North and South: Chapter 19 Summary & Analysis

Although she is not going herself, Mrs. Hale has a young girl’s enthusiasm for the upcoming dinner party, fretting about what Margaret will wear. Margaret obligingly models all her dresses for her mother. Later, she visits Bessy, who is amazed to hear that the Hales have been invited to the Thorntons’, since the Thorntons visit with the “first folk in Milton,” and the Hales don’t have much money.

When Margaret describes the white silk dress she will wear to the party, Bessy reveals that she had a vision of Margaret before she ever saw her, “drest in shining raiment.” Margaret gently tells Bessy that the vision was only a dream. Bessy points out that many biblical characters had dreams and saw visions; even Higgins thinks highly of dreams. She begs to be allowed to visit Margaret to see her in her dress before the party, and Margaret finally relents.

They talk about the strike, and Margaret feels guilty about going to a fancy dinner when so many workers’ families are now hungry. Bessy says she shouldn’t feel bad—“some’s pre-elected to sumptuous feasts, and purple and fine linen—maybe yo’re one on ‘em…if yo’ ask me to cool yo’r tongue wi’ th’ tip of my finger, I’ll come across the great gulf to yo’ just for th’ thought o’ what yo’ve been to me here.”

Margaret tells Bessy she is feverish. It won’t be riches or lack thereof that divide people at the last judgment, but “faithful following of Christ.” As Margaret puts a cool cloth on Bessy’s forehead and rubs her cold feet, Bessy says that workers keep dropping by to tell Higgins their woes, and it’s driving her out of her wits. She compares the continual conflict between masters and workers to the battle of Armageddon.

When Higgins comes in, seeming drunk, he hears Bessy mention the dinner party and wishes he could attend, so he could have a captive audience of mill-owners and give them a piece of his mind. Margaret hastily leaves.

At home, Mrs. Hale has responded well to Dr. Donaldson’s medications, raising the family’s hopes. In contrast, gloom has descended on Milton because of the strike. Mr. Hale often talks with Mr. Thornton about the underlying economic principles of the strike. When Margaret listens to these conversations, she is repelled by Thornton’s cool logic—her “whole soul rose up against him while he reasoned in this way—as if commerce were everything and humanity nothing.”

Margaret is both grateful for Thornton’s compassion for her dying mother and resentful of his knowledge of Mrs. Hale’s condition. She doesn’t know how to reconcile his pitying expressions with the “hard-reasoning, dry, merciless way” he talks about trade: “the discord jarred upon her inexpressibly.”

From Bessy and Higgins, Margaret hears another perspective altogether. Higgins is a committee-man for the strike, and Margaret hears him arguing with his downtrodden neighbor, Boucher. Boucher is afraid that his wife will die before the strike concludes, and if she does, Boucher says, he will hate Higgins and the entire union. He weeps as he describes watching his infant son wasting away from hunger. Higgins tearfully promises to buy food for the family immediately, and urges Boucher to take heart; the union will win this fight before long.

As the men leave, Boucher hopelessly calls the union “a worser tyrant than e’er th’ masters were.” He quotes the union, including Higgins, as having said, “Clem [starve] to death…ere yo’ dare go again th’ Union.” He tells Higgins, “Yo’ may be kind hearts, each separate; but once banded together, yo’ve no more pity for a man than a wild hunger-maddened wolf.” Higgins replies that he is doing the best he can for them all; if he’s doing wrong, it’s because the masters have driven him to this situation. In the meantime, he says, there’s no help for workers but to trust the union.

After the men leave, Bessy comments that Boucher is weak and unwise, but she pities him for all that. She thinks that if the union had to deal with Boucher face-to-face, they would let him go back to work. But, she adds, the Higginses won’t let the Bouchers starve, because “if neighbors doesn’t see after neighbors, I dunno who will.”