Part 3

Almost all her articles and sketches were written for _Household Words_ and _All the Year Round_, though Mrs. Gaskell’s fame rests on her novels. Charles Dickens eagerly secured Mrs. Gaskell as a regular contributor to his magazine, and her versatility was shown by the many different subjects which she discussed with so much ability.

Poetry

Sketches Among the Poor

_Blackwood’s Magazine_, January, 1837

No. I

This poem was written by Mrs. Gaskell in collaboration with her husband, and is her first published work. Writing to Mary Howitt in 1838, she says: “We once thought of _trying_ to write sketches among the poor, _rather_ in the manner of Crabbe (now don’t think this presumptuous), but in a more seeing-beauty spirit; and one—the only one—was published in _Blackwood_, January, 1837. But I suppose we spoke our plan near a dog rose, for it never went any further.” The poem is interesting, as it foreshadows Mrs. Gaskell’s sympathetic insight into the lives of the poor, and is a worthy prelude to her first novel, for the character of “Mary” is based on the same original as “Old Alice” in _Mary Barton_.

In childhood’s days, I do remember me Of one dark house behind an old elm tree, By gloomy streets surrounded, where the flower Brought from the fresher air, scarce for an hour Retained its fragrant scent; yet men lived there, Yea, and in happiness; the mind doth clear In most dense airs its own bright atmosphere. But in the house of which I spake there dwelt One by whom all the weight of smoke was felt. She had o’erstepped the bound ’twixt youth and age A single, not a lonely, woman, sage And thoughtful ever, yet most truly kind: Without the natural ties, she sought to bind Hearts unto hers, with gentle, useful love, Prompt at each change in sympathy to move. And so she gained the affection, which she prized From every living thing, howe’er despised— A call upon her tenderness whene’er The friends around her had a grief to share; And, if in joy the kind one they forgot, She still rejoiced, and more was wanted not. Said I not truly, she was not alone, Though none at evening shared her clean hearthstone? To some she might prosaic seem, but me She always charmed with daily poesy. Felt in her every action, never heard, E’en as the mate of some sweet singing-bird, That mute and still broods on her treasure-nest, Her heart’s fond hope hid deep within her breast. In all her quiet duties, one dear thought Kept ever true and constant sway, not brought Before the world, but garnered all the more For being to herself a secret store. Whene’er she heard of country homes, a smile Came brightening o’er her serious face the while; She knew not that it came, yet in her heart A hope leaped up, of which that smile was part. She thought the time might come, e’er yet the bowl Were broken at the fountain, when her soul Might listen to its yearnings, unreproved By thought of failure to the cause she loved; When she might leave the close and noisy street, And once again her childhood’s home might greet. It was a pleasant place, that early home! The brook went singing by, leaving its foam Among the flags and blue forget-me-not; And in a nook, above that shelter’d spot, For ages stood a gnarlèd hawthorn-tree; And if you pass’d in spring-time, you might see The knotted trunk all coronal’d with flowers, That every breeze shook down in fragrant showers; The earnest bees in odorous cells did lie, Hymning their thanks with murmuring melody; The evening sun shone brightly on the green, And seem’d to linger on the lonely scene. And, if to others Mary’s early nest Show’d poor and homely, to her loving breast A charm lay hidden in the very stains Which time and weather left; the old dim panes, The grey rough moss, the house-leek, you might see Were chronicled in childhood’s memory; And in her dreams she wander’d far and wide Among the hills, her sister at her side— That sister slept beneath a grassy tomb Ere time had robbed her of her first sweet bloom. O Sleep! thou bringest back our childhood’s heart, Ere yet the dew exhale, the hope depart; Thou callest up the lost ones, sorrow’d o’er Till sorrow’s self hath lost her tearful power; Thine is the fairy-land, where shadows dwell, Evoked in dreams by some strange hidden spell. But Day and Waking have their dreams, O Sleep, When Hope and Memory their fond watches keep; And such o’er Mary held supremest sway, When kindly labours task’d her hands all day. Employ’d her hands, her thoughts roam’d far and free, Till sense call’d down to calm reality. A few short weeks, and then, unbound the chains Which held her to another’s woes or pains, Farewell to dusky streets and shrouded skies, Her treasur’d home should bless her yearning eyes, And fair as in the days of childish glee Each grassy nook and wooded haunt should be. Yet ever, as one sorrow pass’d away, Another call’d the tender one to stay, And, where so late she shared the bright glad mirth, The phantom Grief sat cowering at the hearth. So days and weeks pass’d on and grew to years, Unwept by Mary, save for others’ tears. As a fond nurse, that from the mother’s breast Lulls the tired infant to its quiet rest, First stills each sound, then lets the curtain fall To cast a dim and sleepy light o’er all, So age grew gently o’er each wearied sense A deepening shade to smooth the parting hence. Each cherish’d accent, each familiar tone Fell from her daily music, one by one; Still her attentive looks could rightly guess What moving lips by sound could not express, O’er each loved face next came a filmy veil, And shine and shadow from her sight did fail. And, last of all, the solemn change they saw Depriving Death of half its regal awe; The mind sank down to childishness, and they, Relying on her counsel day by day (As some lone wanderer, from his home afar, Takes for his guide some fix’d and well-known star, Till clouds come wafting o’er its trembling light, And leave him wilder’d in the pathless night), Sought her changed face with strange uncertain gaze, Still praying her to lead them through the maze. They pitied her lone fate, and deemed it sad; Yet as in early childhood she was glad; No sense had she of change, or loss of thought, With those around her no communion sought; Scarce knew she of her being. Fancy wild Had placed her in her father’s house a child; It was her mother sang her to her rest; The lark awoke her, springing from his nest; The bees sang cheerily the live long day, Lurking ’mid flowers wherever she did play; The Sabbath bells rang as in years gone by, Swelling and falling on the soft wind’s sigh; Her little sisters knelt with her in prayer, And nightly did her father’s blessing share; So, wrapt in glad imaginings, her life Stole on with all her sweet young memories rife. I often think (if by this mortal light We e’er can read another’s lot aright), That for her loving heart a blessing came, Unseen by many, clouded by a name; And all the outward fading from the world Was like the flower at night, when it has furled Its golden leaves, and lapped them round its heart, To nestle closer in its sweetest part. Yes! angel voices called her childhood back, Blotting out life with its dim sorrowy track; Her secret wish was ever known in heaven, And so in mystery was the answer given. In sadness many mourned her latter years, But blessing shone behind that mist of tears, And, as the child she deemed herself, she lies In gentle slumber, till the dead shall rise.

Articles and Sketches

Clopton Hall

From W. Howitt’s _Visits to Remarkable Places_, 1840

This account of a visit to Clopton House, written in 1838, is Mrs. Gaskell’s first separate contribution to literature. It took the form of a letter addressed to William Howitt, after reading his _Visits to Remarkable Places_, and was included in his _Visit to Stratford-on-Avon_, published in 1840. The Mr. and Mrs. W⸺ mentioned here are Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt. The oil-painting of Charlotte Clopton “with paly gold hair” now hangs on the staircase of Clopton House.

I wonder if you know Clopton Hall, about a mile from Stratford-on-Avon. Will you allow me to tell you of a very happy day I once spent there? I was at school in the neighbourhood, and one of my schoolfellows was the daughter of a Mr. W⸺, who then lived at Clopton. Mrs. W⸺ asked a party of the girls to go and spend a long afternoon, and we set off one beautiful autumn day, full of delight and wonder respecting the place we were going to see. We passed through desolate half-cultivated fields, till we came within sight of the house—a large, heavy, compact, square brick building, of that deep, dead red almost approaching to purple. In front was a large formal court, with the massy pillars surmounted with two grim monsters; but the walls of the court were broken down, and the grass grew as rank and wild within the enclosure as in the raised avenue walk down which we had come. The flowers were tangled with nettles, and it was only as we approached the house that we saw the single yellow rose and the Austrian briar trained into something like order round the deep-set diamond-paned windows. We trooped into the hall, with its tesselated marble floor, hung round with strange portraits of people who had been in their graves two hundred years at least; yet the colours were so fresh, and in some instances they were so life-like, that looking merely at the faces, I almost fancied the originals might be sitting in the parlour beyond. More completely to carry us back, as it were, to the days of the civil wars, there was a sort of military map hung up, well finished with pen and ink, shewing the stations of the respective armies, and with old-fashioned writing beneath, the names of the principal towns, setting forth the strength of the garrison, etc. In this hall we were met by our kind hostess, and told we might ramble where we liked, in the house or out of the house, taking care to be in the ‘recessed parlour’ by tea-time. I preferred to wander up the wide shelving oak staircase, with its massy balustrade all crumbling and worm-eaten. The family then residing at the hall did not occupy one-half—no, not one-third of the rooms; and the old-fashioned furniture was undisturbed in the greater part of them. In one of the bed-rooms (said to be haunted), and which, with its close pent-up atmosphere and the long shadows of evening creeping on, gave me an ‘eerie’ feeling, hung a portrait so singularly beautiful! a sweet-looking girl, with paly gold hair combed back from her forehead and falling in wavy ringlets on her neck, and with eyes that ‘looked like violets filled with dew,’ for there was the glittering of unshed tears before their deep dark blue—and that was the likeness of Charlotte Clopton, about whom there was so fearful a legend told at Stratford church. In the time of some epidemic, the sweating-sickness or the plague, this young girl had sickened, and to all appearance died. She was buried with fearful haste in the vaults of Clopton chapel, attached to Stratford church, but the sickness was not stayed. In a few days another of the Cloptons died, and him they bore to the ancestral vault; but as they descended the gloomy stairs, they saw by the torchlight, Charlotte Clopton in her grave-clothes leaning against the wall; and when they looked nearer, she was indeed dead, but not before, in the agonies of despair and hunger, she had bitten a piece from her white, round shoulder! Of course, she had _walked_ ever since. This was ‘Charlotte’s chamber,’ and beyond Charlotte’s chamber was a state-chamber carpeted with the dust of many years, and darkened by the creepers which had covered up the windows, and even forced themselves in luxuriant daring through the broken panes. Beyond, again, there was an old Catholic chapel, with a chaplain’s room, which had been walled up and forgotten till within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in the chaplain’s room were old, and I should think rare, editions of many books, mostly folios. A large yellow-paper copy of Dryden’s ‘_All for Love, or the World Well Lost_,’ date 1686, caught my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember. Every here and there, as I wandered, I came upon a fresh branch of a staircase, and so numerous were the crooked, half-lighted passages, that I wondered if I could find my way back again. There was a curious carved old chest in one of these passages, and with girlish curiosity I tried to open it; but the lid was too heavy, till I persuaded one of my companions to help me, and when it was opened, what do you think we saw?—BONES!—but whether human, whether the remains of the lost bride, we did not stay to see, but ran off in partly feigned and partly real terror.

The last of these deserted rooms that I remember, the last, the most deserted, and the saddest was the Nursery—a nursery without children, without singing voices, without merry chiming footsteps! A nursery hung round with its once inhabitants, bold, gallant boys, and fair, arch-looking girls, and one or two nurses with round, fat babies in their arms. Who were they all? What was their lot in life? Sunshine, or storm? or had they been ‘loved by the gods, and died young?’ The very echoes knew not. Behind the house, in a hollow now wild, damp, and overgrown with elder-bushes, was a well called Margaret’s Well, for there had a maiden of the house of that name drowned herself.

I tried to obtain any information I could as to the family of Clopton of Clopton. They had been decaying ever since the civil wars; had for a generation or two been unable to live in the old house of their fathers, but had toiled in London, or abroad, for a livelihood; and the last of the old family, a bachelor, eccentric, miserly, old, and of most filthy habits, if report said true, had died at Clopton Hall but a few months before, a sort of boarder in Mr. W⸺’s family. He was buried in the gorgeous chapel of the Cloptons in Stratford Church, where you see the banners waving, and the armour hung over one or two splendid monuments. Mr. W⸺ had been the old man’s solicitor, and completely in his confidence, and to him he left the estate, encumbered and in bad condition. A year or two afterwards, the heir-at-law, a very distant relation living in Ireland, claimed and obtained the estate, on the plea of undue influence, if not of forgery, on Mr. W⸺’s part; and the last I heard of our kind entertainers on that day was that they were outlawed, and living at Brussels.

A Greek Wedding

From “Modern Greek Songs,” _Household Words_, 1854

Mrs. Gaskell was a keen student of popular customs and traditions, and several of her articles prove how observant and delightfully inquisitive she always was, where an opportunity of investigating any tradition or custom presented itself.

Now let us hear about the marriage-songs. Life seems like an opera amongst the modern Greeks; all emotions, all events, require the relief of singing. But a marriage is a singing time among human beings as well as birds. Among the Greeks the youth of both sexes are kept apart, and do not meet excepting on the occasion of some public feast, when the young Greek makes choice of his bride, and asks her parents for their consent. If they give it, all is arranged for the betrothal; but the young people are not allowed to see each other again until that event. There are parts of Greece where the young man is allowed to declare his passion himself to the object of it. Not in words, however, does he breathe his tender suit. He tries to meet with her in some path, or other place in which he may throw her an apple or a flower. If the former missile be chosen, one can only hope that the young lady is apt at catching, as a blow from a moderately hard apple is rather too violent a token of love. After this apple or flower throwing, his only chance of meeting with his love is at the fountain; to which all Greek maidens go to draw water, as Rebekah went, of old, to the well.

The ceremony of betrothal is very simple. On an appointed evening, the relations of the lovers meet together in the presence of a priest, either at the house of the father of the future husband, or at that of the parents of the bride elect. After the marriage contract is signed, two young girls bring in the affianced maiden—who is covered all over with a veil—and present her to her lover, who takes her by the hand, and leads her up to the priest. They exchange rings before him, and he gives them his blessing. The bride then retires; but all the rest of the company remain, and spend the day in merry-making and drinking the health of the young couple. The interval between the betrothal and the marriage may be but a few hours; it may be months and it may be years; but, whatever the length of time, the lovers must never meet again until the wedding day comes. Three or four days before that time, the father or mother of the bride send round their notes of invitation; each of which is accompanied by the present of a bottle of wine. The answers come in with even more substantial accompaniments. Those who have great pleasure in accepting, send a present with their reply; the most frequent is a ram or lamb dressed up with ribands and flowers; but the poorest send their quarter of mutton as their contribution to the wedding-feast.

The eve of the marriage, or rather during the night, the friends on each side go to deck out the bride and groom for the approaching ceremony. The bridegroom is shaved by his paranymph or groom’s man, in a very grave and dignified manner, in the presence of all the young ladies invited. Fancy the attitude of the bridegroom, anxious and motionless under the hands of his unpractised barber, his nose held lightly up between a finger and thumb, while a crowd of young girls look gravely on at the graceful operation! The bride is decked, for her part, by her young companions; who dress her in white, and cover her all over with a long veil made of the finest stuff. Early the next morning the young man and all his friends come forth, like a bridegroom out of his chamber, to seek the bride, and carry her off from her father’s house. Then she, in songs as ancient as the ruins of the old temples that lie around her, sings her sorrowful farewell to the father who has cared for her and protected her hitherto; to the mother who has borne her and cherished her; to the companions of her maidenhood; to her early home; to the fountain whence she daily fetched water; to the trees which shaded her childish play; and every now and then she gives way to natural tears; then, according to immemorial usage, the paranymph turns to the glad yet sympathetic procession and says in a sentence which has become proverbial on such occasions—“Let her alone! she weeps!” To which she must make answer, “Lead me away, but let me weep!” After the _cortège_ has borne the bride to the house of her husband, the whole party adjourn to church, where the religious ceremony is performed. Then they return to the dwelling of the bridegroom, where they all sit down and feast; except the bride, who remains veiled, standing alone, until the middle of the banquet, when the paranymph draws near, unlooses the veil, which falls down, and she stands blushing, exposed to the eyes of all the guests. The next day is given up to the performance of dances peculiar to a wedding. The third day the relations and friends meet all together, and lead the bride to the fountain, from the waters of which she fills a new earthen vessel; and into which she throws various provisions. They afterwards dance in circles round the fountain.

Tenir un Salon

From “Company Manners,” _Household Words_, 1854

This article gives an insight into the remark which has often been made, “if anybody in Manchester knew how _tenir un salon_ it was certainly Mrs. Gaskell”; she studied and practised the art of entertaining to perfection.

Madame de Sablé had all the requisites which enabled her _tenir un salon_ with honour to herself and pleasure to her friends.

Apart from this crowning accomplishment, the good French lady seems to have been commonplace enough. She was well-born, well-bred, and the company she kept must have made her tolerably intelligent. She was married to a dull husband, and doubtless had her small flirtations after she early became a widow; M. Cousin hints at them, but they were never scandalous or prominently before the public. Past middle life, she took to the process of “making her salvation,” and inclined to the Port-Royalists. She was given to liking dainty things to eat, in spite of her Jansenism. She had a female friend that she quarrelled with, off and on, during her life. And (to wind up something like Lady O’Looney, of famous memory) she knew how _tenir un salon_. M. Cousin tells us that she was remarkable in no one thing or quality, and attributes to that single, simple fact the success of her life.

Now, since I have read these memoirs of Madame de Sablé, I have thought much and deeply thereupon. At first, I was inclined to laugh at the extreme importance which was attached to this art of “receiving company”—no, that translation will not do!—“holding a drawing-room” is even worse, because that implies the state and reserve of royalty;—shall we call it the art of “Sabléing”? But when I thought of my experience in English society—of the evenings dreaded before they came, and sighed over in recollection, because they were so ineffably dull—I saw that, to Sablé well, did require, as M. Cousin implied, the union of many excellent qualities and not-to-be-disputed little graces. I asked some French people if they could give me the recipe, for it seemed most likely to be traditional, if not still extant in their nation. I offer to you their ideas, fragmentary though they be, and then I will tell you some of my own; at last, perhaps, with the addition of yours, oh most worthy readers! we may discover the lost art of Sabléing.

Said the French lady: “A woman to be successful in Sabléing must be past youth, yet not past the power of attracting. She must do this by her sweet and gracious manners, and quick, ready tact in perceiving those who have not had their share of attention, or leading the conversation away from any subject which may give pain to any one present.” “Those rules hold good in England,” said I. My friend went on: “She should never be prominent in anything; she should keep silence as long as anyone else will talk; but, when conversation flags, she should throw herself into the breach with the same spirit with which I notice that the young ladies of the house, where a ball is given, stand quietly by till the dancers are tired, and then spring into the arena, to carry on the spirit and the music till the others are ready to begin again.”

“But,” said the French gentleman, “even at this time, when subjects for conversation are wanted, she should rather suggest than enlarge—ask questions rather than give her own opinions.”

“To be sure,” said the lady. “Madame Récamier, whose salons were the most perfect of this century, always withheld her opinions on books, or men, or measures, until all around her had given theirs; then she, as it were, collected and harmonised them, saying a kind thing here, and a gentle thing there, and speaking ever with her own quiet sense, till people the most oppressed learnt to understand each other’s point of view, which it is a great thing for opponents to do.”