North & South discussion

Alas! If only Gaskell had been able to finish this beautiful work of literature. Fortunately, we know exactly where things were headed with the very last chapter. It was only a matter of details. (But the details in Gaskell's hand in resolving this final romantic relationship would have been so wonderful to read!)

Whew what a roller coaster ride! Poor Molly and poor Roger. Molly and Roger are the only two characters perfectly suited to each other. They're both noble and good and live up to Mr. Gibson's high standards. I don't see Gibson allowing Molly to marry anyone else except a man of character. I loved Roger's goodbye scene. It was very cute.

Cynthia seems happy with her match. If she can't love him, he loves her enough for both of them and he'll shower her with all money can buy.

Of course the Squire overcame his pride and his prejudices for the sake of his grandson. He reminds me of my dad with his 2 year old grandson but goodness who ever would think cigars and strong ale are good for a child?! He also has to overcome his prejudices against the upper class and his lack of belief in his younger son. The Hamleys never thought much of Roger and he turns out to be a great success. There's certainly a message there and I like how Gaskell doesn't spell it out and hit you on the head with it but allows her characters to slowly change and grow over time to accept change.

Leave it to Lady Cumnor to add some humor to the narrative. She too has to change and come off her high horse and act more like her affable husband.

It's so awful that Hyacinth gets in the last word! These chapters feel a little rushed and I can't see the story concluded in just one more chapter. I'm glad everything comes out well enough and we are left with Gaskell's plan for the happy ending.

I loved this book for the quality of the story and the characters.

I loved discussing it and reading all of your comments too.

Trudy is a stellar leader of discussion.

Thank you Trudy and thanks to all for permitting my participation!

I couldn't believe Hyacinth voiced her thoughts out loud regarding the Hamley succession. "Poor little child! When one thinks how little his prolonged existence is to be desired, one feels that his death would be a boon." . . . I should have thought that the Squire would have desired a better-born heir than the offspring of a servant,—with all his ideas about descent and blood and family. And I should have thought that it was a little mortifying to Roger—who must naturally have looked upon himself as his brother's heir—to find a little interloping child, half French, half English, stepping into his shoes!"

It's a credit to Molly that she actually refutes Hyacinth's statement and backed up by Mr. Gibson. Hyacinth can't twist this one to her favor.

Trudy wrote: "Alas! If only Gaskell had been able to finish this beautiful work of literature. Fortunately, we know exactly where things were headed with the very last chapter. It was only a matter of details. (But the details in Gaskell's hand in resolving this final romantic relationship would have been so wonderful to read!)"

Chapter 55 – 60

I agree with you Trudy, I would like very much to be able to read the actual end of the story as written by its author! I have less to say now that everything has started to resolve itself but it keeps you just as riveted with their happiness as with all the misery.

The characters are very believable, I love how Lady Cuxhaven gives Cynthia advice on marital obedience totally in defiance of her own behaviour and approach to marriage.
It seems very hard that Molly is excluded from Cynthia’s wedding but once again Lady Harriet steps in to make things better for her.

I can’t help loving Mr Gibson’s sense of humour - ‘I declare I don’t know which of her three lovers she may not summon at the very last moment to act the part of bridegroom. I’m determined to be surprised at nothing; and will give her away with a good grace to whoever comes.’

Do you think we would have seen Lady Harriet marry Sir Charles?

I note from the description of Mrs Gaskell’s intention for the story, the ending of the mini-series is actually wrong, I think that’s a shame, but then I like their ending too.

Yes, Roger goes to Africa. But only for six months. I wonder, though, what opportunities would have opened up for Roger on his return. I don't think it would have taken lomg for he and Molly to settle upon marriage. But then he would have to give up his fellowship. What would Gaskell have had happen next for him to advance his career in science and keep up Hamley Hall?

I like the twists and turns Gaskell takes to let things unfold. It was somewhat sad Molly couldn't go to the wedding, but because she stayed back, she had that opportunity to shine at Cumnors' with Roger as a guest of honor.

Roger seems to realize Molly is the girl for him almost at once. His annoyance over seeing her talk with other men, etc. was adorable! ;)

When Lady Harriet took measures for Molly to not look like a wallflower, but instead as a young lady attractive to men, I had hoped Roger would see her in a different light, and he did.

Trudy wrote: "Yes, Roger goes to Africa. But only for six months. I wonder, though, what opportunities would have opened up for Roger on his return. I don't think it would have taken lomg for he and Molly to set..."

The details I couldn't guess at, but it says,

"he becomes professor at some great scientific institution, and wins his way in the world handsomely." and after, that they live in London.

So I think he does well ;)

Where did you get that quote about Roger becoming a professor?! I don't find anything like that in my book's endnotes.

I had those notes at the end about Roger becoming a professor. These notes also said that Gibson made frequent visits to Lindon to see Roger and Molly.

I downloaded from project Gutenberg.

HERE the story is broken off, and it can never be finished. What promised to be the crowning work of a life is a memorial of death. A few days longer, and it would have been a triumphal column, crowned with a capital of festal leaves and flowers: now it is another sort of column— one of those sad white pillars which stand broken in the churchyard. But if the work is not quite complete, little remains to be added to it, and that little has been distinctly reflected into our minds.
We know that Roger Hamley will marry Molly, and that is what we are most concerned about. Indeed, there was little else to tell. Had the writer lived, she would have sent her hero back to Africa forthwith; and those scientific parts of Africa are a long way from Hamley; and there is not much to choose between a long distance and a long time. How many hours are there in twenty-four when you are all alone in a desert place, a thousand miles from the happiness which might be yours to take— if you were there to take it? How many, when from the sources of the Topinambo your heart flies back ten times a day, like a carrier-pigeon, to the one only source of future good for you, and ten times a day returns with its message undelivered? Many more than are counted on the calendar. So Roger found. The days were weeks that separated him from the time when Molly gave him a certain little flower, and months from the time which divorced him from Cynthia, whom he had begun to doubt before he knew for certain that she was never much worth hoping for. And if such were his days, what was the slow procession of actual weeks and months in those remote and solitary places? They were like years of a stay-at-home life, with liberty and leisure to see that nobody was courting Molly meanwhile. The effect of this was, that long before the term of his engagement was ended all that Cynthia had been to him was departed from Roger’s mind, and all that Molly was and might be to him filled it full. He returned; but when he saw Molly again he remembered that to her the time of his absence might not have seemed so long, and was oppressed with the old dread that she would think him fickle. Therefore this young gentleman, so self-reliant and so lucid in scientific matters, found it difficult after all to tell Molly how much he hoped she loved him; and might have blundered if he had not thought of beginning by showing her the flower that was plucked from the nosegay. How charmingly that scene would have been drawn, had Mrs Gaskell lived to depict it, we can only imagine: that it would have been charming— especially in what Molly did, and looked, and said— we know.
Roger and Molly are married; and if one of them is happier than the other, it is Molly. Her husband has no need to draw upon the little fortune which is to go to poor Osborne’s boy, for he becomes professor at some great scientific institution, and wins his way in the world handsomely. The squire is almost as happy in this marriage as his son. If any one suffers for it, it is Mr Gibson. But he takes a partner, so as to get a chance of running up to London to stay with Molly for a few days now and then, and ‘to get a little rest from Mrs Gibson.’ Of what was to happen to Cynthia after her marriage the author was not heard to say much, and, indeed, it does not seem that anything needs to be added. One little anecdote, however, was told of her by Mrs Gaskell, which is very characteristic. One day, when Cynthia and her husband were on a visit to Hollingford, Mr Henderson learned for the first time, through an innocent casual remark of Mr Gibson’s, that the famous traveller, Roger Hamley, was known to the family. Cynthia had never happened to mention it. How well that little incident, too, would have been described!
Gaskell’s own remarks suggest either that she expected to finish with the January 1866 episode (in which the last chapter appeared) or at latest with February’s. A. W. Ward (Knutsford edition, 1906) refers to a ‘fleeting notion’ of hers of leaving ‘Molly and Roger’s love-story (for, of course, that has to come round)’ to another novel; but he concludes that the story was approaching its actual close

Gaskell, Elizabeth (1987-11-19). Wives and Daughters (Oxford World's Classics) (Kindle Locations 11875-11879). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

It says pretty much the same in the audible version so I assumed it was in everyone's copy... though it goes on much longer that what I have copied here it is about Mrs Gaskell after that rather than the book. I also included one of the foot notes at the end.