Class systems

Quote

Character

Chapter

“The difficulty of keeping a piano in good tune (a difficulty which Edith seemed to consider as one of the most formidable that could befall her in her married life)”

Narrator

1

“She would not show herself at her only sister’s only child’s wedding”

Narrator

2

“The whole apartment was smaller and shabbier than he had expected, as background and framework for Margaret, herself so queenly”

Henry Lennox

3

“A hundred a year would go a very little way... towards providing your mother with all the comforts she has been accustomed to.”

Mr Hale

4

“If your father leaves the Church, we shall not be admitted into society anywhere.”

Mrs Hale

5

“That what he did not care to do for a Reverend Mr Hale, unknown to Milton, he was only too glad to do at the one short sharp remonstrance of Mr Thornton, the wealthy manufacturer.”

Narrator

7

“To make a lad into a good tradesman he must be caught young, and acclimated to the life of the mill, or office, or warehouse”

Narrator

9

“The solvency of a family who lived in a house of thirty pounds a year and yet gave themselves airs”

Milton girls

9

“That a child of mine would have to stand half a day, in a poky little kitchen, working away like any servant, that we might prepare properly for the reception of a tradesman”

Mrs Hale

9

“You will see Milton without smoke in a few days, I imagine, Miss Hale”

Mr Thornton

15

“I have never lived in a place before where there were two sets of people always running each other down.”

Margaret

15

“Speak to your workmen as if they were human beings. Speak to them kindly. Don’t let soldiers come in and cut down poor creatures who are driven mad”

Margaret

22

“Margaret the Churchwoman, her father the Dissenter, Higgins the Infidel, knelt down together. It did them no harm”

Narrator

28