Author: QueenOfHearts<3

Solomon and Hartright

On page 527, Hartright positions himself as a modern-day holy figure through his inability to understand how flippantly people view the death of Sir. Percival. He exclaims, “One of the village women, whose white wild face I remembered, the picture of terror, when we pulled down the beam, was giggling with another woman, the picture of inanity, over an old washing-tub…Solomon in all his glory, was Solomon with the elements of the contemptible lurking in every fold of his robes and in every corner of his palace” (Collins 527). This sentence references Matthew 6:29, where Jesus explains that even the extremely wealthy King Solomon did not have expensive clothes. With his extreme wisdom, he saw that worrying about worldly things like clothing inherently meant ignoring the more important things in life, like goodness and worship. This second sentence implies that Hartright is similar to Solomon in that they are both surrounded by heartlessness, yet he is able to see through their self-interest and remember the sanctity of death. Ironically, “elements of the contemptible” follow Hartright to his “castle”; this scene lies before he learns that Count Fosco has visited his apartment in London.  

The description of the two women falls in line with how Hartright processes and relays information about people as an artist; both of the women are described as being “pictures.” Although this is a common phrase, because of Hartright’s artistic background, the phrase can be taken more literally, like Hartright is imagining how he would paint the women. This word choice explicitly creates a hierarchy between the painter and the painted; Hartright gets to choose how the women are depicted. If Hartright is to be taken as a holy figure like Solomon, he has the perspective to accurately discern a person’s character. Any mention of “white” cannot go unnoticed in the novel, and is normally associated with Laura or Anne’s purity. In the moment of Percival’s death, the woman behaved morally through the amount of fear she displayed. However, now that she lives without fear, she loses the innocent “white” face, and Hartright judges her to be immoral. Hartright’s judgment is consistent throughout the novel. Like a holy figure, he decides who is good and who is evil; just as his name suggests, his heart is always correct. 

Hartright’s Desire for Purity and Sex

Hartright’s narration between pages 64 and 65 of the growing attraction between him and Miss Fairlie demonstrates the pull between sexual desires and desires for female purity. Although Hartright repeats certain phrases to mirror his and Miss Fairlie’s movements, moments of halfway connections also characterize the passage. Hartright says that his lover’s charms “…can purify and subdue the heart of man” (Collins 64). He contextualizes her traits through the effect on his traits; he admires her for her ability to distract him from his character flaws. Instead of specifying that the “man” described him, Hartright broadens the scope to include any man. This enlarges her powers to “subdue the heart,” making her the paragon of purity who can inherently “fix” any man. 

Bearing the precedent of Hartright’s vision of a pure Miss Fairlie, their subsequent moments of physical sexual yearning stall at several points. Hartright writes “Not a day passed…in which my hand was not close to Miss Fairlie’s; my cheek…almost touching hers” (Collins 64). The pair purposefully do not contact skin to skin, but Hartright emphasizes the thrill he receives from the teasing closeness. Besides the references to his cheek, and he also notes “…the perfume of her hair, and the warm fragrance of her breath” (Collins 65). These references to hair, cheek, and breath all encircle a key feature on her face that Hartright fails to mention: her lips or mouth. Although Hartright arrives close to this feature when describing her breath, he refuses to focus on the most sensual part of a woman’s body, a part that has been hallowed in countless romantic works of prose and poetry. Even in a scene rife with sensual details, the lack of references to lips or mouth stands as a gaping hole. Obviously, Hartright would have noticed her mouth, but then made the conscious choice not to write it. Hartright enjoys these moments of halfway connection because they preserve his vision of her purity; having sex, even kissing would break the imagined barrier that separates Miss Fairlie from other, more promiscuous women. 

However, Miss Fairlie shares Hartirght’s affection, and the pair demonstrate their affection by mirroring each other’s actions. He describes the scene by writing “…at one time bending over her…to feel her bending over me, bending so close to see what I was all about…” (Collins 65). He uses the same word choice to describe the same movement, as if the two lovers had become intertwined into one. Repeating the same phrase three times causes a building sense of closeness, with every iteration increasing the number of times that they meet and even increasing how close together the bend brings the two. “… to see what I was all about….” presents a possible moment of innuendo. Its vagueness regarding what she looks at could point a look at his body.