The Riddling Narrative of Nature

Abstract

While the failure of contemporary culture to present a suitable way forward for young people to follow could be devastating, as in its effects on Jessie Chambers, she herself was able to take comfort from the reflection that Mrs Lawrence’s jealousy had been to blame for the suffocation of their growing mutual understanding. At the distance of more than a century it is hard to adjudicate between the warring points of view. Yet it seems likely that if Lawrence had insisted firmly enough on having a passion for Jessie his mother would have submitted with a good grace and even worked for the support of the resulting family. Her apparent hostility may have been no more than a sign of recognition of Lawrence’s awareness that he was still in process of a growth that must involve the jettisoning of many ideas that the families of Lawrence and Chambers still took for granted. Lawrence’s mother, certainly, had come to resent her son’s attachment to the Haggs family, prompting him to visit them so frequently that she commented he might as well move to their farm; this was exacerbated after the sudden death of Ernest, their son, when she became increasingly aware of the outstanding promise shown by his younger brother, and her feeling that if he too were to leave home, while his father was largely absent, she would feel truly bereft. This led on to an understandable apprehension that if Lawrence were to marry Jessie the commitments involved might prevent her son from ever fulfilling his promise, or from achieving fame as a writer.