Shirley by Charlotte Brontë (best books to read for teens .TXT) 📕
Description
Shirley, published in 1849, was Charlotte Brontë’s second novel after Jane Eyre. Published under her pseudonym of “Currer Bell,” it differs in several respects from that earlier work. It is written in the third person with an omniscient narrator, rather than the first-person of Jane Eyre, and incorporates the themes of industrial change and the plight of unemployed workers. It also features strong pleas for the recognition of women’s intellect and right to their independence of thought and action.
Set in the West Riding of Yorkshire during the Napoleonic period of the early 19th Century, the novel describes the confrontations between textile manufacturers and organized groups of workers protesting the introduction of mechanical looms. Three characters stand out: Robert Moore, a mill-owner determined to introduce modern methods despite sometimes violent opposition; his young cousin Caroline Helstone, who falls deeply in love with Robert; and Shirley Keeldar, a rich heiress who comes to live in the estate of Fieldhead, on whose land Robert’s mill stands. Robert’s business is in trouble, not so much because of the protests of the workers but because of a government decree which prevents him selling his finished cloth overseas during the duration of the war with Napoleon. He receives a loan from Miss Keeldar, and her interest in him seems to be becoming a romantic one, much to the distress of Caroline, who pines away for lack of any sign of affection from Robert.
Shirley Keeldar is a remarkable female character for the time: strong, very independent-minded, dismissive of much of the standard rules of society, and determined to decide on her own future. Interestingly, up to this point, the name “Shirley” was almost entirely a male name; Shirley’s parents had hoped for a boy. Such was the success of Brontë’s novel, however, that it became increasingly popular as a female name and is now almost exclusively so.
Although never as popular or successful as the more classically romantic Jane Eyre, Shirley is nevertheless now highly regarded by critics.
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- Author: Charlotte Brontë
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“Good evening, William,” said Shirley, after due scrutiny of the man. He had seen her before, and apparently was waiting to be recognized. He now took off his hat, and grinned a smile of pleasure. He was a rough-headed, hard-featured personage, not old, but very weather-beaten. His attire was decent and clean; that of his children singularly neat. It was our old friend Farren. The young ladies approached him.
“You are not going into the church?” he inquired, gazing at them complacently, yet with a mixture of bashfulness in his look—a sentiment not by any means the result of awe of their station, but only of appreciation of their elegance and youth. Before gentlemen—such as Moore or Helstone, for instance—William was often a little dogged; with proud or insolent ladies, too, he was quite unmanageable, sometimes very resentful; but he was most sensible of, most tractable to, good-humour and civility. His nature—a stubborn one—was repelled by inflexibility in other natures; for which reason he had never been able to like his former master, Moore; and unconscious of that gentleman’s good opinion of himself, and of the service he had secretly rendered him in recommending him as gardener to Mr. Yorke, and by this means to other families in the neighbourhood, he continued to harbour a grudge against his austerity. Latterly he had often worked at Fieldhead. Miss Keeldar’s frank, hospitable manners were perfectly charming to him. Caroline he had known from her childhood; unconsciously she was his ideal of a lady. Her gentle mien, step, gestures, her grace of person and attire, moved some artist-fibres about his peasant heart. He had a pleasure in looking at her, as he had in examining rare flowers or in seeing pleasant landscapes. Both the ladies liked William; it was their delight to lend him books, to give him plants; and they preferred his conversation far before that of many coarse, hard, pretentious people immeasurably higher in station.
“Who was speaking, William, when you came out?” asked Shirley.
“A gentleman ye set a deal of store on, Miss Shirley—Mr. Donne.”
“You look knowing, William. How did you find out my regard for Mr. Donne?”
“Ay, Miss Shirley, there’s a gleg light i’ your een sometimes which betrays you. You look raight down scornful sometimes when Mr. Donne is by.”
“Do you like him yourself, William?”
“Me? I’m stalled o’ t’ curates, and so is t’ wife. They’ve no manners. They talk to poor folk fair as if they thought they were beneath them. They’re allus magnifying their office. It is a pity but their office could magnify them; but it does nought o’ t’ soart. I fair hate pride.”
“But you are proud in your own way yourself,” interposed Caroline. “You are what you call house-proud: you like to have everything handsome about you. Sometimes you look as if you were almost too proud to take your wages. When you were out of work, you were too proud to get anything on credit. But for your children, I believe you would rather have starved than gone to the shops without money; and when I wanted to give you something, what a difficulty I had in making you take it!”
“It is partly true, Miss Caroline. Ony day I’d rather give than take, especially from sich as ye. Look at t’ difference between us. Ye’re a little, young, slender lass, and I’m a great strong man; I’m rather more nor twice your age. It is not my part, then, I think, to tak fro’ ye—to be under obligations (as they say) to ye. And that day ye came to our house, and called me to t’ door, and offered me five shillings, which I doubt ye could ill spare—for ye’ve no fortin’, I know—that day I war fair a rebel, a radical, an insurrectionist; and ye made me so. I thought it shameful that, willing and able as I was to work, I suld be i’ such a condition that a young cratur about the age o’ my own eldest lass suld think it needful to come and offer me her bit o’ brass.”
“I suppose you were angry with me, William?”
“I almost was, in a way. But I forgave ye varry soon. Ye meant well. Ay, I am proud, and so are ye; but your pride and mine is t’ raight mak—what we call i’ Yorkshire clean pride—such as Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne knows nought about. Theirs is mucky pride. Now, I shall teach my lasses to be as proud as Miss Shirley there, and my lads to be as proud as myseln; but I dare ony o’ ’em to be like t’ curates. I’d lick little Michael if I seed him show any signs o’ that feeling.”
“What is the difference, William?”
“Ye know t’ difference weel enow, but ye want me to get a gate o’ talking. Mr. Malone and Mr. Donne is almost too proud to do aught for theirseln; we are almost too proud to let anybody do aught for us. T’ curates can hardly bide to speak a civil word to them they think beneath them; we can hardly bide to tak an uncivil word fro’ them that thinks themseln aboon us.”
“Now, William, be humble enough to tell me truly how you are getting on in the world. Are you well off?”
“Miss Shirley, I am varry well off. Since I got into t’ gardening line, wi’ Mr. Yorke’s help, and since Mr. Hall (another o’ t’ raight sort) helped my wife to set up a bit of a shop, I’ve nought to complain of. My family has plenty to eat and plenty to wear. My pride makes me find means to have an odd pound now and then against rainy days; for I think I’d die afore I’d come to t’ parish;
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