The Complete Elizabeth Gaskell Collection Quotes

“Well, well, I call her ‘little’ because her mother’s name is Mary. But, as I was saying, she takes Mary in a coaxing sort of way, and ‘Mary,’ says she, ‘what should you think if I sent for you some day and made a lady of you?’ So I could not stand such talk as that to my girl, and I said, ‘Thou’d best not put that nonsense i’ the girl’s head I can tell thee; I’d rather see her earning her bread by the sweat of brow, as the Bible tells her she should do, ay, though she never got butter to her bread, than be like a do-nothing lady, worrying shopmen all morning, and screeching at her pianny all afternoon, and going to bed without having done a good turn to any one of God’s creatures but herself.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“Tobacco and drink deaden the pangs of hunger, and make one forget the miserable home, the desolate future. They”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“They forgot that the strike was in this instance the consequence of want and need, suffered unjustly, as the endurers believed; for, however insane, and without ground of reason, such was their belief, and such was the cause of their violence. It is a great truth that you cannot extinguish violence by violence. You may put it down for a time; but while you are crowing over your imaginary success, see if it does not return with seven devils worse than its former self! No”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“The wife slept on, only roused by the cry of her child now and then, which seemed to have power over her, when far louder noises failed to disturb her.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“yet he felt the contrast between the well-filled, well-lighted shops and the dim gloomy cellar, and it made him moody that such contrasts should exist. They are the mysterious problem of life to more than him. He wondered if any in all the hurrying crowd had come from such a house of mourning. He thought they all looked joyous, and he was angry with them. But he could not, you cannot, read the lot of those who daily pass you by in the street. How do you know the wild romances of their lives; the trials, the temptations they are even now enduring, resisting, sinking under? You may be elbowed one instant by the girl desperate in her abandonment, laughing in mad merriment with her outward gesture, while her soul is longing for the rest of the dead, and bringing itself to think of the cold flowing river as the only mercy of God remaining to her here. You may pass the criminal, meditating crimes at which you will to-morrow shudder with horror as you read them. You may push against one, humble and unnoticed, the last upon earth, who in heaven will for ever be in the immediate light of God’s countenance. Errands of mercy — errands of sin”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“So he strode, and ran, and hurried home. He emptied into the ever-useful pocket-handkerchief the little meal remaining in the mug. Mary would have her tea at Miss Simmonds’; her food for the day was safe. Then he went upstairs for his better coat, and his one, gay red-and-yellow silk pocket-handkerchief — his jewels, his plate, his valuables, these were. He went to the pawn-shop; he pawned them for five shillings; he stopped not, nor stayed, till he was once more in London Road, within five minutes’ walk of Berry Street — then he loitered in his gait, in order to discover the shops he wanted. He bought meat, and a loaf of bread, candles, chips, and from a little retail yard he purchased a couple of hundredweights of coal. Some money still remained — all destined for them, but he did not yet know how best to spend it. Food, light, and warmth, he had instantly seen were necessary; for luxuries he would wait. Wilson’s eyes filled with tears when he saw Barton enter with his purchases. He understood it all, and longed to be once more in work that he might help in some of these material ways, without feeling that he was using his son’s money.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“As they passed, women from their doors tossed household slops of EVERY description into the gutter; they ran into the next pool, which overflowed and stagnated. Heaps of ashes were the stepping-stones, on which the passer-by, who cared in the least for cleanliness, took care not to put his foot. Our friends were not dainty, but even they picked their way, till they got to some steps leading down to a small area, where a person standing would have his head about one foot below the level of the street, and might at the same time, without the least motion of his body, touch the window of the cellar and the damp muddy wall right opposite. You went down one step even from the foul area into the cellar in which a family of human beings lived. It was very dark inside. The window-panes, many of them, were broken and stuffed with rags, which was reason enough for the dusky light that pervaded the place even at midday. After the account I have given of the state of the street, no one can be surprised that on going into the cellar inhabited by Davenport, the smell was so foetid”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“She lay with her face to the wall, muttering low, but muttering always: Alas! alas! what is done in youth can never be undone in age! what is done in youth can never be undone in age!”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“Marry!” said Miss Pole, with the decision that belonged to her character.  “I said marry! as you do; and I also said, ‘What a fool my lady is going to make of herself!’  I could have said ‘Madness!’ but I controlled myself, for it was in a public shop that I heard of it.  Where feminine delicacy is gone to, I don’t know!  You and I, Miss Matty, would have been ashamed to have known that our marriage was spoken of in a grocer’s shop, in the hearing of shopmen”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“But all this is nonsense, dear! only don’t be frightened by Miss Pole from being married.  I can fancy it may be a very happy state, and 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, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“And so it was in everything.  Miss Jenkyns’s rules were made more stringent than ever, because the framer of them was gone where there could be no appeal.  In”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“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.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“if she had not been assisted in private by her mistress, who now 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, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“if he dies, why, perhaps, God of His mercy will take me too. The grave is a sure cure for an aching heart!” She sank back in her chair, quite exhausted by the sudden effort she had made; but if they even offered to speak, she cut them short (whatever the subject might be), with the repetition of the same words, “I shall go to Liverpool.” No more could be said, the doctor’s opinion had”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“makes me more than sad, it makes my heart burn within me, to see that folk can make a jest of striving men; of chaps who comed to ask for a bit o’ fire for th’ old granny, as shivers i’ th’ cold; for a bit o’ bedding, and some warm clothing to the poor wife who lies in labour on th’ damp flags; and for victuals for the childer, whose little voices are getting too faint and weak to cry aloud wi’ hunger. For, brothers, is not them the things we ask for when we ask for more wage? We donnot want dainties, we want bellyfuls; we donnot want gimcrack coats and waistcoats, we want warm clothes; and so that we get ‘em, we’d not quarrel wi’ what they’re made on. We donnot want their grand houses, we want a roof to cover us from the rain, and the snow, and the storm; ay, and not alone to cover us, but the helpless ones that cling to us in the keen wind, and ask us with their eyes why we brought ’em into th’ world to suffer?” He”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“Well!” said John Slater, after having acknowledged his nose and his likeness; “I could laugh at a jest as well as e’er the best on ‘em, though it did tell agen mysel, if I were not clemming” (his eyes filled with tears; he was a poor, pinched, sharp-featured man, with a gentle and melancholy expression of countenance), “and if I could keep from thinking of them at home, as is clemming; but with their cries for food ringing in my ears, and making me afeard of going home, and wonder if I should hear ’em wailing out, if I lay cold and drowned at th’ bottom o’ th’ canal, there — why, man, I cannot laugh at aught. It seems to make me sad that there is any as can make game on what they’ve never knowed; as can make such laughable pictures on men, whose very hearts within ’em are so raw and sore as ours were and are, God help us.” John”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“Then came a long period of bodily privation; of daily hunger after food; and though he tried to persuade himself he could bear want himself with stoical indifference, and did care about it as little as most men, yet the body took its revenge for its uneasy feelings. The mind became soured and morose, and lost much of its equipoise. It was no longer elastic, as in the days of youth, or in times of comparative happiness; it ceased to hope. And it is hard to live on when one can no longer hope. The”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“I tell you, I cannot. I could not lead a virtuous life if I would. I should only disgrace you. If you will know all,” said she, as he still seemed inclined to urge her, “I must have drink. Such as live like me could not bear life if they did not drink. It’s the only thing to keep us from suicide. If we did not drink, we could not stand the memory of what we have been, and the thought of what we are, for a day. If I go without food, and without shelter, I must have my dram. Oh! you don’t know the awful nights I have had in prison for want of it,” said she, shuddering, and glaring round with terrified eyes, as if dreading to see some spiritual creature, with dim form, near her.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“Her visit had done Mary good in many ways. It had strengthened her patience and her hope; it had given her confidence in Margaret’s sympathy; and last, and really least in comforting power (of so little value are silver and gold in comparison to love, that gift in every one’s power to bestow), came the consciousness of the money-value of the sovereign she held in her hand. The many things it might purchase! First of all came the thought of the comfortable supper for her father that very night; and acting instantly upon the idea, she set off in hopes that all the provision shops might not yet be closed, although it was so late. That”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“it’s a long lane that has no turning,” “the weariest day draws to an end,” etc., seemed false and vain sayings, so long and so weary was the pressure of the terrible times. Deeper and deeper still sank the poor. It showed how much lingering suffering it takes to kill men, that so few (in comparison) died during those times. But remember! we only miss those who do men’s work in their humble sphere; the aged, the feeble, the children, when they die, are hardly noted by the world; and yet to many hearts, their deaths make a blank which long years will never fill up. Remember, too, that though it may take much suffering to kill the able-bodied and effective members of society, it does NOT take much to reduce them to worn, listless, diseased creatures, who thenceforward crawl through life with moody hearts and pain-stricken bodies. The”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“Meanwhile, the younger Mr. Carson had ended his review, and began to listen to what was going on. He finished his breakfast, got up, and pulled five shillings out of his pocket, which he gave to Wilson as he passed him, for the “poor fellow.” He went past quickly, and calling for his horse, mounted gaily, and rode away.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“The fever” was (as it usually is in Manchester) of a low, putrid, typhoid kind; brought on by miserable living, filthy neighbourhood, and great depression of mind and body. It is virulent, malignant, and highly infectious. But the poor are fatalists with regard to infection! and well for them it is so, for in their crowded dwellings no invalid can be isolated.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“Perhaps this very evening, if it rises in my heart; perhaps never. It’s a fear that sometimes I can’t abide to think about, and sometimes I don’t like to think on anything else. Well, I was fretting about this fear, and Alice comes in for something, and finds me crying. I would not tell her no more than I would you, Mary; so she says, ‘Well, dear, you must mind this, when you’re going to fret and be low about anything — An anxious mind is never a holy mind.’ O Mary, I have so often checked my grumbling sin’* she said that.”  *Sin”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“Ay, I know she’s asked for credit at several places, saying her husband laid hands on every farthing he could get for drink. But th’ undertakers urge her on, you see, and tell her this thing’s usual, and that thing’s only a common mark of respect, and that everybody has t’other thing, till the poor woman has no will o’ her own. I dare say, too, her heart strikes her (it always does when a person’s gone) for many a word and many a slighting deed to him who’s stiff and cold; and she thinks to make up matters, as it were, by a grand funeral, though she and all her children, too, may have to pinch many a year to pay the expenses, if ever they pay them at all.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“Large houses are still occupied, while spinners’ and weavers’ cottages stand empty, because the families that once filled them are obliged to live in rooms or cellars. Carriages still roll along the streets, concerts are still crowded by subscribers, the shops for expensive luxuries still find daily customers, while the workman loiters away his unemployed time in watching these things, and thinking of the pale, uncomplaining wife at home, and the wailing children asking in vain for enough of food — of the sinking health, of the dying life of those near and dear to him. The contrast is too great. Why should he alone suffer from bad times? I know that this is not really the case; and I know what is the truth in such matters; but what I wish to impress is what the workman feels and thinks. True, that with child-like improvidence, good times will often dissipate his grumbling, and make him forget all prudence and foresight. But there are earnest men among these people, men who have endured wrongs without complaining, but without ever forgetting or forgiving those whom (they believe) have caused all this woe. Among”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

“It’s the only way working men can get their rights, by all joining together. More the members, more chance for each one separate man having justice done him.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell