There were some questions at Wednesday's rehearsal about the gypsies in St. Ogg's, and how much Maggie and the others might know about them (in addition to some wondering about where gypsies come from, anyway). Here's some great info on gypsies in Victorian Britain, and their historical origins. Enjoy!
--Anthea (asst. 'turg)
The Gypsies in Britain
The Gypsies have been important to the folk song tradition, both as carriers of songs and tunes and as main characters in the many variants of 'The Gypsy Laddies'. This article was put together from several sources.
As their name suggests, Gypsies were initially believed to have come from Egypt. Linguists compare Gypsy languages to historical languages; they look at words borrowed from other languages and when and where those words originally existed. It is possible to trace Gypsies back to their origin: the Sind area of India (today south central Pakistan -- the mouth of the Indus). Three separate emigrations occurred over the course of about four hundred years, traceable today in three identifiable linguistic populations: the Eastern Gypsy (Domari) in Egypt and the Middle East, the Central Gypsy (Lomavren) in Armenia and eastern Turkey, and the Western Gypsy (Romani) This last group is the population most widely dealt with in reference works and literature, and therefore most of the information here pertains to them.
The Gypsies' ancestors made their earliest official appearance in Europe, in modern-day Turkey, to around AD 855. By the 1300s, their migration had entered southeastern Europe; by the 1400s, western Europe. Finally, in the early 1500s, the Gypsies reached the British Isles. But the prejudices against Gypsies soon became manifest. The first anti-Gypsy Act in England was passed in 1530, just twenty-five years after the Gypsies' arrival there. The Act's intention was to rid the country of all Gypsies by banning further immigration and requiring the Gypsies already living in England to leave or suffer confiscation of their goods, imprisonment, and execution as felons. There are reports of deportations throughout the sixteenth century and of executions as late as the seventeenth century. In 1783, all existing laws directed specifically at Gypsies were repealed, but the discriminatory treatment continued in the form of new laws. Throughout the nineteenth century the various Poor Law, Vagrancy, Hawkers, Highways, Health, Housing and Education Acts resulted in Gypsies, and other nomads, being prosecuted (or threatened with prosecution) for such offences as setting fires, damaging grass by camping, possessing a dog without a licence or collar, fortune-telling, taking sticks and ferns without permission, damaging crops, and begging.
The Gypsies are a race of nomads. The Gypsies of nineteenth-century England travelled the countryside, carrying all their belongings in covered wagons and pitching tents wherever they stopped. For Gypsies, travelling is not a pastime or leisure activity, but a way of life. In fact, a common belief of the latter part of the nineteenth century suggested that the inclination to travel, called "wanderlust," was a product of genetic determinants. This view was the basis for the claim that "it was as natural for [the Gypsies] to move as it was for the majority of the population to stay in one place". Another argument of this time period was that itinerancy resulted from socialisation to a travelling way of life. Therefore, "being raised as a nomad and being accustomed to the rigours of travelling from an early age would undoubtedly have increased the likelihood of inter-generational itinerancy". Whatever its source, the Gypsies' itinerant lifestyle naturally made it necessary that their occupations involve mobility. It was in the economic sphere, then, that Gypsies interacted with settled society.
Both in the nineteenth century and today, Gypsies have played an important economic role in society. In nineteenth-century England, they made their living primarily by hawking (selling small homemade goods) and tinkering (repairing pots and pans). In this way, Gypsies filled the small-scale and irregular demands for goods and services in the non-Gypsy population. Gypsies also met the high demand for seasonal employment on farms. During the late summer and early autumn, Gypsies harvested fruits and vegetables. This kind of employment was "plentiful, regular, and temporary" and thus perfectly suited to the Gypsy lifestyle. They also followed a diverse number of other trades, such as chair-bottoming, basket-making, rat-catching, wire-working, grinding, fiddling, selling fruit, fish, and earthenware, and mending bellows. However, the Gypsy lifestyle was not all work and no play.
Aside from these labour-oriented functions, another activity in which the Gypsies have participated is entertaining. They danced, sang, and played musical instruments. However, the form of entertainment for which the Gypsies are perhaps the best known is fortune-telling. Taking advantage of the superstitious belief that they possessed magical powers which enabled them to see into the future, Gypsy women sold fortunes at fairs and made considerable profits. They read palms and tarot cards, and cast charms and spells. In nineteenth-century England, fortune-telling was the equivalent of the modern-day horoscope and taken as seriously by many. Others who considered fortune-telling foolish and unrealistic dismissed it as an easy way for the Gypsies to make money. However, fortune-telling was an important part of Gypsy tradition. While there were undoubtedly many imposters, some Gypsy women firmly believed in their abilities to see into the future. And, as Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald notes, "it must be remembered that deceit and imposture alone would never have built up and supported a practice that has withstood the passage of centuries and the constant attacks of progress. There must also be some truth".
Despite the important role Gypsies played in the nineteenth-century, they were not automatically accepted as equals in society. In fact, from the moment they set foot on European soil, the Gypsies were misunderstood and even feared. These feelings became manifest in prejudices, which led to discriminatory actions. At the same time, however, Victorian society found itself fascinated with these strange Gypsies. There was an ambiguous attitude in Victorian society toward Gypsies.
The Victorians' initial impression of the Gypsies was not a favourable one. At first, the prejudices against Gypsies had obvious sources. Settled society has always had a fear of foreigners, so naturally, "the earliest response to the 'Egyptian' immigrants was rooted, generally, in a xenophobic fear and mistrust of aliens". Besides being mistrusted as foreigners, the Gypsies fell victim to racial prejudice because of the colour of their skin. Even long before the nineteenth-century, "the conviction that blackness denotes inferiority was already well-rooted in the Western mind. The nearly black skins of many Gypsies marked them out to be victims of this prejudice".
The Gypsies also faced prejudices about their way of life. The Gypsies' travelling lifestyle aroused suspicion because of the common belief that "itinerancy served merely as a cloak for a deviant range of predatory, parasitic, and criminal activities". People were distrustful of Gypsies simply because they moved around a lot. Accompanying this mistrust was "a belief in the superiority of the settled over the nomadic culture and the incompatibility between the two" Nineteenth-century England was the perfect breeding-ground for this notion. As society became more industrialised, the population moved out of the untamed countryside and into the cities. While the rest of society settled down in permanent residences in the cities, the Gypsies continued their nomadic existence in what was now viewed as the wilderness. Thus, in contrast to the new ways of civilised, industrial society, the Gypsies' culture was seen as backward and primitive. As people became more settled, they began to feel that their way of life was normal. The presence of the wandering Gypsies challenged this, and caused many people to view them negatively because they were different.
The fortune-telling issue was also a source for suspicions about the Gypsies. Fortune-telling has always been associated with pagan ideas, so the presence of Gypsy fortune-tellers in a Victorian society dominated by the Church obviously caused a commotion. Added to the problem was the fact that the Gypsies "failed to practice with any conviction one or the other of the prevalent religions". Due to this apparent lack of religion, much of society in general thought Gypsies "to be inflicting their magical and devilish practices on an innocent, Christian society"
Victorian society was very hypocritical towards the Gypsies. As George K. Behlmer says, "precisely because the Gypsies stood apart from the mainstream of urban-industrial life, they held a special fascination for the critics of that life. What appeared to be a characteristic restlessness among Gypsies therefore evoked both romantic praise and systematic harassment during the last third of the nineteenth century". At the same time that the Gypsies were being discriminated against, they were also being romanticised. Some people in the crowded cities of the newly-industrialised society missed the simplicity of life in the country and were attracted to the free lifestyle of the Gypsies.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Rehearsals 1 & 2 PLUS a whole lotta in between
I suffer from the guilt of when I used to keep a diary and nearly every entry began, "it's been too long since I last wrote..."
Here's a brief update so that the wonderful details can begin.
After three attempts, today the scenic budget passed and we have a design about the go into build!
Two weeks ago, the BIG STRUGGLE was a scheduling error in which the rehearsal process as exact one week short of what a play of this size in this community and with this amount of support should have. I met with advisors, gathered support of the most affected actors, met with acting faculty who generously backed me up, did a ton of research and went into the Head;s office with a plan for an earlier start. After about a week of what I will plainly call suffering, we got the week. And so, that is why, on October 22nd, we are in our 2nd rehearsal.
The BIG PROBLEM last week was the scenic budget. Sometimes the first idea is the best idea, and in the design's case it was this amazing idea of the floor rising up when the flood came. This seemingly easy task of using a drop-cloth on the floor, and the actors lifting up the fabric, cost over a thousand dollars. That's sometimes the absurdity of what we do. I would NEVER spend a thousand dollars (in contrast to the rest of the budget) on a big piece of muslin, but labor and hours and money and space all collide and made this idea IMPOSSIBLE. And so, last weekend, Brian and I met for hours and hours to redesign. But what helped most was going to back to the WHAT. We knew exactly what this world was made of and what the flood meant, and so, there are many ways of accomplishing the HOW. Here's what was important about the flood:ecent conversations, I have done A LOT of thinking about what's most important. I think I have to remind myself and the team that when it all boils down, the story is what matters and we can tell that story even in a bare space. We have had a beautiful process, where the design has landed is quite remarkable, and now it has to undergo some "renovations."
So, here is what was most important to me as written in an email to Brian:
The environment is natural and full of life, there is movement and flow and the audience is within it.
The world is from Maggie's point of view= feminine, strong, imaginative, ritualistic and imaginative.
Things during the play I really want to work with:
spilling of flour, cleaning it up, and following through to the final image.
swinging in the bucket over the "water"
flour=water (tea party, head in bucket)
dolls= one is lucy, one is dad, one is definitely the witch, maybe one is maggie
cellist
wheelbarrow as bed, as boat? as actual wheelbarrow
for the flood: we can rethink the floor rising if absolutely necessary. But, I do want the image to be something that we are able to see Maggie make the choice to go into (drown), perhaps its a huge hoop skirt that comes out in Lucy's house, and follows through the water scenes to the end. She can pull it up herself. perhaps it's a huge pile of flour that lands over(around). I want to make sure it can seem like the others are trying to save her. Parachute, hammock... the list can go on. And there's always yarn.
_________________________________
And so the design team met again the next night at my place for a meeting to really discuss these changes... change is much more difficult than new. Tensions ran higher than usual due to this change and oncoming rehearsal in a couple of days. As for me, I am going back to enjoying the calm before the storm.
________________________________
1st rehearsal notes coming. (getting a bit of distance first)
Design Presentations were outstanding. The designers must post their notes!
2nd rehearsal: Dialect work, hid-and-seek, dramaturgica question and answer, beginning of read-thru with heart-rate monitor drawn in.
Here's a brief update so that the wonderful details can begin.
After three attempts, today the scenic budget passed and we have a design about the go into build!
Two weeks ago, the BIG STRUGGLE was a scheduling error in which the rehearsal process as exact one week short of what a play of this size in this community and with this amount of support should have. I met with advisors, gathered support of the most affected actors, met with acting faculty who generously backed me up, did a ton of research and went into the Head;s office with a plan for an earlier start. After about a week of what I will plainly call suffering, we got the week. And so, that is why, on October 22nd, we are in our 2nd rehearsal.
The BIG PROBLEM last week was the scenic budget. Sometimes the first idea is the best idea, and in the design's case it was this amazing idea of the floor rising up when the flood came. This seemingly easy task of using a drop-cloth on the floor, and the actors lifting up the fabric, cost over a thousand dollars. That's sometimes the absurdity of what we do. I would NEVER spend a thousand dollars (in contrast to the rest of the budget) on a big piece of muslin, but labor and hours and money and space all collide and made this idea IMPOSSIBLE. And so, last weekend, Brian and I met for hours and hours to redesign. But what helped most was going to back to the WHAT. We knew exactly what this world was made of and what the flood meant, and so, there are many ways of accomplishing the HOW. Here's what was important about the flood:ecent conversations, I have done A LOT of thinking about what's most important. I think I have to remind myself and the team that when it all boils down, the story is what matters and we can tell that story even in a bare space. We have had a beautiful process, where the design has landed is quite remarkable, and now it has to undergo some "renovations."
So, here is what was most important to me as written in an email to Brian:
The environment is natural and full of life, there is movement and flow and the audience is within it.
The world is from Maggie's point of view= feminine, strong, imaginative, ritualistic and imaginative.
Things during the play I really want to work with:
spilling of flour, cleaning it up, and following through to the final image.
swinging in the bucket over the "water"
flour=water (tea party, head in bucket)
dolls= one is lucy, one is dad, one is definitely the witch, maybe one is maggie
cellist
wheelbarrow as bed, as boat? as actual wheelbarrow
for the flood: we can rethink the floor rising if absolutely necessary. But, I do want the image to be something that we are able to see Maggie make the choice to go into (drown), perhaps its a huge hoop skirt that comes out in Lucy's house, and follows through the water scenes to the end. She can pull it up herself. perhaps it's a huge pile of flour that lands over(around). I want to make sure it can seem like the others are trying to save her. Parachute, hammock... the list can go on. And there's always yarn.
_________________________________
And so the design team met again the next night at my place for a meeting to really discuss these changes... change is much more difficult than new. Tensions ran higher than usual due to this change and oncoming rehearsal in a couple of days. As for me, I am going back to enjoying the calm before the storm.
________________________________
1st rehearsal notes coming. (getting a bit of distance first)
Design Presentations were outstanding. The designers must post their notes!
2nd rehearsal: Dialect work, hid-and-seek, dramaturgica question and answer, beginning of read-thru with heart-rate monitor drawn in.
Religion on the Floss
From Book 4: THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION
Chapter 30: A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet
Perhaps something akin to this oppressive feeling may have weighed upon you in watching this old-fashioned family life on the banks of the Floss, which even sorrow hardly suffices to lift above the level of the tragi-comic. It is a sordid life, you say, this of the Tullivers and Dodsons, irradiated by no sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith; moved by none of those wild, uncontrollable passions which create the dark shadows of misery and crime; without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants, that hard, submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of what nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life. Here one has conventional worldly notions and habits without instruction and without polish, surely the most prosaic form of human life; proud respectability in a gig of unfashionable build; worldliness without side-dishes. Observing these people narrowly, even when the iron hand of misfortune has shaken them from their unquestioning hold on the world, one sees little trace of religion, still less of a distinctively Christian creed. Their belief in the Unseen, so far as it manifests itself at all, seems to be rather a pagan kind; their moral notions, though held with strong tenacity, seem to have no standard beyond hereditary custom. You could not live among such people; you are stifled for want of an outlet toward something beautiful, great, or noble; you are irritated with these dull men and women, as a kind of population out of keeping with the earth on which they live,—with this rich plain where the great river flows forever onward, and links the small pulse of the old English town with the beatings of the world's mighty heart. A vigorous superstition, that lashes its gods or lashes its own back, seems to be more congruous with the mystery of the human lot, than the mental condition of these emmet-like Dodsons and Tullivers.
I share with you this sense of oppressive narrowness; but it is necessary that we should feel it, if we care to understand how it acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie,—how it has acted on young natures in many generations, that in the onward tendency of human things have risen above the mental level of the generation before them, to which they have been nevertheless tied by the strongest fibres of their hearts. The suffering, whether of martyr or victim, which belongs to every historical advance of mankind, is represented in this way in every town, and by hundreds of obscure hearths; and we need not shrink from this comparison of small things with great; for does not science tell us that its highest striving is after the ascertainment of a unity which shall bind the smallest things with the greatest? In natural science, I have understood, there is nothing petty to the mind that has a large vision of relations, and to which every single object suggests a vast sum of conditions. It is surely the same with the observation of human life.
Certainly the religious and moral ideas of the Dodsons and Tullivers were of too specific a kind to be arrived at deductively, from the statement that they were part of the Protestant population of Great Britain. Their theory of life had its core of soundness, as all theories must have on which decent and prosperous families have been reared and have flourished; but it had the very slightest tincture of theology. If, in the maiden days of the Dodson sisters, their Bibles opened more easily at some parts than others, it was because of dried tulip-petals, which had been distributed quite impartially, without preference for the historical, devotional, or doctrinal. Their religion was of a simple, semi-pagan kind, but there was no heresy in it,—if heresy properly means choice,—for they didn't know there was any other religion, except that of chapel-goers, which appeared to run in families, like asthma. How should they know? The vicar of their pleasant rural parish was not a controversialist, but a good hand at whist, and one who had a joke always ready for a blooming female parishioner. The religion of the Dodsons consisted in revering whatever was customary and respectable; it was necessary to be baptized, else one could not be buried in the church-yard, and to take the sacrament before death, as a security against more dimly understood perils; but it was of equal necessity to have the proper pall-bearers and well-cured hams at one's funeral, and to leave an unimpeachable will. A Dodson would not be taxed with the omission of anything that was becoming, or that belonged to that eternal fitness of things which was plainly indicated in the practice of the most substantial parishioners, and in the family traditions,—such as obedience to parents, faithfulness to kindred, industry, rigid honesty, thrift, the thorough scouring of wooden and copper utensils, the hoarding of coins likely to disappear from the currency, the production of first-rate commodities for the market, and the general preference of whatever was home-made. The Dodsons were a very proud race, and their pride lay in the utter frustration of all desire to tax them with a breach of traditional duty or propriety. A wholesome pride in many respects, since it identified honor with perfect integrity, thoroughness of work, and faithfulness to admitted rules; and society owes some worthy qualities in many of her members to mothers of the Dodson class, who made their butter and their fromenty well, and would have felt disgraced to make it otherwise. To be honest and poor was never a Dodson motto, still less to seem rich though being poor; rather, the family badge was to be honest and rich, and not only rich, but richer than was supposed. To live respected, and have the proper bearers at your funeral, was an achievement of the ends of existence that would be entirely nullified if, on the reading of your will, you sank in the opinion of your fellow-men, either by turning out to be poorer than they expected, or by leaving your money in a capricious manner, without strict regard to degrees of kin. The right thing must always be done toward kindred. The right thing was to correct them severely, if they were other than a credit to the family, but still not to alienate from them the smallest rightful share in the family shoebuckles and other property. A conspicuous quality in the Dodson character was its genuineness; its vices and virtues alike were phases of a proud honest egoism, which had a hearty dislike to whatever made against its own credit and interest, and would be frankly hard of speech to inconvenient “kin,” but would never forsake or ignore them,—would not let them want bread, but only require them to eat it with bitter herbs.
The same sort of traditional belief ran in the Tulliver veins, but it was carried in richer blood, having elements of generous imprudence, warm affection, and hot-tempered rashness. Mr. Tulliver's grandfather had been heard to say that he was descended from one Ralph Tulliver, a wonderfully clever fellow, who had ruined himself. It is likely enough that the clever Ralph was a high liver, rode spirited horses, and was very decidedly of his own opinion. On the other hand, nobody had ever heard of a Dodson who had ruined himself; it was not the way of that family.
If such were the views of life on which the Dodsons and Tullivers had been reared in the praiseworthy past of Pitt and high prices, you will infer from what you already know concerning the state of society in St. Ogg's, that there had been no highly modifying influence to act on them in their maturer life. It was still possible, even in that later time of anti-Catholic preaching, for people to hold many pagan ideas, and believe themselves good church-people, notwithstanding; so we need hardly feel any surprise at the fact that Mr. Tulliver, though a regular church-goer, recorded his vindictiveness on the fly-leaf of his Bible. It was not that any harm could be said concerning the vicar of that charming rural parish to which Dorlcote Mill belonged; he was a man of excellent family, an irreproachable bachelor, of elegant pursuits,—had taken honors, and held a fellowship. Mr. Tulliver regarded him with dutiful respect, as he did everything else belonging to the church-service; but he considered that church was one thing and common-sense another, and he wanted nobody to tell him what commonsense was. Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for themselves under unfavorable circumstances have been supplied by nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that they will get a hold on very unreceptive surfaces. The spiritual seed which had been scattered over Mr. Tulliver had apparently been destitute of any corresponding provision, and had slipped off to the winds again, from a total absence of hooks.
Chapter 30: A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet
Perhaps something akin to this oppressive feeling may have weighed upon you in watching this old-fashioned family life on the banks of the Floss, which even sorrow hardly suffices to lift above the level of the tragi-comic. It is a sordid life, you say, this of the Tullivers and Dodsons, irradiated by no sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith; moved by none of those wild, uncontrollable passions which create the dark shadows of misery and crime; without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants, that hard, submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of what nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life. Here one has conventional worldly notions and habits without instruction and without polish, surely the most prosaic form of human life; proud respectability in a gig of unfashionable build; worldliness without side-dishes. Observing these people narrowly, even when the iron hand of misfortune has shaken them from their unquestioning hold on the world, one sees little trace of religion, still less of a distinctively Christian creed. Their belief in the Unseen, so far as it manifests itself at all, seems to be rather a pagan kind; their moral notions, though held with strong tenacity, seem to have no standard beyond hereditary custom. You could not live among such people; you are stifled for want of an outlet toward something beautiful, great, or noble; you are irritated with these dull men and women, as a kind of population out of keeping with the earth on which they live,—with this rich plain where the great river flows forever onward, and links the small pulse of the old English town with the beatings of the world's mighty heart. A vigorous superstition, that lashes its gods or lashes its own back, seems to be more congruous with the mystery of the human lot, than the mental condition of these emmet-like Dodsons and Tullivers.
I share with you this sense of oppressive narrowness; but it is necessary that we should feel it, if we care to understand how it acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie,—how it has acted on young natures in many generations, that in the onward tendency of human things have risen above the mental level of the generation before them, to which they have been nevertheless tied by the strongest fibres of their hearts. The suffering, whether of martyr or victim, which belongs to every historical advance of mankind, is represented in this way in every town, and by hundreds of obscure hearths; and we need not shrink from this comparison of small things with great; for does not science tell us that its highest striving is after the ascertainment of a unity which shall bind the smallest things with the greatest? In natural science, I have understood, there is nothing petty to the mind that has a large vision of relations, and to which every single object suggests a vast sum of conditions. It is surely the same with the observation of human life.
Certainly the religious and moral ideas of the Dodsons and Tullivers were of too specific a kind to be arrived at deductively, from the statement that they were part of the Protestant population of Great Britain. Their theory of life had its core of soundness, as all theories must have on which decent and prosperous families have been reared and have flourished; but it had the very slightest tincture of theology. If, in the maiden days of the Dodson sisters, their Bibles opened more easily at some parts than others, it was because of dried tulip-petals, which had been distributed quite impartially, without preference for the historical, devotional, or doctrinal. Their religion was of a simple, semi-pagan kind, but there was no heresy in it,—if heresy properly means choice,—for they didn't know there was any other religion, except that of chapel-goers, which appeared to run in families, like asthma. How should they know? The vicar of their pleasant rural parish was not a controversialist, but a good hand at whist, and one who had a joke always ready for a blooming female parishioner. The religion of the Dodsons consisted in revering whatever was customary and respectable; it was necessary to be baptized, else one could not be buried in the church-yard, and to take the sacrament before death, as a security against more dimly understood perils; but it was of equal necessity to have the proper pall-bearers and well-cured hams at one's funeral, and to leave an unimpeachable will. A Dodson would not be taxed with the omission of anything that was becoming, or that belonged to that eternal fitness of things which was plainly indicated in the practice of the most substantial parishioners, and in the family traditions,—such as obedience to parents, faithfulness to kindred, industry, rigid honesty, thrift, the thorough scouring of wooden and copper utensils, the hoarding of coins likely to disappear from the currency, the production of first-rate commodities for the market, and the general preference of whatever was home-made. The Dodsons were a very proud race, and their pride lay in the utter frustration of all desire to tax them with a breach of traditional duty or propriety. A wholesome pride in many respects, since it identified honor with perfect integrity, thoroughness of work, and faithfulness to admitted rules; and society owes some worthy qualities in many of her members to mothers of the Dodson class, who made their butter and their fromenty well, and would have felt disgraced to make it otherwise. To be honest and poor was never a Dodson motto, still less to seem rich though being poor; rather, the family badge was to be honest and rich, and not only rich, but richer than was supposed. To live respected, and have the proper bearers at your funeral, was an achievement of the ends of existence that would be entirely nullified if, on the reading of your will, you sank in the opinion of your fellow-men, either by turning out to be poorer than they expected, or by leaving your money in a capricious manner, without strict regard to degrees of kin. The right thing must always be done toward kindred. The right thing was to correct them severely, if they were other than a credit to the family, but still not to alienate from them the smallest rightful share in the family shoebuckles and other property. A conspicuous quality in the Dodson character was its genuineness; its vices and virtues alike were phases of a proud honest egoism, which had a hearty dislike to whatever made against its own credit and interest, and would be frankly hard of speech to inconvenient “kin,” but would never forsake or ignore them,—would not let them want bread, but only require them to eat it with bitter herbs.
The same sort of traditional belief ran in the Tulliver veins, but it was carried in richer blood, having elements of generous imprudence, warm affection, and hot-tempered rashness. Mr. Tulliver's grandfather had been heard to say that he was descended from one Ralph Tulliver, a wonderfully clever fellow, who had ruined himself. It is likely enough that the clever Ralph was a high liver, rode spirited horses, and was very decidedly of his own opinion. On the other hand, nobody had ever heard of a Dodson who had ruined himself; it was not the way of that family.
If such were the views of life on which the Dodsons and Tullivers had been reared in the praiseworthy past of Pitt and high prices, you will infer from what you already know concerning the state of society in St. Ogg's, that there had been no highly modifying influence to act on them in their maturer life. It was still possible, even in that later time of anti-Catholic preaching, for people to hold many pagan ideas, and believe themselves good church-people, notwithstanding; so we need hardly feel any surprise at the fact that Mr. Tulliver, though a regular church-goer, recorded his vindictiveness on the fly-leaf of his Bible. It was not that any harm could be said concerning the vicar of that charming rural parish to which Dorlcote Mill belonged; he was a man of excellent family, an irreproachable bachelor, of elegant pursuits,—had taken honors, and held a fellowship. Mr. Tulliver regarded him with dutiful respect, as he did everything else belonging to the church-service; but he considered that church was one thing and common-sense another, and he wanted nobody to tell him what commonsense was. Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for themselves under unfavorable circumstances have been supplied by nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that they will get a hold on very unreceptive surfaces. The spiritual seed which had been scattered over Mr. Tulliver had apparently been destitute of any corresponding provision, and had slipped off to the winds again, from a total absence of hooks.
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A gift from Maggie One
Through the eyes of a nine-year-old
Images of the Maggie's world
