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062 - Concluding Remarks · Wives and Daughters

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  Speaker 1: Concluding remarks of Wives and Daughters by Elisabeth Gaskell. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Concluding Remarks by
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  Speaker 1: Frederick Greenwood, editor of the Cornhill Magazine. Here the story
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  Speaker 1: is broken off, and it can never be finished. What
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  Speaker 1: promised to be the crowning work of a life is
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  Speaker 1: a memorial of death. A few days longer and it
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  Speaker 1: would have been a triumphal column, crowned with a capital
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  Speaker 1: of festal leaves and flowers. Now it is another sort
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  Speaker 1: of column, one of those sad white pillars which stand
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  Speaker 1: broken in the churchyard. But if the work is not
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  Speaker 1: quite complete, little remains to be added to it, and
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  Speaker 1: that little has been distinctly reflected into our minds. We
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  Speaker 1: know that Roger Hamley will marry Molly, and that is
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  Speaker 1: what we are most concerned about. Indeed, there was little
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  Speaker 1: else to tell. Had the writer lived, she would have
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  Speaker 1: sent her hero back to Africa forthwith. And those scientific
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  Speaker 1: parts of Africa are a long way from Hamley, and
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  Speaker 1: there is not much to choose between a long distance
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  Speaker 1: and a long time.
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  Speaker 2: How many hours are there in twenty four when you
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  Speaker 2: are all alone in a desert place a thousand miles
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  Speaker 2: from happiness which might be yours to take if you
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  Speaker 2: were there to take it. How many when from the
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  Speaker 2: sources of the toponambo your heart flies back ten times
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  Speaker 2: a day like a carrier pigeon, to the one only
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  Speaker 2: source of future good for you, and ten times a
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  Speaker 2: day returns with its message undelivered. Many more than are
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  Speaker 2: counted on the calendar.
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  Speaker 1: So Roger found the days were weeks that separated him
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  Speaker 1: from the time when Molly gave him a certain little flower,
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  Speaker 1: and months from the time which divorced him from Cynthia,
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  Speaker 1: whom he had begun to doubt before he knew for
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  Speaker 1: certain that she was never much worth hoping for.
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  Speaker 2: And if such were his days, what was the slow
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  Speaker 2: procession of actual weeks and months? In those remote and
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  Speaker 2: solitary places, They were like years of a stay at
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  Speaker 2: home life, with liberty and leisure to see that nobody
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  Speaker 2: was courting Molly.
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  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the effect of this was that, long before the
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  Speaker 1: term of his engagement was ended, all that Cynthia had
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  Speaker 1: been to him was departed from Roger's mind, and.
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  Speaker 2: All that Molly was and might be to him filled
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  Speaker 2: it full. He returned. But when he saw Molly again,
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  Speaker 2: he remembered that to her the time of his absence
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  Speaker 2: might not have seemed so long, and was oppressed with
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  Speaker 2: the old dread that she would think him fickle.
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  Speaker 1: Therefore, this young gentleman, so self reliant and so lucid
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  Speaker 1: in scientific matters.
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  Speaker 2: Found it difficult after all to tell Molly how much
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  Speaker 2: he hoped she loved him, and might have blundered if
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  Speaker 2: he had not thought of beginning by showing her the flower.
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  Speaker 2: There was plight from the nosegay.
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  Speaker 1: How charmingly that scene would have been drawn, had missus
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  Speaker 1: Gaskell lived to depict it. We can only imagine that
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  Speaker 1: it would have been.
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  Speaker 3: Charming, especially in what Molly did and looked and said.
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  Speaker 3: We know Roger and Molly are married, and if one
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  Speaker 3: of them is happier than the other, it is Molly.
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  Speaker 3: Her husband has no need to draw up on the
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  Speaker 3: little fortune which is to go to poor Osborne's boy,
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  Speaker 3: for he becomes a professor at some great scientific institution,
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  Speaker 3: and went his way in the world handsomely.
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  Speaker 1: The Squire is almost as happy in this verage as
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  Speaker 1: his son.
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  Speaker 4: If anyone suffers for it, it is mister Gibson. But
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  Speaker 4: he takes a partner so as to get a chance
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  Speaker 4: of running up to London to stay with Molly for
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  Speaker 4: a few days now and then, and to get a
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  Speaker 4: little rest from missus Gibson.
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  Speaker 5: Of what was to happen to Cynthia after her marriage,
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  Speaker 5: the Arthur was not heard to say much.
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  Speaker 1: And indeed it does not seem that anything needs to
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  Speaker 1: be added. One little anecdote, however, was told of her
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  Speaker 1: by Missus Gaskell, which is very characteristic.
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  Speaker 5: One day, when Cynthia and her husband run a visit
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  Speaker 5: to Hollingford, mister Henderson learned for the first time, through
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  Speaker 5: an innocent, casual remark of mister Gibson's that the famous
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  Speaker 5: traveler Roger Hamley was known to the family. Cynthia had
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  Speaker 5: never happened to mention it.
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  Speaker 1: How well, that little incident, too, would have been described.
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  Speaker 1: But it is useless to speculate upon what would have
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  Speaker 1: been done by the delicate, strong hand which can create
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  Speaker 1: no more Molly Gibson's, no more Roger Hamley's. We have
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  Speaker 1: repeated in this brief note all that is known of
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  Speaker 1: her designs for the story, which would have been completed
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  Speaker 1: in another chapter. There is not so much to regret, then,
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  Speaker 1: so far as this novel is concerned. Indeed, the regrets
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  Speaker 1: of those who knew her are less for the loss
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  Speaker 1: of the novelist than of the woman, one of the
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  Speaker 1: kindest and wisest of her time. But yet for her
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  Speaker 1: own sake as a novelist alone, her untimely death is
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  Speaker 1: a matter for deep regret. It is clear in this
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  Speaker 1: novel of Wives and Daughters, in the exquisite little story
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  Speaker 1: that preceded it, Cousin Phyllis, and in Sylvia's Lovers, that
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  Speaker 1: Missus Gaskell had, within these five years started upon a
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  Speaker 1: new career, with all the freshness of youth, and with
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  Speaker 1: a mind which seemed to have put off its clay
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  Speaker 1: and to have been born again. But that put off
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  Speaker 1: its clay must be taken in a very narrow sense.
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  Speaker 1: All minds are tinctured more or less with the muddy
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  Speaker 1: vesture in which they are contained. But few minds ever
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  Speaker 1: showed less of base earth than Missus Gaskell's. It was
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  Speaker 1: so at all times, but lately even the original slight
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  Speaker 1: tincture seemed to disappear. While you read any one of
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  Speaker 1: the last three books we have named, you feel yourself
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  Speaker 1: caught out of an abominable, wicked world, crawling with selfishness
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  Speaker 1: and reeking with base passions into one where there is
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  Speaker 1: much weakness, many men, stakes, sufferings long and bitter, but
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  Speaker 1: where it is possible for people to live calm and
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  Speaker 1: wholesome lives. And what is more, you feel that this
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  Speaker 1: is at least as real a world as the other.
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  Speaker 1: The kindly spirit, which thinks no ill, looks out of
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  Speaker 1: her pages irradiate, and while we read them we breathe
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  Speaker 1: a purer intelligence, which prefers to deal with emotions and
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  Speaker 1: passions which have a living root in minds within the
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  Speaker 1: pale of salvation, and not with those which rot without it.
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  Speaker 1: This spirit is more especially declared in cousin Phyllis and
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  Speaker 1: Wives and Daughters, their author's latest works. They seem to
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  Speaker 1: show that for her the end of life was not
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  Speaker 1: descent among the clods of the valley, but ascent into
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  Speaker 1: the purer air of the heaven aspiring hills. We are
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  Speaker 1: saying nothing now of the merely intellectual qualities displayed in
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  Speaker 1: these later works. Twenty years to come, that may be
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  Speaker 1: thought the more important question of the two. In the
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  Speaker 1: presence of her grave, we cannot think so. But it
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  Speaker 1: is true all the same that has made works of
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  Speaker 1: art and observation. These later novels of Missus Gaskells are
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  Speaker 1: among the finest of our time. There is a scene
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  Speaker 1: in cousin Phyllis, where Holman, making hay with his men,
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  Speaker 1: ends the day with a psalm, which is not excelled
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  Speaker 1: as a picture in all modern fiction.
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  Speaker 2: And the same may be said of that chapter of
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  Speaker 2: this last story, in which Roger smokes a pipe with
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  Speaker 2: the squire after the quarrel with Osborne.
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  Speaker 1: There is little in either of these scenes, or in
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  Speaker 1: a score of others, which succeed each other like gems
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  Speaker 1: in a cabinet which the ordinary novel maker could seize.
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  Speaker 1: There is no material for him in half a dozen
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  Speaker 1: farming men singing hymns in a field, or a discontented
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  Speaker 1: old gentleman smoking tobacco with his son.
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  Speaker 3: Still less could he avail himself of the mysteries of
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  Speaker 3: a little girl sent to be happy in a fine
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  Speaker 3: house full of fine people.
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  Speaker 1: But it is just in such things as these that
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  Speaker 1: true genius appears brightest and most unapproachable. It is the
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  Speaker 1: same with the personages in missus Gaskell's works.
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  Speaker 5: Cynthia is one of the most difficult characters which have
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  Speaker 5: ever been attempted in our time.
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  Speaker 1: Perfect art always obscures the difficulties it overcomes, and it
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  Speaker 1: is not till we try to follow the processes by
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  Speaker 1: which such a character as the Tito of Romola is created,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, that we begin to understand what a marvelous
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  Speaker 1: piece of work it is. To be sure, Cynthia was
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  Speaker 1: not so difficult, nor is it nearly so great a
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  Speaker 1: creation as that splendid achievement of art and thought, of
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  Speaker 1: the rarest art of the profoundest thought.
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  Speaker 5: But she also belongs to the kind of characters which
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  Speaker 5: are conceived only in minds, large, clear, harmonious and just,
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  Speaker 5: and which can be portrayed fully and without flower, only
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  Speaker 5: by hands obedient to the finest motions of the mind.
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  Speaker 5: Viewed in this light, Cynthia is a more important piece
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  Speaker 5: of work even than Molly, delicately as she is drawn,
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  Speaker 5: and true and harmonious as that picture is also.
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  Speaker 6: And what we have said of Cynthia may be said
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  Speaker 6: with equal truth of Usborne Hamley. The true delineation of
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  Speaker 6: a character like that is as fine a test of
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  Speaker 6: art as the painting of a foot or a hand,
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  Speaker 6: which also seems so easy, and in which perfection is
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  Speaker 6: most rare. In this case, the work is perfect. Missus
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  Speaker 6: Gaskell has drawn a dozen characters more striking than Osborne
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  Speaker 6: since she wrote Mary Barton, but not one which shows
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  Speaker 6: more exquisite finish.
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  Speaker 1: Another thing we may be permitted to notice because it
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  Speaker 1: has great and general significance. It may be true that
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  Speaker 1: this is not exactly the place for criticism, but since
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  Speaker 1: we are writing of Osborne Hamley, we cannot resist pointing
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  Speaker 1: out a peculiar instance of the subtler conceptions which underlie
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  Speaker 1: all really considerable works.
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  Speaker 6: Here are Osborne and Roger, two men who, in every
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  Speaker 6: particular that can be seized for description, are totally different
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  Speaker 6: creatures body and mind. They are quite unlike. They have
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  Speaker 6: different tastes, they take different ways. They are men of
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  Speaker 6: two sorts which in the society never know each other.
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  Speaker 2: And yet never did brotherly blood run more manifest than
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  Speaker 2: in the veins of those two.
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  Speaker 1: To make that manifest, without allowing the effort to peep
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  Speaker 1: out for a single moment, would be a triumph of art.
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  Speaker 1: But it is a touch beyond the reach of art
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  Speaker 1: to make their likeness in unlikeness so natural a thing
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  Speaker 1: that we no more wonder about it than we wonder
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  Speaker 1: at seeing the fruit and the bloom on the same bramble.
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  Speaker 1: We have always seen them there together in BlackBerry season,
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  Speaker 1: and do not wonder about it, nor think about it
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  Speaker 1: at all. Inferior writers, even some writers who are highly accounted,
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  Speaker 1: would have reveled in the contrast, persuaded that they were
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  Speaker 1: doing a fine anatomical dramatic thing by bringing it out
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  Speaker 1: at every opportunity. To the author of Wives and Daughters,
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  Speaker 1: this sort of anatomy was mere dislocation. She began by
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  Speaker 1: having the people of her story born in the usual way,
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  Speaker 1: and not built up like the Frankenstein monster. And thus
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  Speaker 1: and Squire Hamley took a wife. It was then provided
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  Speaker 1: that his two boys should be as naturally one and
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  Speaker 1: diverse as the fruit and the bloom on the bramble.
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  Speaker 1: It goes without speaking. These differences are precisely what might
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  Speaker 1: have been expected from the union of Squire Hamley with
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  Speaker 1: the town bred, refined, delicate minded woman whom he married,
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  Speaker 1: and the affection of the young men their kindness. To
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  Speaker 1: use the word in its old and new meanings at
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  Speaker 1: once is nothing but a reproduction of those impalpable threads
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  Speaker 1: of love which bound the equally diverse, father and mother
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  Speaker 1: in bonds faster than the ties of blood. But we
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  Speaker 1: will not permit ourselves to write any more in this vein.
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  Speaker 1: It is unnecessary to demonstrate to those who know what
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  Speaker 1: is and what is not true literature, that missus Gaskell
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  Speaker 1: was gifted with some of the choicest faculties bestowed upon mankind,
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  Speaker 1: that these grew into greater strength and ripened into greater
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  Speaker 1: beauty in the decline of her days, And that she
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  Speaker 1: gifted us with some of the truest, purest works of
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  Speaker 1: fiction in the language. And she was herself what her
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  Speaker 1: works show her to have been, a wise, good woman.
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  Speaker 1: End of concluding remarks, end of Wives and Daughters by
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  Speaker 1: Elisabeth Gaskell. This has been a LibriVox recording