Chapter 43
Margaret's Final Farewell
LIII. MARGARET’S FLITTIN’. “The meanest thing to which we bid adieu, Loses its meanness in the parting hour.” ELLIOTT. Mrs. Shaw took as vehement a dislike as it was possible for one of her gentle nature to do, against Milton. It was noisy, and smoky, and the poor people whom she saw in the streets were dirty, and the rich ladies over-dressed, and not a man that she saw, high or low, had his clothes made to fit him. She was sure Margaret would never regain her lost strength while she stayed in Milton; and she herself was afraid of…
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Now let's explore the literary elements.
Key Quotes & Analysis
"The meanest thing to which we bid adieu, Loses its meanness in the parting hour."
The chapter's epigraph from Elliott articulates what the chapter enacts: departure transforms what you are leaving. The grimmest aspects of Milton, the smoke, the industrial noise, the social difficulty, are not what Margaret is saying goodbye to; she is saying goodbye to a version of herself that was formed there.
In Today's Words:
Elliott's lines say that even the smallest or least attractive thing takes on a kind of value in the moment of farewell, because parting is a form of attention that redeems what it attends to. Gaskell uses this as an epigraph because the chapter requires Margaret to feel the weight of leaving Milton, a place she arrived in hating and is leaving with a far more complicated relationship to, and the epigraph licenses the complexity of that feeling without requiring it to be reduced to either affection or relief.
"I shall be better when to-morrow is over."
Margaret's quiet statement to her aunt, that the next day will be the worst and she will be better after it, is a form of private preparation. She knows where the hardest moment is and she is managing herself toward it rather than away from it. The understatement conceals genuine anticipatory grief.
In Today's Words:
Margaret is telling her aunt, in a calm and contained way, that tomorrow, which is presumably the day of final departure from Milton, will be the hardest, and that she will begin to recover once it is past. In plain terms, she is preparing herself for an emotional cost she can already see coming, and the very quietness of the statement is the measure of how much it is going to take from her: people who are least sure they can manage something do not tend to say it this simply.
"vague chance of their meeting again, at some possible time, in some possible place"
The phrase 'vague chance' and the double 'possible' are the language of genuine uncertainty rather than polite consolation. Margaret offers this to the friend she is leaving not as a promise but as an honest account of what she can actually give: the real and very small probability of an unscheduled reunion.
In Today's Words:
Margaret is saying goodbye to someone she cares about with a small attempt at future hope, but she frames it honestly: the chance is vague, the time unspecified, the place unidentified. She is not promising a reunion; she is acknowledging the very thin thread of possibility without pretending it is thicker than it is. Gaskell uses the phrasing to show Margaret's characteristic honesty asserting itself even in a moment when consoling fiction would be socially simpler.
"Bless yo’! and bless yo’!—and amen."
Higgins's farewell to Margaret is the novel's most genuinely plain expression of devotion. The repeated blessing, concluded with amen, gives it the quality of a small liturgy. The dialect that has always been his language is also, at this moment, the only adequate form for what he is saying.
In Today's Words:
Higgins is saying goodbye to Margaret and can find no better word than bless, which he says twice and then concludes with amen as though it were a prayer, because in some sense it is: he is asking for something good to follow her that he cannot provide himself. Gaskell gives his farewell the simplest possible vocabulary because that is the honest vocabulary of the feeling, and the dialect, which has been throughout the novel the language of his working life, is also the language of his love.
Thematic Threads
Pride
In This Chapter
Both Margaret and Thornton let pride prevent honest communication during their final meeting
Development
Pride has consistently blocked understanding between them throughout the novel
In Your Life:
Pride often makes us choose being right over being happy in our own relationships
Class
In This Chapter
Margaret's financial independence through Mr. Bell's arrangement frees her from dependence on upper-class relatives
Development
Her journey from genteel poverty to independent means represents growing economic agency
In Your Life:
Financial independence, even modest amounts, changes how others treat you and how you see yourself
Human Connection
In This Chapter
Higgins provides the only warm, genuine farewell while formal social relationships remain cold
Development
Working-class relationships have proven more authentic than upper-class social expectations
In Your Life:
The people who show up during your hardest times often aren't the ones you expected
Personal Growth
In This Chapter
Margaret chooses meaningful mementos over valuable ones, showing evolved priorities
Development
She's learned to value substance over surface throughout her Milton experience
In Your Life:
What you choose to keep when leaving a situation reveals what you've truly learned to value
Social Expectations
In This Chapter
Mrs. Thornton softens her judgment when faced with Margaret's obvious suffering
Development
Rigid social codes bend when confronted with genuine human pain
In Your Life:
People's harsh judgments often soften when they see you're genuinely struggling
You now have the context. Time to form your own thoughts.
Discussion Questions
This is not a test. Five prompts guide you through the chapter, from how it opens to how it closes, so you notice context and rhythm rather than facts to memorize. Sit with each question in your own words. When you see "One way to read it," treat it as a starting point, not the only answer.
- 1
The chapter's epigraph says that even the meanest thing loses its meanness in the parting hour. How does this framing change the reader's experience of Margaret's farewell to Milton?
One way to read it
The epigraph asks us to notice what is being valued in the goodbye, not what is being escaped. Milton's meanness, its industrial noise and social difficulty, has been genuinely hard for Margaret, but the farewell transforms her relationship to it: the difficulty is now also the substance of a significant period of her life, and leaving it means leaving the person she became in it. The epigraph licenses a complexity in the farewell that simple relief at leaving would not allow.
- 2
Margaret says 'I shall be better when to-morrow is over' with characteristic understatement. What is she preparing for, and what does this advance management of her own grief tell us about her character?
One way to read it
Margaret knows that tomorrow's departure will be the emotional peak of the transition, and she is bracing for it rather than avoiding the thought of it. Her management of anticipated difficulty by naming it and placing it in time, telling herself and her aunt that the worst has a defined duration, is typical of her practical emotional intelligence. Gaskell shows a woman who faces hard things by locating them precisely rather than looking away from them.
- 3
Higgins says goodbye with 'Bless yo'! and bless yo'!,and amen.' How does this farewell, in dialect and in the form of a blessing, function as the chapter's emotional culmination?
One way to read it
Higgins's farewell is the chapter's most emotionally direct moment because it is entirely without social form: he is not saying anything polite or conventional, only the thing that is most true, which is that he wishes her well with the full force of what he feels. The amen converts the repeated blessing into a prayer, a completed thought, a formal ending, and the dialect in which he says it is also the language in which everything between him and Margaret has been most genuinely itself.
- 4
Aunt Shaw's presence throughout this chapter represents a different world and set of values from those Margaret has been living with in Milton. How does the contrast between them help define what Milton has made of Margaret?
One way to read it
Shaw's affectionate incomprehension of everything that has formed Margaret in Milton, the industrial grime, the working-class friendships, the moral and social complexity, throws into relief what those things have produced. Margaret is no longer the young woman who arrived in Milton with southern prejudice and social security; she has been shaped by the friction of a world that required more of her than Helstone did. Shaw represents the comfortable world Margaret could slide back into; the chapter is about whether she can, and the farewell suggests she cannot, not entirely.
- 5
The farewell to Milton involves saying goodbye to specific people as well as the place. How does Gaskell use the goodbyes to different characters, Higgins in particular, to show the different kinds of connection Margaret has formed there?
One way to read it
Each farewell is calibrated to the particular relationship: with Higgins it is blunt, warm, in dialect, entirely without social performance; with other Milton figures it is managed through social convention. Gaskell uses the differences to show that Margaret has formed genuinely different kinds of connection in Milton, some entirely new to her experience, and that the goodbye to Higgins is the one that requires no translation or management because the friendship between them has always been itself without social mediation.
Critical Thinking Exercise
Design Your Exit Strategy
Think of a situation you might need to leave someday, a job, relationship, living situation, or commitment. Using Margaret's approach, map out how you would handle the ending. Identify who deserves acknowledgment, what needs an apology, and what requires gratitude. Then consider what 'mementos' (memories, lessons, or actual items) you'd want to carry forward.
Consider:
- •Focus on meaning over monetary value when choosing what to remember
- •Consider which relationships could remain positive with proper closure
- •Think about what you'd regret not saying if you left tomorrow
Journaling Prompt
Write about a time when you had to say goodbye to something important. What did you do well in that ending? What would you handle differently now, knowing what Margaret teaches us about graceful exits?
Coming Up Next...
Chapter 44: The Emptiness of Ease
As Margaret departs Milton, the consequences of unspoken truths and missed connections will ripple through the lives she's leaving behind. But sometimes distance reveals what proximity obscured. The opening of CHAPTER XLIV. will force Margaret to act faster than she expected, and the choice she makes there will echo through every relationship still ahead..
