“Count Fosco, though not a rich man, was not a penniless adventurer either. He had a small, but sufficient income of his own; he had lived many years in England; and he held an excellent position in society. These recom- mendations, however, availed nothing with Mr. Fairlie. In many of his opinions he was an Englishman of the oldschool; and he hated a foreigner, simply and solely because he was a foreigner.” (180)
This quote is from the section of Mr. Gilmore’s narrative in which he lays out the marital laws and policies regarding the inheritance of the Fairlie estate that will, in part, go to Miss Fairlie upon her coming of age on her twenty first birthday. This particular topic is being raised with the question of her impending marriage to Sir Percival Glyde who stands to benefit from her inheritance once they are joined in matrimony. This specific selection is actually discussing the disgraceful marriage of Miss Fairlie’s Aunt Eleanor who was, at one point in time, disinherited entirely as a result of her decision to marry the Italian Count Fosco rather than a man of standing in English society. Mr. Glimore explains that the marriage was not disliked because of a distinct class difference like the one emphasized between Miss Fairlie and her drawing instructor, Mr. Cartright, earlier in the text. He even defends the Count saying that he “had sufficient income” and “held an excellent position in [English] society.” (Collins, 180)
Mr. Gilmore goes on to detail why this mixed-nationality marriage led to Aunt Eleanor’s fall from grace and attributes it to the xenophobic nature of the current Mr. Fairlie who Mr. Gilmore says “hated a foreigner, simply and solely because he was a foreigner.” (Collins, 180) This close-minded outlook towards the “foreign,” or “other,” was not uncommon in English society, as explained in the reading we have done previously from Norton’s Anthology’s “The Victorian Age. Norton’s Anthology points to the shared anxieties that the Victorian societies experienced as the world they had come to know expanded. A mindset that Mr. Gilmore acknowledges when he explains Mr. Fairlie’s xenophobia as stemming from his status as an “Englishman of the old-school” which effectually highlights the more outdated nature of his rationale and attitude towards the foreign. (Collins, 180) Throughout this text Collins is critiquing the more conservative xenophobic mindset of some of his fellow Victorians.