The Reading Contest
Captain Brown reads aloud Sam Weller’s account of the “swarry” at Bath. Some of the company laugh heartily, but the narrator dares not join in as a guest in the house, and Miss Jenkyns maintains a patient, grave silence throughout the reading.
Rasselas vs Pickwick
Miss Jenkyns responds by requesting Rasselas from the book-room. She reads a lofty conversation between Rasselas and Imlac in a high-pitched, majestic voice, then declares herself justified in her preference for Dr Johnson as a writer of fiction. Captain Brown, silenced, drums on the table.
A Personal Affront
Miss Jenkyns delivers a “finishing blow” by asserting that publishing in numbers is beneath the dignity of literature. Captain Brown quietly asks how the Rambler was published. When he further suggests that epistolary writing is Miss Jenkyns’s forte and that her model has produced a pompous style, she takes it as a direct personal affront, for she prided herself on her letter-writing.
Miss Jenkyns is Inexorable
Miss Jenkyns draws herself up and delivers her final verdict with marked emphasis: “I prefer Dr Johnson to Mr Boz.” Though Captain Brown is said to have muttered an oath, he later repents by standing near her arm-chair and trying to draw her into gentler conversation. Miss Jenkyns remains inexorable, and the following day she makes her pointed remark about Miss Jessie’s dimples.
第二章
Chapter II of Cranford centers on the Brown family—Captain Brown, his invalid elder daughter Miss Brown, and his devoted younger daughter Miss Jessie—and on the small Cranford community that surrounds them. The chapter traces the Captain’s unassuming kindness, his family’s quiet suffering, the social stir caused by Lord Mauleverer’s visit, a literary quarrel with Miss Jenkyns, and ends with the Captain’s sudden, heroic death on the railway. Throughout, the narrator moves between her own observations while staying in Cranford and the news received by letter after her departure for Drumble, weaving together anecdote, correspondence, and communal memory to portray a town whose small economies of affection are its true wealth.
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