Hence the beautiful, noble efforts which are from time to time brought to light, as being continuously made by those who have once hung on the cross of agony, in order that others may not suffer as they have done; one of the grandest ends which sorrow can accomplish; the sufferer wrestling with God’s messenger until a blessing is left behind, not for one alone but for generations.
It took time before the stern nature of Mr. Carson was compelled to the recognition of this secret of comfort, and that same sternness prevented his reaping any benefit in public estimation from the actions he performed; for the character is more easily changed than the habits and manners originally formed by that character, and to his dying day Mr. Carson was considered hard and cold by those who only casually saw him, or superficially knew him. But those who were admitted into his confidence were aware that the wish that lay nearest to his heart was that none might suffer from the cause from which he had suffered; that a perfect understanding, and complete confidence and love, might exist between masters and men; that the truth might be recognised that the interests of one were the interests of all, and as such required the consideration and deliberation of all, that hence it was most desirable to have educated workers, capable of judging, not mere machines of ignorant men; and to have them bound to their employers by the ties of respect and affection, not by mere money bargains alone; in short, to acknowledge the Spirit of Christ as the regulating law between both parties.
Many of the improvements now in practice in the system of employment in Manchester owe their origin to short earnest sentences spoken by Mr. Carson. Many and many yet to be carried into execution take their birth from that stern, thoughtful mind which submitted to be taught by suffering.
A Manchester Strike in the “Hungry Forties”
From North and South, 1855
Writing of North and South Mrs. Gaskell said: “I tried to make both the story and the writing as quiet as I could, in order that people might not say that they could not see what the writer felt to be a plain and earnest truth for romantic incident or exaggerated writing.” The earlier chapters of North and South contain some of Mrs. Gaskell’s best work.
She desired me to apologise to you as it is. Perhaps you know my brother has imported hands from Ireland, and it has irritated the Milton people excessively—as if he hadn’t a right to get labour where he could; and the stupid wretches here wouldn’t work for him; and now they’ve frightened these poor Irish starvelings so with their threats, that we daren’t let them out. You may see them huddled in that top room in the mill—and they’re to sleep there, to keep them safe from those brutes, who will neither work nor let them work.
“They’re at the gates! Call John, Fanny—call him in from the mill! They’re at the gates! They’ll batter them in! Call John, I say!”
And simultaneously, the gathering tramp—to which she had been listening, instead of heeding Margaret’s words—was heard just right outside the wall, and an increasing din of angry voices raged behind the wooden barrier, which shook as if the unseen maddened crowd made battering-rams of their bodies, and retreated a short space only to come with more united steady impetus against it, till their great beats made the strong gates quiver like reeds before the wind.