THE SPECTATOR
Mrs. Gaskell’s last book is certainly, Cranford excepted, her best; and absolutely her best if we are to consider a larger and more complex design, somewhat less perfectly worked out, higher than a little gem of exquisite workmanship, but depending exclusively for its art on the humour of a delicate memory, skilful at noting the little symptoms by which warm hearts betray the yoke of narrow interests, and at recalling all the quaint customs of country-town society. Wives and Daughters is not an exciting story; it is a story the character of which is nearer to that of Miss Austen’s tales than to Mary Barton or Ruth. But there is more depth of character, more value for intensity of feeling in it than in anything which Miss Austen ever wrote, though the execution is much less equal than that great novelist’s. The characters of both hero and heroine, for instance, are vague and unimpressive. The sketch of Mr. Gibson, the surgeon, is the nearest to Miss Austen’s style of drawing, and his dry caustic humour and acute reserve remind one sometimes so closely of Mr. Bennet, in Pride and Prejudice, that it almost suggests some unconscious lingering of that happy picture in Mrs. Gaskell’s memory ... However, Mr. Gibson is not another Mr. Bennet, but a much less indolent and less selfish man, but he is certainly the character in which Mrs. Gaskell’s art touches most closely that of the most delicate artist of the last generation. There is just the same extent of delineation, the same limited degree of insight permitted into the character, in both cases. Miss Austen never went further. She painted with absolute perfection the upper stratum of feeling, and no more. Mrs. Gaskell often goes deeper; but into the interior of Mr. Gibson’s character she never pretends to see further than Miss Austen herself would have seen. Indeed he is the kind of man who does not see further himself, for he habitually pushes aside trains of thought or feeling that are not immediately practical, and so scarcely knows what he himself thinks or feels on any subject, if no purpose is to be answered by distinctly realizing his own state of mind. Mr. Gibson is seen, like most of Miss Austen’s stronger characters, in but a half-light; for she seldom exhibits more of the natures of any but weak chatterers and fools. Miss Austen herself would scarcely have drawn Mr. Gibson better than Mrs. Gaskell has done....
Yet perhaps the most delicate artistic achievement in the book is the sketch of Mr. Gibson’s second wife, and her daughter Cynthia Kirkpatrick,-especially the fine touches of resemblance which, in spite of the widest difference and even a little unfilial repulsion on the daughter’s part, betray their kinship.... This pretty, selfish, shallow, feeble-minded, vain, worldly, and amiable woman is exquisitely painted from the first scene in which she appears to the last. Her radical and yet unconscious insincerity of character, her incapacity for real affection, and strong wish to please others so far as is consistent with first pleasing herself, her soft purring talk when she is gratified, the delicate flavour of Mrs. Nicklebyish vanity and logic which is infused into her conversation without any caricature, the ambition to be reputed a good step-mother which makes her thwart her stepdaughter in all her favourite tastes in order that Molly may seem to be treated exactly like her own daughter Cynthia, her inability to understand any feeling that is not purely worldly,-and generally the graceful vulgarity of her mind, make a most original picture, as well as one of high pictorial effect. There is a moderation in the sketch of Mrs. Gibson’s selfishness, an entire abstinence from the temptation to pillory her, a consistency in infusing a certain feeble amiability of feeling through all her selfishness, a steadiness in delineating her as, on the whole, not without agreeableness, which, when connected with so utterly contemptible a character, convey a sense of very great self-control as well as skill in the authoress. There is not a conversation in which Mrs. Gibson takes part that is not full of real wealth of humour and insight. All of them illustrate the fine shades of silliness, the finer shades of selfishness, which in delicate combination make up Mrs. Gibson’s character....
On the whole the book has wonderful variety, and, though not exciting reading, satisfies and rests the mind, besides containing some passages of profound pathos. The story ends like a vessel going down in full sail and in sight of port; nor do the endeavours of her editor to weigh up the ship and bring it in, succeed in doing more than demonstrating how completely the life of the passengers was the birth of Mrs. Gaskell’s own vivid imagination. In spite of the deficiency of its closing chapters in consequence of the sudden death of its authoress, Wives and Daughters will take a permanent and a high place in the ranks of English fiction.
-March 17, 1886
CONNOP THIRLWALL
I mourn deeply over the loss of Mrs. Gaskell. To ‘Wives and Daughters’ it is irreparable. I am not in the least comforted by anything that the editor of the Cornhill has said. The few things which he has disclosed as to the sequel of the story, if indeed it is anything more than a guess, instead of allaying, excite one’s curiosity There was matter left for another volume.
-from Letters to a Friend (1881)
Questions 1. How are we meant to understand Mrs. Gibson? Is she a satire of a class-conscious and insensitive wife and mother? Or does the novel admire her in any way? If her values are contemptible, why is she so successful?2. How does Wives and Daughters treat the process of daughters turning into wives? Is Dr. Gibson’s philosophy about educating his daughter vindicated, or does the novel question the wisdom of limiting the education of women? Consider the examples of Mrs. Gibson, Cynthia, and Molly.3. What is the role of class in the “every-day story” that is Wives and Daughters? Do you think that Gaskell believes rank is natural, or that class is an artificial measure of worth? Consider this as you think about the array of characters in the novel in relation to the classes they belong to. Finally, how does the novel understand and rank the merits of Roger Hamley?4. Gaskell never gives us an explicit account of Cynthia’s character, but rather wisely leaves it up to examples. What is the nature of Cynthia’s character? Describe it in all its ambiguities and contradictions.5. Do you agree that Molly is less interesting than Cynthia? How is Cynthia’s happy ending a “generous revenge,” as Henry James puts it, on the idea that Cynthia’s character is hopeless? Does Cynthia act badly toward her various suitors (as Dr. Gibson believes)?6. Gaskell’s methodology is one of a “simple record of the innumerable small facts of the young girl’s daily life.” Can Cynthia be excused of her fickleness and malleable character because of her upbringing? How is Molly’s conduct and morality superior? Is her superiority a result of something other than her upbringing?7. Cynthia seems almost universally fascinating in the novel; most of the men, and even Molly, fall in love with her. Try to pinpoint the nature of Cynthia’s fascination. Is she sexually alluring? What else constitutes her appeal? Do you think the novel critiques Cynthia for the sexual aspect of her character; if so, why?