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Margaret, granddaughter to Job Legh, is a plain young woman with a beautiful singing voice who is going progressively blind from cataracts. She becomes good friends with Mary Barton after Alice Wilson introduces them, in part because Mary appreciates Margaret’s robust common sense. When Margaret can no longer sew due to her progressive blindness, she becomes a professional singer to support herself and her grandfather; in hard times, she also gives money to the Bartons for food. She judges Mary very harshly when she first learns of Mary’s flirtation with Harry Carson—not beautiful herself, Margaret doesn’t understand or empathize with the temptations of flirtation and vanity. Yet when Mary tells Margaret she knows she behaved wrongly and begs for Margaret to temper her judgment with mercy, Margaret quickly forgives her. Several years after the main events of the story, Margaret undergoes a successful surgery to remove her cataracts, restoring her vision; she also becomes engaged to Will Wilson, a sailor who fell in love with her upon hearing her beautiful singing voice.
Margaret Quotes in Mary Barton
The Mary Barton quotes below are all either spoken by Margaret or refer to Margaret. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5
Quotes
“Every sorrow in her mind is sent for good.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6
Quotes
“Tell me, Margaret,” said Mary, taking her apron down from her eyes, and looking at Margaret with eager anxiety, “what can I do to bring him back to me? Should I write to him?”
“No,” replied her friend, “that would not do. Men are so queer, they like to have a’ the courting to themselves.”
Chapter 22
Quotes
Gentle, reserved, and prudent herself, never exposed to the trial of being admired for her personal appearance […] Margaret had no sympathy with the temptations to which loveliness, vanity, ambition, or the desire of being admired exposes so many; no sympathy with flirting girls, in short. Then, she had no idea of the strength of conflict between will and principle in some who were differently constituted from herself.
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Margaret Quotes in Mary Barton
The Mary Barton quotes below are all either spoken by Margaret or refer to Margaret. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5
Quotes
“Every sorrow in her mind is sent for good.”
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6
Quotes
“Tell me, Margaret,” said Mary, taking her apron down from her eyes, and looking at Margaret with eager anxiety, “what can I do to bring him back to me? Should I write to him?”
“No,” replied her friend, “that would not do. Men are so queer, they like to have a’ the courting to themselves.”
Chapter 22
Quotes
Gentle, reserved, and prudent herself, never exposed to the trial of being admired for her personal appearance […] Margaret had no sympathy with the temptations to which loveliness, vanity, ambition, or the desire of being admired exposes so many; no sympathy with flirting girls, in short. Then, she had no idea of the strength of conflict between will and principle in some who were differently constituted from herself.
