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on as a kind of exception to her class; she employs language that reminds Molly of zoology. When Molly protests that Lady Harriet speaks of “ ‘the sort of—the class of people to which I belong as if it was a kind of strange animal you were talking about,’ ” Lady Harriet responds by saying “ ‘I talk after my kind, just as you talk after your kind. It’s only on the surface with both of us. Why, I dare say some of your good Hollingford ladies talk of the poor people in a manner which they would consider as impertinent in their turn’ ” (p. 162). By likening the way people distinguish themselves from those of a different class as an exercise in observing animals—as a zoologist might—Molly initiates a discussion about class with Lady Harriet. Notice the way Molly does not back away from saying what she means; she clarifies what she means by substituting “the sort of” people with “the class of people.” Lady Harriet’s candid response about equality—a term she employs with reservation—is fascinating in the way it both accepts as natural the distinctions between social classes and yet allows for the possibility that class is not inherent:
    “But somehow I separate you from all these Hollingford people.”
    “But why?” persevered Molly. “I’m one of them.”
    “Yes you are. But—now don’t reprove me again for impertinence—most of them are so unnatural in their exaggerated respect and admiration when they come up to the Towers, and put on so much pretence by way of fine manners, that they only make themselves objects of ridicule. You at least are simple and truthful, and that’s why I separate you in my own mind from them, and have talked unconsciously to you as I would—well! now here’s another piece of impertinence—as I would my equal—in rank, I mean; for I don’t set myself up in solid things as any better than my neighbours” (p. 162).
    This conversation is very telling, for in many ways it holds the key to the novel’s attitude about social class. Molly’s criticism of Lady Harriet essentially makes the point that if social distinctions are “natural”—if members of other classes seem like “stranger animals”—then it is wrong of Lady Harriet to speak with her as an equal. Lady Harriet’s response is an amalgamation of traditional class snobbery and modern notions about class: To her, people of different classes are different because they inhabit (often to their detriment) their rank, while she acknowledges that rank itself is not a “solid thing.” Moreover, Lady Harriet believes in distinction—both of character and talent—and expresses it in calling Molly “simple and truthful” and in appreciating how Molly has joined her brother in his admiration of Roger Hamley.
    In the context of the larger narrative strain about Roger Hamley’s success as a scientific explorer, the conversation takes on the coloring of a social commentary. Roger stands for the emergence of a new class of the scientific intelligentsia, one shift among the more widespread power shifts in nineteenth-century British society, as rank loses its status as the dominant wielder of power. Ultimately, what Gaskell is querying in this exchange is the question of whether differences among classes of people are natural or are constructions—a philosophical issue that has significant bearing on the “social ecology” she is sketching in her novel. In a larger sense, the question of whether people can be “taxonomized” in the same way that “strange animals” can be provides an uncomfortable, if unresolved, backdrop to the novel, one that because of the presence of Africa in the novel (and persistent concerns throughout the nineteenth century with race) encompasses race as well as class. Racial theory in the 1860s figured black Africans as so different from European whites that there was speculation they were of a different species. In this light, the fact that Africa primarily appears in