The Moonstone

The Moonstone

by

Wilkie Collins

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Miss Drusilla Clack Character Analysis

Rachel and John Verinder’s estranged, talkative, fanatically religious niece who imposes herself on the family’s affairs in London and contributes the novel’s second narrative. Her version of events is full of digressions and exaggerated religious appeals, which adds a comic dimension to the novel and allows Collins to ridicule the hypocritical evangelism of his time. Although she claims to have no impure desires, her obvious financial motives for sending in her narrative and sexual attraction to Godfrey Ablewhite betray her hypocrisy. Ironically, she detests the novel’s protagonists—Gabriel and Penelope Betteredge, Franklin Blake, Mr. Bruff, and most of all Rachel Verinder—for what she considers immoral and immodest behavior, while lauding its villain, Godfrey Ablewhite, for his apparent moral purity and contributions to the women’s charities Clack helps run. Her religiosity also gets her in trouble, including with the dying Julia Verinder (whose soul Miss Clack tries to save by hiding religious pamphlets around her house) and with Mr. Ablewhite, whom she infuriates when she interrupts an argument about Rachel and Godfrey’s engagement with a reading from “the blessed, blessed, blessed words of [fictional Christian writer] Miss Jane Ann Stamper.” In fact, Clack’s attempt to include these pamphlets in the text of her narrative annoys Franklin Blake, whose frustrated responses she includes instead. After the novel’s events, penniless and ostracized by her family, she moves to Brittany because she cannot afford to continue living in London.

Miss Drusilla Clack Quotes in The Moonstone

The The Moonstone quotes below are all either spoken by Miss Drusilla Clack or refer to Miss Drusilla Clack. 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:
Detective Methods and Genre Standards Theme Icon
).
The Discovery of the Truth 1: 1 Quotes

Pecuniary remuneration is offered to me—with the want of feeling peculiar to the rich. I am to re-open wounds that Time has barely closed; I am to recall the most intensely painful remembrances—and this done, I am to feel myself compensated by a new laceration, in the shape of Blake's cheque. My nature is weak. It cost me a hard struggle, before Christian humility conquered sinful pride, and self-denial accepted the cheque.

Related Characters: Miss Drusilla Clack (speaker), Franklin Blake
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 202
Explanation and Analysis:

*NOTE. Added by Franklin Blake — Miss Clack may make her mind quite easy on this point. Nothing will be added, altered, or removed, in her manuscript, or in any of the other manuscripts which pass through my hands. Whatever opinions any of the writers may express, whatever peculiarities of treatment may mark, and perhaps in a literary sense, disfigure, the narratives which I am now collecting, not a line will be tampered with anywhere, from first to last. As genuine documents they are sent to me—and as genuine documents I shall preserve them; endorsed by the attestations of witnesses who can speak to the facts. It only remains to be added, that “the person chiefly concerned' in Miss Clack's narrative, is happy enough at the present moment, not only to brave the smartest exercise of Miss Clack's pen, but even to recognize its unquestionable value as an instrument for the exhibition of Miss Clack’s character.

Related Characters: Franklin Blake (speaker), Miss Drusilla Clack
Page Number: 202
Explanation and Analysis:

“Is it written by a man or a woman, Miss? If it's written by a woman, I had rather not read it on that account. If it’s written by a man, I beg to inform him that he knows nothing about it.”

Related Characters: Penelope Betteredge (speaker), Miss Drusilla Clack
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:

When the Christian hero of a hundred charitable victories plunges into a pitfall that has been dug for him by mistake, oh, what a warning it is to the rest of us to be unceasingly on our guard! How soon may our own evil passions prove to be Oriental noblemen who pounce on us unawares!

Related Characters: Miss Drusilla Clack (speaker), Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, The Three Indians
Related Symbols: The Moonstone
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:
The Discovery of the Truth 1: 4 Quotes

“I'm afraid, Drusilla,” she said, “I must wait till I am a little better, before I can read that. The doctor—”
The moment she mentioned the doctor's name, I knew what was coming. Over and over again in my past experience among my perishing fellow-creatures, the members of the notoriously infidel profession of Medicine had stepped between me and my mission of mercy—on the miserable pretence that the patient wanted quiet, and that the disturbing influence of all others which they most dreaded, was the influence of Miss Clack and her Books. Precisely the same blinded materialism (working treacherously behind my back) now sought to rob me of the only right of property that my poverty could claim—my right of spiritual property in my perishing aunt.

Related Characters: Lady Julia Verinder (speaker), Miss Drusilla Clack (speaker)
Page Number: 232
Explanation and Analysis:
The Discovery of the Truth 1: 8 Quotes

“Oh, Rachel! Rachel!” I burst out. “Haven't you seen yet, that my heart yearns to make a Christian of you? Has no inner voice told you that I am trying to do for you, what I was trying to do for your dear mother when death snatched her out of my hands?”

Related Characters: Miss Drusilla Clack (speaker), Miss Rachel Verinder
Page Number: 269
Explanation and Analysis:
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Miss Drusilla Clack Quotes in The Moonstone

The The Moonstone quotes below are all either spoken by Miss Drusilla Clack or refer to Miss Drusilla Clack. 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:
Detective Methods and Genre Standards Theme Icon
).
The Discovery of the Truth 1: 1 Quotes

Pecuniary remuneration is offered to me—with the want of feeling peculiar to the rich. I am to re-open wounds that Time has barely closed; I am to recall the most intensely painful remembrances—and this done, I am to feel myself compensated by a new laceration, in the shape of Blake's cheque. My nature is weak. It cost me a hard struggle, before Christian humility conquered sinful pride, and self-denial accepted the cheque.

Related Characters: Miss Drusilla Clack (speaker), Franklin Blake
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 202
Explanation and Analysis:

*NOTE. Added by Franklin Blake — Miss Clack may make her mind quite easy on this point. Nothing will be added, altered, or removed, in her manuscript, or in any of the other manuscripts which pass through my hands. Whatever opinions any of the writers may express, whatever peculiarities of treatment may mark, and perhaps in a literary sense, disfigure, the narratives which I am now collecting, not a line will be tampered with anywhere, from first to last. As genuine documents they are sent to me—and as genuine documents I shall preserve them; endorsed by the attestations of witnesses who can speak to the facts. It only remains to be added, that “the person chiefly concerned' in Miss Clack's narrative, is happy enough at the present moment, not only to brave the smartest exercise of Miss Clack's pen, but even to recognize its unquestionable value as an instrument for the exhibition of Miss Clack’s character.

Related Characters: Franklin Blake (speaker), Miss Drusilla Clack
Page Number: 202
Explanation and Analysis:

“Is it written by a man or a woman, Miss? If it's written by a woman, I had rather not read it on that account. If it’s written by a man, I beg to inform him that he knows nothing about it.”

Related Characters: Penelope Betteredge (speaker), Miss Drusilla Clack
Page Number: 203
Explanation and Analysis:

When the Christian hero of a hundred charitable victories plunges into a pitfall that has been dug for him by mistake, oh, what a warning it is to the rest of us to be unceasingly on our guard! How soon may our own evil passions prove to be Oriental noblemen who pounce on us unawares!

Related Characters: Miss Drusilla Clack (speaker), Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, The Three Indians
Related Symbols: The Moonstone
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 207
Explanation and Analysis:
The Discovery of the Truth 1: 4 Quotes

“I'm afraid, Drusilla,” she said, “I must wait till I am a little better, before I can read that. The doctor—”
The moment she mentioned the doctor's name, I knew what was coming. Over and over again in my past experience among my perishing fellow-creatures, the members of the notoriously infidel profession of Medicine had stepped between me and my mission of mercy—on the miserable pretence that the patient wanted quiet, and that the disturbing influence of all others which they most dreaded, was the influence of Miss Clack and her Books. Precisely the same blinded materialism (working treacherously behind my back) now sought to rob me of the only right of property that my poverty could claim—my right of spiritual property in my perishing aunt.

Related Characters: Lady Julia Verinder (speaker), Miss Drusilla Clack (speaker)
Page Number: 232
Explanation and Analysis:
The Discovery of the Truth 1: 8 Quotes

“Oh, Rachel! Rachel!” I burst out. “Haven't you seen yet, that my heart yearns to make a Christian of you? Has no inner voice told you that I am trying to do for you, what I was trying to do for your dear mother when death snatched her out of my hands?”

Related Characters: Miss Drusilla Clack (speaker), Miss Rachel Verinder
Page Number: 269
Explanation and Analysis: