Diana of the Crossways
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Diana of the Crossways is a novel by George Meredith which was published in 1885. It is an account of an intelligent and forceful woman trapped in a miserable marriage and was prompted by Meredith's friendship with society beauty and author Caroline Norton.
The heroine Diana Warwick says: "we women are the verbs passive of the alliance, we have to learn, and if we take to activity, with the best intentions, we conjugate a frightful disturbance. We are to run on lines, like the steam-trains, or we come to no station, dash to fragments. I have the misfortune to know I was born an active. I take my chance." Alienated from her husband Augustus, Diana begins a relationship with the dashing Lord Dannisburgh, which leads to a legal accusation of adultery.
Diana, passionate and intelligent but hotheaded, becomes embroiled in a political as well as a social scandal (the politics are based on the troubled history of Robert Peel's administration, and the 1845 Corn Laws in particular). Eventually Diana achieves a sort of freedom, due to the timely death of her husband, which leaves her free to marry another and kinder man, Redworth, who has always loved and stood by her.
