That’s fascinating information about women at funerals. And I love the observation how Margaret seems to mature in her reaction to each death. I sure didn’t! I was totally shocked by her father’s death. It seemed so unnecessary at the time, though of course I didn’t know the plot needed to have Margaret become the heiress.
Thanks for the link to the newspaper review of 1952 Gaskell biography, and the obit included. Enjoyed reading it.
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I found this:
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@ignatius, thank you for the article. To a certain extent, it addresses @mathmom’s comment above.
Assumptions can only be made as to what Mr. Hale’s doubts are because he obviously believes in God, and he himself says that he has no “doubts as to religion; not the slightest injury to that” (Gaskell 35). Moreover, he will not speak about the specifics of his doubt. However, he “has grown apart from his social role and come to a state of mind, indefinite and yet absolute, in which he cannot sign the Articles which signify his allegiance to a higher authority” (Bodenheimer 283-284).
Although readers can only make guesswork about the details, they must keep in mind that Mr. Hale is a clergyman, and it would be unrealistic for Gaskell to let him tell all the details of his dissent from the Church to his daughter. This device, although it is a plot device used to get the family out of the comforts of Helstone, serves a larger purpose, which leads them into a world in which religious doubt is common.
The writer notes that during the Victorian Crisis of Faith, “Doubt was no longer a matter of personal bafflement but a badge of intellectual honesty.” To readers of that time, Mr. Hale’s decision might have been viewed as brave, while to Margaret and Mrs. Hale (and others), it seems foolish.
Here’s some info on the Victorian Crisis of Faith: The Victorian Crisis of Faith | British Literature Wiki
Maybe Mr. Hale was embracing evolution over Genesis. That would certainly have been too shocking to share with his family. 
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I appreciated the shout-out to Nicholas Higgins in the article:
It isn’t clear that Nicholas Higgins is an intellectual because of his improper use of the English language, but beneath that, there is a man that is thinking, a man that can honestly and intellectually say he has doubts. “The purse and the gold and the notes is real things; things as can be felt and touched; them’s realities; and eternal life is all a talk” (Gaskell 223). Higgins is being openly honest about the state of the minds of the working class. “They don’t believe i’ the Bible, — not they. They may say they do, for form’s sake” (Gaskell 223). Gaskell has a clear grasp on the world in which she is living.
I like that Gaskell does not judge her characters according to the “right” or “wrong” religious standard of the time. Nor do the characters judge each other — correction: they all do, initially, but then engage in conversations which make them more understanding, more thoughtful and more willing to see other perspectives. After Bessy’s death, Mr. Hale suggests that Nicholas join them for family prayer:
Higgins looked at Margaret, doubtfully. Her grave sweet eyes met his; there was no compulsion, only deep interest in them. He did not speak, but he kept his place.
Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm.
Near the end of the novel, Mr. Thornton says to a colleague: “We should understand each other better, and I’ll venture to say we should like each other more.”
He’s referring to masters and workmen, but I think Gaskell is having Thornton express a simple and pervasive theme of the novel. The sentiment applies across the board, be it masters & workmen, believers & doubters, Oxford-educated & non-educated, or upper class & lower class.
Good old Shmoop points out that this theme is expressed in more subtle ways as well, as when Frederick tells Margaret that Dolores’ lock of hair is not a fair representation of her as a whole: “She is too perfect to be known by fragments. No mean brick shall be a specimen of the building of my palace.” We can’t truly appreciate another person or viewpoint if we restrict ourselves to “fragments."
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Interesting for some reason I’d been thinking that Hale’s objection to the church was the required rituals and bureaucracy, I had not thought of it in the larger context of a larger crisis of fate. I absolutely adore Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” (written btw about 10 years after the novel.) - nice to see it quoted.
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Same here. I know I just dropped the article with no comments but I had something I needed done this morning.
The article brought to light questions I had. As stated above I assumed Hale’s objections to be based on the required rituals etc. However, I noticed the continuance of belief/non-belief particularly whenever Higgins comes into the narrative. The following quote in particular stuck with me:
The usage of dissenter (at the time of North and South) helps:
HISTORICAL•BRITISH
a member of a nonestablished Church; a Nonconformist.Use over time for: dissenter
My guess is that readers at the time had a much clearer picture of Mr. Hale’s thoughts than I did.
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Darwin and Elizabeth Gaskell were related, distant cousins. They spent time together! Imagine that!
“ So, Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Darwin were both related to the Wedgwood family: Darwin closely, Elizabeth Gaskell more remotely.
These family connections meant that Elizabeth was able to visit various members of the Darwin family and she knew and admired Charles. In 1851 we know from a letter dated 13th July to her daughter Marianne, that she was at a gathering at a Mrs Wedgwood’s “Mr Darwin his two sisters all the children….made a great large party and very pleasant it was”. I wonder if one of these sisters was Susan Elizabeth?”
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Here a more interesting link -
Re: Charles Darwin
“ Charles Darwin (1809-1882) Probably the most influential scientist who ever lived. Born in Shrewsbury, grandson of the evolutionist Erasmus Darwin and of the potter Josiah Wedgwood (see ‘other’ list below). Josiah’s sister’s niece Ann married Swinton Holland and was therefore Elizabeth’s aunt. Darwin studied medicine at Edinburgh, then took an ordinary degree at Cambridge, where he was befriended by the leading scientists and this led to his becoming naturalist to the voyage of HMS Beagle (1831-1836). On the voyage he became convinced that species could be modified to the extent that they gave birth to new species. Back in England he searched for an explanation of this modification and discovered his principle of natural selection in 1838 and worked this up in his private notebooks while publishing his other results from the voyage. From 1846 to 1854 he developed his theory while studying barnacles, work for which he was awarded the highest scientific honours. From 1854 he concentrated on writing his book an abstract of which was eventually published on 24 November 1859 as The Origin of Species which is certainly one of the most important books ever published. He was plagued by ill health but continued to publish on evolution for the rest of his life, notably in his Descent of Man (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions (1872) in the latter of which he quoted on p.158 from Mary Barton (Penguin edition, p.105). He also wrote on many other subjects and his correspondence (15,000 letters) has now all been published. He and his family knew the Gaskells well and Elizabeth based Roger Hamley in Wives and Daughters on him (see her letter L732 to George Smith of May 1864). This was Darwin’s favourite novel and the last one read to him before he died.
”
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That’s an odd list of scientists! I think of Ruskin as an art theorist, and Emerson I know from his philosophical essays. And who knew that Robert Priestly (discoverer of oxygen) was also a Unitarian minister?!
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Charles Darwin and his family knew the Gaskells well and Elizabeth based Roger Hamley in Wives and Daughters on him (see her letter L732 to George Smith of May 1864). This was Darwin’s favourite novel and the last one read to him before he died.
Wow! Now I’m convinced that Genesis vs. Darwinism was Mr. Hale’s “matter of conscience.” Maybe Elizabeth Gaskell got a sneak peek at On the Origin of Species. 
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- Do you have any favorite quotes, chapters, or passages?
Not exactly favorite quotes, but when we read classics, I’m always surprised at the expressions they used then, which we still use today. “So far, so good” thinks Margaret at one point. “Put that in yo’r pipe and smoke it,” says Nicholas.
There’s a description in the book that I want to find an underlying meaning for, but nothing comes to mind. It’s Margaret’s thought when she first sees Mrs. Thornton’s drawing-room: “Everything reflected light, nothing absorbed it.”
Also, I found the epigraphs before each chapter interesting – some with clearer meanings for me than others. This one certainly describes Mr. Thornton, and starts the chapter “First Impressions” (and hello, that must be a nod to Pride and Prejudice, as it’s Austen’s original title):
There’s iron, they say, in all our blood, And a grain or two perhaps is good; But his he makes me harshly feel, Has got a little too much of steel.
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I found a good article on JSTOR (so can’t link it) about epigraphs in North and South.
The author starts by noting that Graham Greene once famously offered the following advice to readers: “Save your obviously valuable time and read only the epigraph…for the epigraph is what the novel is about.” The original serialization of North and South contained only a single, opening epigraph, this passage from a Tennyson poem:
Ah, yet, though all the world forsake,
Though fortune clips my wings,
I will not cramp my heart, nor take
Half-views of men and things.
Let Whig and Tory stir their blood;
There must be stormy weather;
But for some true result of good
All parties work together.
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Elizabeth Gaskell was in relatively uncharted territory when she made a strike the centerpiece of North and South. Per the UK Office for National Statistics, a strike in 1842 is “viewed as the first time that a large body of workers organised themselves in a politically-motivated action to win concessions” and “official statistics on strikes weren’t collected until 1891.” The history of strikes in the UK - Office for National Statistics and https://www.tameside.gov.uk/TouristInformationCentre/The-First-General-Strike-(1842)-Blue-Plaque
The strike in North and South gives us another opportunity to see how Margaret and Mrs. Thornton are flip sides of the same coin. We all know how Margaret reacted – with fury, a desire to take action when no one else would, and disregard for her own safety.
Earlier in the book, Mrs. Thornton tells this story about her own past behavior during a time of worker unrest:
Milton is not the place for cowards. I have known the time when I have had to thread my way through a crowd of white, angry men, all swearing they would have Makinson’s blood as soon as he ventured to show his nose out of his factory; and he, knowing nothing of it, some one had to go and tell him, or he was a dead man; and it needed to be a woman,—so I went. And when I got in, I could not get out. It was as much as my life was worth. So I went up to the roof, where there were stones piled ready to drop on the heads of the crowd, if they tried to force the factory doors. And I would have lifted those heavy stones, and dropped them with as good an aim as the best man there, but that I fainted with the heat I had gone through.
It’s quite similar, except that Margaret was deflecting stones and Mrs. Thornton was ready to throw them.
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Spent some time yesterday reading about the history of Unitarians in England, history of Manchester, during ww2 extensive bombing when it became a manufacturing hub for the war, and even looked at Manchester today!
Manchester was a hotbed filled with many “dissenters” …
So I remembered this 1819 political event , much before Gaskell’s time, but important event in Manchester. Again, Kudos to Gaskell for portraying political, economic and religious issues,
The Peterloo Massacre took place at St Peter’s Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. Fifteen people died when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation.
After the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 there was an acute economic slump, accompanied by chronic unemployment and harvest failure due to the Year Without a Summer, and worsened by the Corn Laws, which kept the price of bread high. At that time only around 11 percent of adult males had the vote, very few of them in the industrial north of England, which was worst hit
“ Historian Robert Poole has called the Peterloo Massacre “the bloodiest political event of the 19th century in English soil”, and “a political earthquake in the northern powerhouse of the industrial revolution”.[1] The London and national papers shared the horror felt in the Manchester region, but Peterloo’s immediate effect was to cause the government to pass the Six Acts, which were aimed at suppressing any meetings for the purpose of radical reform.
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I mentioned the CC Book Club on the thread “Are You Nurturing Your Intellectual Wellness?” The answer is obviously. Thanks to all who take the discussion a step over and above.
I like my real life book club discussions but gain so much more “intellectual wellness” from this one.
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Off-topic, but this was in the info about the Peterloo Massacre that @jerseysouthmomchess posted – and I never even heard of it: Year Without a Summer - Wikipedia
A volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815 led to a global disaster – agricultural collapse, famine and disease across continents. How interconnected our planet is, from one side of the globe to another!
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Thank you @jerseysouthmomchess and @Mary13 . Learning new and interesting information is a wonderful bonus of this book club.
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This book group has taught me more about history than any class I attended, or honestly ( slept through)
@Mary13 i admit I saw that link about year of no summer and didn’t click on it
Omg, it’s like science fiction reading about world calamity from one volcano - no wonder the dinosaurs didn’t make it -
Effects were felt in North America
“ In May 1816,[26] frost killed off most crops in the higher elevations of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont, as well as upstate New York. On June 6, snow fell in Albany, New York, and Dennysville, Maine.[21] In Cape May, New Jersey, frost was reported five nights in a row in late June, causing extensive crop damage.[27]New England also experienced major consequences from the eruption of Tambora.
Similar to Hungary and Italy, Maryland experienced brown, bluish, and yellow snowfall during April and May due to volcanic ash in the atmosphere.[18]
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Did not realize so many gorgeous Turner sunset paintings may have been due to that volcano!
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