Elizabeth gaskell brief biography of albert
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[140/141]
Among the short tragic stories, the most striking is one called "The Crooked Branch," in which the scene at the assizes has almost unrivalled power; while among the lighter short stories, "My French Master," with its delicate portraiture of the old refugee, and "Mr. It appears here, with illustrations from our own website, by kind permission of the author.
There is another name for them with God."
The sadness of the book is relieved by the delightful humour of Sally, the servant. "I had often occasion to notice the use that was made of fragments and small opportunities in Cranford: the rose-leaves that were gathered ere they fell to make into a pot-pourri for some one who had no garden; the little bundles of lavender-flowers sent to some town-dweller.
I confess that the book has made me ashamed of myself. Like Alton Locke, it has done much to break down class barriers and make the rich try to understand the poor; and when we see the great advance in this direction which has been made since the date of its publication, we are able partly to realise how startling the first appearance of such a book must have been.
Many critics were hostile to the novel because of its open sympathy for the workers in their relations with the masters, but the high quality of writing and characterization were undeniable, and critics have compared Mary Barton to the work of Friedrich Engels and other contemporaries in terms of its accuracy in social observation.
David Copperfield is probably the most popular book Dickens ever wrote, and is likely to outlive his other works, just because he himself knew so thoroughly well all that his hero had to pass through, and could draw from real knowledge the characters in the background. Sensationalism alone will not hold its ground. May God bless you, and help you to write many more such books as you have already written, is the fervent wish of your very faithful servant,
C.
Proud am I that I can touch a chord of sympathy in souls so noble. [131/132]
The publication of Ruth, with its brave, outspoken words, its fearless demand for one standard of morality for men and women, subjected the author to many attacks, as we may gather from the following warm-hearted letter by Charles Kingsley:
July 25, 1853.
I am sure that you will excuse my writing to you thus abruptly when you read the cause of my writing.
[133/134]
Most books of the sort fail to arrest our attention. Her mother, Mrs. Stevenson, was a Miss Holland, of Sandlebridge, in Cheshire; her father — William Stevenson — was at first classical tutor in the Manchester Academy, and later on, during his residence in Edinburgh, was editor of the Scots Magazine and a frequent contributor to the Edinburgh Review.
Here are a few lines which show in what its charm consisted:
In the Bensons' house there was the same unconsciousness of individual merit, the same absence of introspection and analysis of motive, as there had been in her mother; but it seemed that their lives were pure and good not merely from a lovely and beautiful nature, but from some law the obedience to which was of itself harmonious peace, and which governed them....
"Why, what on earth makes you say that?" asked he....
“I do not love you. For working women she also held [143/144] classes, and both among the poor and the rich had many close friendships.
How far the characters in the novels were studied from life is a question which naturally suggests itself; and Mrs. Holland replies to it as follows: "I do not think my mother ever consciously took her characters from special individuals, but we who knew often thought we recognised people, and would tell her, 'Oh, so and so is just like Mr.
Blank,' or something of that kind; and she would say, 'So it is, but I never meant it for him.' And really many of the characters are from originals, or rather are like originals, but they were not consciously meant to be like."
For another detail which will interest Mrs. Gaskell's fellow workers I am indebted to the same source:
Sometimes she planned her novels more or less beforehand, but in many cases, certainly in that of Wives and Daughters, she had very little plot made beforehand, but planned her story as she wrote.
"Granted. There is pathos as well as fun in the description of Mrs. Forrester pretending not to know what cakes were sent up "at a party in her baby-house of a dwelling ... When she hears that the father of her child is ill and untended she volunteers to nurse him, and, being already worn out with work, she dies in consequence.
The bush of sweetbriar underneath the window scented the place, and the delicious fragrance reminded her of her old home. 'Shirley' disgusted me at the opening, and I gave up the writer and her books with the notion that she was a person who liked coarseness. Gaskell's fiction was deeply influenced by her upbringing and her marriage.