The Rich Are with You Always (85 page)

—Malcolm Macdonald

1. How does John's past experience as a railroad navvy help him as a manager and entrepreneur? What other experiences affect the way John does business and treats his workers?

2. The Stevensons' banker, Nathan Chambers, praises Nora's financial intuition, but also secretly criticizes her as being illogical, lucky, and reckless. Do you believe Chambers's desire for caution and careful analysis is a consistent attitude, or do you think he is simply prejudiced because Nora is a woman?

3. Despite being an integral part of the family business, Nora is not allowed to make independent executive decisions. She constantly resents the rule that she must have her husband's approval to spend money. Do you think Nora's frustration was common among women in the nineteenth century? To what extent do you think this rule of men being in charge of money is still present today?

4. Nora wants to use the trust fund money for further business investments, but John insists that it remain untouched in case disaster strikes. Is John right to insist on keeping the trust fund in case of emergency, or do you agree with Nora and think John is too cautious?

5. John travels to see examples of newly developing technologies, such as sewer systems and steam hammers and often returns enthusiastic and inspired. Do you think John is generally enthusiastic about the technology itself and its social possibilities, or the economic opportunities it presents for his business?

6. On her trip to France, Nora notices several differences between French and English culture and begins to understand that her native English customs are "not automatically the best." Have you had a similar cultural experience? How did it affect your general worldview?

7. Nora wonders why she has seemingly endless ambition and can't be like other people she knows who are content with their modest positions in life. What do you think accounts for these different attitudes? Which do you more closely identify with?

8. John returns from Ireland much more sympathetic, having seen the effects of the Famine, but Nora maintains her strict approach to business and finances. Do you think John is more compassionate than Nora? Is he weaker than she? Do you think Nora's attitude would change if she had traveled to Ireland with John?

9. After his wife nearly dies, John suggests that he and Nora have spent too much time working and sacrificing time spent living in one another's company. Nora, on the other hand, argues that by working together, they have been closer than many couples. Do you believe that John and Nora are closer than many couples? Do you believe that their relationship is better? How would you feel about being in a relationship like John and Nora's?

10. After the death of her husband, Sarah Cornelius does many things—such as having an affair with Walter Thornton and working for the Female Rescue Society—in an effort to get over her grief and rejoin society as a strong, independent woman. Was hers the right way to go about that? In what ways would she have an easier time doing this in today's society than in the nineteenth century?

11. Do you agree with John and Walter's criticism of the Female Rescue Society? How does Charity's transformation with Arabella affect their opinions? How does it affect yours?

12. What do you think of John's final vision of humanity united through technological innovation? Is it realistic? In what ways are we closer to his vision today? Are there any risks or dangers he is not considering?

13. The Great Exhibition of 1851 showcased the work of every industrial nation and revealed Britain as the leader among them; it was not surpassed until the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, which showed that the torch had passed to a new nation. Such rises and falls are as old as civilization itself, so where do you think America now stands on its curve? And who will hold the torch next?

14. Macdonald presents his characters "warts and all"—as they would have thought and behaved in their historical time. Does this make it harder for you to empathize with them? Or, thinking back to the attitudes of your parents and grandparents does it help you flesh out a continuity of thought and feeling?

15. The potato famine of the 1840s was even worse in Scotland than in Ireland, but little of that has come down to us in folklore. Why might this be? Does it reflect significant differences between the Scottish and Irish character?

16. Irish immigration has had a huge influence in the development of "the American character." Yet in every decade from the 1620s to the 1980s, England was among the top three nations supplying new immigrants—a distinction no other country can match. Why did the English vanish into the melting pot while almost any American with a drop of Irish blood can name the village from which his or her forebears hail?

17. The story makes great use of the railway mania of the early 1840s, when people were desperate to subscribe to
any
railroad project at all—even one for an island with only sixty inhabitants! Do you think we've learned a lot since then, or do people still fall just as easily for such get-rich-quick proposals today?

18. Nora and John were as close as two peas in a pod when they were struggling to establish their business; but now that they have diversified and have enough capital to make or reject plans for further development, they inevitably fail to agree on every single point. How do you think and hope their story will develop in the two remaining volumes of this saga: to argue but never to fall apart, to fall apart irrevocably, or to fall apart only to be reconciled at last?

19. In the first book of this saga, Nora spends a day savagely killing rabbits in an ancient warren that is being broken up for more productive farming. In this book she enjoys days of foxhunting, always eager to be in at the kill. While this is completely in character, it is not very sympathetic. Would the story have been better without it?

20. The Stevenson children produce a parody of a gossipy newspaper of their day, which they send to an absent John and Nora. It recounts trivial domestic incidents in a high-flown style that would be beyond most teenagers today but which is absolutely of its time. Have today's youngsters lost something valuable? Has their language "dumbed down"?

21. In the next two volumes of the Stevenson Saga, Macdonald continues the story through the lives and eyes of their children—principally of their two eldest boys and two eldest girls. What characters and attitudes do you think they should have? Even more entrepreneurial? Or more Victorian and straitlaced? Slightly ashamed of their parents' lower-class origins? Little-Englanders or outgoing empire-builders? Speculate now and then see how close your guesses are when the books are published!