Part 1

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_THE REGENT LIBRARY_

MRS. GASKELL

_THE REGENT LIBRARY_

_MRS. GASKELL_

_BY ESTHER ALICE CHADWICK_

LONDON _HERBERT & DANIEL 21 Maddox Street W._

MRS. GASKELL

Contents

PAGE

PORTRAIT OF MRS. GASKELL, BY GEORGE RICHMOND, R.A. _Frontispiece_

INTRODUCTION ix

CALENDAR OF PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN MRS. GASKELL’S LIFE xxxiii

I. POETRY 1

Sketches among the Poor. No. 1.

ARTICLES AND SKETCHES 8

Clopton Hall.

A Greek Wedding.

Tenir un Salon.

On Furnishing, Conversation, and Games.

On Books.

French Receptions.

Description of Duncombe (Knutsford).

The Sexton’s Hero.

Advice to a Young Doctor.

The Choice of Odours.

St. Valentine’s Day.

Whit-Monday in Dunham Park.

II. NOVELS 59

SOCIAL QUESTIONS

Poor _versus_ Rich.

Working Men’s Petition to Parliament, 1839.

Meeting between the Masters and their Employees.

John Barton joins the Chartists.

The Trial for Murder.

John Barton’s Confession.

Job Legh defends John Barton.

A Manchester Strike in the “Hungry Forties.”

North _versus_ South

Nicholas Higgins discusses Religion with the Retired Clergyman.

HUMOROUS

The new Mamma—Mrs. Gibson.

Calf-Love.

Heart Trouble.

The Young Doctor’s Dilemma.

Family Prayer at Hope Farm.

Miss Galindo.

London as John Barton saw it.

Major Jenkyns visits Cranford.

Mrs. Gibson visits Lady Cumnor.

Mrs. Gibson’s Little Dinner Party.

A Visit to an Old Bachelor.

Marriage.

A Love Affair of Long Ago.

The Cat and the Lace.

Small Economies.

Elegant Economy.

Sally tells of her Sweethearts.

Sally Makes her Will.

Betty’s Advice to Phillis.

Practical Christianity.

Betty Gives Paul Manning a Lecture.

DESCRIPTIVE

Green Heys Fields.

A Lancashire Tea-party in the Early Forties.

Babby’s Journey from London to Manchester.

A Dissenting Minister’s Household.

The Chapel at Eccleston.

The Dawn of a Gala Day.

A Manchester Mill on Fire.

In Pursuit of the _John Cropper_.

Hobbies among the Lancashire Poor.

The Press-gang in Yorkshire during the latter part of the Eighteenth Century.

The Sailor’s Funeral at Monkshaven.

A Press-gang Riot at Monkshaven.

A Game of Blind-man’s Buff.

Philip Hepburn Leaves the New Year’s Party.

Kinraid’s Return to Monkshaven.

Roger Hamley’s Farewell.

Cousin Phillis.

The Dawn of Love.

III. STORIES 317

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL

Preface to _Mary Barton_.

Edinburgh Society in 1830.

Cumberland Sheep-shearers.

My French Master.

Introduction to _Mabel Vaughan_.

BIOGRAPHICAL

Description of Charlotte Brontë.

Patrick Brontë’s Views on the Management of his Children.

Visit to Charlotte Brontë at Haworth Vicarage.

On Reviewers.

The Marriage of Charlotte Brontë.

Charlotte Brontë’s Funeral.

SHORTER EXTRACTS

Old Maids.

Mercy for the Erring.

A Clergyman’s Soliloquy.

My Lady Ludlow’s Tea-party.

The Foxglove.

A Tonic for Sorrow.

A New Commandment.

Virtue has its own Reward.

Thomas Wright.

Do the Right whatever the Consequences.

APPRECIATIONS AND TESTIMONIA 371

BIBLIOGRAPHY 379

ICONOGRAPHY 387

Introduction

I

Among women writers of the nineteenth century, none deserve more grateful remembrance than Mrs. Gaskell. Though it is forty-six years since she passed away, her stories are still eagerly read, and there is a growing interest in her life, as was shown by the almost universal appreciation last year when her centenary was celebrated. To the lovers of Mrs. Gaskell’s works, age has not settled on them, the lavender may lie between their pages, but it is still sweet, and there are many successful novelists of our own time whose works are far less read and more out of date than hers. Succeeding generations have kept her memory green, and the continued reprints of her novels prove their worth, not only for the period in which they were written, but for all time.

Such a busy, benevolent and beautiful life, though homely and uneventful, could not be suppressed altogether, for her devotees the world over claim her as one of their favourite authors, and as such they eagerly ask to know something of the woman who has charmed and cheered them by her kindly humour, and inspired and ennobled them by her sympathetic treatment of the social wrongs created by our industrial system.

Mrs. Gaskell is surely coming to the fuller recognition which she so justly deserves, although as a writer in the fifties and early sixties she took her place as a worthy contemporary of Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens, and had a most successful career. She who was always so generous in her appreciation of others, cannot escape the willing homage of her admirers.

Last August, when visiting a house where Mrs. Gaskell was often a very welcome guest, I was privileged to read a letter in which she mentioned her friend Florence Nightingale, for whom she expressed her great admiration. Shortly afterwards I learnt that at that very hour Florence Nightingale had passed away. That letter seemed to bring Mrs. Gaskell nearer, though she had preceded her friend by nearly half a century. Working on very different lines, those two noble women both heard a cry of distress and felt compelled to do something to alleviate it. Of the distinguished women of the nineteenth century few have deserved better of their country than the author of _Mary Barton_ and the heroine of the Crimean War.

There are not many who personally remember Mrs. Gaskell, but I have been privileged to meet several, and they all think of her with gratitude, not only as a successful novelist, but also as a most gentle lady, a model mother, a devoted wife, and an excellent home manager and withal a staunch and true friend. Her sympathies were ever with the poor and needy, and she was a valuable acquisition to any cause which could secure her services.

Her first great novel, _Mary Barton_, written under the influence of strong emotion at the darkest time of her life, when she had lost her only son, not only proved her genius as a writer, but it revealed her intense sympathy for those who suffered injustice around her in Manchester.

Though modest and retiring almost to a fault, she had the courage of her convictions, and her pitiful story thrilled throughout the land, bearing its supreme message for tolerance and assistance to those who could not help themselves.

It was a bold step to criticise the doings of her neighbours, but how well she did it in _Mary Barton_! and when that novel was judged to be all on the side of the poor and against their employers, she struck the balance admirably in _North and South_, by giving both sides of the question.

It must be remembered that _Mary Barton_ was written more than sixty years ago, when there was little organised help for the poor and oppressed, either by the Churches or the State. It was her clarion note which did much to arouse the rich and show them their rightful duty towards the poor.

Mrs. Gaskell was not afraid to write a story with a purpose. She practised what she preached, and with her husband, the faithful minister of Cross Street Chapel, she did her best to alleviate the awful poverty which she daily saw around her. This pioneer work which Mr. and Mrs. Gaskell did so quietly and unostentatiously bore fruit in later days, and Manchester holds their names in grateful remembrance.

Endowed with quick intuition, well-balanced judgment and sound common sense, she found no difficulty in depicting the actual life of the poverty-stricken operatives of Lancashire. Her first novel, in some ways her best because of the intense feeling which breathes through it, placed her at one bound in the ranks of the best writers of the day, a position which she retained for the remaining years of her life, producing novels which are noted for their pure and sweet homeliness and their tender touch. She never aspired to sensationalism, but was content to give us “everyday stories,” as she was wont to call them, and for that reason she appeals to the young as well as the old and to all classes of society.

George Sand once remarked to Lord Houghton, “Mrs. Gaskell has done what neither I nor any other female writers in France can accomplish, she has written novels which excite the deepest interest in men of the world, and yet which every girl will be the better for reading.”

_Mary Barton_, with its pathetic message, _Cranford_, that matchless prose idyll, and the fascinating _Life of Charlotte Brontë_ are her best known works, but there are no less than six other novels: _Ruth_, _North and South_, _My Lady Ludlow_, _Sylvia’s Lovers_, _Cousin Phillis_, and _Wives and Daughters_—her best and longest novel—all of which deserve to be much better known. In addition, she wrote about forty articles and short stories, principally for _Household Words_ and _All the Year Round_, under the genial editorship of Charles Dickens. All these go to prove that Mrs. Gaskell was not limited to one type of writing, and that she was equally at home in dealing with so many and such varied subjects.

Unlike Charlotte Brontë, who, great artist as she was, had a very narrow range, Mrs. Gaskell culled from many sources, and her canvas was often very crowded, though her beautiful sketches of life are almost unrivalled for fulness and variety. “No one ever came near her in the gift of telling a story,” said one who knew her before she became a writer.

Mrs. Gaskell had a great aversion to criticism, and whilst very indifferent to praise, she was acutely sensitive to blame, and for these reasons she wished her works to be her only memorial, and that, apart from the writer, they should be judged on their merits alone.

All that has been revealed of Mrs. Gaskell’s life proves how naturally her own personality shone through her stories. “She is what her works show her to have been—a good, wise woman,” wrote Frederick Greenwood in his eulogium in the _Cornhill Magazine_ after her death.

The fact that many of her stories have been translated into several other languages gives them a very wide and general popularity.

II

Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, to give Mrs. Gaskell’s maiden name, first saw the light on September 29th, 1810, in Chelsea, within sight of the Thames, which she describes as a great solace to her in later days, when she was “very, very unhappy.” The house in which she was born was in picturesque Lindsey Row, nearly opposite the old wooden Battersea Bridge beloved of artists and just at the bend of the river. The view from the house, which is now known as 93 Cheyne Walk, is still very fine.

Thirteen months almost to the day after Elizabeth Stevenson’s birth, her mother died at 3 Beaufort Row, Chelsea, at the age of forty, and was buried on October 30, 1811. After the mother’s death, the baby was taken care of by a neighbouring shopkeeper’s wife, until Mr. Stevenson could make arrangements for his little daughter to be taken to Mrs. Lumb—the beautiful Aunt Hannah—who lived on the heathside at Knutsford. Within a few weeks of the mother’s death, a friend of the Hollands, Mrs. Whittington, consented to take the baby back with her to Knutsford.

This statement concerning Mrs. Stevenson’s death and the age when Mrs. Gaskell was left motherless, which is now made public for the first time, is confirmed by Mrs. Gaskell herself, who, writing to Mary Howitt on August 18, 1838, says: “Though a Londoner by birth, I was early motherless, and taken when only a year old to my dear, adopted native town Knutsford.”

The long journey by stage-coach from Chelsea to Knutsford is said to have suggested “Babby’s” journey from London to Manchester in _Mary Barton_. Now that we know that Elizabeth Stevenson was a little over a year old, and not one month old as has been stated by every previous writer on the subject, it is easy to understand that Mrs. Gaskell had for her prototype of “Babby” a baby of about a year old. It has always puzzled me as a mother, how a baby as young as “Babby” is represented to be in _Mary Barton_ could have survived after being fed on “pobbies,” and it is quite certain that a crust of bread, provided for the child according to the story, could not have been suitable for so young a baby.

Henceforth Knutsford—“My dear, adopted native town”—as Mrs. Gaskell affectionately termed it, became her home, until her marriage. The bringing of this baby to the little Cheshire town has led to the immortalising of the place as Cranford, for had Elizabeth Stevenson never lived there, the Knutsford of the Early Victorian period would probably have been buried in oblivion long ago, and whilst many have enjoyed the solace and charm of the place, it needed an artist “with something of an angel’s touch” to reveal the beauty of the little country town and its quaint, kindly society of old maids.

Mrs. Lumb’s house at Knutsford, where Elizabeth Stevenson grew to be a singularly beautiful girl, is still standing at the corner of the heath, over which the future novelist used to ramble and day-dream. In this neighbourhood she was surrounded by her mother’s people. At Church House was her uncle, Dr. Holland, “who had his round of thirty miles and lived at Cranford.” He was the father of the well-known Sir Henry Holland, physician to Queen Victoria. He delighted to take his niece with him on his country drives, just as Dr. Gibson of Hollingford, in _Wives and Daughters_, drove round the district with Molly Gibson.

Elizabeth Stevenson was fortunate in her parentage. Her father, William Stevenson, a remarkable and gifted man, was the son of Captain Stevenson of Berwick-on-Tweed. Formerly the name was spelt Stevensen, which betrayed its Scandinavian origin. Mrs. Gaskell was always fond of travel, and when about to start on a journey, she would remark, “The blood of the Vikings is stirring in my veins.”

If heredity is to count for anything, Elizabeth Stevenson derived much of her literary talent from her father, who, according to the Annual Register for 1830, “was a man remarkable for the stores of knowledge which he possessed and for the simplicity and modesty by which his rare attainments were concealed.” Mrs. Gaskell was very proud of her father’s memory, as well she might be. One who knew him wrote, “No man had so few personal enemies and so many sincere, steady friends. He was kind and benevolent, and had little of the pride of authorship.” These words might be written with all sincerity as equally applicable to his famous daughter.

William Stevenson played many parts. After his education was finished at the Daventry Academy, he became a tutor at Bruges, afterwards going to Manchester as Classical lecturer at the Academy and preacher at the Dob Lane Unitarian Chapel, Failsworth. Later he was a farmer in East Lothian, and then he moved to Edinburgh, where he became editor of the _Edinburgh Review_ and a contributor to many magazines, besides writing a _Life of Caxton_. In 1807 he came to London as secretary to Lord Lauderdale, and eventually settled as Keeper of the Records at the Treasury Office, which position he held until his death in 1829. Mrs. Gaskell’s mother was Elizabeth Holland, fourth daughter of Samuel Holland of the Sandlebridge Estate, near Knutsford. He also owned an estate known as Dogholes, near Great Warford.

Grandfather Holland was a very lovable man, and doubtless he contributed something to the beautiful character of the farmer preacher, Mr. Holman, in _Cousin Phillis_, and in a less degree to Thomas Holbrook, Miss Matty’s faithful lover. The ancestral home at Sandlebridge is beautifully and accurately described as Hope Farm in _Cousin Phillis_, and as Woodley in _Cranford_. The history of several members of the distinguished Holland family was such that it could not escape wandering into the novels of such a genius as Mrs. Gaskell, though she never meant to put real people in her stories. If Leslie Stephen’s definition of a novel is correct, “transfigured experience, not necessarily the author’s own experience, but near enough to his everyday life to be within the range of his sympathy,” then Mrs. Gaskell’s novels bear the test well.

Little is known of the paternal grandmother, but her grandmother Holland is described as “A woman of extraordinary energy and will and rather the opposite of her husband, who, though firm, was far quieter and disposed to treat his servants with more leniency than his wife, who was exceedingly particular with them.” Sir Henry Holland, in his _Recollections_, says that his grandfather, Samuel Holland, was the most practical optimist he ever knew, and although he farmed his own land, he could never be got to complain of “the distemperature of the seasons,” and one of Samuel Holland’s own sons states that his father’s life had been “particularly smooth.”

Elizabeth Stevenson stayed in Knutsford until she was thirteen, the only variation being an occasional visit to her father at Chelsea. Knutsford, with its curious old customs, must have made a very vivid impression on her mind, since afterwards she was able to portray the little country town in no less than six of her stories depicting English village life in the early part of the nineteenth century. These quaint stories are perfect little miniatures set in the beautiful scenery which abounds in that part of Cheshire, and they give us glimpses of the novelist at her best.

How few could have found in bygone Knutsford, with its prim old maids, a few aristocratic families, and the necessary doctor and lawyer, so much excellent material with which to weave stories that have charmed succeeding generations in many lands. It was Mrs. Gaskell’s clear intuition which saw so much more than meets the eye of the ordinary mortal and supplied her with an unlimited and inexhaustible store, from which she could charm either by voice or pen. One who knew her before she was recognised as a gifted writer said of her, “She was a born story-teller,” and we can well believe it.

When nearly fourteen Elizabeth Stevenson was sent to an excellent boarding-school at Stratford-on-Avon, kept by the Misses Byerley, who were related to the Hollands, as well as to her stepmother. There she stayed for two years, including holidays. The school was once known as “The Old House of St. Mary,” and for a little while Shakespeare lived there. To be educated in a house in which Shakespeare once dwelt was a good augury for the future novelist.

Elizabeth’s schooldays were very happy. Writing to Mary Howitt in 1838, she says, “I am unwilling to leave even in thought the haunts of such happy days as my schooldays were.”

A book, presented to one of her schoolfellows, dated June 15th, 1824, lies before me, with Elizabeth Stevenson’s signature. She was noted for her kindness to her school friends, and, like Charlotte Brontë, when at Roe Head it was said of her that she could often be found surrounded by a group of eager listeners, and even as a schoolgirl she had, like her dear Miss Matty, a leaning to ghost stories.

Her first separate literary effort was a letter describing an afternoon spent at Clopton Hall, Stratford-on-Avon, in company with her school friends, which she sent to William Howitt, who readily accepted it for insertion in his “Visits to Remarkable Places.” It was written more than ten years after she left school, but it proves how observant as a girl she was, and how her love of research led her to explore the old house, rather than wander in the park which surrounds the hall.

Two years ago I was allowed by the courtesy of the owner to wander through Clopton Hall, which was once the Manor House. It has been partly rebuilt, but the recess parlour, in which the merry schoolgirls had tea, is still there with its beautiful painted windows, and the priest’s room, in which our future novelist crept on her hands and knees, is to be seen with its barred windows and texts painted on the walls, and on the old oak staircase are oil paintings of Charlotte and Margaret Clopton, which Mrs. Gaskell mentions. Lovers of Mrs. Gaskell’s works should not fail to read her graphic account of “A Visit to Clopton Hall.”

About the year 1827 Elizabeth Stevenson returned to her good Aunt Lumb at Knutsford, but shortly afterwards her only brother, a naval lieutenant, left his ship when in port at Calcutta and was never heard of again. He it was, doubtless, who suggested “Poor Peter” in _Cranford_ and “Dear Frederick” in _North and South_, though both these characters were allowed to return to their homes again. It is said that the posting of the letter to “Poor Peter” in India is founded on actual fact.

The disappearance of her brother was followed by her father’s serious illness, which took her to Chelsea, where she devotedly nursed him until his death in 1829. Afterwards we find her leaving her stepmother and half-brother William and her half-sister Catherine, and returning once more to Knutsford, where she did not remain long, as at this time she paid a long visit to Newcastle-on-Tyne, to the home of the Rev. William Turner, so beautifully described in her second novel, _Ruth_, in “A Dissenting Minister’s Household.” In the quiet atmosphere of this religious home, she found her prototype for Thurstan Benson. Thurstan, as she explains, was an old family name, and it is still retained in the family. There was a Thurstan Holland of Denton, in the early part of the fifteenth century, who was one of her ancestors.

From Newcastle-on-Tyne Elizabeth Stevenson went to spend the last winter of her maidenhood in Edinburgh. There her remarkable beauty attracted painters and sculptors, and fortunately she was persuaded to sit to David Dunbar, a former pupil of Chantrey. He sculptured the beautiful marble bust of the fair debutante, which, enclosed in a glass case, is one of the most cherished possessions in her old home at Manchester. About this time she also had an exquisite miniature painted, the pose of which reminds us of the description of _Ruth_ by Bellingham: “Such a superb turn of the head, she might be a Percy or a Howard.”

In August, 1832, before she had attained her twenty-second birthday, Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson was married to the Rev. William Gaskell, M.A., minister of Cross Street Unitarian Chapel, Manchester. The ceremony was performed in the old Parish Church of Knutsford, as Dissenters were not allowed to be married in their own chapels in those days. The Hollands and the Gaskells were already connected by marriage, Mr. Gaskell’s sister having married Charles Holland, a cousin of Elizabeth Stevenson.

In one of her letters, Mrs. Gaskell tells us that the streets of Knutsford were sanded in accordance with the custom at weddings, and that there were general rejoicings. The honeymoon was spent in North Wales, in the neighbourhood of Festiniog, where Mr. Charles Holland had extensive slate quarries.