Cranford Quotes

“I'll not listen to reason... reason always means what someone else has got to say.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“Out of the way! We are in the throes of an exceptional emergency! This is no occassion for sport- there is lace at stake!" (Ms. Pole)”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“Miss Jenkyns wore a cravat, and a little bonnet like a jockey-cap, and altogether had the appearance of a strong-minded woman; although she would have despised the modern idea of women being equal to men. Equal, indeed! she knew they were superior.”
― Elisabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“Mrs Forrester ... sat in state, pretending not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“But I was right. I think that must be an hereditary quality, for my father says he is scarcely ever wrong.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his hip, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“My father once made us," she began, "keep a diary, in two columns; on one side we were to put down in the morning what we thought would be the course and events of the coming day, and at night we were to put down on the other side what really had happened. It would be to some people rather a sad way of telling their lives," (a tear dropped upon my hand at these words) - "I don't mean that mine has been sad, only so very different to what I expected.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“An old lady had an Alderney cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. ....The whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney, therefore great was the sympathy and regret when, in an unguarded moment, the poor cow fell into a lime-pit. She moaned so loudly that she was soon heard and rescued; but meanwhile the poor beast had lost most of her hair and came out looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Everybody pitied the animal, though a few could not restrain their smiles at her droll appearance. Miss Betsy Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay; and it was said she thought of trying a bath of oil. This remedy, perhaps, was recommended by some one of the number whose advice she asked; but the proposal, if ever it was made, was knocked on the head by Captain Brown's decided "Get her a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her alive, But my advice is, kill the poor creature at once."
Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and thanked the Captain heartily; she set to work, and by-and-by all the town turned out to see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark grey flannel.I have watched her myself many a time. Do you ever see cows dressed in grey flannel in London?”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“When oranges came in, a curious proceeding was gone through. Miss Jenkyns did not like to cut the fruit, for, as she observed, the juice all ran out nobody knew where, sucking [only I think she used some more recondite word] was in fact the only way of enjoying oranges; but then there was the unpleasant association with a ceremony frequently gone through by little babies; and so, after dessert, in orange season, Miss Jenkyns and Miss Matty used to rise up, possess themselves each of an orange in silence, and withdraw to the privacy of their own rooms to indulge in sucking oranges.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“My father was a man, and I know the sex pretty well.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“. . . it seemed to me that where others had prayed before to their God, in their joy or in their agony, was of itself a sacred place.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“Many a one has been comforted in their sorrow by seeing a good dish come upon the table.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“A little credulity helps one on through life very smoothly — better than always doubting and doubting and seeing difficulties and disagreeables in everything.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell , Cranford

“I'll not listen to reason...Reason always means what some one else has got to say.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“In a few minutes tea was brought. Very delicate was the china, very old the plate, very thin the bread-and-butter, and very small the lumps of sugar. Sugar was evidently Mrs. Jamieson's favourite economy.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“I never knew what sad work the reading of old-letters was before that evening, though I could hardly tell why. The letters were as happy as letters could be — at least those early letters were. There was in them a vivid and intense sense of the present time, which seemed so strong and full, as if it could never pass away, and as if the warm, living hearts that so expressed themselves could never die, and be as nothing to the sunny earth. I should have felt less melancholy, I believe, if the letters had been more so.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“Death was as true and as common as poverty; yet people never spoke about that, loud out in the streets.  It was a word not to be mentioned to ears polite. ”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“the contemplation of it, even at this distance of time, has taken away my breath and my grammar, and unless I subdue my emotion, my spelling will go too.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“A man," as one of them observed to me once, "is so in the way in the house!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“She was fain to get up and go convince herself that he was really there by listening through the door to his even, regular breathing - I don't like to call it snoring, but I heard it myself through two closed doors.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“... Correspondence, which bears much the same relation to personal intercourse that the books of dried plats I sometimes see do to the living and fresh flowers in the lanes and meadows.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“We therefore discussed the circumstance of the Captain taking a poor old woman's dinner out of her hands one very slippery Sunday. He had met her returning from the bakehouse as he came from church, and noticed her precarious footing; and, with the grave dignity with which he did everything, he relieved her of her burden, and steered along the street by her side, carrying her baked mutton and potatoes safely home. This was thought very eccentric; and it was rather expected that he would pay a round of calls, on the Monday morning, to explain and apologise to the Cranford sense of propriety: but he did no such thing: and then it was decided that he was ashamed, and was keeping out of sight. In a kindly pity for him, we began to say, "After all, the Sunday morning's occurrence showed great goodness of heart," and it was resolved that he should be comforted on his next appearance amongst us; but, lo! he came down upon us, untouched by any sense of shame, speaking loud and bass as ever, his head thrown back, his wig as jaunty and well-curled as usual, and we were obliged to conclude he had forgotten all about Sunday.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“...for if she had two characteristics in her natural state of health, they were a facility of eating and sleeping. If she could neither eat nor sleep, she must be indeed out of spirits and out of Health.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“I don’t mean to deny that men are troublesome in a house.  I don’t judge from my own experience, for my father was neatness itself, and wiped his shoes on coming in as carefully as any woman; but still a man has a sort of knowledge of what should be done in difficulties, that it is very pleasant to have one at hand ready to lean upon.  Now,”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“...the ladies of Cranford always dressed with chaste elegance and propriety...”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“A man,” as one of them observed to me once, “is so in the way in the house!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“not to be mentioned to ears polite: Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, iv. 149–50: ‘To rest, the Cushion and soft Dean invite, | Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“A man,’ as one of them observed to me once, ‘is so in the way in the house!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford

“I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor, and had some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face. ”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford