Character Commontary:
This is one of my favorite pages from one of my pocket etiquette books. I always make sure to carry it around with me throughout my day-to-day life. The words that have always stood out to me are, “A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds” (Hartly 10). I hold these words very close to my heart and I think about them with every decision that I make. Rather than sitting around waiting for something to happen, sometimes you have to make it happen. It was these exact words that helped me make my decision to move to Australia. I had been trying my hardest in England for quite some time, but it seemed like nothing was going my way. I felt like I had been letting my wife down by not providing for the house, and struggling to make ends meet. That was when we decided it was time for me to go try something new and move to Australia. It had not been two days before I was able to find a great job and soon enough I was mining enough gold for us to buy a rather nice house and be able to have things I could never have dreamed of if we had stayed in Britain. It felt like I had finally taken control of my own life. After my wife passed, it was these words that were also on my mind when I chose to return to Britain. I felt that I could no longer sit there in my empty house feeling sorry for myself and not doing anything. That was when I remembered a girl that I had talked to, long before I went to Australia, named Frances Lorimer. I decided it was time for me to leave behind what I had created in Australia and return to my roots. When I returned I immediately proposed to her, and now I happily sit here at Notting Hill writing in my book as my beautiful wife Fan makes dinner.
Historcial Commontary:
This page most likely came from an excerpt from a book named “The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness” by Cecil B. Hartley, written in 1860 (Hughes 2014). This book would have been a common book in many households at the time, and can still be found in stores even today. As the title states, this novel is a guidebook that tells men how to go about living their lives, teaching them ways to act and behave. Having this passage in his commonplace book along with Mr. Marsh’s commentary of being ashamed that he could not make ends meet in Britain, hints at the fact that Mr. Marsh might have been a man with more traditional values. This can also be shown when he talks about sitting outside while his wife makes dinner. Britain during the 1800s saw a huge boom in industrialization. Due to this the idea of masculinity started to take an interesting turn during this time period, and can be reflected in some of Mr. Marsh’s feelings (Tosh 2012). A common byproduct of industrialization is people away from the country and bringing them into larger hubs creating larger populations in cities. This might have been part of the reason why Mr. Marsh was struggling so much to find a good job. On top of that, there was an even higher “self-consciousness about the occupation (or “calling”) and a corresponding elaboration of the work ethic,” which not only explains Mr. Marsh’s shame in not providing but also his need to move away (Tosh). It might be easy to write off these choices as someone just following a monetary trail, but it is important to see the full context of the situation such as these gender issues, to understand the true reasons behind these decisions.
Works Cited
Hughes, Kathryn. “The Middle Classes: Etiquette and Upward Mobility.” British Library, 15 Mar. 2014, www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-middle-classes-etiquett….
Tosh, John. “Masculinities in an Industrializing Society: Britain, 1800–1914: Journal of British Studies.” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, 21 Dec. 2012, www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/masc….