North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell :
Dixon was not unconscious of the awed reverence which was given to her; nor did she dislike it; it flattered her much as Louis the Fourteenth was flattered by his courtiers shading their eyes from the dazzling light of his presence. But nothing short of her faithful love for Mrs. Hale could have made her endure the rough independent way in which all the Milton girls, who made application for the servant’s place, replied to her inquiries respecting their qualifications. They even went the length of questioning her back again, having doubts and fears of their own as to the solvency of a family who lived in a house of 30 pounds a year and yet gave themselves airs and kept two servants, one of them so very high and mighty. Mr. Hale was no longer looked upon as the Vicar of Helstone, but as a man who only spent at a certain rate.
I once went to a Richard Thompson concert at which he introduced a song as “from an era of Industrial Strife”. I knew that this meant he was about to sing “Blackleg Miner”, and applauded in anticipation. Thompson peered out into the audience and said, in a bemused voice, “Ah--fans of Industrial Strife, I take it?”
Well, no-I don’t exactly like industrial strife, but my Scots-Irish, Wobbly ancestry responds well to rip roaring tales about it, at least.
This one is one of the first such, combining a little Jane Austen with a little Dickens, as it plops the usual morally superior but worldly-foolish female protagonist down into a thinly disguised 19th century Manchester where she may gaze with wide-eyed confusion at all those modern, noisy machines and the frenetic pace of industry, burn with indignation at social injustice, and get the vapors as all the big manly captains of capital and labor pound their chests and roar for her attention.
Most of the characters are stock caricatures placed there to illustrate the positive and negative aspects of the genteel landed aristocracy contrasted with the new capitalist overlords, and the yeoman peasants with the new urban working class, all of whom are somewhat embarrassed and apologetic at having to let their anger and political/economic struggles throw a wet blanket on such an important love story. There is, of course a “good” capitalist boss on hand to rationally discuss Adam Smith and explain endlessly how any good industrialist understands that enlightened self-interest is best served by the humane treatment of one's employees; meanwhile, the rest of the factory owners are calling for public hangings to whip the serfs back in line and teach them not to dispute wages with their masters. Also on hand are noble laborers, bursting at the seams with honor, dignity, and the extremity of desperation that brings them into the streets seeking reformation; and there are also drunken, slothful wastrels reduced to demanding free handouts from the bosses, since government welfare programs haven’t been invented yet. (“Food stamps? What would those be? The government’s job is not to feed the hungry, but to kick the hungry, kick them hard, show them how foolish they are being by choosing to be hungry!”). So that we may consider various aspects of obligations to authority, Gaskell has included a subplot involving a mutiny on a British warship.
Consider how none of these themes had yet been explored in such detail at the time of writing, and the work is fresh and appealing. It doesn’t say much that is new to us today, but it reminds us of ideals the value of which we may have forgotten, as we pause in celebrating life in the most free governmental and economic system in the world, to line up for our daily security screenings and random drug tests.
Dixon was not unconscious of the awed reverence which was given to her; nor did she dislike it; it flattered her much as Louis the Fourteenth was flattered by his courtiers shading their eyes from the dazzling light of his presence. But nothing short of her faithful love for Mrs. Hale could have made her endure the rough independent way in which all the Milton girls, who made application for the servant’s place, replied to her inquiries respecting their qualifications. They even went the length of questioning her back again, having doubts and fears of their own as to the solvency of a family who lived in a house of 30 pounds a year and yet gave themselves airs and kept two servants, one of them so very high and mighty. Mr. Hale was no longer looked upon as the Vicar of Helstone, but as a man who only spent at a certain rate.
I once went to a Richard Thompson concert at which he introduced a song as “from an era of Industrial Strife”. I knew that this meant he was about to sing “Blackleg Miner”, and applauded in anticipation. Thompson peered out into the audience and said, in a bemused voice, “Ah--fans of Industrial Strife, I take it?”
Well, no-I don’t exactly like industrial strife, but my Scots-Irish, Wobbly ancestry responds well to rip roaring tales about it, at least.
This one is one of the first such, combining a little Jane Austen with a little Dickens, as it plops the usual morally superior but worldly-foolish female protagonist down into a thinly disguised 19th century Manchester where she may gaze with wide-eyed confusion at all those modern, noisy machines and the frenetic pace of industry, burn with indignation at social injustice, and get the vapors as all the big manly captains of capital and labor pound their chests and roar for her attention.
Most of the characters are stock caricatures placed there to illustrate the positive and negative aspects of the genteel landed aristocracy contrasted with the new capitalist overlords, and the yeoman peasants with the new urban working class, all of whom are somewhat embarrassed and apologetic at having to let their anger and political/economic struggles throw a wet blanket on such an important love story. There is, of course a “good” capitalist boss on hand to rationally discuss Adam Smith and explain endlessly how any good industrialist understands that enlightened self-interest is best served by the humane treatment of one's employees; meanwhile, the rest of the factory owners are calling for public hangings to whip the serfs back in line and teach them not to dispute wages with their masters. Also on hand are noble laborers, bursting at the seams with honor, dignity, and the extremity of desperation that brings them into the streets seeking reformation; and there are also drunken, slothful wastrels reduced to demanding free handouts from the bosses, since government welfare programs haven’t been invented yet. (“Food stamps? What would those be? The government’s job is not to feed the hungry, but to kick the hungry, kick them hard, show them how foolish they are being by choosing to be hungry!”). So that we may consider various aspects of obligations to authority, Gaskell has included a subplot involving a mutiny on a British warship.
Consider how none of these themes had yet been explored in such detail at the time of writing, and the work is fresh and appealing. It doesn’t say much that is new to us today, but it reminds us of ideals the value of which we may have forgotten, as we pause in celebrating life in the most free governmental and economic system in the world, to line up for our daily security screenings and random drug tests.