Oh Noble Fredrick, How I Hate You

   Frederick turned round, right facing the lamp, where the gas darted up in vivid anticipation of the train. A man in the dress of a railway porter started forward; a bad-looking man, who seemed to have drunk himself into a state of brutality, although his senses were in perfect order.
   "By your leave, miss!" said he, pushing Margaret rudely on one side, and seizing Frederick by the collar.
   "Your name is Hale, I believe?"
   In an instant- Margaret did not see, for everything danced before her eyes - but by some sleight wrestling, Fredrick had tripped him up, and he fell from the height of three or four feet, which the platform was elevated above the space of soft ground, by the side of the railroad. There he lay.
   "Run, run!" gasped Margaret.

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 Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, ch. 32 pg. 259

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     Elizabeth Gaskell just makes me love books. Her descriptions are perfect in every way, from the personified gas to the excitement of death messing up life. She has the perfect balance of dialog with description and her adjectives are always so colorful and imaginative, with scenes dancing in character's heads.
    She makes her characters round in strange ways, like Fredrick. He is complex even though he is only in the book for a short period. He is talked about by others nearly longer than he is present with Margaret. I love him because he's Margaret's brother, and she loves him, but oh how I hate how the disconnect between them abuses Margaret. Her mother never loved her because of Fredrick. Her maid is better friends with her mother than she is because of Fredrick. She has never been free to travel and her family has never been a full family because of Fredrick. Yet Fredrick is a noble character who stood for what was right and will never stop reaping the consequences for it. You pity him, the innocent, noble causer of so much pain to the heroine. Before he is in the book, he separates Margaret from her parents, because they feel they must keep secrets from her to keep Fredrick safe which then makes them more reserved toward Margaret altogether. While he is staying with Margaret, his presence forced Margaret to push away Thornton and breaks her lover's heart, and even after her brother has left, she has to deal with the murder he committed and the other burdens his coming left on her. What a beautiful, sick mess. I love Elizabeth Gaskell.