I absolutely loved this chapter because Sally is such a wonderfully funny, life-affirming character. I really enjoyed the hilarious comedy of her impatient cleaning round the Methodist Jeremiah Dixon whilst he’s praying, followed by his comic proposal to her. I was also amused by the subtler comedy of her almost being tempted by his offer of a wedding pig, despite her disapproval of Dissenters - though she makes an exception of course for her beloved master and mistress, who she conveniently decides aren’t really Dissenters, just Christians (as if they’re not). But ironically in another sense she’s right - they are truly charitable, ‘christian’ in word and deed.
She has the larger-than-life vitality of a Dickens character but the depth of a minor Austen one, as so much of her character complexity is revealed through her near-dramatic monologues. Either way, Gaskell is so good at this kind of psychological subtlety with her characters, that I wonder if she might have made a good playwright? I mean for example the way she builds Sally’s anecdotes to an entertaining climax, and how she rightly tells Dixon with his typically male arrogance where to shove his proposal and storms off, then wonders if she’s been as cruel to him as Barbara Allen in the folk song and has cut off her nose to spite her face, but finally squashes any lingering regret with the flattering thought that she’s had at least one proposal. Interesting comic parallel to Faith Benson, who also only had the one proposal, but Sally is so much more than comic relief. There’s such a rich, rounded and subtle mixture in her story of feistiness, pride, self-romanticisation, secret longing for genuine love and self-aware storytelling skill, and I laughed out loud at her ending her tale with a brilliantly vivid flourish:
“And for many a day I turned sick, when I heard the passing bell, for I thought it were the bell loud-knelling which were to break my heart wi' a sense of what I'd missed in saying 'No' to Jerry, and so killing him with cruelty. But in less than a three week, I heard parish bells a-ringing merrily for a wedding; and in the course of a morning, some one says to me, 'Hark! how the bells is ringing for Jerry Dixon's wedding!' And, all on a sudden, he changed back again from a heart-broken young fellow, like Jemmy Gray, into a stout, middle-aged man, ruddy-complexioned, with a wart on his left cheek like life!" Sally waited for some exclamation at the conclusion of her tale….”
I also loved her because she’s such a refreshing, no-nonsense practical contrast to the traumatised Ruth’s self-absorption at this point, and however harshly, does manage to knock some sense into her with tough love. Best of all, she has real depth and a similar stoic, outward-facing mindset to the Bensons. Hers is a more homespun unreflective wisdom, but spiritually profound in its own way when she urges Ruth to live every moment in the here and now, not dwell on the past or fear the future, by busying herself with activity and performing every mundane task with full concentration (something modern mindfulness also tells us is important for healing - glad you had exactly the same thought @BishyBarnyBee !). This is what makes the Bensons and Sally a spiritually unified household. I found this such a beautiful illustration of their moral groundedness and psychological stability, from Chapter 13 - all of which is critical for Ruth to be able to take the first step on her moral journey to redemption:
“ In the Bensons' house there was the same unconsciousness of individual merit, the same absence of introspection and analysis of motive, as there had been in her mother; but it seemed that their lives were pure and good, not merely from a lovely and beautiful nature, but from some law, the obedience to which was, of itself, harmonious peace, and which governed them almost implicitly, and with as little questioning on their part, as the glorious stars which haste not, rest not, in their eternal obedience. This household had many failings: they were but human, and, with all their loving desire to bring their lives into harmony with the will of God, they often erred and fell short; but, somehow, the very errors and faults of one individual served to call out higher excellences in another, and so they reacted upon each other, and the result of short discords was exceeding harmony and peace. But they had themselves no idea of the real state of things; they did not trouble themselves with marking their progress by self-examination; if Mr Benson did sometimes, in hours of sick incapacity for exertion, turn inwards, it was to cry aloud with almost morbid despair, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" But he strove to leave his life in the hands of God, and to forget himself.”
Please excuse typos / mistakes etc. I still can’t recover my full Kindle notes and can’t remember everything exactly- Ruth is now two completely different novels ago!