies. He
himself went on in his course, as unaware of his popularity as
he had been of the reverse.
I wondered what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown
at their parties. We had often rejoiced, in former days, that
there was no gentleman to be attended to and to find conversa-
tion for, at the card parties. We had congratulated ourselves
upon the snugness of the evenings, and in our love for gentility
and distaste of mankind we had almost persuaded ourselves that
to be a man was to be "vulgar"; so that when I found my
friend and hostess Miss Jenkyns was going to have a party in
my honor, and that Captain and the Miss Browns were invited, I
wondered much what would be the course of the evening. Card
tables, with green-baize tops, were set out by daylight, just as
usual: it was the third week in November, so the evenings closed
## p. 6211 (#181) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6211
in about four. Candles and clean packs of cards were arranged
on each table. The fire was made up; the neat maid-servant had
received her last directions: and there we stood, dressed in our
best, each with a candle-lighter in our hands, ready to dart at
the candles as soon as the first knock came. Parties in Cranford
were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely elated as
they sat together in their best dresses. As soon as three had
arrived, we sat down to Preference, I being the unlucky fourth.
The next four comers were put down immediately to another
table; and presently the tea-trays, which I had seen set out in
the store-room as I passed in the morning, were placed each on
the middle of a card table. The china was delicate egg-shell;
the old-fashioned silver glittered with polishing; but the eatables
were of the slightest description.
While the trays were yet on the tables, Captain and the Miss
Browns came in; and I could see that, somehow or other, the
captain was a favorite with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows
were smoothed, sharp voices lowered at his approach. Miss
Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to gloom. Miss Jessie
smiled as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her father.
He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the
room; attended to every one's wants, lessened the pretty maid-
servant's labor by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless
ladies; and yet did it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and
so much as if it were a matter of course for the strong to attend
to the weak, that he was a true man throughout. He played
for threepenny points with as grave an interest as if they had
been pounds; and yet in all his attention to strangers he had
an eye on his suffering daughter-for suffering I was sure she
was, though to many eyes she might only appear to be irritable.
Miss Jessie could not play cards, but she talked to the sitters-
out, who before her coming had been rather inclined to be cross.
She sang, too, to an old cracked piano which I think had been
a spinet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang Jock o' Hazeldean'
a little out of tune; but we were none of us musical, though
Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing to
be so.
It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen
that, a little before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss
Jessie Brown's unguarded admission (àpropos of Shetland wool)
that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a shop-
## p. 6212 (#182) ###########################################
6212
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
keeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confes-
sion by a terrible cough-for the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson was
sitting at the card table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she
say or think if she found out that she was in the same room with
a shopkeeper's niece! But Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as
we all agreed the next morning) would repeat the information,
and assure Miss Pole she could easily get her the identical Shet-
land wool required "through my uncle, who has the best assort-
ment of Shetland goods of any one in Edinbro'. " It was to take
the taste of this out of our mouths, and the sound of this out of
our ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music: so I say again, it
was very good of her to beat time to the song.
When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine, punctually
at a quarter to nine, there was conversation, comparing of cards,
and talking over tricks; but by-and-by Captain Brown sported a
bit of literature.
"Have you seen any numbers of The Pickwick Papers'? "
said he. (They were then publishing in parts. ) "Capital thing! "
Now, Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cran-
ford, and on the strength of a number of manuscript sermons
and a pretty good library of divinity considered herself literary,
and looked upon any conversation about books as a challenge to
her. So she answered and said, "Yes, she had seen them; in-
deed, she might say she had read them. "
"And what do you think of them? " exclaimed Captain Brown.
"Aren't they famously good? "
So urged, Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.
"I must say, I don't think they are by any means equal to
Dr. Johnson. Still, perhaps, the author is young.
Let him per-
severe, and who knows what he may become if he will take the
great Doctor for his model. ”
This was evidently too much for Captain Brown to take pla-
cidly; and I saw the words on the tip of his tongue before Miss
Jenkyns had finished her sentence.
"It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam," he
began.
"I am quite aware of that," returned she; " and I make
allowances, Captain Brown. "
་་
"Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month's num-
ber," pleaded he. "I had it only this morning, and I don't think
the company can have read it yet. "
## p. 6213 (#183) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6213
"As you please," said she, settling herself with an air of resig-
nation. He read the account of the "swarry" which Sam Weller
gave at Bath.
Some of us laughed heartily. I did not dare, be-
cause I was staying in the house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient
gravity. When it was ended, she turned to me, and said, with
mild dignity:-
"Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the book-room. "
When I brought it to her, she turned to Captain Brown:—
"Now allow me to read you a scene, and then the present com-
pany can judge between your favorite Mr. Boz and Dr. Johnson. ”
She read one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac,
in a high-pitched, majestic voice; and when she had ended she
said, "I imagine I am now justified in my preference of Dr.
Johnson as a writer of fiction. " The captain screwed his lips.
up, and drummed on the table, but he did not speak. She
thought she would give a finishing blow or two.
"I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature, to
publish in numbers. "
"How was The Rambler published, ma'am? " asked Captain
Brown, in a low voice, which I think Miss Jenkyns could not
have heard.
My
"Dr. Johnson's style is a model for young beginners.
father recommended it to me when I began to write letters—I
have formed my own style upon it; I recommend it to your
favorite. "
"I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any
such pompous writing," said Captain Brown.
Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a way of which
the captain had not dreamed. Epistolary writing she and her
friends considered as her forte. Many a copy of many a letter
have I seen written and corrected on the slate, before she "seized
the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure her friends" of
this or that; and Dr. Johnson was, as she said, her model in these
compositions. She drew herself up with dignity, and only replied
to Captain Brown's last remark by saying, with marked emphasis
on every syllable, "I prefer Dr. Johnson to Mr. Boz. "
It is said I won't vouch for the fact that Captain Brown
was heard to say, sotto voce, "D-n Dr. Johnson! " If he did, he
was penitent afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near
Miss Jenkyns's arm-chair, and endeavoring to beguile her into
conversation on some more pleasing subject. But she was in-
exorable.
-
## p. 6214 (#184) ###########################################
6214
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
VISITING
From Cranford >
Ο
NE morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our work- it was
before twelve o'clock, and Miss Matty had not changed the
cap with yellow ribbons that had been Miss Jenkyns's best,
and which Miss Matty was now wearing out in private, putting
on the one made in imitation of Mrs. Jamieson's at all times
when she expected to be seen Martha came up, and asked if
Miss Betty Barker might speak to her mistress.
Miss Matty
assented, and quickly disappeared to change the yellow ribbons
while Miss Barker came up-stairs; but as she had forgotten her
spectacles, and was rather flurried by the unusual time of the
visit, I was not surprised to see her return with one cap on the
top of the other. She was quite unconscious of it herself, and
looked at us with bland satisfaction. Nor do I think Miss Barker
perceived it; for putting aside the little circumstance that she
was not so young as she had been, she was very much absorbed
in her errand, which she delivered herself of with an oppressive
modesty that found vent in endless apologies.
Miss Betty Barker was the daughter of the old clerk at Cran-
ford who had officiated in Mr. Jenkyns's time. She and her
sister had had pretty good situations as ladies'-maids, and had
saved money enough to set up a milliner's shop, which had been
patronized by the ladies in the neighborhood. Lady Arley, for
instance, would occasionally give Miss Barkers the pattern of an
old cap of hers, which they immediately copied and circulated
among the élite of Cranford. I say the élite, for Miss Barkers
had caught the trick of the place, and piqued themselves upon
their "aristocratic connection. " They would not sell their caps
and ribbons to any one without a pedigree. Many a farmer's
wife or daughter turned away huffed from Miss Barkers' select
millinery, and went rather to the universal shop, where the prof-
its of brown soap and moist sugar enabled the proprietor to go
straight to (Paris, he said, until he found his customers too patri-
otic and John-Bullish to wear what the Mounseers wore) Lon-
don, where, as he often told his customers, Queen Adelaide had
appeared only the very week before in a cap exactly like the one
he showed them, trimmed with yellow and blue ribbons, and had
been complimented by King William on the becoming nature of
her head-dress.
-
## p. 6215 (#185) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6215
Miss Barkers, who confined themselves to truth and did not
approve of miscellaneous customers, throve notwithstanding. They
were self-denying, good people. Many a time have I seen the
eldest of them (she that had been maid to Mrs. Jamieson) carry-
ing out some delicate mess to a poor person. They only aped
their betters in having "nothing to do" with the class immedi-
ately below theirs. And when Miss Barker died, their profits
and income were found to be such that Miss Betty was justified
in shutting up shop and retiring from business. She also (as I
think I have before said) set up her cow,—a mark of respecta-
bility in Cranford almost as decided as setting up a gig is among
some people. She dressed finer than any lady in Cranford, and
we did not wonder at it; for it was understood that she was
wearing out all the bonnets and caps and outrageous ribbons
which had once formed her stock in trade.
It was five or six
years since she had given up shop, so in any other place than
Cranford her dress might have been considered passé.
And now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite Miss Matty
to tea at her house on the following Tuesday. She gave me
also an impromptu invitation, as I happened to be a visitor
though I could see she had a little fear lest, since my father had
gone to live in Drumble, he might have engaged in that "horrid
cotton trade," and so dragged his family down out of "aristo-
cratic society. " She prefaced this invitation with so many apolo-
gies that she quite excited my curiosity. "Her presumption"
was to be excused. What had she been doing? She seemed so
overpowered by it, I could only think that she had been writing
to Queen Adelaide to ask for a receipt for washing lace; but the
act which she so characterized was only an invitation she had
carried to her sister's former mistress, Mrs. Jamieson.
« Her
former occupation considered, could Miss Matty excuse the lib-
erty? " Ah! thought I, she has found out that double cap, and
is going to rectify Miss Matty's head-dress. No; it was simply
to extend her invitation to Miss Matty and to me.
Miss Matty
bowed acceptance; and I wondered that in the graceful action
she did not feel the unusual weight and extraordinary height of
her head-dress. But I do not think she did, for she recovered
her balance, and went on talking to Miss Betty in a kind, con-
descending manner, very different from the fidgety way she
would have had if she had suspected how singular her appear-
ance was.
## p. 6216 (#186) ###########################################
6216
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
"Mrs. Jamieson is coming, I think you said? » asked Miss
Matty.
“Yes. Mrs. Jamieson most kindly and condescendingly said
she would be happy to come. One little stipulation she made,
that she should bring Carlo.
I told her that if I had a weakness,
it was for dogs. "
"And Miss Pole? " questioned Miss Matty, who was thinking
of her pool at Preference, in which Carlo would not be available
as a partner.
"I am going to ask Miss Pole. Of course, I could not think
of asking her until I had asked you, madam the rector's
daughter, madam. Believe me, I do not forget the situation my
father held under yours. "
"And Mrs. Forrester, of course? "
"And Mrs. Forrester. I thought, in fact, of going to her
before I went to Miss Pole. Although her circumstances are
changed, madam, she was born a Tyrrell, and we can never for-
get her alliance to the Bigges of Bigelow Hall. "
Miss Matty cared much more for the little circumstance of her
being a very good card-player. Miss Barker looked at me with
sidelong dignity, as much as to say, although a retired milliner,
she was no democrat, and understood the difference of ranks.
"May I beg you to come as near half-past six to my little
dwelling as possible, Miss Matilda? Mrs. Jamieson dines at five,
but has kindly promised not to delay her visit beyond that time
half-past six. " And with a swimming curtsy Miss Betty Bar-
ker took her leave.
The spring evenings were getting bright and long, when three
or four ladies in calashes met at Miss Barker's door.
Do you
It is a covering worn over caps, not
on old-fashioned gigs; but sometimes
This kind of head-gear always made
know what a calash is?
unlike the heads fastened
it is not quite so large.
an awful impression on the children in Cranford; and now two
or three left off their play in the quiet sunny little street, and
gathered in wondering silence round Miss Pole, Miss Matty,
and myself. We were silent too, so that we could hear loud
suppressed whispers inside Miss Barker's house: "Wait, Peggy!
wait till I've run up-stairs and washed my hands. When I cough,
open the door; I'll not be a minute. "
And true enough, it was not a minute before we heard a
noise, between a sneeze and a crow; on which the door flew
## p. 6217 (#187) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6217
open. Behind it stood a round-eyed maiden, all aghast at the
honorable company of calashes, who marched in without a word.
She recovered presence of mind enough to usher us into a small
room, which had been a shop, but was now converted into a
temporary dressing-room. There we unpinned and shook our-
selves, and arranged our features before the glass into a sweet
and gracious company face; and then, bowing backwards with
"After you, ma'am," we allowed Mrs. Forrester to take precedence
up the narrow staircase that led to Miss Barker's drawing-room.
There she sat, as stately and composed as though we had never
heard that odd-sounding cough, from which her throat must have
been even then sore and rough. Kind, gentle, shabbily dressed
Mrs. Forrester was immediately conducted to the second place of
honor a seat arranged something like Prince Albert's near the
Queen's-good, but not so good. The place of pre-eminence
was of course reserved for the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson, who
presently came panting up the stairs-Carlo rushing round her
on her progress, as if he meant to trip her up.
And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy woman!
She stirred the fire, and shut the door, and sat as near to it as
she could, quite on the edge of her chair. When Peggy came
in, tottering under the weight of the tea-tray, I noticed that
Miss Barker was sadly afraid lest Peggy should not keep her
distance sufficiently. She and her mistress were on very familiar
terms in their every-day intercourse, and Peggy wanted now to
make several little confidences to her, which Miss Barker was on
thorns to hear, but which she thought it her duty as a lady to
repress. So she turned away from all Peggy's asides and signs;
but she made one or two very malapropos answers to what was
said; and at last, seized with a bright idea, she exclaimed, "Poor
sweet Carlo! I'm forgetting him. Come down-stairs with me,
poor little doggie, and it shall have its tea, it shall! »
In a few minutes she returned, bland and benignant as be-
fore; but I thought she had forgotten to give the "poor little
doggie" anything to eat, judging by the avidity with which he
swallowed down chance pieces of cake. The tea tray was abun-
dantly laden-I was pleased to see it, I was so hungry; but I
was afraid the ladies present might think it vulgarly heaped up.
I know they would have done at their own houses; but some-
how the heaps disappeared here. I saw Mrs. Jamieson eating
seed-cake slowly and considerately, as she did everything; and
## p. 6218 (#188) ###########################################
6218
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
I was rather surprised, for I knew she had told us on the occa-
sion of her last party that she never had it in her house, it
reminded her so much of scented soap. She always gave us
Savoy biscuits. . However, Mrs. Jamieson, kindly indulgent to
Miss Barker's want of knowledge of the customs of high life,
and to spare her feelings, ate three large pieces of seed-cake,
with a placid, ruminating expression of countenance, not unlike a
cow's.
After tea there was some little demur and difficulty. We
were six in number; four could play at Preference, and for the
other two there was Cribbage. But all except myself (I was
rather afraid of the Cranford ladies at cards, for it was the most
earnest and serious business they ever engaged in) were anxious
to be of the "pool. " Even Miss Barker, while declaring she did
not know Spadille from Manille, was evidently hankering to take
a hand.
The dilemma was soon put an end to by a singular
kind of noise. If a baron's daughter-in-law could ever be sup-
posed to snore, I should have said Mrs. Jamieson did so then;
for overcome by the heat of the room, and inclined to doze by
nature, the temptation of that very comfortable arm-chair had
been too much for her, and Mrs. Jamieson was nodding. Once
or twice she opened her eyes with an effort, and calmly but
unconsciously smiled upon us; but by-and-by even her benevo-
lence was not equal to this exertion, and she was sound asleep.
"It is very gratifying to me," whispered Miss Barker at the
card table to her three opponents, whom notwithstanding her
ignorance of the game she was "basting" most unmercifully-
"very gratifying indeed, to see how completely Mrs. Jamieson
feels at home in my poor little dwelling; she could not have paid
me a greater compliment. "
Miss Barker provided me with some literature, in the shape
of three or four handsomely bound fashion-books ten or twelve
years old; observing, as she put a little table and a candle for
my special benefit, that she knew young people liked to look at
pictures. Carlo lay and snorted and started at his mistress's feet.
He too was quite at home.
The card table was an animated scene to watch: four ladies'
heads, with niddle-noddling caps, all nearly meeting over the
middle of the table in their eagerness to whisper quick enough
and loud enough; and every now and then came Miss Barker's
"Hush, ladies! if you please, hush! Mrs. Jamieson is asleep. "
## p. 6219 (#189) ###########################################
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
6219
It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs. Forrester's
deafness and Mrs. Jamieson's sleepiness. But Miss Barker man-
aged her arduous task well. She repeated the whisper to Mrs.
Forrester, distorting her face considerably in order to show by
the motions of her lips what was said; and then she smiled
kindly all round at us, and murmured to herself, "Very grati-
fying indeed; I wish my poor sister had been alive to see this
day. "
Presently the door was thrown wide open; Carlo started to his
feet with a loud snapping bark, and Mrs. Jamieson awoke; or
perhaps she had not been asleep-as she said almost directly,
the room had been so light she had been glad to keep her eyes
shut, but had been listening with great interest to all our amus-
ing and agreeable conversation. Peggy came in once more, red
with importance. Another tray! "O gentility! " thought I, "can
you endure this last shock? » For Miss Barker had ordered (nay,
I doubt not prepared, although she did say, "Why! Peggy, what
have you brought us? " and looked pleasantly surprised at the
unexpected pleasure) all sorts of good things for supper-scal-
loped oysters, potted lobsters, jelly, a dish called "little Cupids »
(which was in great favor with the Cranford ladies, although too
expensive to be given except on solemn and state occasions-
macaroons sopped in brandy, I should have called it, if I had not
known its more refined and classical name). In short, we were
evidently to be feasted with all that was sweetest and best; and
we thought it better to submit graciously, even at the cost of our
gentility-which never ate suppers in general, but which, like
most non-supper-eaters, was particularly hungry on all special
occasions.
――――――――――――
Miss Barker in her former sphere had, I daresay, been made
acquainted with the beverage they call cherry brandy. We none
of us had ever seen such a thing, and rather shrank back when
she proffered it us-"just a little, leetle glass, ladies; after the
oysters and lobsters, you know. Shell-fish are sometimes thought
not very wholesome. " We all shook our heads like female man-
darins; but at last Mrs. Jamieson suffered herself to be per-
suaded, and we followed her lead. It was not exactly unpalatable,
though so hot and so strong that we thought ourselves bound to
give evidence that we were not accustomed to such things by
coughing terribly-almost as strangely as Miss Barker had done,
before we were admitted by Peggy.
## p. 6220 (#190) ###########################################
6220
ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL
"It's very strong," said Miss Pole, as she put down her empty
glass; “I do believe there's spirit in it. "
"Only a little drop-just necessary to make it keep," said
Miss Barker. "You know we put brandy paper over preserves
to make them keep. I often feel tipsy myself from eating dam-
son tart. "
I question whether damson tart would have opened Mrs.
Jamieson's heart as the cherry brandy did; but she told us of a
coming event, respecting which she had been quite silent till
that moment.
"My sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire, is coming to stay with me. "
There was a chorus of "Indeed! " and then a pause.
Each one
rapidly reviewed her wardrobe, as to its fitness to appear in the
presence of a baron's widow; for of course a series of small fes-
tivals were always held in Cranford on the arrival of a visitor at
any of our friends' houses. We felt very pleasantly excited on
the present occasion.
Not long after this, the maids and the lanterns were announced.
Mrs. Jamieson had the sedan-chair, which squeezed itself into
Miss Barker's narrow lobby with some difficulty, and most liter-
ally "stopped the way. " It required some skillful manœuvring
on the part of the old chairmen (shoemakers by day, but when
summoned to carry the sedan, dressed up in a strange old livery
-long greatcoats with small capes, coeval with the sedan and
similar to the dress of the class in Hogarth's pictures) to edge,
and back, and try at it again, and finally to succeed in carrying
their burden out of Miss Barker's front door. Then we heard
their pit-a-pat along the quiet little street, as we put on our ca-
lashes and pinned up our gowns; Miss Barker hovering about us
with offers of help, which if she had not remembered her former
occupation, and wished us to forget it, would have been much
more pressing.
## p. 6221 (#191) ###########################################
6221
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
(1811-1872)
BY ROBERT SANDERSON
HEOPHILE GAUTIER was born in Tarbes (Department of the
Hautes-Pyrénées) in Southern France, August 31st, 1811.
Like all French boys, he was sent to the lycée (academy),
where he promised to be a brilliant scholar; but his father was really
his tutor, and to him Gautier attributed his instruction. Young Théo-
phile showed marked preference for the so-called authors of the
Decadence-Claudianus, Martial, Petronius, and others; also for the
old French writers, especially Villon and Rabelais, whom he says he
knew by heart. This is significant, in view
of the young man's strong tendencies, later
on, towards the new romantic school. The
artistic temperament was very strong in
him; and while still carrying on his studies
at college he entered the painter Rioult's
studio. His introduction to Victor Hugo in
1830 may be considered the decisive point
in Gautier's career: from that day he gave
up painting and became a fanatic admirer
of the romantic leader.
A short time afterwards, the first repre-
sentation of 'Hernani' took place (Febru-
ary 25th, 1830), an important date in the
life of Gautier. It was on this occasion that
he put on for the only time that famous red waistcoat, which, with his
long black mane streaming down his back, so horrified the staid
Parisian bourgeois. This red waistcoat turns out, after all, not to
have been a waistcoat at all, but a doublet; nor was it red, but pink.
No truer is the legend, according to Gautier, that on this memorable
occasion, armed with his two formidable fists, he felled right and
left the terrified bourgeois. He says that he was at that time rather
delicate, and had not yet developed that prodigious strength which
later on enabled him to strike a 520-pound blow on a Turk's-head. In
appearance Gautier was a large corpulent man with a leonine counte-
nance, swarthy complexion, long black hair falling over his shoulders,
black beard, and brilliant black eyes; an Oriental in looks as well as
THEOPHILE GAUTIER
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THEOPHILE GAUTIER
in some of his tastes. He had a passion for cats. His house was
overrun by them, and he seldom wrote without having one on his
lap. The privations he underwent during the siege of Paris, doubly
hard to a man of Gautier's Gargantuesque appetite, no doubt hast-
ened his death. He died on October 23d, 1872, of hypertrophy of
the heart.
Gautier is one of those writers of whom one may say a vast deal
of good and a vast deal of harm. His admirers think that justice
has not been done him, that his fame will go on rising and his name
will live as one of the great writers of France; others think that his
name may perhaps not entirely disappear, but that if he is remem-
bered at all it will be solely as the author of 'Émaux et Camées'
(Enamels and Cameos). He wrote in his youth a book that did him
great harm in the eyes of the public; but he has written something
else besides 'Mademoiselle de Maupin,' and both in prose and poetry
we shall find a good deal to admire in him. One thing is certain: he
is a marvelous stylist. In his earliest poems Gautier already possesses
that admirable artistic skill that prompts him to choose his words as
a painter his colors, or a jeweler his gems and stones, so as to pro-
duce the most brilliant effects: these first compositions also have a
grace, a charm, that we shall find lacking later on, for as he pro-
ceeds with his work he pays more and more attention to form and
finish.
'Albertus, or Soul and Sin,' the closing poem of Gautier's first col-
lection, is a "semi-diabolic, semi-fashionable" legend. An old witch,
Veronica, a second Meg Merrilies, transforms herself into a beauti-
ful maiden and makes love to Albertus, a young artist- otherwise
Gautier himself. He cares for nothing but his art, but falls a victim
to the spell cast over him by the siren. At the stroke of midnight,
Veronica, to the young man's horror, from a beautiful woman changes
back to the old hag she was, and carries him off to a place where
witches, sorcerers, hobgoblins, harpies, ghouls, and other frightful
creatures are holding a monstrous saturnalia; at the end of which,
Albertus is left for dead in a ditch of the Appian Way with broken
back and twisted neck. What does it all mean? the reader may ask.
That "the wages of sin is death" seems to be the moral contained in
this poem, if indeed any moral is intended at all. Be that as it may,
'Albertus' is a literary gem in its way; a work in which the poet
has given free scope to his brilliant imagination, and showered by
the handful the gems and jewels in his literary casket. Gautier may
be said to have possessed the poetry of Death - some would say its
horrors. This sentiment of horror at the repulsive manner of man's
total destruction finds most vivid expression in 'The Comedy of
Death,' a fantastic poem divided into two parts, 'Death in Life' and
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THEOPHILE GAUTIER
6223
'Life in Death. ' The dialogue between the bride and the earth-
worm is of a flesh-creeping nature.
It is however as the poet of 'Émaux et Camées' (Enamels and
Cameos) that Théophile Gautier will be chiefly remembered. Every
poem but one in this collection is written in short octosyllabic verse,
and every one is what the title implies, -a precious stone, a chiseled
gem. Gautier's wonderful and admirable talent for grouping together
certain words that produce on one's eye and mind the effect of a
beautiful picture, his intense love of art, of the outline, the plastic,
appear throughout this work. You realize on reading 'Émaux et
Camées,' more perhaps than in any other work by this writer, that
the poet is fully conscious of his powers and knows just how to use
them. Any poem may be selected at random, and will be found a
work of art.
The same qualities that distinguish Gautier as a poet are to be
found in his novels, narratives of travels, criticisms,-in short, in
everything he wrote; intense love for the beautiful,-physically beau-
tiful,- wonderful talent for describing it. Of his novels, properly
speaking, there are four that stand out prominently, each very dif-
ferent in its subject,-a proof of Gautier's great versatility,—all
perfect in their execution. The first is 'Mademoiselle de Maupin'; it
is an immoral book, but it is a beautiful book, not only because
written with a rare elegance of style, but also because it makes you
love beauty. Briefly, 'Mademoiselle de Maupin' may be called a
pæan to beauty, sung by its high priest Théophile Gautier.
The other remarkable novels by this writer are 'Le Capitaine
Fracasse (Captain Smash-All), 'Le Roman de la Momie' (The Ro-
mance of the Mummy), and 'Spirite. ' 'Captain Fracasse,' although
not published until 1863, had been announced long beforehand; and
Gautier had worked at it, off and on, for twenty years. It belongs
to that class of novel known as picaresque romances of adventures
and battles. 'Captain Fracasse' is certainly the most popular of
Gautier's works.
-
'The Romance of the Mummy' is a very remarkable book, in
which science and fiction have been blended in the most artistic
and clever manner; picturesque, like all of Gautier's writings, but the
work of a savant as well as of a novelist. Here more than in any
other book by this author,-with the exception perhaps of Arria
Marcella, Gautier has revived in a most lifelike way an entire civ-
ilization, so long extinct. 'The Romance of the Mummy' abounds in
beautiful descriptions. The description of the finding of the mummy,
that of the royal tombs, of Thebes with its hundred gates, the tri-
umphal entrance of Pharaoh into that city, the crossing of the Red
Sea by the Israelites, are all marvelous pictures, that not only fill the
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THEOPHILE GAUTIER
reader with the same admiration he would evince at the sight of a
painting by one of the great masters, but give him the illusion of
witnessing in the body the scenes so admirably described.
'Spirite,' a fantastic story, is a source of surprise to readers famil-
iar with Gautier's other works: they find it hard to conceive that so
thorough a materialist as Gautier could ever have produced a work
so spiritualistic in its nature. The clever handling of a mystic sub-
ject, the richness and coloring of the descriptions, together with a
certain ideal and poetical vein that runs through the book, make of
'Spirite' one of Gautier's most remarkable works.
Théophile Gautier has also written a number of nouvelles or short
novels, and tales, some of which are striking compositions. Arria
Marcella' is one of these; a brilliant, masterly composition, in which
Gautier gives us such a perfect illusion of the past. Under his magic
pen we find ourselves walking the streets of Pompeii and living over
the life of the Romans in the first century of our era; and 'Une Nuit
de Cléopâtre' (A Night with Cleopatra) is a vivid resurrection of the
brilliant Egyptian court.
Of his various journeys to Spain, Italy, and the Orient, Gautier
has given us the most captivating relations. To many this is not the
least interesting portion of Gautier's work. The same qualities that
are so striking in his poems and novels-vividness of description,
love of the picturesque, wonderful power of expression—are likewise
apparent in his relations of travels.
As a literary and especially as an art critic, Gautier ranks high.
Bringing to this branch of literature the same qualities that distin-
guish him in others, he created a descriptive and picturesque method
of criticism peculiarly his own. Of his innumerable articles on art
and literature, some have been collected under the names of 'Les
Grotesques,' a series of essays on a number of poets of the end of
the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries, ridiculed by
Boileau, but in whom Gautier finds some wheat among the chaff.
The History of Dramatic Art in France for the Last Twenty-five
Years,' beginning with the year 1837, will be consulted with great
profit by those who are curious to follow the dramatic movement
in that country. Of his essays on art, one is as excellent as the
other; all the great masters are treated with a loving and admiring
hand.
Among the miscellaneous works of this prolific writer should be
mentioned 'Ménagerie Intime' (Home Menagerie), in which the author
makes us acquainted in a most charming and familiar way with his
home life, and the various pets, cats, dogs, white rats, parrots, etc. ,
that in turn shared his house with him; la Nature chez elle (Nature at
home), that none but a close observer of nature could have written.
