Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins (e book reader pc .txt) π
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Man and Wife is the ninth novel by Wilkie Collins, and was published in serial form in 1870. Like many of his other novels it has a complex plot and tackles social issues, in this case the then-lax state of the marriage laws, particularly in Scotland and Ireland. As always, Collins deals carefully but frankly with human personal behavior. To avoid offending Victorian morals too greatly, much is implied rather than stated outright. Nevertheless, even dealing with such matters at all led to his novels being derided as βsensation fictionβ by his critics. By todayβs standards, of course, they wouldnβt even raise an eyebrow.
In Man and Wife, the main character Anne Silvester has fallen pregnant to a muscular and handsome, but boorish man, Geoffrey Delamayn, to whom she is not married. She is working as a governess at a house in Scotland. Anne arranges to meet Delamayn secretly at a garden party and angrily demands that he fulfill his promise to marry her, that very day. He very reluctantly agrees to a secret, private marriage, knowing that a public marriage would badly affect his inheritance prospects. How is the marriage to be arranged quickly but kept quiet? Anne has a plan based on her understanding of the looseness of the marriage laws in Scotland. Naturally, of course, things go badly wrong with this plan and many complexities arise.
Collins is deeply critical of the state of contemporary marriage laws, both in how loosely they were framed, and in how little power over their own lives they gave to women once they were married, even if married to a brutal man. He also uses this novel to denounce the worship of sporting heroes and the obsession with physical prowess rather than mental superiority as a primary indication of male virtue.
Though not as popular as his novels The Woman in White and The Moonstone, Man and Wife received a good critical reception when it was released and was a commercial success.
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- Author: Wilkie Collins
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βWell?β he asked. βWhat have you got to say to me?β
βMr. Delamayn,β she answered, βyou are one of the fortunate people of this world. You are a noblemanβs son. You are a handsome man. You are popular at your college. You are free of the best houses in England. Are you something besides all this? Are you a coward and a scoundrel as well?β
He startedβ βopened his lips to speakβ βchecked himselfβ βand made an uneasy attempt to laugh it off. βCome!β he said, βkeep your temper.β
The suppressed passion in her began to force its way to the surface.
βKeep my temper?β she repeated. βDo you of all men expect me to control myself? What a memory yours must be! Have you forgotten the time when I was fool enough to think you were fond of me? and mad enough to believe you could keep a promise?β
He persisted in trying to laugh it off. βMad is a strongish word to use, Miss Silvester!β
βMad is the right word! I look back at my own infatuationβ βand I canβt account for it; I canβt understand myself. What was there in you,β she asked, with an outbreak of contemptuous surprise, βto attract such a woman as I am?β
His inexhaustible good-nature was proof even against this. He put his hands in his pockets, and said, βIβm sure I donβt know.β
She turned away from him. The frank brutality of the answer had not offended her. It forced her, cruelly forced her, to remember that she had nobody but herself to blame for the position in which she stood at that moment. She was unwilling to let him see how the remembrance hurt herβ βthat was all. A sad, sad story; but it must be told. In her motherβs time she had been the sweetest, the most lovable of children. In later days, under the care of her motherβs friend, her girlhood had passed so harmlessly and so happilyβ βit seemed as if the sleeping passions might sleep forever! She had lived on to the prime of her womanhoodβ βand then, when the treasure of her life was at its richest, in one fatal moment she had flung it away on the man in whose presence she now stood.
Was she without excuse? No: not utterly without excuse.
She had seen him under other aspects than the aspect which he presented now. She had seen him, the hero of the river-race, the first and foremost man in a trial of strength and skill which had roused the enthusiasm of all England. She had seen him, the central object of the interest of a nation; the idol of the popular worship and the popular applause. His were the arms whose muscle was celebrated in the newspapers. He was first among the heroes hailed by ten thousand roaring throats as the pride and flower of England. A woman, in an atmosphere of red-hot enthusiasm, witnesses the apotheosis of physical strength. Is it reasonableβ βis it justβ βto expect her to ask herself, in cold blood, What (morally and intellectually) is all this worth?β βand that, when the man who is the object of the apotheosis, notices her, is presented to her, finds her to his taste, and singles her out from the rest? No. While humanity is humanity, the woman is not utterly without excuse.
Has she escaped, without suffering for it?
Look at her as she stands there, tortured by the knowledge of her own secretβ βthe hideous secret which she is hiding from the innocent girl, whom she loves with a sisterβs love. Look at her, bowed down under a humiliation which is unutterable in words. She has seen him below the surfaceβ βnow, when it is too late. She rates him at his true valueβ βnow, when her reputation is at his mercy. Ask her the question: What was there to love in a man who can speak to you as that man has spoken, who can treat you as that man is treating you now? you so clever, so cultivated, so refinedβ βwhat, in Heavenβs name, could you see in him? Ask her that, and she will have no answer to give. She will not even remind you that he was once your model of manly beauty, tooβ βthat you waved your handkerchief till you could wave it no longer, when he took his seat, with the others, in the boatβ βthat your heart was like to jump out of your bosom, on that later occasion when he leaped the last hurdle at the footrace, and won it by a head. In the bitterness of her remorse, she will not even seek for that excuse for herself. Is there no atoning suffering to be seen here? Do your sympathies shrink from such a character as this? Follow her, good friends of virtue, on the pilgrimage that leads, by steep and thorny ways, to the purer atmosphere and the nobler life. Your fellow-creature, who has sinned and has repentedβ βyou have the authority of the Divine Teacher for itβ βis your fellow-creature, purified and ennobled. A joy among the angels of heavenβ βoh, my brothers and sisters of the earth, have I not laid my hand on a fit companion for you?
There was a moment of silence in the summerhouse. The cheerful tumult of the lawn-party was pleasantly audible from the distance. Outside, the hum of voices, the laughter of girls, the thump of the croquet-mallet against the ball. Inside, nothing but a woman forcing back the bitter tears of sorrow and shameβ βand a man who was tired of her.
She roused herself. She was her motherβs daughter; and she had a spark of her motherβs spirit. Her life depended on the issue of that interview. It was uselessβ βwithout father or brother to take her partβ βto lose the last chance of appealing to him. She dashed away the tearsβ βtime enough to cry, is time easily found in a womanβs existenceβ βshe dashed away the tears,
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