I always love dramas that come from the reading of wills: War and Peace, Sense and Sensibility, and now the Yule dramas. I also love that the will-reading happens offstage, giving Jasper much space in this chapter.
“He exhibited no impatience, spoke of the matter in a disinterested tone; still, he came daily.”
Once in a while Gissing can have a sentence so satisfying.
Amy gets “ten thousand pounds produce about four hundred a year; it’s enough to live on.”
So Marian gets five thousand, which means about two hundred a year, which is really nothing, as Jasper and his sisters conclude: not enough to lure a man into marriage.
Join us on December 13 for a virtual discussion of New Grub Street with Yiyun Li.
'I haven't much faith in marrying for love, as you know. What's more, I believe it's the very rarest thing for people to be in love with each other. Reardon and his wife perhaps were an instance; perhaps—I'm not quite sure about her. As a rule, marriage is the result of a mild preference, encouraged by circumstances, and deliberately heightened into strong sexual feeling. You, of all men, know well enough that the same kind of feeling could be produced for almost any woman who wasn't repulsive.'
Wow. Some cynical wisdom from our hero Jasper. Ahead of his time. Weren't the 1880s still the Romantic Age?
I like the women in this novel better than the men, pretty much across the board.
I like her very much; but to marry her (supposing she would have me) without money would he a gross absurdity, simply spoiling my career, and leading to all sorts of discontents.'
I know this is an awful comment, but didn't women often select a man somewhat based on his money? I know the dowry system was earlier but certainly attitudes about money probably lingered. It is just strange to hear it from a man. I wonder how common it was to marry for love vs. other practical reasons.