There are a few memorials to Mrs. Gaskell which the admirer of her writings may like to see.
In Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, there is a tablet to the memory of the gifted writer, which was erected by a number of friends.
It runs thus: —
At the Moss Side Public Library, Manchester, Mr. W. E. A. Axon is making a collection of books and pamphlets written by or relating to Mrs. Gaskell.
In February 1898 a beautiful bas-relief was erected on the front of the Knutsford Post Office, at the Tatton Gates end of King Street, by Mr. R. H. Watt.
The work was admirably carried out by an Italian artist, Cavaliere Achille D’Orsi, Professor of the Fine Arts in the Royal Academy of Naples. The portrait is a bust of Mrs. Gaskell from the photograph which was taken in Edinburgh a year or two before her death, and is worked in bronze. Sufficient indication is given of the name in the fact that a copy of “ Cranford “ lies at the base of the figure, together with a quill pen and a laurel wreath. A lifelike expression is given to the beautiful face, and the sculptor has been highly successful in his rendering of the whole. The likeness is usually considered by those who are competent to judge to be a good one, though a copy of the Richmond picture would have been far more pleasing.
The Christie Library at Owens College, Manchester, contains a bust of Mrs.
Gaskell, being a replica by Mr. Hamo Thorneycroft of the Edinburgh bust by Dundas.
The original stands in the drawing- room of 84 Plymouth Grove, the home of the Misses Gaskell, who in 1886 gave ^500 to this library for the purchase of books on the subjects of English Language and Literature, and Greek Testament.
In 1900 they also gave ^500, this time towards the purchase by the Manchester Corporation of a piece of land in Plymouth Grove, to be used as an open space.
They are ladies who possess a great deal of the charm which made their mother so attractive.
They are well known in the public life of Manchester.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A complete bibliography (up to September 1895) has been complied by Mr. W. E. A. Axon, of Manchester, showing the separate editions of her various works, including eighteen different editions of “ Mary Barton,” twelve of “ Cranford,” nine of “ The Life of Charlotte Bronte,” seven of “Wives and Daughters,” seven of “ North and South,” and six of “ Sylvia’s Lovers,” while there is a French version of “ Mary Barton “ which passed through two editions and a Spanish version.
“Cranford “ was translated into French and Hungarian, and “ Sylvia’s Lovers “ was the only story translated into German.
Books by Mrs. Gaskell
The following list of works by Mrs. Gaskell comprises forty stories, long and short: —
Mary Barton.
Cranford.
North and South.
Wives and Daughters.
Life of Charlotte Bronte.
Sylvia’s Lovers.
Ruth.
A Dark Night’s Work.
My Lady Ludlow.
My French Master.
The Old Nurse’s Story.
Bessy’s Troubles at Home.
Christmas Storms and Sunshine.
The Squire’s Story.
Curious if True.
The Moorland Cottage.
Disappearances.
Right at Last.
The Manchester Marriage.
Lois the Witch.
Cousin Phillis.
The Grey Woman.
The Heart of John Middleton.
Traits and Stories of the Huguenots.
Six Weeks at Heppenheim.
Lizzie Leigh.
The Crooked Branch.
The Sexton’s Hero.
Round the Sofa.
The Accursed Race.
The Doom of the Griffiths.
Half a Lifetime Ago.
The Poor Clare.
The Half-Brothers.
The Well of Pen Morfa.
Mr. Harrison’s Confessions.
Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras.
Morton Hall.
Hand and Heart.
Company Manners.
Mr. Axon, in his “ Bibliography,” says: “ There is, indeed, enough of excellent material for a supplementary volume of her works, if we include the graphic account of ‘ Clopton Hall’ (1840), the ‘ Review of Fauriel’s Modern Greek Songs’ (1854), -The Cage at Cranford’ (1863),’An Italian Institution’ (1863), and three articles on ‘ French Life’ (1864).v That other contributions of hers remain buried in magazines is not unlikely. Thus, ‘ One of our Legal Fictions’ (April 29, 1854), is possibly the article mentioned in Dickens’ ‘Letters,’ under date April 21. It is evidently a statement of the unhappy experiences of the Hon. Mrs. Norton.”
A pretty little edition of “ Cranford “ has recently been issued by Messrs. Methuen & Co., with a memoir of the author, and introduction and notes by E. V. Lucas. Mr. Lucas unfortunately follows the Hon. Beatrice L. Tollemache in the mistaken notion that Mrs. Gaskell drew from the life. Speaking of Captain Hill, he says, “ Although he may have sat to Mrs. Gaskell,” &c. No one ever sat to Mrs. Gaskell.
Also, speaking of Miss Alice Brown, the author of “ By Oak and Thorn,” he says, “ She walked along Darkness Lane.” He might have said more correctly, “ She walked along a lane which may have been Darkness Lane.”
MAGAZINE ARTICLES CONCERNING MRS. GASKELL
The June number, 1894, Atalanta contained an article entitled “The Human Novel as Exemplified by Mrs. Gaskell.” This was followed in 1895 by an article in the August Gentleman s Magazine on “ Mrs. Gaskell,” by Miss Hompes, which was chiefly biographical, and did not add much to existing biographies, though it summarised them. In the same year, and in the same magazine, appeared an article on “ Knutsford in Fiction,” by the author, which, besides giving a description of the town and neighbourhood, proceeded to identify several houses and other buildings as being those which were not only well known to the writer of “Cranford,” but which were probably the models from which she (perhaps unconsciously) drew. To the September number of Good Words, 1895, Miss Margaret Howitt contributed a paper entitled “ Stray Notes from Mrs. Gaskell,” with illustrations of Knutsford and the neighbourhood, among them being pictures of the parish church, in which Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson was married to the Rev. William Gaskell, M.A., of Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, in 1832; of the house on the Heathside in which she lived for several years; and of Brook Street Chapel, in the graveyard of which she was laid to rest in 1865. In Temple Bar for August 1895, the Hon. Mrs. Tollemache claimed to have known the original of at least one of Mrs. Gaskell’s characters. (See p. 33.)
Possibly characteristics of people whom Mrs. Tollemache knew were noted by Mrs. Gaskell, who allowed nothing to pass unobserved; but to believe that she consciously drew from life is to vastly underrate her true artistic taste, and her marvellous imaginative faculty. In the April 1896 Atlantic Monthly, Miss Alice Brown (who, with Miss L. I. Guiney,
author of “A Roadside Harp,” “ A Little English Gallery,” &c., visited Cranford in 1895) contributes a charming paper on “ Latter-day Cranford.” This essay, together with a number of others, was published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. in a neat little volume entitled “ By Oak and Thorn.”
In the Woman at Home for May 1896, a writer, under the heading “ Mrs. Gaskell and Charlotte Bronte,” says that “in the whole of English literature there is no book that can compare in widespread interest with the ‘ Life of Charlotte Bronte,’ by Mrs. Gaskell,” while the same magazine for June 1897 published an illustrated article by Marion Leslie on “Mrs. Gaskell’s House and its Memories “; but the truest and best appreciation of our author was written by Edna Lyall, and is contained in “ Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign,” published in June 1897.
In the Fortnightly Review for October 1899, Miss Frances H. Low contributed an article on “ Mrs. Gaskell’s Short Tales.” An illustrated article, entitled “ A Cranford Evening,” by L
uise M. Torrance, appeared in the August 1900
number of Mmsey’s Magazine. A wrong impression may be formed of the shape of the calash from the illustration given on page 632. Mr. Hugh Thomson does not give any picture of this ancient headdress which was worn over the cap, but we have seen two in Knutsford which were worn about the time Mrs. Gaskell lived here, and they are very large, and struck us as being very similar to perambulator hoods, except that they were somewhat smaller in size.
Two very able articles by Mr. Basil Champneys appeared in the Pilot of June 28 and July 5, 1902, in which he claimed that “ Wives and Daughters” was the best purely domestic novel in the English language. “ Mrs. Gaskell,” said Mr. Champneys, “had the admirable faculty ,of seeing life generally and her individual characters with tolerant and loving eyes.”
In the Manchester Quarterly for July 1902, Mr. John Mortimer had a most admirable paper on “ Mrs. Gaskell.”
A writer under the “Contributor’s Club “ in the Atlantic Monthly for December 1900, says: “ No American woman (except possibly Miss Jewett) has written with the playfulness and tenderness that one so loves in Mrs. Gaskell.”
CHAPTER III
THE REV. WILLIAM GASKELL,M.A
A little book about Mrs. Gaskell would be incomplete without some notice, however brief, of her accomplished husband. Among the thousands who know the works of Mrs. Gaskell, and have enjoyed reading “Cranford,” there are few who know that her husband was in many ways a remarkable man. It may be said that the world knew Mrs. Gaskell, and that Lancashire knew Mr. Gaskell. In the Manchester district he was well known and deeply respected, and if there be any who would cast a shadow of a doubt upon this statement, we would strongly recommend them to read the little volume that was published in commemoration of the jubilee of his Manchester ministry. On that occasion addresses were presented not only by students, associations, and churches, but by representatives of learned societies and institutions in which he had taken a deep interest. He received some tangible proof of affection and regard, but by his own express wish the chief portion of the gift was utilised in the foundation of a scholarship at Owens College bearing his name.
“William Gaskell, eldest son of William Gaskell, sail-canvas manufacturer, was born at Latchford, near Warrington, on July 24, 1805.1 Of an old Nonconformist family, he was early destined for the ministry, and after studying at Glasgow, where he graduated M.A. in 1824, was admitted in 1825 to Manchester College, then at York, being nominated by Thomas Belsham as a divinity student on the Hackney Fund. Leaving York in 1828, he became colleague with John Gooch Robberds at Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, and this proved to be his lifelong charge. Becoming senior minister in 1854, he had successively as colleagues James Panton Ham, 1855-59; James Drummond, LL.D., 1860-69; and Samuel Alfred Steinthal. In his own denomination Gaskell held the highest positions. At Manchester New College (then in Manchester) he was Professor of English History and Literature from 1846 to 1853, and Chairman of Com
1 See Article in “ Dictionary of National Biography, ‘ by Rev. A. Gordon, M.A.
mittee from 1854, having previously been Secretary from 1840 to 1846, Of the Unitarian Home Missionary Board he was one of the tutors from 1854, and principal from 1876, succeeding John Relly Beard.”
“Gaskell exercised great influence in Manchester, especially in the promotion of education and learning. Though an effective and polished speaker, he rarely appeared on platforms.”
“At Owens College he conducted the classes of Logic and English Literature during the illness of Principal Scott. On the formation of a Working Man’s College in 1858 he was appointed lecturer on English Literature, and retained that office on the amalgamation in 1861 of this scheme with the evening classes of Owens College. His prelections were remarkable for their literary finish, and for the aptness and taste with which he drew upon an unusually wide compass of reading.”1
1 Mr. W. E. Adams, in his “ Memoirs of a Social Atom,” says: “ There was a Working Men’s College in Manchester too, The classes I attended were conducted, the one by a Unitarian Minister, the other by a curate of the Church of England The “ Gaskell died at his residence, Plymouth Grove, Manchester, on June n, 1884, and was buried at Knutsford, His portrait, painted in 1872 by W. Percy, is in the Memorial Hall, Manchester; another, painted in 1878 by Annie Robinson, is in the possession of the family. A marble bust, by J. W. Swinnerton, was placed in 1878 in the reading-room of the Portico Library, Manchester, of which for thirty years he had been Chairman. In 1832 he married Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, by whom he had a son (died in infancy), a daughter, Florence (died 1881), married to Charles Crompton, Q.C., and three daughters who survived him.”1 Mrs. Ritchie, has said of him, “ Mr. Gaskell was one of those ministers whose
Unitarian minister was the Rev. William Gaskell, husband of the famous novelist; the curate of the Church of England was the Rev. W. J. Marriott. Mr. Gaskell was a master of literature. I thought at the time that he was the most beautiful reader I had ever heard. IJrose or poetry seemed to acquire new lustre and elegance when he read it. Our literary evenings under Mr. Gaskell were ambrosial evenings indeed. Mr. Marriott’s class was devoted to the History of England.”
1 See Article in “Dictionary of National Biography,” by Rev. A. Gordon, M.A.
congregations are outside as well as inside chapel walls, for I have heard his name mentioned again and again by different people, and always with affection and respect.”
He published a considerable number of sermons and “ controversial tracts” (Mr. Ernest Axon gives a list of thirty- one), including funeral sermons on Sir Thomas Potter, 1845; the Rev. John Gooch Robberds, 1854; Sir John Potter, 1858 (“The Duties of the Individual to Society. A sermon on occasion of the death of Sir John Potter, M.P., preached at Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, October 31, 1858, with the address at the interment on the day preceding”); and on the Rev. William Turner, 1859.
Among his other publications may be noted “ Temperance Rhymes,” 1839, and “ Two Lectures on the Lancashire Dialect.” He wrote a large number of hymns. Mr. Ernest Axon in the “ Gaskell Bibliography “ has given an index of first lines of eighty-five, including such well-known hymns as “ Forth went the heralds of the cross” and “ Not on this day, O God, alone,” most of which were contributed to a collection edited by the Rev. John Relly Beard, D.D., 1837. The best of these may be found in “ Hymns of Prayer and Praise,” by the late Dr. James Martineau, compiled in 1874. But many more could be added to this collection, including “To Thee, O God, we raise,” “ O God, by whose kind care we live,” “ Do with thy might that which is right,” “Day after day, life fleets away,” and that most beautiful of all —
“Though lowly here our lot may be,
High work have we to do —
In faith and trust to follow Him Whose lot was lowly too.
Our lives enriched with gentle thoughts And loving deeds may be,
A stream that still the nobler grows The nearer to the sea.
To duty firm, to conscience true,
However tried and pressed,
In God’s clear sight high work to do,
If we but do our best.
Thus we may make the lowliest lot With rays of glory bright;
Thus we may turn a crown of thorns Into a crown of light.”
Concerning Mr. Gaskell as a hymn writer, Mr. W. E. A. Axon makes the following remarks: “ Those who knew William Gaskell will feel that the fugitive tracts which were printed in his lifetime, excellent as they are in their way, do not adequately represent the intellectual power and refinement of his nature. His hymns, which offer a singular combination of devotional fire and lucidity of expression, have not, unfortunately, been collected. These sacred lyrics are the fitting expression of a noble spirit.”
The Rev. J. J. Wright thus describes Mr. Gaskell: “In appearance Mr. Gaskell was somewhat tall, rather slender, and he walked and stood with stately graciousness. There was something clean and sweet a
nd refined and pure in his very presence. It used to be said that his appearance in the pulpit was a sermon in itself, as certainly it was a benediction.”
Yet, though he was a saintly man, it must not be imagined that he was as dull and uninteresting as many saintly men are. He had, we are told, a wonderful fund of anecdote, and could not only tell a good story himself, but could appreciate to the fullest extent a good story told by another.
We will let Mr. Wright (“Young Days,” November 1899), a student under Mr. Gaskell, tell two college stories. “ One morning, before Mr. Gaskell came into the lecture-room, the students became somewhat lively. Perhaps it was cold and they wanted exercise! However it was, a few leathern cushions from the chairs got flying about. The bell rang, signal for the incoming of Mr. Gaskell. There was hurry and scurry to get all the cushions on the chairs again. The door from his room into the lecture-room opened a few inches — he was coming — when a flying cushion hit it and slammed the door to again. There was silence, and every student was gravely seated when Mr. Gaskell with quiet dignity appeared, and significantly said, ‘ Gentlemen! Gentlemen! If I may say gentlemen! ‘ “
Not another word was said or needed.
But the best story of all — and well known among his old students — is one which shows the readiness of Mr. Gaskell’s mind. One day Mr. Gaskell happened to seat himself in a chair whose joints were very loose. He crossed his legs as usual, opened his book, and called upon Mr. So-and-So to begin reading, Before this young gentleman had read very far he made a regular “howler” of a mistake. Mr. Gaskell sprang from his seat (whether in real or partly affected amazement, I do not know), but as he sprang up, the chair fell to pieces on the floor, and Mr. Gaskell, looking first behind him in surprise as he stood there, now looked at the blundering student, and exclaimed, “ Mr. So-and-So, the very chair can’t stand it! “
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 586
