Group read: Curious, If True by Elizabeth Gaskell / The Lifted Veil by George Eliot

  

Curious, If True by Elizabeth Gaskell / The Lifted Veil by George Eliot

Welcome to the resumption of the Virago Chronological Read Project and to our next group read. :)

Since this time we will be dealing with, in total, six short works, we will need to adopt a different approach from usual for our group reads.

In planning this group read, and taking into account the suggestions of our participants, it was agreed to extend the project into November in order to give each story equal weight.

I am going to suggest that, as we did for The Executor, The Rector and The Doctor's Family, at the outset of our reads of Margaret Oliphant's 'Chronicles of Carlingford', we assign a block of time within which each story is read and comments posted, in order to keep the discussion as complete and coherent as possible.

Provisionally, our schedule will be as follows:

The Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell: 1st - 7th October
The Poor Clare by Elizabeth Gaskell: 8th - 14th October
Lois The Witch by Elizabeth Gaskell: 15th - 21st October
The Grey Woman by Elizabeth Gaskell: 22nd - 28th October
Curious, If True by Elizabeth Gaskell: 29th - 4th November
The Lifted Veil by George Eliot: 5th - 12th November

However, if a week per story seems excessive, please speak up now and we can adjust our plans.

While I believe this project will work best if we keep the discussion segregated as much as possible, I don't want to dissuade those who need to start late or who can't be here all the way through from participating: if you need to post "out of order", do so, but please mark your posts clearly in bold.

Similarly, if you prefer to read the stories more quickly, by all means do so, but please confine your comments to the assigned periods unless you can't get back to post.

If this plan doesn't work for you or if you have some alternative suggestions, please say so now while we have the opportunity to make adjustments.

In addition to her novels, Elizabeth Gaskell wrote numerous short stories, many of them with a supernatural theme and most of them, overtly or covertly, dealing with aspects of women's lives.

Gaskell's stories have been collected and re-collected ever since the 1860s, and there are many variant editions that contain some of these five, if not all.

Though Gaskell had her difficulties with Charles Dickens as her editor, his magazines Household Words and All The Year Round were an important vehicle for her fiction, all the more so since short stories were less restricted with respect to subject matter and tone.

Gaskell was invited by Dickens to contribute a story to the 1852 Christmas edition of Household Words, released under the variant title of A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire: this was the first publication of The Old Nurse's Story.

The Poor Clare also appeared first in Household Words, in three parts during 1856; while Lois The Witch was published in All The Year Round during 1859, also in three parts.

Curious, If True first appeared in The Cornhill Magazine in February in 1860.

In 1861, the publisher Bernhard Tauchnitz collected five of Gaskell's stories as Lois The Witch and Other Tales: this volume marked the first publication of The Grey Woman.

There is a suggestion out there that there was also a collection of Gaskell's stories released under the title "Curious, If True" in 1861, but I have so far been unable to establish this.

The Virago edition of 1995 appears to be the first time that these five particular stories were collected together; however, the 2000 Penguin release Gothic Tales collects these five and four others.

There are various ebook releases that include our five stories including one from Project Gutenberg.

The publication history of George Eliot's The Lifted Veil is more straightforward: it was first published anonymously in Blackwood's Magazine in 1859; however, the 1878 "Cabinet" edition including Eliot's own revisions is now considered the standard text.

There have been numerous releases of The Lifted Veil since, from Penguin and the Oxford University Press in addition to Virago, often in conjunction with another shorter work by Eliot.

There are also many ebook versions, again including one from Project Gutenberg.

I will leave it here for now.

Please check in and let us know if you will be participating or lurking, whether the proposed schedule works for you or, if not, what your alternative suggestion would be.

Again let me stress that if you cannot participate immediately or all the way through, we still want you! - just let us know and we'll do our best to accommodate you. :)

I'm here! I have borrowed the Virago edition from the library. I think a week per story will work well for me.

I'm in. I have the Penguin Gothic Tales edition. The cover has an appropriate spooky vibe:

I've got ebook versions of both and the Virago edition of The Lifted Veil.

I'm gonna try! Traditionally, I'm not good with following a schedule! I have the Penguin Classic Edition of Gaskell and the audio version of Eliot. I read The Lifted Veil in 2022, but am not opposed to a re-read. Thanks to Kathy for alerting me to this group read.

I'd love to join! A story a week sounds reasonable, though my work schedule is very variable this month, but I'll try to keep up.

I've just downloaded my copy from Project Gutenberg.

>6 NinieB:, 7, 8, 9, 10

Welcome Ninie, Kathy, Kerry, Tess and Janet - great to see you all here!

>9 Tess_W:

Thank you for joining the group, Tess. Hopefully this schedule gives you enough room to manoeuvre, however if it doesn't please read along and add your comments anyway.

>10 Majel-Susan:

I hope it works for you, Janet!

I will wait a little longer before I start the discussion of The Old Nurse's Story, as I know some people will only get to check in on Monday. We'll see if we get any more takers before we make a start.

Allrighty then---

Discussion begins here for The Old Nurse's Story.

When commenting, feel free either to highlight aspects of the story, or simply to post your reaction to it overall.

Though I'm hoping for some good discussion points. :)

The first thing that struck me was that it was atmospheric without being forced: a big house mostly neglected but with areas better cared for was common enough where money was restricted and servants few, but it still sets up a sense of "a house divided" (and a bit spooky):

...then we saw a great and stately house, with many trees close around it, so close that in some places their branches dragged against the walls when the wind blew; and some hung broken down; for no one seemed to take much charge of the place;---to lop the wood, or to keep the moss-covered carriage-way in order. Only in front of the house all was clear. The great oval drive was without a weed; and neither tree nor creeper was allowed to grow over the long, many-windowed front; at both sides of which a wing protected, which were each the ends of other side fronts; for the house, although it was so desolate, was even grander than I expected. Behind it rose the Fells; which seemed unenclosed and bare enough; and on the left hand of the house, as you stood facing it, was a little, old-fashioned flower-garden, as I found out afterwards. A door opened out upon it from the west front; it had been scooped out of the thick, dark wood for some old Lady Furnivall; but the branches of the great forest-trees had grown and overshadowed it again, and there were very few flowers that would live there at that time...

When the organ music starts, I like that Hester never tries to convince herself that she is "hearing things", and in fact refuses to pretend she's not hearing what she's hearing, no matter that the others have been schooled into it:

As winter drew on, and the days grew shorter, I was sometimes almost certain that I heard a noise as if someone was playing on the great organ in the hall. I did not hear it every evening; but, certainly, I did very often, usually when I was sitting with Miss Rosamond, after I had put her to bed, and keeping quite still and silent in the bedroom... I held my peace till I was with Dorothy alone, when I knew I could get a good deal out of her. So, the next day, I watched my time, and I coaxed and asked her who it was that played the organ; for I knew that it was the organ and not the wind well enough, for all I had kept silence before James...

****

...it rose above the great gusts of wind, and wailed and triumphed just like a living creature, and then it fell to a softness most complete, only it was always music, and tunes, so it was nonsense to call it the wind. I thought at first, that it might be Miss Furnivall who played, unknown to Bessy; but one day, when I was in the hall by myself, I opened the organ and peeped all about it and around it, as I had done to the organ in Crosthwaite church once before, and I saw it was all broken and destroyed inside, though it looked so brave and fine; and then, though it was noon-day, my flesh began to creep a little, and I shut it up, and run away pretty quickly to my own bright nursery...

What an ideal spot for a gothic story! “…a great and stately house, with many trees close around it, so close that in some places their branches dragged against the walls when the wind blew; and some hung broken down; for no one seemed to take much charge of the place”. Gaskell tells us that this location is a moorland estate. The location brought immediately to mind another gothic tale of the moors, Wuthering Heights. Upon further reflection, both The Fall of the House of Usher and The House of Seven Gables, are additional gothic tales that are set in "ancestral homes."

>17 Tess_W:

It's a location that begs for a haunting. :)

The 'ancestral home' observation is interesting in light of what we later learn of this particular haunting...

The disappearance of Rosamund follows and we, like Hester, have as yet no clue as to the circumstances; until the latter finds the vital clue:

I bethought me to look into the great front court, all covered with snow. I was upstairs when I looked out; but, it was such clear moonlight, I could see, quite plain, two little footprints, which might be traced from the hall-door and round the corner of the east wing...

Our attention is not drawn to it, but the detail of the holly bushes is present in the discovery of the half-frozen little girl.

Ulp!---

    ...while she stood there, she saw a little girl, not so old as she was, "but so pretty," said my darling, "and this little girl beckoned to me to come out; and oh, she was so pretty and so sweet, I could not choose but go." And then this other little girl had taken her by the hand, and side by side the two had gone round the east corner.
    "Now you are a naughty little girl, and telling stories," said I. "What would your good mamma, that is in heaven, and never told a story in her life, say to her little Rosamond, if she heard her---and I daresay she does---telling stories!"
    "Indeed, Hester," sobbed out my child, "I'm telling you true. Indeed I am."
    "Don't tell me!' said I, very stern. "I tracked you by your foot-marks through the snow; there were only yours to be seen..."

****

"...I saw a lady weeping and crying; but when she saw me, she hushed her weeping, and smiled very proud and grand, and took me on her knee, and began to lull me to sleep..."

I have a list of points that I want to raise for discussion, but I will wait until we have a few more reactions here.

Or not??

Okay. Here are a few things that occurred to me:

1. As Tess says, this is very much an "ancestral homes" set up AND YET the haunting is "new", that is, involving events of only some thirty or forty years before. OTOH this scenario is in keeping with many reported British hauntings, with a primal scene being enacted over and over (historically, often somebody being murdered).

2. When did this haunting start? How many years have Miss Furnival and Miss Stark been living with this?

3. What do we make of the assertion that the ghostly little girl is "evil"? - that she was deliberately luring Rosamund to her death---rather than, say, wanting company? And even if that was true, how could the servants know unless it had happened before??

4. I really want to talk about the implications of the enacted scene in terms of conventional Victorian morality, because I think that is where the real-world value of this story lies.

Hello! I was offline for a few days and will catch up with you as soon as I can get sorted.

>23 MissWatson:

Not a problem, Birgit.

Still hoping to hear from the rest of you, though?? :)

I'm interested as well in the story versus conventional Victorian morality. It seems rather harsh that the sister and her daughter should have been turned out of the house. Even thinking in stern moralistic terms, the sister was after all married and the daughter was legitimate.

I'm intrigued by your point no. 3. But taking the contrary point of view, couldn't it just be a healthy distrust of ghosts to say that the little girl is evil?

It seems like the story takes on legendary aspects to have it told by an old woman to much younger people.

>22 lyzard: IMHO this story depicts conventional Victorian morality.
One can see a very male dominated society. Firstly, a cad flirts with the two older sisters, but then marries the younger, (?) probably prettier sister. He fathers a child and runs off, but the mother and child are punished. Secondly, it is the father who seems to control destinies vis a vis banishment and organ playing.

I'm trying to discover a way in which this story flouts conventional Victorian morality, but I can't come up with one. Going to read it again this weekend!

>26 NinieB:

To take your points backwards, it seems to me that rather than just fear of ghosts generally or of these ghosts collectively, the little girl ghost is singled out---

"Hester! keep her from that child! It will lure her to her death! That evil child! Tell her it is a wicked, naughty child."

Granting that it is the little girl who poses the direct threat to Rosamund, that still seems like a very specific warning---as if, as I say, they know what she might do from previous experience. It will lure her to her death surely means that this has happened to some other unfortunate child?

>26 NinieB:, >27 Tess_W:

Yes, speaking of "primal scenes"--- What we have here is a version of the most pivotal scene in 19th century didactic fiction and melodrama---

(---pardon a digression, on my blog I note that apparently it first appeared in Amelia Opie's Father And Daughter, published in 1800!---)

---but with a few key differences, the chief one being that it deals with a secret marriage rather than a secret affair and an illegitimate baby.

But we get exactly the same reaction from the father---which as Tess notes, indicates that it is less a case of "morality" and much more about patriarchal authority.

My point is that for all the recurrences of such a situation in 19th century writing and drama, we only ever see the end-point of it: the daughter, abandoned by her lover, baby in arms, creeping back to home (usually through a storm or in the snow), to die in her father's arms or to find out he has died of a broken heart.

No-one EVER shows the initial turning-out of the daughter---and this is why---because it may be "moral", but it ain't pretty.

But Gaskell does show it in all its ugliness---exposing it for what it really is, an act of conscious cruelty, revenge driven by outraged pride---in that way challenging and criticising this particular form of "morality":

They passed along towards the great hall-door, where the winds howled and ravened for their prey; but before they reached that, the lady turned; and I could see that she defied the old man with a fierce and proud defiance; but then she quailed---and then she threw up her arms wildly and piteously to save her child---her little child---from a blow from his uplifted crutch.

All this is particularly interesting to me coming the year before Gaskell published her novel Ruth---for which she got into a lot of trouble for dealing with such topics in a much more direct and defiant way. It feels to me that with The Old Nurse's Story, she was having something like a dry run of her themes.

I have just finished it and to me the most striking feature is the sibling rivalry between Grace and her older sister. Of course it's a very short story and there aren't enough details, but how did these two acquire many suitors if they lived in this old mansion all the time? Or did the musician's visits only take place outside the season?
Another aspect is the constant supervision of Rosamond, the way that Hester clings to her day and night. I find that stifling.

>30 MissWatson:

That's another nasty situation not usually presented this directly. Probably at the time the girls had a normal social life---possibly with London seasons, but certainly with the usual round of country parties and visiting outside that. Most likely, as you suggest, the musician came during the non-social periods of the year, perhaps during the winter when travelling was too difficult, creating a "hot-house" situation within the mansion.

Except for those times when she's left with Miss Furnival and Mrs Stark...which is when she goes missing...

It's hard to know whether that sort of supervision was normal. For a child without siblings and without a governess to share the duty, perhaps. It might just reflect the fact that it was Hester's first "position" so she's overdoing it. Or that she has nothing much else to do with her time. :)

I finished reading The Old Nurse's Story; it was a re-read from a couple of years ago, but I didn't remember much of it at all.

I'm also reading Ruth, which Gaskell wrote directly after this story. I'm about a third of the way through the book. It's interesting that the premise of Ruth is about, as you say in >29 lyzard: a secret affair and an illegitimate baby, so you are right that she tackles this subject more directly (and controversially) in the novel.

I've also started Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories, a biography by Jenny Uglow. Uglow mentions how Gaskell uses servants as important characters in many of her stories (think of Martha in Cranford, Sally in Ruth and Dixon in North and South, for example). She apparently had a high regard for her own servants, so I think the fact that Hester oversees Miss Rosamond so closely is considered honorable and shows that a good servant can be responsible. Also I got the impression that Hester is a teenager at the time of this incident, so within that big old house, she certainly would have been the closest in age to the child, and somewhat of a playfellow more than a nurse/governess.

(I'm not sure if we're still using spoilers since it's the last day of scheduled reading, so I'll take the conservative approach.)

Another thing I learned from Uglow's book is that Dickens did not like the way Gaskell ended the story with everyone seeing the ghosts/visions ("But just then I saw--we all saw--another phantom shape..."). He wanted Gaskell to re-write it with only the child seeing the ghosts, but Gaskell stood her ground and insisted on everyone experiencing the visions.

My question is, why did Gaskell insist on everybody seeing the visions (and, conversely, why would Dickens just want the child to see it)?
What does Gaskell's ending do for the story and/or for the point/moral that she is trying to make? I think it has more impact, but that's not a particularly eloquent way to say it, so I'm hoping someone else can voice some reasons.

>30 MissWatson:, >31 lyzard:, >32 kac522: Then again, I've had an opposite thought: the story is structured with Hester telling her own story (the story within a story framework), like Nellie Dean in Wuthering Heights.

So whether Hester is a "reliable" narrator can be questioned as well...did she really watch the kid 24/7?? Or did it just feel like it?

>33 kac522: That's a good point about Hester being so young and telling her own story. My problem with short stories generally is that they leave me restless for more, they are so frustratingly short.

>32 kac522:

Some people did (and do) consider an outright belief in the supernatural irreligious, so it might have been another point that Dickens was touchy about in terms of his magazine audience.

Interesting to consider that stance in light of A Christmas Carol, but perhaps we are to consider those ghosts manifestations of conscience rather than "real"; or perhaps they're okay because they're achieving good (though there is certainly a measure of punishment about it too).

Noting though that only one person sees those ghosts, which seems to be what Dickens wanted here too---perhaps that gives "plausible deniability", one person's delusion rather than a fully witnessed event.

Still, I think we could reasonably ask why it's okay for everyone to hear the music...

The impression I take away is that the haunting by Maude and the child is long-established and well-known: I come back not only to "that evil child" but to---

...Miss Furnivall kept shrieking out, "Oh, have mercy! Wilt Thou never forgive! It is many a long year ago---"

---and also to Dorothy's reaction to Rosamund's struggle to let the little girl in:

...I had seen a look of ghastly terror on Dorothy's face, which made my very blood run cold...

---but this time, for whatever reason, we get the full enactment of the original tragedy including Miss Furnival's part in what led to the deaths of her sister and her niece. I don't think we can say why. Perhaps it's an anniversary. Perhaps Rosamund's presence has triggered something---or perhaps the thwarting of the little girl has, the rescue of Rosamund from the snow. (I still think there was at least one more child who was not rescued.)

As in A Christmas Carol, this is a matter of conscience---but Gaskell is more uncompromising than Dickens: instead of reformation, Miss Furnival is stricken to death by being confronted with her own spite and jealousy and cruelty---and her pleasure in them:

Then the old lord summoned all his servants, and told them, with terrible oaths, and words more terrible, that his daughter had disgraced herself, and that he had turned her out of doors---her, and her child---and that if ever they gave her help, or food, or shelter, he prayed that they might never enter heaven. And, all the while, Miss Grace stood by him, white and still as any stone; and, when he had ended, she heaved a great sigh, as much as to say her work was done, and her end was accomplished...

>33 kac522:

Hester is "just a girl in the village school" when she is taken into service, and Rosamund is "four or five" when her parents die and they are sent to Northumberland, so most likely she is still in her teens.

did she really watch the kid 24/7?? Or did it just feel like it?

That might be so! :D

>35 lyzard: Still, I think we could reasonably ask why it's okay for everyone to hear the music...

Yep, exactly.

Okay, people---

Please post any final comments on The Old Nurse's Story and then we will move on.

Please note:

If you are joining us late or think of anything to add, please post by all means, but add the relevant story title in bold.

Noting at the outset that this is a work of historical fiction: if you aren't clear on any of the references to real people or events, please ask.

We find Gaskell working through a male narrator in The Poor Clare, though the story is very much about the dichotomous perceptions of women.

There is a lot of doubling and contrasting in this story, two sides of various coins, including in its religious background which I find very interesting.

Gaskell was Unitarian and Catholicism was even further from her area of religious belief and practice than it was from the Protestantism which dominated Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries; but most of her characters here are Catholic (the narrator excepted) and she is sympathetic in her portrayal in spite of her story's darker elements.

Persecution is another theme of the story---in religion, in politics, and of individuals.

I found the Catholic milieu really interesting. It's not something you see everyday in Victorian literature. I too noticed that the narrator was not Catholic and wondered how this would affect his relationship with Lucy. I actually wondered momentarily if Mrs Gaskell was Catholic, then dismissed the idea as something that surely I would know about if it were so.

Doesn't it seem like there are class boundaries being crossed here? Bridget is a servant, yet married someone who was apparently of a higher class. And same with her daughter.

>43 NinieB:

There are a number of things in this story that push back against the conventional literature of the time, from these details to the central situation (that one we won't rouch upon yet!): the prominence of a servant, as we also saw in The Old Nurse's Story; the importance of Catolicism; and as you note a couple of cross-class marriages, although both of them come to grief, so this might be Gaskell's sticking-point; though I don't think she's warning servants against getting "above themselves" so much as warning them they'll likely be taken advantage of.

The back-story to The Poor Clare is quite lengthy and detailed, in addition to its historical setting. Gaskell is careful with her dates through all this---I think for a reason I will come back to when we're all further along.

The first real key moment, however, is the falling out of Bridget Fitzgerald and her daughter, Mary---who "were too much alike to agree". Mary's departure - finally a reluctant one - leaves Bridget with an unhealing wound. No human being can get through to her, however---

Deaf, stony, and motionless, she sat for more than twenty hours; till, for the third time, Madam came across the snowy path from the great house, carrying with her a young spaniel, which had been Mary's pet up at the hall, and which had not ceased all night long to seek for its absent mistress, and to whine and moan after her. With tears Madam told this story, through the closed door---tears excited by the terrible look of anguish, so steady, so immovable---so the same to-day as it was yesterday---on her nurse's face. The little creature in her arms began to utter its piteous cry, as it shivered with the cold. Bridget stirred; she moved---she listened...

I have finished and find it quite remarkable, especially the character of Bridget. Saving my comments for later!

>46 MissWatson:

Please hold those thoughts, Birgit!

The isolation of Bridget during this phase of rolling disasters is striking, not least in this respect---

Bridget's heart was gnawed by anxiety, and she knew not whom to ask for news of her child. She could not write, and the Squire had managed her communication with her daughter... She walked off to Hurst; and got a good priest there---one whom she had known at Antwerp---to write for her... She was too illiterate to have faith in letters, even had she had the means of writing and sending many...

At this early period of the 18th century, female literacy was still the exception rather than the rule for the lower classes (it was also, along with most of their legal rights, one of those things "taken away" even from middle-class women at this time); and it would be another century before concern over female education really began to grow.

(We gather that Mary is one of the exceptions, no doubt through the good offices of "Madam".)

And to Bridget's personal illiteracy is added is the difficulty and inefficiency of communication by letter at this time.

This is one of those things now so totally alien to our instant-messaging society that it can be hard to grasp, but though a postal service had been introduced in England during the mid-17th century, it would be the mid-19th before it functioned in a thoroughly reliable way*, and people who could afford it often still paid for a messenger service, even in communications to the Continent. Even when it worked the service was slow, leaving people waiting for answers that might never come.

(*And thank you, Anthony Trollope! :D )

So with no-one to help her, Bridget is simply cut off from the possibility of written communication; and her decision that it is easier to go and look for Mary herself is both extraordinary and strangely practical.

So...anyone *not* completely in sympathy with Bridget at this point?---

    Bridget came out, and saw at a glance what had been done. She took Mignon up in her arms, and looked hard at the wound; the poor dog looked at her with his glazing eyes, and tried to wag his tail and lick her hand, all covered with blood. Mr. Gisborne spoke in a kind of sullen penitence:
    "You should have kept the dog out of my way---a little poaching varmint."
    At this very moment, Mignon stretched out his legs, and stiffened in her arms---her lost Mary's dog, who had wandered and sorrowed with her for years. She walked right into Mr. Gisborne's path, and fixed his unwilling, sullen look with her dark and terrible eye.
    "Those never throve that did me harm," said she. 'I'm alone in the world, and helpless; the more do the Saints in Heaven hear my prayers. Hear me, ye blessed ones! hear me while I ask for sorrow on this bad, cruel man. He has killed the only creature that loved me---the dumb beast that I loved. Bring down heavy sorrow on his head for it, O ye Saints! He thought that I was helpless, because he saw me lonely and poor; but are not the armies of Heaven for the like of me?"
    "Come, come," said he, half-remorseful, but not one whit afraid. "Here's a crown to buy thee another dog. Take it, and leave off cursing! I care none for thy threats."
    "Don't you?" said she, coming a step closer, and changing her imprecatory cry for a whisper which made the gamekeeper's lad, following Mr Gisborne, creep all over. "You shall live to see the creature you love best, and who alone loves you---ay, a human creature, but as innocent and fond as my poor, dead darling---you shall see this creature, for whom death would be too happy, become a terror and a loathing to all, for this blood's sake. Hear me, O holy Saints, who never fail them that have no other help!"

And of course, we need to note this---for two different reasons (or maybe three):

    Mr Gisborne, half curious, half uneasy, thought to lessen his uncomfortable feelings by asking Sir Philip who Bridget was? He could only describe her---he did not know her name. Sir Philip was equally at a loss. But an old servant of the Starkeys, who had resumed his livery at the Hall on this occasion---a scoundrel whom Bridget had saved from dismissal more than once during her palmy days---said:---
    "It will be the old witch, that his worship means. She needs a ducking, if ever woman did, does that Bridget Fitzgerald."
    "Fitzgerald!" said both the gentlemen at once...

After this key scene, the narrative of The Poor Clare switches gears and reintroduces our male narrator, who enters the story in search of the legal inheritor of a particular property.

One very interesting detail here is that the inheritance can be down the female line. This certainly did happen, with certain aristocratic titles inheritable by a woman in her own right as well as property, but it is something rarely referenced in English literature---perhaps because it ran against ideas about "the proper order of things". About the only instance I can think of off-hand is the allusion by Lady Catherine in Pride And Prejudice.

Important here is the narrator's first impression of Bridget: in contrast to the ungrateful fellow-servant's assertion that Bridget "needs ducking", i.e. that she is a witch, this is what the narrator sees---

...the majestic figure stood before me, silently awaiting the explanation of my errand. Her teeth were all gone, so the nose and chin were brought near together; the grey eyebrows were straight, and almost hung over her deep, cavernous eyes, and the thick white hair lay in silvery masses over the low, wide, wrinkled forehead... The expression of her face, which all this time I was studying, was not bad, as the stories of my last night's landlord had led me to expect; it was a wild, stern, fierce, indomitable countenance, seamed and scarred by agonies of solitary weeping; but it was neither cunning nor malignant...

But we also need to note this, which is equally important---

Her prayers grew wilder and wilder, till they seemed to me to touch on the borders of madness and blasphemy...

I may say that I find the business with Lucy very creepy, and I love this indirect introduction to it---

He said they were called Clarke, and wished to be considered as mother and daughter; but that, for his part, he did not believe that to be their right name, or that there was any such relationship between them. They had been in the neighbourhood of Harrogate for some time, lodging in a remote farm-house. The people there would tell nothing about them; saying that they paid handsomely, and never did any harm; so why should they be speaking of any strange things that might happen?

>51 lyzard: Is it relevant that the Fitzgerald estate is Irish? Did different laws apply there?

>55 MissWatson:

I don't think so, though I'm not entirely sure.

What struck me about this subplot - and since it's late in our week, I'm just going to say this - is that given what we're told of Mary's marriage, or "marriage"---

"She was some beautiful young woman whom he lured away from her protectors while he was abroad. I have heard said he practised some terrible deceit upon her, and when she came to know it, she was neither to have nor to hold, but rushed off from his very arms, and threw herself into a rapid stream and was drowned..."

---surely this means either a fake wedding or a bigamous marriage, and that Lucy is therefore illegitimate? Yet she inherits. I don't know if this is a legal possibility with female inheritance or a bit of artistic licence.

...in fact, very creepy:

    Just at that instant, standing as I was opposite to her in the full and perfect morning light, I saw behind her another figure---a ghastly resemblance, complete in likeness, so far as form and feature and minutest touch of dress could go, but with a loathsome demon soul looking out of the grey eyes, that were in turns mocking and voluptuous. My heart stood still within me; every hair rose up erect; my flesh crept with horror. I could not see the grave and tender Lucy---my eyes were fascinated by the creature beyond. I know not why, but I put out my hand to clutch it; I grasped nothing but empty air, and my whole blood curdled to ice. For a moment I could not see; then my sight came back, and I saw Lucy standing before me, alone, deathly pale, and, I could have fancied, almost, shrunk in size.
    "It has been near me?" she said, as if asking a question...

I want to come back to this manifestation of the curse, but first I want to talk about the witchcraft subplot in The Poor Clare.

As I say, I think Gaskell picked her dates and places very carefully in this story, and there are historical markers all the way through. She references the Glorious Revolution, which was 1688, and the Battle of the Boyne, which was 1690; it is after that that the Starkeys go to Antwerp, and "a few years' time" before they return and settle in Lancashire.

Lancashire was a hotbed of witch trials in the 17th century, in particular the infamous case of the Pendle witches in 1612, in which ten people were condemned and executed.

If we assume that the main action takes place some twenty years after this opening, given Lucy's age, then it's about 1715: the last execution for witchcraft in England occurred in 1716 (others were condemned and pardoned after that).

In other words, witchcraft would have been a matter both of local belief and of current legal practice; and we need to set Bridget's situation in that framework: living alone and obviously growing eccentric, in addition to her forthright, even aggressive nature, she would have been a prime candidate for accusation even without her "wild prayers...bordering on madness and blasphemy..."

The narrator, a standard Protestant, if I can put it like that, is less au fait with all this than his uncle, "a Puritan": look what he says with respect to lifting the curse when the narrator turns to him for advice (thinking, not without irony on Gaskell's part, that he could "advise me wisely"):

For he told me of instances where, by prayers and long fasting, the evil possessor had been driven forth with howling and many cries from the body which it had come to inhabit; he spoke of those strange New England cases which had happened not so long before; of Mr Defoe, who had written a book, wherein he had named many modes of subduing apparitions, and sending them back whence they came; and, lastly, he spoke low of dreadful ways of compelling witches to undo their witchcraft. But I could not endure to hear of those tortures and burnings. I said that Bridget was rather a wild and savage woman than a malignant witch; and, above all, that Lucy was of her kith and kin; and that, in putting her to the trial, by water or by fire, we should be torturing---it might be to the death---the ancestress of her we sought to redeem.

"Those strange cases in New England" are of course the Salem witch trials; Daniel Defoe wrote about the supernatural all throughout his career (debate continues about how much of it he believed), though this might be a reference specifically to his An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions, which was published in 1727 and would therefore place the action about a decade later than I've been suggesting.

I should probably note that Act was passed in 1735 making it a criminal offence to falsely or maliciously accuse someone of witchcraft.

However, at the time and place concerned, the servant's suggestion that Bridget "needs ducking" has real danger in it, and she might have been in serious trouble without the protection of Sir Philip.

(...when we're done here, remind me to tell you about Helen Duncan... :) )

>55 MissWatson: This is the time of the Irish famine. Do you think that could be connected in anyway?

>56 lyzard: Yes, I found that odd; that someone who I supposed to be illegitimate in 19th century England, AND a woman, was due an inheritance. Guilt?

>61 Tess_W: There was a famine was in 1740-41, where exactly are we in time in this story?

>61 Tess_W:, >62 Tess_W:, >63 MissWatson:

Just to be clear, our story is set from the late 17th century into the early decades of the 18th century.

With respect to the inheritance, some properties did descend through the female line or could be inherited by a woman if she was an only child: the question here is whether Lucy's presumed illegitimacy should have impacted her inheritance - whether, perhaps, the terms of the inheritance were merely "issue" rather than "lawful issue" - or whether Gaskell is fudging a bit.

I mean, we don't know the exact circumstances but if Mary did kill herself after finding out the truth it seems unlikely that the marriage was genuine.

Meanwhile, Gaskell did write this story in the wake of the Irish famine of 1845 - 1852, and many critics have concluded that the scenes set in Antwerp were a way of invoking that (and criticising government inaction?) without doing so directly.

We do need to move on and consider the significance of the Antwerp scenes, but before that this is key---Bridget being brought face to face with the consequences of her cursing of Gisborne:

Suddenly---in the twinkling of an eye---the creature appeared, there, behind Lucy; fearfully the same as to outward semblance, but kneeling exactly as Bridget knelt, and clasping her hands in jesting mimicry as Bridget clasped hers in her ecstasy that was deepening into a prayer. Mistress Clarke cried out---Bridget arose slowly, her gaze fixed on the creature beyond: drawing her breath with a hissing sound, never moving her terrible eyes, that were steady as stone, she made a dart at the phantom, and caught, as I had done, a mere handful of empty air. We saw no more of the creature---it vanished as suddenly as it came, but Bridget looked slowly on, as if watching some receding form...

****

    at length the old hinges gave way, and with a crash it fell inwards, leaving me suddenly face to face with Bridget---I, red, heated, agitated with my so long-baffled efforts---she, stiff as any stone, standing right facing me, her eyes dilated with terror, her ashen lips trembling, but her body motionless. In her hands she held her crucifix, as if by that holy symbol she sought to oppose my entrance. At sight of me, her whole frame relaxed, and she sank back upon a chair. Some mighty tension had given way. Still her eyes looked fearfully into the gloom of the outer air, made more opaque by the glimmer of the lamp inside, which she had placed before the picture of the Virgin.
    "Is she there?" asked Bridget, hoarsely.
    "No! Who? I am alone. You remember me."
    "Yes," replied she, still terror-stricken. "But she---that creature---has been looking in upon me through that window all day long..."

This story is framed in terms of witchcraft and curses, but this adds an ambiguous note---putting these events rather in terms of the sins of the father:

(---this leaves us none the wiser about Lucy's birth-status---)

My uncle, meanwhile, had obtained all the requisite testimonials relating to Lucy's descent and birth, from the Irish lawyers, and from Mr Gisborne. The latter gentleman had written from abroad (he was again serving in the Austrian army), a letter alternately passionately self-reproachful and stoically repellent. It was evident that when he thought of Mary---her short life---how he had wronged her, and of her violent death, he could hardly find words severe enough for his own conduct; and from this point of view, the curse that Bridget had laid upon him and his was regarded by him as a prophetic doom, to the utterance of which she was moved by a Higher Power, working for the fulfilment of a deeper vengeance than for the death of the poor dog...

But does the story actually support this view of the curse?

The critical point that follows, and that drives the rest of the action, is Bridget's inability to confess her sin.

This is very interesting in view of the anti-Catholic views that were prevalent in England when Gaskell was writing: Catholic practice including confession was deeply suspect to most Protestants. In a more conventional piece of writing, we might expect the interpretation to be that Bridget has invoked her curse by calling upon her Saints---but that view is explicitly rejected.

What we have here is an extremely rare instance of artistic detachment in 19th century writing, wherein the needs of the story supersede both personal and conventional attitudes. The narrative plays out within a profoundly Catholic framework, and Gaskell is uncompromising in her handling of her material:

"It now remains for her to free herself from mortal guilt, and to set others free from the consequences thereof. No prayer, no masses, will ever do it, although they may strengthen her with that strength by which alone acts of deepest love and purest self-devotion may be performed. Her words of passion, and cries for revenge---her unholy prayers could never reach the ears of the Holy Saints! Other powers intercepted them, and wrought so that the curses thrown up to Heaven have fallen on her own flesh and blood; and so, through her very strength of love, have bruised and crushed her heart. Henceforward her former self must be buried,---yea, buried quick, if need be,---but never more to make sign, or utter cry on earth! She has become a Poor Clare, in order that, by perpetual penance and constant service of others, she may at length so act as to obtain final absolution and rest for her soul. Until then, the innocent must suffer..."

I don't have much to add except that in her bio of Gaskell, Jenny Uglow gives sources for the story. She says the first part of the story was loosely based on a tale set in southern France that Gaskell heard in Paris from Lady Elgin. The "Poor Clare" portion was based on hearing a story in Belgium about the Poor Clares and ringing the bell during times of famine.

I did notice that, similar to the Old Nurse's Story, everyone in this story sees the "vision" of a second Lucy.

Also what happens to the relationship between the narrator and Lucy? Are we ever told the outcome after the curse is lifted? I went back and read the beginning and still can't tell one way or the other.

>68 kac522: Doesn't the narrator say that a portrait belonging to Bridget is hanging in his house? Is that a clue that the relationship was successful?

>69 NinieB: Yes, I had forgotten that! I hope it does.

>68 kac522:, >69 NinieB:, >70 kac522:

Yes, Ninie is right about the clue of the portrait, but Kathy is also right that this aspect of the story is very oblique---and I think that's intentional, to underscore the fact that this is Bridget's story.

Aack, sorry: running a bit late with this one; had some issues over the weekend that got in the way but I will try and get things wrapped up.

A couple of ideas to consider:

One of the main things that struck me about this story is the way that, on the whole, it rejects the usual stereotyping of women---or rejects a black-and-white, either/or view of women---in that Bridget is witch AND nun, Lucy is Madonna AND whore. This even carries over into the description of Lucy and her double---

"Tell me, who is she?---what means that double girl I saw this morning? One had a look of my dead Mary; but the other curdled my blood, and yet it was the same!"

On the other hand I am a bit bothered by the way Lucy's demonic double is presented.

We don't ever see the double in action but we know the circumstances of Lucy's expulsion from her father's house---

"Not long after, he reproached me for my undue familiarity---all unbecoming a gentlewoman---with his grooms. I had been in the stable-yard, laughing and talking, he said... My father called me by names of which I hardly know the meaning, but my heart told me they were such as shame any modest woman; and from that day he turned quite against me... Not many weeks after that, he came in with a riding-whip in his hand; and, accusing me harshly of evil doings..."

The doppelgänger was a very lost-established figure in European supernatural stories---though those stories almost invariably involve a man. Gaskell's inversion of that trope is interesting, but it does border on stereotype in that female evil is expressed in terms of sexuality, as is also conveyed by the use of words like "voluptuous".

The other thing is the narrative's repeated silencing of Bridget.

Some of this is circumstantial; some of it is voluntary. But again and again we hear of a block to her communication, the loss of her voice. So when the Starkeys die, she loses her power of communicating through letters. She travels through Europe looking for Mary but is unable to ask questions because of the language barrier. At home she spends many years alone talking only to Mignon---and then to herself.

Then when the demon comes, its power is expressed in these terms:

"She---that creature---has been looking in upon me through that window all day long. I closed it up with my shawl; and then I saw her feet below the door, as long as it was light, and I knew she heard my very breathing---nay, worse, my very prayers; and I could not pray, for her listening choked the words ere they rose to my lip..."

This situation is reiterated in Bridget's interaction with Father Bernard, when she is desperate for help but unable to confess:

"I led the way into one of the confessionals of St. Jacques. She knelt; I listened. No words came. The evil powers had stricken her dumb, as I heard afterwards they had many a time before, when she approached confession..."

BUT---some of this is imposed upon Bridget from the outside:

"...hitherto those priests to whom she had addressed herself were either so ignorant of the meaning of her broken French, or her Irish-English, or else esteemed her to be one crazed---as, indeed, her wild and excited manner might easily have led any one to think---that they had neglected the sole means of loosening her tongue, so that she might confess her deadly sin, and after due penance, obtain absolution."

Here she loses her voice because the people whose job it is to listen, won't listen.

And of course this culminates with Bridget's acceptance into the Poor Clares.

There is a counterintuitive feel to this---Bridget being punished for her silence with more silence:

"Henceforward her former self must be buried,---yea, buried quick, if need be,---but never more to make sign, or utter cry on earth!"

There were a number of silent orders including the Poor Clares, but Bridget's situation and the Antwerp scenes that Gaskell employs as a framework makes their use here seem punitive: an entire order of women stripped of their voices, forbidden communication even when they are literally starving to death. Gaskell's use of "The Poor Clare" for her title - that one view of Bridget - is significant in this context.

Furthermore, Lucy's curse also takes the form of isolation and silencing. It starts with her father refusing to listen to her or believe her:

"I had never been out of doors that morning, sir, and I could not conceive what he meant, and so I said; and then he swore at me for a liar, and said I was of no true blood, for he had seen me doing all that mischief himself---with his own eyes. What could I say? He would not listen to me..."

---while the narrator, for all that he claims to love Lucy, responds to her double by running away:

I could bear it no longer. I resolved no more to linger around the spot...

---with only the stubborn but painfully worn down affection of Mistress Clarke standing between Lucy and utter solitude---which, the narrator notes with insight, might be the very point of the curse:

I found out by instinct that Mrs Clarke had occasional temptations to leave Lucy. The good lady's nerves were shaken, and, from what she said, I could almost have concluded that the object of the Double was to drive away from Lucy this last and almost earliest friend.

Anyway, that's enough out of me! Please post your own reactions to The Poor Clare.

For some reason, The Poor Clare reminded by of Longfellow's Evangeline. I think it may have been because in both instances women were connected with a convent or Sisters.

The uncertainty about the timeframe bothered me so much that I went back to look at the text, and what do you know: right at the beginning there's a date. December 1747 is when the narrator sets down his tale. He mentions 1711 as the year when Gisborne kills the dog, and 1718 as the year when our narrator meets Lucy, who has been driven out by her father two years before, which would be 1716? But it doesn't answer my main problem with this story: what exactly triggers the appearance of the double?
I still can't work out what Gaskell tried to do in this story, the paranormal phenomenon is too vague to be convincing, as if she was writing about something she had no knowledge of or belief in.
My strongest impression is how archaic everything is: the crumbling manor house, the unusual construction of Bridget's cottage, the tenacity of the witch-fear. The narrator's ramblings about the early history of the Starkeys distracts me from the thought that Bridget is the main character here, but we never really get inside her head.

>77 MissWatson:

The narrator is a man so he can't help making the story about himself even when it isn't. :)

Yes, there is an obliqueness here because we're always seeing Bridget through someone else's account of her: sometimes at two viewpoints removed. This isn't exactly another example of the silencing I discussed but it does strike as Bridget not having her own voice.

The curse is triggered when Gisborne allows himself to love his daughter in the terms laid down by Bridget. The appearance of the double is then instantaneous.

In Lucy's account of her father she initially describes long absences and only indirect evidence of his feeling for her. Then we get this key passage:

    "Till about two years ago---I remember it well---my father had come to England, to us; and he seemed so proud and so pleased with me and all I had done. And one day his tongue seemed loosened with wine, and he told me much that I had not known till then,---how dearly he had loved my mother, yet how his wilful usage had caused her death; and then he went on to say how he loved me better than any creature on earth, and how, some day, he hoped to take me to foreign places, for that he could hardly bear these long absences from his only child. Then he seemed to change suddenly, and said, in a strange, wild way, that I was not to believe what he said; that there was many a thing he loved better---his horse---his dog---I know not what.
    "And 'twas only the next morning that, when I came into his room to ask his blessing as was my wont, he received me with fierce and angry words..."

>76 Tess_W:

I'm not familiar with the poem but it is interesting to know another example of the convent appearing in a mainstream work in spite of its society's prevailing anti-Catholicism.

>78 lyzard: Ah, yes. Somehow it didn't register with me.
I wonder why she chose a male narrator. And why we spend so much time with other characters, when Bridget is the one that is interesting. Maybe because she has no control over her power and is helplessly watching how it affects others...
All in all, I find again that supernatural things are not my comfort zone.

>80 MissWatson:

Yes, I think it's another aspect of the isolating of Bridget: she keeps being interpreted by other people.

Well, I don't know they're supposed to make you comfortable... :D

Okay, thank you all.

Same arrangement as before, if you are late joining in and/or think of other comments to add, please do so while marking your post clearly in bold.

More historical fiction---and this story wastes no time with its ominous details, opening in Puritan New England in 1691; effectively the date cited in The Poor Clare also.

Just a bit of terminology: a Puritan initially was part of a Protestant movement that sought to "purify" their religion by eliminating all traces of Catholicism. Later the movement took the direction more commonly associated now with the term "Puritan", a strictly religious, highly ascetic way of life marked by discipline and compliance and, in the event of the violation of either, punishment and humiliation.

A Jacobite, meanwhile, was a supporter of the Catholic Stuart royals after their deposition by the Protestant William and Mary. Not all Jacobites were Catholic; many simply believed that the Stuarts were "the true line"; but they were perceived as being Catholic sympathisers, or tolerators. Obviously, since he held a ministership, Lois's father was not Catholic, but he probably would have been what (in a 19th century context) we would call "High Church".

Definitely historical fiction. I have completed this read and my remark(s) have to do more with summary than anything else, so I will comment more towards the end of the week.

>85 Tess_W:

Thanks, Tess!

We remember that Lois The Witch was originally published separately and well after both The Old Nurse's Story and The Poor Clare, but I feel that in being gathered together like this, the first two throw an uncomfortable kind of shade onto the third. We've been alerted to so much by The Poor Clare in particular that there is tension and dread right from the outset.

I may say also that unlike Birgit in >80 MissWatson: I would rather be dealing with the outright supernatural than this! :D

>81 lyzard: I don't believe in supernatural things and therefore find myself unable to take such plots seriously. And I can see little purpose in trying to scare people, so I usually just don't read them...

>87 lyzard: Well, this, on the other hand is a very credible and thus immensely scary story about a real event. I am halfway through and I am impressed by her attempt to see these people in the terms of their own time, their beliefs, even if she thinks that she is part of a more enlightened era. Her description of the isolation and oppressive atmosphere is good.

Re: Lois the Witch: just looked at my Penguin copy--86 pages of story and 81 endnotes....

>88 MissWatson:

Well, I wouldn't say that enjoyment of supernatural stories requires belief, just suspension of disbelief. At their simplest they're a safe adrenaline jolt, like a rollercoaster ride. I would argue, though, that the more complex of such stories offer fertile ground for an examination of human behaviour, human motives, human survival. I think that even though we're only dealing with short stories here and their analysis is limited, we still see some of that---for example, The Old Nurse's Story isn't really about its ghosts, it's about the jealousy and pride that brings about the destruction of a woman and a child, and the persistence of trauma.

All that said, I have no argument at all with your main point that the real-life horrors here are profoundly more disturbing; though of course it is the characters' own capacity for belief that paves the way for their willingness to see evil and to do evil.

Agreed about Gaskell too: the modernity of her analysis of the twisting of religious belief and the psychology of witch-hunting is very striking; her understanding of the way that mass hysteria and delusion can grow and spread, the potential impact of mental health issues---but also the opportunity created for spite and hate and revenge.

>89 kac522:

Ha! - I'm not surprised. :)

A few thoughts---

The overarching horrors of Lois The Witch are so great, you can almost overlook some of their smaller components---like the double-barrelled threat with which Manasseh tries to coerce Lois into marriage: that it is God's will, or conversely that refusal will bring disaster upon them. Even if he believes it, and we must allow that he probably does, the crushing weight of it, and the power imbalance on the purely human side of it, is skin-crawling.

The other thing that struck me, in the wake of what I was saying above about The Old Nurse's Story, is that again we are confronted here with the destructive power of jealousy, with Faith's irrational reaction bringing down much of the threatened disaster. I just noticed, too, Gaskell's reference to Mrs Hickson's jealous dislike of "her husband's English relations". It is very evident that she considered jealousy an extremely dangerous emotion.

I'm also wondering if we are to read Grace Hickson as a case of "be not righteous overmuch"---

As for their worldly character, it stood as high. No one could say a word against any of their habits or actions. The righteousness and godliness were patent to every one's eyes.

Mrs Hickson is so intent upon her pursuit of godliness that she is oblivious to the ungodliness under her nose. She doesn't see what's going on with Faith; she has no idea what Prudence is really like; she doesn't even see what Nattee is up to---and you'd think she'd be watchful there for more reasons than one. Her misinterpretation, or underestimation, of Manasseh's mental-health issues we can understand, but you feel that some disaster was always inherent within the family. The tragedy is where it falls.

>90 lyzard: the more complex of such stories offer fertile ground for an examination of human behaviour, human motives, human survival

That certainly applies to the stories we've read so far here!

There are so many powerful and distressing passages in this story, if you start quoting you're in danger of quoting it all.

However I was particularly struck by this enraging progression:

    At length his mother rose, and took Lois by the hand, for she had faith in Lois's power over her son, as being akin to that which the shepherd David, playing on his harp, had over king Saul sitting on his throne. She drew her towards him, where he knelt facing into the circle, with his eyes upturned, and the tranced agony of his face depicting the struggle of the troubled soul within.
    "Here is Lois," said Grace, almost tenderly; "she would fain go to her chamber." (Down the girl's face the tears were streaming.) "Rise, and finish thy prayer in thy closet."
    But at Lois's approach he sprang to his feet,---sprang aside.
    "Take her away, mother! Lead me not into temptation. She brings me evil and sinful thoughts. She overshadows me, even in the presence of my God. She is no angel of light, or she would not do this. She troubles me with the sound of a voice bidding me marry her, even when I am at my prayers. Avaunt! Take her away!"
    He would have struck at Lois if she had not shrunk back, dismayed and affrighted. His mother, although equally dismayed, was not affrighted. had seen him thus before; and understood the management of his paroxysm.
    "Go, Lois! the sight of thee irritates him, as once that of Faith did. Leave him to me."

******

A solution of it all occurred to them. He was another victim. Great was the power of Satan! Through the arts of the devil, that white statue of a girl had mastered the soul of Manasseh Hickson. So the word spread from mouth to mouth. And Grace heard it. It seemed a healing balsam for her shame. With wilful, dishonest blindness, she would not see---not even in her secret heart would she acknowledge, that Manasseh had been strange, and moody, and violent long before the English girl had reached Salem. She even found some specious reason for his attempt at suicide long ago. He was recovering from a fever---and though tolerably well in health, the delirium had not finally left him. But since Lois came, how headstrong he had been at times! how unreasonable! how moody! What a strange delusion was that which he was under, of being bidden by some voice to marry her! How he followed her about, and clung to her, as under some compulsion of affection! And over all reigned the idea that, if he were indeed suffering from being bewitched, he was not mad, and might again assume the honourable position he had held in the congregation and in the town, when the spell by which he was held was destroyed. So Grace yielded to the notion herself, and encouraged it in others...

******

    "But oh, Lois, Lois! he was my first-born. Loose him from the demon, for the sake of Him whose name I dare not name in this terrible building, filled with them who have renounced the hopes of their baptism; loose Manasseh from his awful state, if ever I or mine did you a kindness!"
    "You ask me for Christ's sake," said Lois. 'I can name that holy name---for oh, aunt! indeed, and in holy truth, I am no witch; and yet I am to die---to be hanged! Aunt, do not let them kill me! I am so young, and I never did any one any harm that I know of."
    "Hush! for very shame! This afternoon I have bound my first-born with strong cords, to keep him from doing himself or us a mischief—he is so frenzied. Lois Barclay, look here!' and Grace knelt down at her niece's feet, and joined her hands as if in prayer---"I am a proud woman, God forgive me! and I never thought to kneel to any save to Him. And now I kneel at your feet, to pray you to release my children, more especially my son Manasseh, from the spells you have put upon them."

---and tucked within this we have this (in its way) even more enraging passage:

"Take her away, mother! Lead me not into temptation. She brings me evil and sinful thoughts. She overshadows me, even in the presence of my God. She is no angel of light, or she would not do this. She troubles me with the sound of a voice bidding me marry her, even when I am at my prayers. Avaunt! Take her away!"

One thing that strikes me is that the three Hickson women have typical Puritan names: Grace, Faith, Prudence, each extolling a virtue which is exactly the one they lack? Grace has no grace, Faith has lost her faith, and Prudence – well, she seems to give in to every whim that strikes her.

A few of my thoughts:

I like the play on "good, Christian folk." Sadly, as it often is, these good, Christian folks are the antithesis of anything Christian (IMHO). They spew Biblical concepts with malevolence. I'm not sure if they do this intentionally or they are just "ignorant." The old saying, "there is nothing more dangerous than an (old) fool," certainly applies here.

Gaskell has certainly done her history homework for this short story, setting it in Salem, Mass. After doing some research, I find that there was also witch trials in England from the 15-18th century. Trials were at their highest during the English Civil War and the following Puritan dominance. I was surprised that Gaskell wrote about Salem, it had been done so many times before. She even dropped a few names from one of the most famous Salem witch trials. Just wondering why the story wasn't set in England?

While I did like this story, I don't find it very original. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be? Or maybe it was???!!!

I knew what was going to happen very early on, but that still did not prevent me from enjoying the tension.

>95 MissWatson:

True! Though with such typical Puritan names it can be difficult to be sure whether Gaskell was being ironic or not.

>96 Tess_W:

Witch-hunting was certainly a thing in Britain for centuries before, as we have said, dying away in the early 18th century; and the worst instance, in the 1640s, is alluded to here:

"Oh, Faith! this country is worse than ever England was, even in the days of Master Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder."

This outbreak was also associated with Puritanism---but it occurred during the English Civil War, so Puritanism was mixed in with politics. It was another way of striking at the enemy.

Witch-hunting nearly always is associated with hardline forms of religion, partly because there tends to be a literal interpretation of the bible, but also because being so certain of their own righteousness, there is an inherent tendency to see anyone different as "evil". We might not get witch-hunting per se any more but I think you still see the tendency towards condemnation and exclusion of "outsiders" in some very evangelical communities.

What made Salem different, I think, and why it tends to be the exemplar example, is the magnitude of it, and the rapidity with which it all unfolded; this---

Outside the prison walls, the dread of the witches, and the excitement against witchcraft, grew with fearful rapidity. Numbers of women, and men, too, were accused, no matter what their station of life and their former character had been. On the other side, it is alleged that upwards of fifty persons were grievously vexed by the devil, and those to whom he had imparted of his power for vile and wicked considerations. How much of malice, distinct, unmistakable personal malice, was mixed up with these accusations, no one can now tell. The dire statistics of this time tell us, that fifty-five escaped death by confessing themselves guilty, one hundred and fifty were in prison, more than two hundred accused, and upwards of twenty suffered death..

I don't actually know of any examples of this story being told like this, as general fiction, before Lois The Witch; so perhaps it was original at the time, however familiar it is to us now.

Apropos, while we know that Arthur Miller had different fish to fry when he was writing The Crucible, I wonder whether he was familiar with Lois The Witch? Obviously he and Gaskell were working from the same historical documents, but their psychology is also very close, which seems suggestive.

I think that's why the story still resonates with us: the reasons for marginalising "others" may be different (or not, considering some extreme forms of religious observance) but the how still works in the same way.

>100 MissWatson:

Yes, sadly I think that's true: the underlying motives and the behaviour patterns have not changed.

Okay, we need to start wrapping things up on this one so please add in any final thoughts / reactions.

Kathy, would you like to share any of your 81 endnotes with us?? :D

Okay---as before, please feel free to add more comments but indicate the story you are referring to in bold.

The title perhaps leads us to expect another ghost story, but this is instead a use of the Gothic tropes imposed over a bedrock of historical fiction. In particular Gaskell resorts to the "found manuscript", a very popular device with Gothic authors and one that takes us from the story's contemporary framework back to the last decades of the 18th century.

We are led astray in another way, I think: the dating also inclines us to expect a story of the French Revolution, but this is only a minor detail in a far more personal tale.

It should be noted that Gaskell was writing at a time of escalating tensions between France and Germany, which only got worse over the following two decades and culminated in the Franco-Prussian War.

However this too is a sort of feint within the story, serving chiefly to isolate its German protagonist once she has married a French husband.

In having her protagonist carried away to a mountain stronghold where she is threatened by the activities of a criminal band, Gaskell is very much following the tropes of the Gothic novel. Commonly in such stories the heroine discovers that an authority figure, often with power over her, is leading a double life; she may even be threatened with marriage to this figure, either to ensure or silence or because of her position or possessions - or just because he has become obsessed with her - and in spite of the violence inherent in the situation, it almost always is marriage with which she is threatened. Frequently it is the heroine's efforts to forestall this threat that drive the action.

However, Gaskell then proceeds to explode these tropes by actually marrying her protagonist to the leader of the criminal band. This is a transgression that we shouldn't underestimate. The sanctity of the heroine's virginity and the happy marriage conclusion were so set in stone in this area of writing that this defiance of convention is extremely daring.

(Noting that supporting female characters were sometimes treated this way - discarded mistresses often assist the heroine, sometimes being killed for their pains - but usually just to delineate the magnitude of the threat to the main character.)

I can honestly say that I listened to this on audio and I was totally lost! Have now secured a hardcopy and will attempt a re-read!

>108 Tess_W:

Please ask questions if you need to!

The devil is really in the detail with this one, isn't it...?

I have finished this and feel really exasperated by our heroine Anna and her helplessness. I would have liked to know much more about her maid Amante! It also ends far too abruptly, in my opinion.

I notice that the visit in Karlsruhe (Carlsruhe) is timed for 1789, shortly after the Bastille was stormed, I assume. So what does the date of 1778 in the family bible stand for? Her confirmation?
There are also some inaccuracies regarding the area the story is set in. The big mountain on which Heidelberg Castle is set is called the Königstuhl, not Kaiserstuhl. And the castle was burned down by Louis XIV's troops during the Nine Years' War (I think that's what it's called in English), that's why Anna's family don't like the French. The whole Palatinate was pretty much laid waste by them.
Karlsruhe, on the other hand, is in Baden, at that time the ruler was only a margrave, the elevation to grand-duke was a present from Napoleon.
And the Schinderhannes, mentioned as one of the Chauffeurs robber gang leaders, wasn't really active on a grand scale until 1800, when the wars and French occupation offered many opportunities for smuggling. That name, Chauffeurs, is new to me, something to look up in the near future. But I did learn already that Monsieur de la Tourelle (he doesn't have a first name?) has his lair near the Alsace, also newly grabbed by Louis XIV and still treated administratively as foreign with a different tax regime, so again smuggling must have been rife about these borders.

So, quite Gothic in preferring romantic drama over realism?

>111 MissWatson:

Thank you for that background information. I have been able to find out a certain amount about the Chauffeurs including this:

A chauffeur was a type of French criminal active from the 18th to the 20th centuries. In gangs, they carried out home invasions on remote rural dwellings, then tortured the householders into revealing the hiding places of savings or valuables. This was often done by burning victims' feet in the fireplace, which gave rise to their name.

"Chauf" is "heat"; a "chauffeur" is "one who heats something up".

These gangs' activities seem to have been at a peak later than this story but they were certainly active at this time too. Gangs were usually named after the areas in which they operated, and certain individuals became famous / notorious for their methods or just their brutality.

There's a certain prescience in Gaskell choosing Alsace, which was more thematically appropriate than she could have known. Probably as you suggest it was chosen just as a border area known for criminal activity, but it later became the focus of the rising antagonism between France and Germany after the area was lost to the latter in the Franco-Prussian War (and played its part in the Dreyfus Affair, but that's another story).

>111 MissWatson:

Certainly Gothic. :)

I'm no fan of helpless heroines but I think we need to cut this one a little slack: not only because of her circumstances and her discoveries, but let's not forget that while she is literally being hunted for her life, she in in the early months of her pregnancy. Gaskell couldn't emphasise that but that's why Anna keeps going on about her "health" and her "weakness". I think we need to factor it in.

The pregnancy also goes back to what I was saying about Gaskell exploding convention by actually marrying off her heroine---she's imposing ugly realities upon a highly romanticised genre of writing in which women were endlessly imperilled but never actually forced to deal with reality; not on their own account.

But this is only the beginning of the convention violating: as far as I know, this is unprecedented:

Amante made good use of her time. She looked into every box and chest during the man's absence at his mill; and finding in one box an old suit of man's clothes, which had probably belonged to the miller's absent son, she put them on to see if they would fit her; and, when she found that they did, she cut her own hair to the shortness of a man's...

****

...accordingly she entered the house, and boldly announced herself as a travelling tailor, ready to do any odd jobs of work that might be required, for a night's lodging and food for herself and wife. She had adopted this plan once or twice before, and with good success; for her father had been a tailor in Rouen, and as a girl she had often helped him with his work, and knew the tailors' slang and habits...

****

The early November afternoon was closing into evening, as we sat down, she cross-legged on the great table in the blacksmith's kitchen, drawn close to the window, I close behind her, sewing at another part of the same garment, and from time to time well scolded by my seeming husband...

You get lots of fleeing women in this genre and lots of them who huddle up in their cloaks and hope that no-one will recognise their sex, but I know of no other example of cross-dressing as a disguise---still less one in which the woman assumes the entire persona of a man, pants-wearing, leg-crossing, use of slang, the works---confronting other people as a man.

Bed-sharing wasn't uncommon at the time of course, but this pose adds another dimension to it here:

We crept into our bed, holding each other tight...

And side-by-side with Amante's successful impersonation of a man we have these descriptions of M. de la Tourelle---the gender games go both ways, with a criminal disguising himself, not actually as a woman, but as someone too "effeminate" to be dangerous:

His hair was powdered, of course, but one could see from his complexion that it was fair in its natural state. His features were as delicate as a girl's, and set off by two little 'mouches,' as we called patches in those days...

****

I had begged my husband to take me by way of Heidelberg to his old castle in the Vosges; but I found an amount of determination, under that effeminate appearance and manner, for which I was not prepared...

****

I soon found out how little I, or, apparently, any one else, could bend the terrible will of the man who had on first acquaintance appeared to me too effeminate and languid to exert his will in the slightest particular. I had learnt to know his face better now...

****

"However, I am tracing the wicked fugitives; I am on their track" (and the handsome, effeminate face looked as ferocious as any demon's)...

Along with all this we have the story's treatment of marriage.

One of the most surprising thing to me is that M. de la Tourelle does actually marry Anna. You rather expect to find that the wedding was somehow fake, or turn out to be bigamous, to give her an "out", but this is not the case.

And at the time this gives him the legal right to do anything he likes to her short of murdering her---not that he intends to stop short.

This adds another dimension to Anna and Amante's flight. While the danger they are fleeing excuses them, the fact remains that at this time, stories involving a woman leaving her husband were almost as rare as a woman cross-dressing.

And---we do finally get the anticipated bigamy---but on the part of the story's heroine!---

I can hardly tell you now by what arguments Dr Voss, at first merely my benefactor, sparing me a portion of his small modicum, at length persuaded me to become his wife. His wife he called it, I called it...

AND---bigamy shrugged off on these grounds:

...as we were both Lutherans, and M. de la Tourelle had pretended to be of the reformed religion, a divorce from the latter would have been easily procurable by German law both ecclesiastical and legal...

Casual bigamy excused by casual divorce!?

For all the foregrounding of history and the usual Gothic terrors, THIS is really where The Grey Woman is memorable.

Remember that the first publication of The Grey Woman was in book form, in the Tauchnitz (German / European) release, Lois The Witch and Other Stories: with all this going on there is no way it would have been accepted by an English magazine.

Thanks for all those comments, Liz!
Yes, the cross-dressing, and done so boldly, is amazing. I thinks that's why Amante is the most interesting character for a modern reader.
The least satisfactory element for me is the way Anna stumbles into this marriage, that her father and brother offer no serious opposition (has the bad sister-in-law them really so much under her thumb?). Of course, she's completely ignorant of the social rules in Carlsruhe, but still...

Since it is set in Germany, there are some small details that I notice: the episode with her brother climbing the cherry tree and offering Anna the fruits of his daring recalls a scene from the memoirs of Liselotte von der Pfalz (Louis XIV's sister-in-law) Madame Palatine who used to climb trees and steal cherries. And the practice of the chauffeurs is the subject of a very famous ballad "Die Füße im Feuer" where the practice is used by Louis XIV's soldiers hunting down Protestants after the Edict of Nantes was revoked.

This could be a modern tale of women's lib. We have women actually thinking and acting independent of men.

>117 MissWatson:

Thank you for that information, Birgit, that's really interesting.

>117 MissWatson:, >118 Tess_W:

Sadly, that's probably why Amante has to die: she's too dangerous. It doesn't change what she has already done but it's a way of spiking the critics' guns.

We might as well ask why de la Tourelle wanted to marry Anna. Presumably he wanted an attractive, compliant woman on tap but still... Likewise why Madame Rupprecht was so keen to push her into marriage. Is it possible Madame - determined to hold her status but without the means to support it - was being paid off by de la Tourelle? The business with "Don't be a prude, take his presents" / "You've taken his presents, now you must marry him" is infuriating but feels like part of a bigger plot.

There are certainly mysteries here though as far as Anna's family goes, it's probably just the social gap between them and the people whose hands she's fallen into---plus the desire for peace at home. Anna never speaks out in person as she does on paper so everyone is judging from the externals.

A little late here--I've been reading other things, and have finally re-read Lois the Witch. A couple of notes:

>95 MissWatson: Thanks for pointing out the naming!

>96 Tess_W:, >102 lyzard: OK, some notes from the Penguin (Gothic Tales) and Oxford World's Classics (Cousin Phillis and Other Tales) editions:

Much of the historical portions were based on an account Gaskell read by Unitarian minister Charles W. Upham called Lectures on Witchcraft, Comprising a History of the Delusions in Salem in 1692 (1831). Some of the trial excerpts recorded by Upham were used almost word-for-word by Gaskell.

The story of Lois and the Hicksons is completely Gaskell's invention, although the Penguin notes suggest that "the character of Lois Barclay is most probably patterned after Rebecca Nurse, whose trial and execution for witchcraft are described by Upham." Pastor Tappau and Mr Nolan are also probably based on real persons in Upham's account, although the names were changed in the story. Real people (with their real names) mentioned in the story include the Lucy family of Warwickshire, Cotton Mather, John Hathorne (g-g-grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne) and Judge Sewall.

Gaskell herself was acquainted with an Essex County (UK) magistrate who, in the 1850s, had to intervene in a village where an old woman was suspected of being a witch, and Mrs Gaskell was known to quote this incident in later years.

Knowing how close this tale was to real events makes it even more terrifying to me.

This note from the Penguin edition (by Laura Kranzler) I found interesting:
There is some suggestion that Prudence Hickson may be patterned after Pearl, Hester Prynne's daughter in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850), who is frequently described as "impish", "naughty" and "perverse."

Sorry, people! - another weekend gone pear-shaped, what a life. :(

First things first:

>120 kac522:

Thank you very much for that information, Kathy, that's really helpful in getting your head around the story---and, as you say, makes it even worse. I hadn't considered a Scarlet Letter connection.

As always, please continue to add comments for the previous stories, marked in bold.

---though we are in a very different ball-park with this one, and there may not be much to discuss beyond being confident we've identified all the characters! :D

I think I have identified several characters: "Near her is a tiny fellow, 'the least little man I had ever seen' with an elfin look and much-mended boots whom others call Monsieur Poucet" I had my suspicions that this would be Tom Thumb, but knew no French. I googled "Poucet" and in the Collins Dictionary it immediately produced "Tom Thumb", with loads of footnotes. From what I gather, Poucet was French and Tom Thumb was English. So did Gaskell mean to imply Tom Thumb (English) or Poucet (French)?

Another identification is Bluebeard???? The young lady wearing the bracelet made of blue hair. She regrets the death of her husband. I could have this one all wrong.

And the third one is just a wild guess: the "ugly husband" is perhaps the beast in "Beauty and the Beast"?

>126 Tess_W:

I think we're okay without spoiler tags at this point, though thank you for your caution. :)

Is it Tom Thumb or Hop O' My Thumb? - not that I'd be prepared to swear they're two different people! Tom I think was born to the elderly couple who couldn't have children; I can't remember what Hop O's deal was except that he ended up with the Seven-League Boots, which are referenced here.

(Thought: was Tom Thumb's father a tailor or a cobbler? A cobbler would work here, with the boots.)

Bluebeard absolutely though! - and with a wife blaming herself!? (Disobedience, I suppose.)

I'm not sure about your third suggestion, I'll have to re-read that bit with all this in mind.

Okay, let's see if we can nail this:

We start off with Dick WhittingHAM, who is confused by the others with Dick WhittingTON---hence the conversation about the cat.

Monsieur le Géanquilleur is then translated for us as Jack the Giant-Killer.

"De Carabas" and his weirdly cat-like servant are from Puss in Boots (what is with all the boots!?).

Is the embonpoint lady with the tiny feet Cinderella, do you think?

Yes, "Monsieur le Géanquilleur" so casually mentioned by the porter was an instant giveaway for me. I think that the characters mentioned here appear in their French clothes, so I am wondering if Whittington and the Giant Killer were familiar to French readers?

We have La Belle au Bois Dormant (that's Dornröschen in German, is it Briar Rose in English?) and I am also pretty sure that the lady with the small feet is Cinderella. And yes, there's Puss in Boots and Poucet must be the French version of Tom Thumb. I also agree about Bluebeard.

I must say that I enjoyed this idea of imagining famous fairy tale people in their middle age. It's truly funny.

>129 MissWatson:

It was an interesting choice to close out such a grim collection of stories with some fairy-tale nonsense! That said, I thought it was odd (or should I say "curious") that we end where we began with this collection, with a "phantom child".

Yes, stories like these of course exist in variant forms and it's a matter of which version we happen to be familiar with.

That's why it is hard to nail down whether we have references here to Beauty And The Beast, Snow White and Rose Red and/or Diamonds And Toads---there are roses and princes everywhere, but I thought it might be the last because, like Cinderella, the heroine has a nasty sister or step-sister:

    "You must know that, although we never met until we were both married, we have been almost like sisters ever since. There have been so many points of resemblance in our circumstances, and I think I may say in our characters. We had each two elder sisters---mine were but half-sisters, though---who were not so kind to us as they might have been."
    "But have been sorry for it since," put in the other lady.
    "Since we have married princes," continued the same lady, with an arch smile...

>130 lyzard: Of course the tiny feet also signal Cinderella . . .

I confess I was totally confused by this story, even though I got the confusion between Whittingham and Whittington. I was not thinking of fairy tales at all.

The endnotes of my edition claim to list all the references. I'll hold off a day or so to give time for more discussion.

My edition suggests that they were taken from Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book...

>133 MissWatson: My edition (Penguin) indicates that most of the tales can be found in Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book (1889), although it was first published long after Mrs. Gaskell died.

>131 NinieB:

It's possibly short enough to warrant a quick re-read, once you know what's going on.

>132 kac522:

Thanks, Kathy, please do.

>133 MissWatson:, >134 kac522:

Lang may have been the first to collect them all but that doesn't address authorship and OPD. Speaking of which, see below. :)

Anyway---

Of course we have both Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding-Hood in the story; I have also identified Madame de Mioumiou, the very white lady with the ugly husband, as emanating from The White Cat by Madame (or Countess) d'Aulnoy, which was published in 1698. This was also included in The Blue Fairy Book and it may be that Lang was influenced, or alerted, by Gaskell's story.

As for this---

    ...every one started to their feet to greet a little old lady, leaning on a thin black wand---and---
    "Madame la Féemarraine," was announced by a chorus of sweet shrill voices.

---it hits differently after Shrek. :D

>134 kac522: >135 lyzard: Yes, I was a bit stunned to find that The Blue Fairy Book was published after this. I read some of the stories in it and I think out Mr Thumb is the one from Perrault's version, with his boots and the ogre cutting off heads.

Anyway, this was unusual and sent me off in all kinds of directions, curling up with fairy tales on a very dreary rainy day.

lyzard--thank you for hosting these reads. These reads forced me out of my niche and Gaskell is always a favorite of mine. I will pass on Eliot, one of my fav authors, because I just read this less than a year ago. Again, thanks!

I think all the characters have been identified, but FWIW I'll copy the notes from the Penguin edition of Gothic Tales, p. 363, edited by Laura Kranzler:

Gaskell draws on a number of popular fairy-tale characters which would have been familiar to a nineteenth-century audience. In addition to Dick Whittington, for whom Whittingham is mistaken, they include, in order of appearance:
-Bluebeard's wife ('Madame de Retz')
-Cinderella
-Poucet
-Puss in Boots and his master
-the Marquis of Carabas
-Sleeping Beauty (and later her Beast)
-The White Cat
-Little Red Riding Hood.
The fairy stories which Gaskell alluded to originate in Charles Perrault's Histoires et contes du temps passé (1708). 'The White Cat' can be found in Countess d'Aulnoy (Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville), Fairy Tales. For the English retelling of all of these stories, see Andrew Lang (ed.), The Blue Fairy Book (1889), which also contains 'The History of Jack the Giant-killer' and 'The History of Whittington.'

Other notes of interest:
-"Lochiel's grandchild" refers to a character in Tales of a Grandfather by Sir Walter Scott.
-"Monsieur Sganarelle" is a character in the play The Reluctant Doctor by Molière
-"Madame la Féemarraine" = Fairy Godmother, possibly referring to Madame d'Aulnoy

Yike:



Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange and Olive (from which this was taken) are at Project Gutenberg, if anyone hasn't had enough. :)

>137 MissWatson:

It also seems that Lang altered a number of the stories to be more "suitable for children", so we're better off for Gaskell working from the original sources.

>138 Tess_W:

Thank you very much for participating, Tess, and I'm glad you found the project worthwhile. No worries about The Lifted Veil, though do lurk if you feel like it. :)

>139 kac522:

We did good! :D

Thanks for that, Kathy.

Okay, I think we're done. As always, though, if you do have any further comments, please do add them.

This brings us to the end of the first and greater section of our group read. We will begin tomorrow with our final story, George Eliot's The Lifted Veil: a demanding work for all its brevity. I find myself slightly out of step with some of the critics, at least with respect to one aspect of this story, so I'll be very interested to hear other reactions.

>142 lyzard: Well, now you've made me curious! I'm reading from the Oxford World's Classics edition (which includes both The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob).

>143 NinieB: That's the edition I have. I've read both before, but will be reading again. I also have 2 biographies of Eliot: one by Jenny Uglow and one by Gordon S. Haight. Have only dipped into them, so not sure if there's any mention of this story.

I downloaded a copy from OpenLibrary without notes, so I'll be glad of any comments.

Ugh, sorry, gang! - unanticipated vet trip yesterday, sucked up all my focus and energy.

>145 MissWatson:

There's plenty that needs consideration; I hope Kathy's bringing her ednotes! :D

There is lots of difficult material in this story, for all its brevity, and we need to be conscious of 19th-century thinking about everything from science to the supernatural.

As to that last I would say---to me this is certainly a horror story, but is it in fact supernatural?

This is a very strange story, quite out of step with Eliot's usual realistic approach. In fact the most striking thing to me about The Lifted Veil is how completely negative it is---to the point where it is the antithesis of Eliot's body of work.

Not that there isn't plenty of negativity and ugliness within her usual realism, as there should be, however the first-person perspective, and the character of the narrator, hold us within an extremely narrow and grim viewpoint. There's no escape from that generally, and no escape within it. The usual leaven of generosity and humanism is entirely absent.

At the same time there are some questions raised about the human condition generally, but we'll leave that point for the end.

>146 lyzard: Oh no, hope everyone's OK.

>150 NinieB:

Yes, or anyway he's not as sick as I was afraid he was: he has a very bad head cold, in effect, but it's not on his lungs which was the danger. The difficulty now is getting his meds into him when he has no appetite.

ANYWAY---

The point on which I differ from some of the critics with respect to The Lifted Veil is that I seem to be a bit more sympathetic towards Latimer, who is generally condemned and dismissed.

I see him as a fairly severe introvert who spends his life being forced to do things he doesn't want to do, with people he doesn't want to be with. He knows he's a disappointment to his father. He knows that, socially, or by the usual standards, he doesn't stack up against his brother. He's "alone in a crowd" all his life.

Overall he is of course part of the very negativity that marks this story so strongly, but there doesn't seem to me enough consideration of the circumstances that create that negativity.

One of the many striking things about The Lifted Veil is that it tells us at the outset exactly where it's going:

Just a month from this day, on September 20, 1850, I shall be sitting in this chair, in this study, at ten o’clock at night, longing to die, weary of incessant insight and foresight, without delusions and without hope. Just as I am watching a tongue of blue flame rising in the fire, and my lamp is burning low, the horrible contraction will begin at my chest...

It has been rightly observed that in this story, Eliot manages the extraordinary authorial trick of having someone describe their own death---not in the usual, "The lights are growing dim, I can no longer see to write this..." way, but in horribly clear clinical detail right to the end---and even beyond the end.

The stage is thus set for the reader to accept Latimer's "insight and foresight", the cdevelopment of which, and its consequences, forms the body of the story.

In a broader sense, this story uses the somewhat contradictory attitude of the Victorians towards science as a framework.

This was a time when science was being codified and scientific process locked down: enormous energy was put into simply classifying things, placing them correctly (if you've read Jules Verne, you'll be familiar with his endless lists).

However, the desire to classify led to attempts to classify a priori, and this is where pseudo-sciences like phrenology entered the picture, often with cruel results.

At the same time, the idea of what could be considered "science" was very broad. This was also a time of great interest in the workings of the human mind and in what we would probably now call the paranormal---ghosts, and spiritualism, spirit writing and so forth. Many people considered such things natural phenomena and attempts were made to analyse them via the scientific process.

This is were my distinction of "horror" and "supernatural" comes in: Victorian readers may have considered Latimer's visions as heightened normality, a particular rare "talent", rather than anything unnatural.

Latimer himself, however, considers it as part of the artistic impulse which he is desperately eager to believe that he possesses, which is the other aspect to this remarkably crowded short story.

It has been suggested that some of the negativity within The Lifted Veil reflects Eliot's personal doubts at the outset of her writing career.

It was written at a time of both personal and professional intensity: she had cut ties with her family, or rather vice-versa, and was living with George Lewes; she had published Scenes Of Clerical Life and Adam Bede and was working on The Mill On The Floss. So far she had found success and security, but without guarantee of either persisting.

Latimer's belief that he possesses the creative impulse without actually being able to create has been interpreted as an expression of Eliot's own fear that she lacked the ability to translate what was in her onto paper.

This long passage contains a number of key phrases:

    I could not believe that I had been asleep, for I remembered distinctly the gradual breaking-in of the vision upon me, like the new images in a dissolving view, or the growing distinctness of the landscape as the sun lifts up the veil of the morning mist. And while I was conscious of this incipient vision, I was also conscious that Pierre came to tell my father Mr Filmore was waiting for him, and that my father hurried out of the room. No, it was not a dream; was it---the thought was full of tremulous exultation---was it the poet’s nature in me, hitherto only a troubled yearning sensibility, now manifesting itself suddenly as spontaneous creation? Surely it was in this way that Homer saw the plain of Troy, that Dante saw the abodes of the departed, that Milton saw the earthward flight of the Tempter. Was it that my illness had wrought some happy change in my organisation---given a firmer tension to my nerves---carried off some dull obstruction? I had often read of such effects---in works of fiction at least. Nay; in genuine biographies I had read of the subtilising or exalting influence of some diseases on the mental powers. Did not Novalis feel his inspiration intensified under the progress of consumption?
    When my mind had dwelt for some time on this blissful idea, it seemed to me that I might perhaps test it by an exertion of my will. The vision had begun when my father was speaking of our going to Prague. I did not for a moment believe it was really a representation of that city; I believed---I hoped it was a picture that my newly liberated genius had painted in fiery haste, with the colours snatched from lazy memory. Suppose I were to fix my mind on some other place---Venice, for example, which was far more familiar to my imagination than Prague: perhaps the same sort of result would follow. I concentrated my thoughts on Venice; I stimulated my imagination with poetic memories, and strove to feel myself present in Venice, as I had felt myself present in Prague. But in vain. I was only colouring the Canaletto engravings that hung in my old bedroom at home; the picture was a shifting one, my mind wandering uncertainly in search of more vivid images; I could see no accident of form or shadow without conscious labour after the necessary conditions. It was all prosaic effort, not rapt passivity, such as I had experienced half an hour before. I was discouraged; but I remembered that inspiration was fitful.
    For several days I was in a state of excited expectation, watching for a recurrence of my new gift. I sent my thoughts ranging over my world of knowledge, in the hope that they would find some object which would send a reawakening vibration through my slumbering genius. But no; my world remained as dim as ever, and that flash of strange light refused to come again, though I watched for it with palpitating eagerness.

There's a mixture of things going on here, and Eliot seems both sympathetic towards, and scornful of, Latimer's striving for "genius".

There is a hint of scorn in the depiction of his naive belief that all this happens spontaneously, without any hard work - any "prosaic effort" - we know that Eliot was a perfectionist in her writing and drove herself hard, albeit within the shelter created for her by Lewes.

But Latimer's increasingly dismayed realisation that he possesses "the poet's nature" but the not the ability actually to create - not at will, not with any focus - that there is a "dull obstruction" preventing the translation of impulse into art - feels very much like Eliot's own fear that she might fall short of her own aspirations, or that her inspiration might dry up. Having found early critical success might even exacerbate that fear, which in Eliot's case was accompanied by an awareness of her anomalous personal life and what it might mean to her as a female artist if/when that became public knowledge.

I think the fact that the bold statement of Latimer's "foresight" comes at the very start of the story prejudiced me against Latimer. And of course, knowing about Eliot's attitude towards her work and her private life at the time gives a different aspect to it.

The best thing in my edition is a photograph of this painting by H.E. Blanchon (La Transfusion du Sang, 1879) of the transfusion scene:



Or look at it here--slightly better quality: https://georgeeliotarchive.org/items/show/2790

Apparently the original painting does not survive, only this photograph that was taken of the painting.

I'm pretty confused by The Lifted Veil, so I only have some random thoughts.

I can see the art vs. science idea. For me the major theme is summarized by Jenny Uglow, in her biography of George Eliot:

"Foresight is irrelevant. It is not what we can foresee which is important, but how we live the intervening hours in the light of that knowledge."

Which makes Birgit's comment in >156 MissWatson: so appropriate....by knowing immediately Latimer's foresight ability, we expect more from him. He should make better use of his limited time.

I also wonder what is the significance of Latimer being blind in the beginning? He goes from blindness, to sight, to reading people's minds and seeing the future.

Uglow also makes this comment, which I'm not sure I agree with, but I'll throw it out:

The Lifted Veil is narrated by a man but one who is "half-feminine, half-ghostly." All that makes him a seer is defined as feminine and specifically contrasted to "masculine" science and law, which concentrate on theory at the expense of experience. The Lifted Veil suggests the conflict George Eliot may have found in concealing her own visions behind an impersonation of masculinity...

In the Oxford edition of the story there is a very long footnote on "double consciousness", which Latimer uses in thoughts near the end of Chapter 1. I won't copy the full notation here, except for this one quote from Eliot's journal during a visit to Italy in 1860, to see how she applied this term to herself:

One great deduction to me from the delight of seeing world-famous objects is the frequent double consciousness which tells me that I am not enjoying the actual vision enough, and that when higher enjoyment comes with the reproduction of the scene in my imagination I shall have lost some of the details, which impress me too feebly in the present because the faculties are not wrought up into energetic action.

One more thought: apparently this is the only work, besides Impressions of Theophrastus Such where Eliot uses first person narrative and in both cases the narrator is male. And this is also the only work where she had any sort of supernatural element.

I do think it's easier just to react to aspects The Lifted Veil, rather than have a coherent theory about it.

I can feel some sympathy for Latimer who from childhood up is constantly being forced into situations he doesn't want to be in---and whose entire life then becomes a situation he doesn't want to be in.

The choice of a male narrator by a female writer (something we also touched on with Gaskell) of course raises questions. I can see a few different in-story reasons here. Latimer's uncongenial education is not of a kind that would have been forced on a girl; nor would there have been anything notable in a young woman being trapped by circumstance - they nearly all were - whereas Latimer's inability to strike out for himself except in the one critical way, his marriage, draws attention to itself. Also that marriage is a choice, which a woman might not have had.

As to whether his insight / foresight is meant to be coded "feminine"--- Paranormal abilities have been traditionally associated with women although this may be one of those things that popular culture shapes in our minds, that did not (does not) necessarily apply in reality.

Latimer associates his childhood blindness with childhood happiness, being the focus of his mother's care; seeing, and then seeing too much, is the source of his misery. There's also the suggestion that his capacity for heightened sensitivity is, if not evoked, first brought into play at that time, in his responsiveness to sound:

I remember still the mingled trepidation and delicious excitement with which I was affected by the tramping of the horses on the pavement in the echoing stables, by the loud resonance of the groom’s voices, by the booming bark of the dogs as my father’s carriage thundered under the archway of the courtyard, by the din of the gong as it gave notice of luncheon and dinner.

It has long been argued that human creativity and human achievement is driven by the consciousness of death, but Latimer's exact knowledge of the time and circumstances of his own death is paralysing rather than acting as a goad.

>157 kac522:

That's remarkable. Thank you, Kathy.

Yes, we haven't really touched upon the transfusion scene. I guess my question is, are we supposed to take it as supernatural or is this an example of the scientific thinking of the time? It is worth remembering that blood groups weren't understood until the early years of the 20th century and before that there must have been almost a feeling of "voodoo" around transfusions which sometimes worked brilliantly and sometimes killed. Perhaps that allowed for the idea that a transfusion could even raise the dead?

Eliot's writing overall always makes me think of Jean-Paul Sartre's line about, "I love humanity, it's people I can't stand." :D

It's true, though: there is always generosity and compassion for humankind generally in her writing and her best people have that sense towards their fellows; but when she set out to depict how selfish or mean or petty an individual could be, my goodness.

And this is Latimer's own horror show: that his insight allows him to know people in awful, depressing detail.

We condemn his negativity and his suicidal marriage, but really, could any of us function with that particular affliction?

>161 lyzard: The Intro to my edition suggests that Eliot (through Lewes) was aware of a "successful operation to restore a heart-beat in a dog suffering from peritonitis" that lived an additional 5-6 hours.

>162 lyzard: Yes, I can imagine that a sensitive, shy person like Latimer would be paralysed by this knowledge of the future.

Alrighty, time to wrap this up, I guess.

Final thoughts on anything??

Thank you all for joining in. I hope you have found this a worthwhile exercise. Short stories are always tricky. I was worried I was dragging this out too much, but OTOH there is the danger of overcrowding each story and losing some of the individual impact.

And of course now we have to discuss what comes next... :)

>165 lyzard: A side note...I was reminded while reading the section on Prague of Nina Balatka, which is our next Trollope, correct? It's also set in Prague and includes descriptions of the bridge and of the Jewish section of the city.

>165 lyzard: I was glad to do one a week--I would have had trouble keeping up otherwise.

I also read Brother Jacob and it is really a polar opposite to The Lifted Veil.

>166 kac522:

Ah yes, good call!

It is, though we need to decide on a month.

>167 NinieB:

Thanks, Ninie.

I'm thinking of doing that too. :)

>167 NinieB:, >168 lyzard: I read some place (don't remember now) that when these 2 were scheduled to be published in book form, Eliot wanted them published in the same volume.

>169 kac522:

Yes, eventually. She obviously met some resistance to The Lifted Veil from William Blackwood, who didn't personally care for either that or Brother Jacob, perhaps finding them too dark and/or harsh. He wouldn't publish them with her collected works at first, and Eliot in turn declined to have them reprinted as part of the "Tales From Blackwood's" series; though eventually she got her own way and had then reissued with Silas Marner.

I think I would have struggled much more with these stories, had I read them on my own. So thank you very much, Liz!

>171 MissWatson:

Thank you for joining in, Birgit. :)

So, yes---for those of you doing the Trollope reads, Nina Balatka is next up---I am thinking January or February. The latter would suit me better but I'm flexible, so if you have strong feelings either way, please speak up.

With regard to our Virago project, technically we next have Charlotte Yonge's The Daisy Chain, however we did touch upon the possibility of addressing Yonge's The Heir Of Redclyffe first. Again, please post any thoughts below.

>173 lyzard: February is fine for me for Trollope.

I'd be up for a reading of The Heir of Redclyffe, although it's not readily available in book form. It is on Project Gutenberg.

>173 lyzard: February for our next Trollope is fine. I also downloaded The Heir of Radclyffe from OpenLibrary, just in case.

A reminder for those interested that the next group read will be Nina Balatka by Anthony Trollope, in February. I will post again when the thread is up. It will be through the 75ers group but all welcome!

If you’re still considering The Heir of Redclyffe, I can get on board with that as well.

>177 Matke:

Still yet to make a decision on which Yonge to tackle; we need to nail that down when we've finished Nina Balatka (and now also make a decision about Linda Tressel, yike!).