Book- ^^^ CHARLOTTE BRONTE, i^cx^-L^ >^^ / ^ C 6 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. ^ ^t^\\^^X^)f\\. > BY V T. WEMYSS REia li WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, NEW YORK: SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO. 1877. ?> \^ To THE Right Honourable THE LORD HOUGHTON, D.C.L. F.R.S. &c. THIS MEMORIAL OF A LIFE WHICH HAS ADDED A NEW GLORY TO THE LITEBARY HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY HIS GRATEFUL FRIEND THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. I HAVE spoken so freely in the opening chapter of this Monograph of the circumstances under which it has been written, that very httle need be said by way of introduction here. This attempt to throw some fresh light upon the character of one of the most remarkable women of our age has not been a task lightly taken up, or hastily performed. The life and genius of Charlotte Bronte had long engaged my attention before I undertook, at the request of the lady to whom I am indebted for most of the original materials I have employed in these pages, the work PREFACE. which I have now completed. In executing that work I have had. ample reason to feel and acknowledge my own deficiencies. With the knowledge that I was treading in the footsteps of so consummate a literary- artist as Mrs. Gaskell, I have been compelled to refrain from writing not a few of the chapters in Charlotte Bronte's life which are necessary to a complete ac- quaintance with her character, simply because they had been written so well already. And whilst I necessarily shrink from any appearance of rivalry with Charlotte Bronte's original biographer, I have been additionally oppressed by the feeling that the pen which can do full justice to one of the most moving and noble stories in English literature has not yet been found. But I have been sustained both by the sympathy of many friends, known and unknown, who share my feelings with regard to the Brontes, and by the invaluable assistance rendered to me by those who were intimately acquainted with the household at PREFACE. ix Haworth Parsonage, Foremost among these must be mentioned Miss Ellen Nussey, the school-fellow and life-long friend of Charlotte Bronte, who has freely- placed at my disposal all the letters and other mate- rials she possessed from which any light could be thrown upon the career of her old companion, and who has in addition aided me with much valuable counsel and advice in the decision of many difficult points. Miss Wooler, who was Charlotte's attached teacher, and who still happily survives in a green old age, has also placed me under obligations by her readiness to supply me with her pupil's letters to herself. Nor must I omit to mention my in- debtedness to Lord Houghton for information upon questions which could only be decided by those who met " Currer Bell " during her brief visits to London at a time when she was one of the literary lions of society. The additions made in this volume to the Mono- PREFACE. graph as it originally appeared in Maanillan's Magazine are numerous and considerable. It should be mentioned that a few of the letters now published (about twenty) were printed some years ago in an American magazine now extinct. The remainder, and by far the larger portion, will be entirely new to readers alike in England and the United States. Headingley Hill, Leeds, Feb?-uary, 1877. THE KEW UKONiii XABLET, CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAOB Introductory z Mrs. Gaskell's "Memoir" — Charlotte Bronte's Letters. CHAPTER II. The Story of "Jane Eyre" 7 "Jane Eyre:" its Publication and Popularity; Unfavourable Criticisms — Mr. Thackeray and " Rochester" — Loose Gossip —The Truth. CHAPTER IIL Early History of the Brontes 14 Charlotte Bronte's Surroundings : the True Charm of her Story — Haworth — Mr. Bronte : his Characteristics and Eccentricities — The Bronte Children — Charlotte's Escape to the Golden City — Juvenile Efforts — " The Play of the Islanders." CHAPTER IV. The Family at Haworth 29 Charlotte and her Friend — Bolton Bridge — A Family Sketch — Shyness of thd Sisters — Varying Moods — The Youthful Politician — Branwell Bronte — Emily — Anne. CHAPTER V. Life as a Governess 45 Governess Life — A Mental Struggle — First offer of Marriage — Sympathy with others — Trials of her own Life. xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. PAGB The Turning-point • • .57 The Storm and Stress Period — Not what the World supposes it to have been — Visit to Brussels : its Influence upon her Life — Disillusioned— Return Home — A Fallen Idol — A Pleasant Meeting— Bran well's Disgrace. CHAPTER VII. Authorship and Bereavement ..••;• 73 Branwell's Fall — Publication of the Poems — Emily's Poetry — Novel-wx-iting begun — **The Professor" — " Wuthering Heights" — "Agnes Grey" — "Jane Eyre" — The Secret of the Authorship — Growth in Power — Branwell's Death- Decline and Death of Emily — Death of Anne. CHAPTER VIII. *' Shirley" , , , 99 TheBittemess of Bereavement — Visit to London — Meets Thackeray — Authors and Critics — "Shirley" published : its Reception by the Critics — Husbands and Wives — An Invitation. CHAPTER IX. Loneliness and Fame 112 Life at Home — Rumours of Marriage — Edits the Works of her Sisters — An offer of Marriage — Mr. Thackeray's Lectures — The Crystal Palace. CHAPTER X. "Villette" 127 " Villette " begun — Life and Letters whilst writing it — Great De- pression of Spirits — Difficulty in writing — "Lucy Snowe " — • " Villette " finished : its Private Reception ; the Public Verdict : Waiting for The Times. CONTENTS, xiii CHAPTER XL ,^c« Marriage and Death H^ A Secret History— Mr. Nicholls— Offer of Marriage— Mr. Bronte's Opposition— A Cruel Struggle— Mr. Nicholls leaves Haworth —The High Church Party and " Villette "—Miss Martineau —A Trip to Scotland— Brighter Prospects— Engaged to Mr. Nicholls— New Out-look upon Life— The Wedding— Married .^ Life— The Last Christmas— Illness and Death. CHAPTER XIL Posthumous Honours . . '^3 A Nation's Mourning— Charlotte's Humility— Mrs. Gaskell's " Memoir : " Effect produced by it— Letter from Mr. Kingsley — Pilgrims to Haworth — An American Visitor — Death of Mr. Bronte— Devotion of Mr. Nicholls. CHAPTER XHL The Bronte Novels 201 The Bronte Novels— *' Wuthering Heights:" its Cleverness and Weirdness — Characters of the Story — Emily's Genius- Curious Foreshadowings — Mr. Bronte's Influence on Emily — Anne's Novels — " The Professor." CHAPTER XIV. Conclusion • • * 228 Charlotte's Character— Sufferings and Work. ^ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Rev. Patrick Bronte .... The New Bronte Tablet . . • Haworth Village .... The House that Charlotte visited The Roe Head School Haworth Parsonage and Graveyard The "Field Head" of Shirley The "Briarfield" Church of Shirley Fac-Simile Letter of Charlotte Bronte Haworth Church . . . • Interior of Haworth Church . Organ Loft over the Bronte Tablet and Pew • Frontispiece PAGE X Facing i8 . 44 Facing 46 82 loi 106 134 172 191 200 ^0 ihz JEmots oi the ^.uthxrc oi " Jane ^gre." Beside her sisters lay her down to rest, By the lone church that stands amid the moors ; And let her grave be wet with moorland showers ; Let moorland larks sing o'er her mouldering breast I Hers was the keen true spirit, that confest That she was nurtured in no garden bowers, Nor taught to deck her brow with cultured flowers, Nor by the soft and summer wind carest. Her words came o'er us, as in harvest-tide Come the swift rain-clouds o'er her native skies, Scattenng tne thin sheaves by the heather's side; So fared it with our tame hypocrisies : But lo! the clouds are past, and far and wide The purple ridges glow beneath our eyes. W. H. Charlton, Hesleyside, 1855. CHARLOTTE BRONTE. I. INTRODUCTORY. It is just twenty years since one of the most fas- cinating and artistic biographies in the Enghsh language was given to the world. Mrs. Gaskell's " Life of Charlotte Bronte " no sooner appeared than it took firm possession of the public mind ; and it has ever since retained its hold upon all who take an interest in the career of one who has been called, in language which is far less extravagant in reality than in appearance, " the foremost woman of her age." Written with admirable skill, in a style at once powerful and picturesque, and with a sympathy such as only one artist could feel for another, it richly merited the popularity which it gained and has kept. Mrs. Gaskell, however, laboured under one serious disadvantage, which no longer exists in anything like the sam^e degree in which it did twenty years ago. Writing but a few months after Charlotte Bronte had been laid in her grave, and whilst the father to whom she was indebted for so much that was characteristic B 2 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [i. in her life and genius was still living, Mrs. Gaskell had necessarily to deal with many circumstances which affected living persons too closely to be handled in detail. Even as it was she involved herself in serious embarrassment by some of her allusions to incidents connected more or less nearly with the life of Charlotte Bronte ; corrections and retractations were forced upon her, the later editions of the book differed consider- ably from the first, and at last she was compelled to announce that any further correspondence concerning it must be conducted through her solicitors. Thus she was crippled in her attempt to paint a full-length picture of a remarkable life, and her story was what Mr. Thackeray called it, " necessarily incomplete, though most touching and admirable." There was, moreover, another matter in which Mrs. Gaskell was at fault. She seems to have set out with the determination that her work should be pitched in a particular key. She had formed her own conception of Charlotte Bronte's character, and with the passion of the true artist and the ability of the practised writer she made everything bend to that conception. The result was that whilst she produced a singularly striking and effective portrait of her heroine, it was not one which was absolutely satisfactory to those who were the oldest and closest friends of Charlotte Brontk If the truth must be told, the life of the author of "Jane Eyre" was by no means so joyless as the world now believes it to have been. That during the later years in which this wonderful woman / " I.] MRS. GASKELLS MEMOIR. 3 produced the works by which she has made her name famous, her career was clouded by sorrow and oppressed by anguish both mental and physical, is perfectly true. That she was made what she was in the furnace of affliction cannot be doubted ; but it is not true that she was throughout her whole life the victim of that extreme depression of spirits which afflicted her at rare intervals, and which Mrs. Gaskell has presented to us with so much vividness and em- phasis. On the contrary, her letters show that at any rate up to the time of her leaving for Brussels, she was a happy and high-spirited girl, and that even to the very last she had the faculty of overcoming her sorrows by means of that steadfast courage which was her most precious possession, and to which she was so much indebted for her successive victories over trials and disappointments of no ordinary character. Those who imagine that Charlotte Bronte's spirit was in any degree a morbid or melancholy one do her a singular injustice. Intensely reserved in her converse with all save the members of her own household, and the soli- tary friend to whom she clung with such passionate affection throughout her life, she revealed to these The other side, the novel Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, which were and have remained hidden from the world, but which must be seen by those who would know what Charlotte Bronte really was as a woman. Alas ! those who knew her and her sisters well during B 2 4 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [i. their brief lives are few in number now. The Bronte« who phicked the flower of fame out of the thorn> waste in which their lots were cast survive in theii books and in Mrs. Gaskell's biography. But the Brontes, the women who lived and suffered thirt> years ago, and whose characters were instinct with sc rare and lofty a nobility, so keen a sensitiveness, sc pure a nobility, are known no longer. Yet one mode of making acquaintance with therr is still open to some among us. From her school- days down to the hour in which she was stretchec prostrate in her last sickness, Charlotte Bronte kep1 up the closest and most confidential intercourse witt her one life-long friend. To that friend she addressee letters which may be counted by hundreds, scarcely one of which fails to contain some characteristic touch worthy of the author of " Villette." No one can read this remarkable correspondence without learning the secret of the writer's character ; none, as I believe can read it without feeling that the woman who "stole like a shadow " into the field of English literature in 1847, and in less than eight years after stole as noise- lessly away, was truer and nobler even than her works, truer and nobler even than that masterly picture of her life for which we are indebted to Mrs. Gaskell. These letters lie before me as I write. Here are the faded sheets of 1832, written in the school-girl's hand, filled with the school-girl's extravagant terms of endearment, yet enriched here and there by sen- i;] HER LETTERS. 5 tences which are worthy to hve — some of which have already, indeed, taken their place in the literature of England ; and here is the faint pencil note written to "my own dear Nell " out of the writer's "dreary sick- bed," which was so soon to be the bed of death ! Between the first letter and that last sad note what outpourings of the mind of Charlotte Bronte are embodied in this precious pile of cherished manu- script ! Over five- and- twenty years of a blameless life this artless record stretches. So far as Charlotte Bronte^'s history as a woman, and the history of her family are concerned, it is complete for the whole of that period, the only breaks in the story being those which occurred when she and her friend were to- gether. Of her early literary ventures we find little here, for even to her friend she did not dare in the first instance to betray the novel joys which filled her soul when she at last discovered her true vocation, and spoke to a listening world ; but of her later life as an author, of her labours from the day when she owned " Jane Eyre " as the child of her brain, there are constant and abundant traces. Here, too, we read all her secret sorrows, her hopes, her fears, her com- munings with her own heart. Many things there are in this record too sacred to be given to the world. Even now it is with a tender and a reverent hand that one must touch these " noble letters of the dead ; " but those who are allowed to see them, to read them and ponder over them, must feel as I do, that the soul of Charlotte Bronte stands revealed in these un- 6 CHARLOTTE BRONTR [i. published pages, and that only here can we see what manner of woman this really was who in the solitude and obscurity of the Yorkshire hill-parsonage built up for herself an imperishable name, enriched the litera- ture of England with treasures of priceless value, and withal led for nearly forty years a life that was made sacred and noble by the self-repression and patient endurance which were its most marked cha- racteristics. Mrs. Gaskell has done her work so well that the world would scarcely care to listen to a mere repetition of the Bronte story, even though the story-teller were as gifted as the author of " Ruth " herself. But those who have been permitted to gain a new insight into Charlotte Bronte's character, those who are allowed to command materials of which the biographer of 1857 could make no use, may venture to lay a tribute- wreath of their own upon the altar of this great woman's memory — a tribute-wreath woven of flowers culled from her own letters. And it cannot be that the time is yet come when the name or the fame or the touching story of the unique and splendid genius to whom we owe " Jane Eyre," will fail upon the ears of English readers like " a tale of little meaning " or of doubtful interest. II. THE STORY OF "JANE EYRE." In the late autumn of 1847 the reading public of London suddenly found itself called to admire and wonder at a novel' which, without preliminary puff of any kind, had been placed in its hands. "'Jane Eyre/ by Currer Bell," became the theme of every tongue, and society exhausted itself in conjectures as to the identity of the author, and the real meaning of the book. It was no ordinary book, and it produced no ordinary sensation. Disfigured here and there by certain crudities of thought and by a clumsiness of expression which betrayed the hand of a novice, it was nevertheless lit up from the first page to the last by the fire of a genius the depth and power of which none but the dullest could deny. The hand of its author seized upon the public mind whether it would or no, and society was led captive, in the main against its will, by one who had little of the prevailing spirit of the age, and who either knew nothing of conven- tionalism, or despised it with heart and soul. Fierce was the revolt against the influence of this new-comer in the wide arena of letters, who had stolen in, as it were in the night, and taken the citadel by surprise. 8 CHARLOTTE BRONTJ^. [ii. But for the moment all opposition was beaten down by sheer force of genius, and " Jane Eyre " made her way, compelling recognition, wherever men and women were capable of seeing and admitting a rare and extraordinary intellectual supremacy. " How well I remember," says Mr. Thackeray, " the delight and wonder and pleasure with which I read 'Jane Eyre,' sent to me by an author whose name and sex were then alike unknown to me ; and how with my own work pressing upon me, I could not^ having taken the volumes up, lay them down until they were read through." It was the same everywhere. Even those who saw nothing to commend in the story, those who revolted against its free employment of great passions and great griefs, and those who were elaborately critical upon its author's ignorance of the ways of polite society, had to confess themselves bound by the spell of the- magician. "Jane Eyre" gathered admirers fast ; and for every admirer she had a score of readers. Those who remember that winter of nine-and- twenty years ago know how something like a "Jane Eyre " fever raged among us. The story which had suddenly discovered a glory 'in uncomeliness, a gran- deur in overmastering passion, moulded the fashion of the hour, and ''Rochester airs" and^"Jane Eyre graces" became the rage. The book, and its fame and influence, travelled beyond the seas with a speed which in those days was marvellous. In sedate New England homes the history of the English governess jjT "JANE EYRE!' was read with an avidity which was not surpassed m London itself, and within a few months of the pub- lication of the novel it was famous throughout two continents. No such triumph has been achieved in our time by any other English author ; nor can it be said upon the whole, that many triumphs have been better merited. It happened that this anonymous story bearing the unmistakable marks of an unprac- tised hand, was put before the world at the very moment when another great masterpiece of fiction was just beginning to gain the ear of the English public But at the moment of publication Jane Eyre" swept past "Vanity Fair" with a marvelous and impetuous speed which left Thackeray s work in the distant background; and its unknown author in a few weeks gained a wider reputation than that^^^ich one of the master minds of the century had been en<^aged for long years in building up. °The reaction from this exaggerated fame, of course, set in. and it was sharp and severe. The blots in the book were easily hit ; its author's unfamilianty with the stage business of the play was evident enough- even to dunces ; so it was a simple matter to write smart articles at the expense of a novelist who laid himself open to the whole battery of conventional criticism. In "Jane Eyre" there was much painting of souls in their naked reality ; the writer had gauged depths which the plummet of the common story-teller could never have sounded, and conflicting passions were marshalled on the stage with a masterful daring lo CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [ii. which Shakespeare might have envied ; but the cos- tumes, the conventional by-play, the scenery, even the wording of the dialogue, were poor enough in all conscience. The merest playwright or reviewer could have done better in these matters — as the unknown author was soon made to understand. Additional piquancy was given to the attack by the appearance, at the very time when the " Jane Eyre " fever was at its height, of two other novels, written by persons whose sexless names proclaimed them the brothers or the sisters of Currer Bell. Human nature is not so much changed from what it was in 1847 that one need apologise for the readiness with which the reading world in general, and the critical world in particular, adopted the theory that " Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey" were earlier works from the pen which had given them **Jane Eyre." In " Wuthering Heights " some of the faults of the other book were carried to an extreme, and some of its conspicuous merits were distorted and exaggerated until they became positive blemishes ; whilst "Agnes Grey " was a feeble and commonplace tale which it was easy to condemn. So the author of "Jane Eyre" was compelled to bear not only her own burden, but that of the two stories which had followed the suc- cessful novel ; and the reviewers — ignorant of the fact that they were killing three birds at a single shot — • rejoiced in the larger scope which was thus afforded to their critical energy. Here and there, indeed, a manful fight on behalf II.] CRITICISMS. II of Currer Bell was made by writers who knew nothing but the name and the book. " It is soul speaking to soul," cried Frasers Magazine in December, 1847; ** it is not a book for prudes," added Blackwood, a few months later ; " it is not a book for effeminate and tasteless men ; it is for the enjoyment of a feeling heart and critical understanding.^^ But in the main the verdict of the critics was adverse. It was dis- covered that the story was improper and immoral ; it was said to be filled with descriptions of " courtship after the manner of kangaroos,^^ and to be imipreg- nated with a "heathenish doctrine of religion ;" whilst there went up a perfect chorus of reprobation directed against its " coarseness of language," " laxity of tone," "horrid taste," and "sheer rudeness and vulgarity." From the book to the author was of course an easy transition. London had been bewildered, and its literary quidnuncs utterly puzzled, when such a story first came forth inscribed with an unknown name. Many had been the rumours eagerly passed from mouth to mouth as to the real identity of Currer Bell. Upon one point there had, indeed, been something like unanimity among the critics, and the story of "Jane Eyre "had been accepted as something more than a romance, as a genuine autobiography in which real and sorrowful experiences were related. Even the most hostile critic of the book had acknowledged that "it contained the story of struggles with such intense suffering and sorrow, as it was sufficient misery to know that any one had conceived, far less passed 12 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [ii. through/^ Where then was this wonderful governess to be found ? In what obscure hiding-place could the forlorn soul, whose cry of agony had stirred the hearts of readers everywhere, be discovered ? We may smile now, with more of sadness than of bitterness, at the base calumnies of the hour, put forth in mere wanton- ness and levity by a people ever seeking to know some new thing, and to taste some new sensation. The favourite theory of the day — a theory duly elaborated and discussed ^in the most orthodox and respectable of the reviews — was that Jane Eyre and Becky Sharp were merely different portraits of the same character ; and that their original was to be found in the person of a discarded mistress of Mr. Thackeray, who had furnished the great author with a model for the heroine of "Vanity Fair," and had revenged herself upon him by painting him as the Rochester of "Jane Eyre !" It was after dwelling upon this marvellous theory of the authorship of the story that the Quarterly Review, with Pecksniffian charity, calmly summed up its conclusions in these memorable words : " If we ascribe the book to a woman at all, we have no alternative but to ascribe it to one who has for some sufficient reason long for- feited the society of her own sex." The world knows the truth now. It knows that these bitter and shameful words were applied to one of the truest and purest of women; to a woman who from her birth had led a life of self-sacrifice and patient endurance ; to a woman whose affections II.] THE TRUTH. 13 dwelt only in the sacred shelter of her home, or with companions as pure and worthy as herself; to one of those few women who can pour out all their hearts in converse with their friends, happy in the assurance that years hence the stranger into whose hands their frank confessions may pass will find nothing there that is not loyal, true, and blameless. There was wonder among the critics, wonder too in the gay world of London, when the secret was revealed, and men were told that the author of " Jane Eyre " was no passionate light-o'-love who had merely transcribed the sad experiences of her own life ; but " an austere little Joan of Arc," pure, gentle, and high-minded, of whom Thackeray himself could say that " a great and holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be with her always." The quidnuncs had searched far and wide for the author of "Jane Eyre;" but we may well doubt whether, when the truth came out at last, they were not more than ever mystified by the dis- covery that Currer Bell was Charlotte Bronte, the young daughter of a country parson in^ a remote moorland parish of Yorkshire. That such a woman should have written such a book was more than a nine days' wonder ; and for the key to that which is one of the great marvels and mysteries of English literature we must go to Char- lotte Bronte's life itself. III. EARLY HISTORY OF THE BRONTES. There is a striking passage in Mr. Greg's " Enigmas of Life," in which the influence of external circum- stances upon the inner Hves of men and women is dwelt upon somewhat minutely, and, by way of ex- ample, the connection between religious " conviction " and an imperfect digestion is carefully traced out. That we are the creatures of circumstance can hardly be doubted, nor that our destinies are moulded, just as the coral reefs are built, by the action of innumer- able influences, each in itself apparently trivial and insignificant. But the habit which leads men to find a full explanation of the lives of those who have attained exceptional distinction in the circumstances amid which their lot has been cast cannot be said to be a very wholesome or happy one. Few have suf- fered more cruelly from this trick than the Bronte family. Graphic pictures have been presented to the world of their home among the hills, and of their surroundings in their early years ; whilst the public have been asked to believe that some great shadow of gloom rested over their lives from their birth, and that to this fact, and to the influence of the moors, must III.] HER SURROUNDINGS, 15 be attributed, not only the peculiar bent of their genius, but the whole colour and shape of their lives. Those who are thus determined to account for every- thing that lies out of the range of common experience would do well, before they attempt to analyse the great mystery of genius, to reveal to us the true cause of the superlative excellence of this or that rare cm, the secret which gives Johannisberg or Chateau d'Yquem its glory in the eyes of connoisseurs. Cir- cumstances apparently have little to do with the pro- duction of the fragrance and bouquet of these famous wines ; for we know that grapes growing close at hand on similar vines and seemingly under precisely similar conditions, warmed by the same sun, refreshed by the same showers, fanned by the same breezes, produce a wine which is comparatively worthless. When the world has expounded this riddle, it will be time enough to deal with that deeper problem of genius on which we are now too apt to lay presump- tuous and even violent hands. The Brontes have suffered grievously from this fashion, inasmuch as their picturesque and striking surroundings have been allowed to obscure our view of the women themselves. We have made a picture of their lives, and have filled in the mere accessories with such pre-Raphaelite minuteness that the distinct individuality of the heroines has been blurred and confused amid the general blaze of vivid colour, the crowd of " telling " points. No individual is to be blamed for this fact. The world, as we have seen, i6 CHARLOTTE BRONTK [hi. was first introduced to " Currer Bell " and her sisters under romantic circumstances ; the lives of those simple^ sternly-honest women were enveloped from the moment when the public made their acquaintance in a certain haze of romantic mystery ; and when all had passed away, and the time came for the " many-headed beast " to demand the full satisfaction of its curiosity, it would have nothing but the com- pletion of that romance which from the first it had figured in outline for itself. Who then does not know the salient points of that strange and touching story which tells us how the author of "Jane Eyre" lived and died ? Who is not acquainted with that grim parsonage among the hills, where the sisters dwelt amidst such uncongenial and even weird influences ; living like recluses in the house of a Protestant pastor ; associated with sorrow and suffering, and terrible pictures of degrading vice, during their blameless maidenhood ; constructing an ideal world of their own, and dwelling in it heedless of the real world which was in motion all around them ? Who has not been amused and interested by . those graphic pictures of Yorkshire life in the last century, in which the local flavour is so intense and piquant, and which are hardly the less interesting because they relate to an order of things which had passed away entirely long before the Brontes appeared upon the stage ? And who has not been moved by the dark tragedy of Branwell Bronte's life, hinted at rather than explicitly stated, in Mrs. Gaskell's storv, III.] THE REAL CHARM. 17 but yet standing out in such prominence that those who know no better may be forgiven if they regard it as having been the powerful and all-pervading influ- ence which made the career of the sisters what it was ? The true charm of the history of the Brontes, however, does not lie in these things. It is not to be found in the surroundings of their lives, remarkable and romantic as they were, but in the women them- selves, and in those characteristics of their hearts and their intellects which were independent of the acci- dents of condition. Charlotte herself would have been the first to repudiate the notion that there was anything strikingly exceptional in their outward cir- cumstances. With a horror of being considered eccentric that amounted to a passion, she united an almost morbid dread of the notice of strangers. If she could ever have imagined that readers throughout the world would come to associate her name, and still more the names of her idolised sisters, with the ruder features of the Yorkshire character, or with such a domestic tragedy as that amid which her unhappy brother's life terminated, her spirit would have arisen in indignant revolt against that which she would have regarded almost in the light of a personal outrage. And yet if their surroundings at Haworth had comparatively little to do with the development of the genius of the three sisters, it cannot be doubted that two influences which Mrs. Gaskell has rightly made prominent in her book did affect their characters, c i8 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [iii. one in a minor, and the other in a very marked degree. The influence of the moors is to be traced both in their Hves and their works ; whilst far more distinctly is to be traced the influence of their father. As to the first there is little to be said in addition to that which all know already. There is a railway station now at Haworth, and all the world therefore can get to the place without difficulty or incon- venience. Yet even to-day, when the engine goes shrieking past it many times between sunrise and sunset, Haworth is not as other places are. A little manufacturing village, sheltered in a nook among the hills and moors which stretch from the heart of York- shire into the heart of Lancashire, it bears the vivid impress of its situation. The moors which lie around it for miles on every side are superb during the summer and autumn months. Then Haworth is in its glory : a gray stone hamlet set in the midst of a vast sea of odorous purple, and swept by breezes which bear into its winding street the hum of the bees and the fragrance of the heather. But it is in the drear, leaden days of winter, when the moors are covered with snow, that we see what Haworth really is. Then we know that this is a place apart from the outer world ; even the railway seems to have failed to bring it into the midst of that great West Riding which hes close at hand with its busy mills and mul- titudes; and the dullest therefore can understand that in the days when the railway was not, and ^Haworth lay quite by itself, neglected and unseen in its upland III.] EXTERNAL INFLUENCES. 19 valley, its people must have been blessed by some at least of those insular peculiarities which distinguished the villagers of Zermatt and Pontresina before the flood of summer tourists had swept into those com- paratively remote crannies of the Alps. Nurtured among these lonely moors, and accustomed, as all dwellers on thinly-peopled hillsides are, to study the skies and the weather, as the inhabitants of towns and plains study the faces of men and women, the Brontes unquestionably drew their love of nature, their affection .for tempestuous winds and warring clouds, from their residence at Haworth. But this influence was trivial compared with the hereditary influences of their father's character. Few more remarkable personalities than that of the Rev. Patrick Bronte have obtruded themselves upon the smooth uniformity of modern society. The readers of Mrs. Gaskell's biography know that the incumbent of Haworth was an eccentric man, but the full measure of his eccentricity and waywardness has never yet been revealed to the world. He was an Irishman by birth, but when still a young man he had gone to Yorkshire as a curate, and in Yorkshire he remained to the end of his days. His real name was not Bronte — regarding the origin of which word there was so much unnecessary mystery when his daughter became famous — but Prunty. Born of humble parentage in the parish of Ahaderg, County Down, he was one of a large family, all of whom were said to be remarkable for their physical strength and C 2 20 CHARLOTTE BRONTA [hi. personal beauty. Patrick Prunty was the most re- markable member of the family, and his talents were eqrly recognised by Mr. Tighe, the rector of Drum- gooland. This gentleman undertook part at least of the cost of his education, which was completed at St. John's College, Cambridge. As to the change of name from Prunty to Bronte, many fantastic stories have been told. Amongst them is one which repre- sents the Brontes as having derived their name from that of the Bronterres, an ancient Irish family with which they were connected. The connection may possibly have existed, but there is no doubt upon one point. The incumbent of Haworth in early life bore the name of Prunty, and it was not until very shortly before he left Ireland for England that he changed it, at the request of his patron, Mr. Tighe, for the more euphonious appellation of Bronte. He appears to have been a strange compound of good and evil. That he was not without some good is acknowledged by all who knew him. He had kindly feelings towards most people, and he delighted in the stern rectitude which distinguished many of his Yorkshire flock. When his daughter became famous, no one was better pleased at the circumstance than he was. He cut out of every newspaper every scrap which referred to her ; he was proud of her achievements, proud of her intellect, and jealous for her reputation. But throughout his whole life' there was but one person with whom he had any real sympathy, and that person was himself. Passionate, self-willed, vain, III.] MR. BRONTE. 21 habitually cold and distant in his demeanour towards those of his own household, he exhibited in a marked degree many of the characteristics which Charlotte Bronte afterwards sketched in the portrait of the Mr. Helston of " Shirley." The stranger who en- countered him found a scrupulously polite gentleman of the old school, who was garrulous about his past life, and who needed nothing more than the stimulus of a glass of wine to become talkative on the subject of his conquests over the hearts of the ladies of his acquaintance. As you listened to the quaintly-attired old man who chatted on with inexhaustible volubility, you possibly conceived the idea that he was a mere fribble, gay, conceited, harmless ; but at odd times a searching glance from the keen, deep-sunk eyes warned you that you also were being weighed in the balance by your companion, and that this assumption of light-hearted vanity was far from revealing the real man to you. Only those who dwelt under the same roof knew him as he really was. Among the many stories told of him by his children, there is one relating to the meek and gentle woman who was his wife, and whose lot it was to submit to persistent coldness and neglect. Somebody had given Mrs. Bronte a very pretty dress, and her husband, who was as proud as he was self-willed, had taken offence at the gift. A word to his wife, who lived in habitual dread of her lordly master, would have secured all he wanted ; but in his passionate determination that she should not wear the obnoxious garment, he 22 CHARLOTTE BRONTA. [iil. deliberately cut it to pieces, and presented her withi the tattered fragments. Even during his wife's lifej- time he formed the habit of taking his meals alone i; he constantly carried loaded pistols in his pockets;, and when excited he would fire these at the doors; of the outhouses, so that the villagers were quite' accustomed to the sound of pistol-shots at any hour* of the day in their pastor's house. It would be a. mistake to suppose that violence was one of the weapons to which Mr. Bronte habitually resorted,. However stern and peremptory might be his dealings with his wife (who soon left him to spend the remainder of his life in a dreary widowhood), his general policy was to secure his end by craft rather, than by force. A profound belief in his own superior wisdom was conspicuous among his characteristics, and he felt convinced that no one was too clever to be outwitted by his diplomacy. He had also an amazing persistency, which led him to pursue any course on which he had embarked with dogged determination. It happened in later years, when his strength was failing, and ^yhen at last he began to see his daughter in her true light, that he quarrelled with her regarding the character of one of their friends. The daughter, always dutiful and respectful, found that any effort to stem the torrent of his bitter and unjust wrath when he spoke of the friend who had offended him, was attended by consequences which were positively dangerous. The veins of his forehead swelled, his eyes glared, his voice shook. III.] PATERNAL ECCENTRICITIES. 23 and she was fain to submit lest her father's passion should prove fatal to him. But when, wounded beyond endurance by his violence and injustice, she withdrew for a few days from her home, and told her father that she would receive no letters from him in which this friend's name was mentioned, the old man's cunning took the place of passion. He wrote long and affectionate letters to her on general subjects ; but accompanying each letter was a little slip of paper, which professed to be a note from Charlotte^s dog Flossy to his "much-respected and beloved mistress," in which the dog, declaring that he saw " a good deal of human nature that was hid from those who had the gift of language," was made to repeat the attacks upon the obnoxious person which Mr. Bronte dared no longer make in his own character. It was to the care of such a father as this, in the midst of the rude and uncongenial society of the lonely manufacturing village, that six motherless children, five daughters and one son, w^ere left in the year 1 82 1. The parson^s children were not allowed to associate with their little neighbours in the hamlet; their aunt, who came to the parsonage after their mother's death, had scarcely more sympathy with them than their father himself ; their only friend was the rough but kindly servant Tabby, who pitied the bairns without understanding them, and whose acts of graciousness were too often of such a character as to give them more pain than pleasure. So they grew 24 CHARLOTTE BRONTJ^. [iii up strange, lonely, old-fashioned children, with abso- lutely no knowledge of the world outside ; so quiet and demure in their habits that, years afterwards, when they invited some of their Sunday scholars up to the parsonage, and wished to amuse them, they found that they had to ask the scholars to teach them how to play — they had never learned. Carefully secluded from the rest of the world, the little Bronte children found out fashions of their own in the way of amusement, and curious fashions they were. Whilst they were still in the nursery, when the oldest of the family, Maria, was barely nine years old, and Charlotte, the third, was just six, they had begun to take a quaint interest in • literature and politics. Heaven knows who it was who first told these won- derful pigmies of the great deeds of a Wellington or the crimes of a Bonaparte ; but at an age when other children are generally busy with their bricks or their dolls, and when all life's interests are confined for them within the walls of a nursery, these marvellous Brontes were discussing the life of the Great Duke, and maintaining the Tory cause as ardently as the oldest and sturdiest of the village politicians in the neighbouring inn. There is a touching ^story of Charlotte at six years old, which gives us some notion of the ideal life led by the forlorn little girl at this time, when, her two elder sisters having been sent to school, she found herself living at home, the eldest of the motherless brood. She had read " The Pilgrim's III.] HER FACE ZIONIVARDS. 25 Progress," and had been fascinated, young as she was, by that wondrous allegory. Everything in it was to her true and real ; her little heart had gone forth with Christian on his pilgrimage to the Golden City, her bright young mind had been fired by the Bedford tinker's description of the glories of the Celestial Place ; and she made up her mind that she too would escape from the City of Destruction, and gain the haven towards which the weary spirits of every age have turned with eager longing. But where was this glittering city, with its streets of gold, its gates of pearl, its walls of precious stones, its streams of life and throne of light } Poor little girl ! The only place which seemed to her to answer Bunyan's description of the celestial town was one which she had heard the servants discussing with enthusiasm in the kitchen, and its name was Bradford! So to Bradford little Charlotte Bronte, escaping from that Haworth Parsonage which she believed to be a doomed spot, set off one day in 1822. Ingenious persons may speculate if they please upon the sore disappointment which awaited her when, like older people, reaching the place which she had imagined to be Heaven, she found that it was only Bradford. But she never even reached her imaginary Golden City. When her tender feet had carried her a mile along the road, she came to a spot where overhanging trees made the highway dark and gloomy ; she imagined that she had come to the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and, fearing to go forward, was 26 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [iii. presently discovered by her nurse cowering by the roadside. Of the school-days of the Brontes nothing need be said here. Every reader of ** Jane Eyre " knows what Charlotte Bronte herself thought of that charitable institution to which she has given so un- enviable a notoriety. There she lost her oldest sister, whose fate is described in the tragic tale of Helen Burns ; and it was whilst she was at this place that her second sister, Elizabeth, also died. Only one thing- need be added to this dismal record of the stay at Cowan Bridge. During the whole time of their sojourn there, the young Brontes scarcely ever knew what it was to be free from the pangs of hunger. Charlotte was now the head of the little family ; the remaining members of which were her brother Bran well and her sisters Emily and Anne. Mrs. Gaskell has given the world a vivid picture of the life which these four survivors from the hardships of Cowan Bridge led between the years 1825 and 1831. They spent those years at Haworth, almost without care or sympathy. Their father saw little in their lot to interest him, nothing to drag him out of his selfish absorption in his own pursuits ; their aunt, a permanent invalid, conceived that her duty was accomplished when she had taught them a few lessons and insisted on their doing a certain amount of needlework every day. For the rest they were left to themselves, and thus early they showed the III.] JUVENILE EFFORTS, 27 bent of their genius by spending their time in writing novels. Mrs. Gaskeli has given us some idea of the character of these juvenile performances in a series of extracts which sufficiently indicate their rare merit vShe has, however, paid exclusive attention to Charlotte's productions. All readers of the Bronte story will remember the account of the play of '* The Islanders," and other remarkable specimens, showing with what real vigour and originality Char- lotte could handle her pen whilst she was still in the first year of her teens ; but those few persons who have seen the whole of the juvenile library of the family bear testimony to the fact that Branwell and Emily were at least as industrious and successful as Charlotte herself Indeed, even at this early age, the bizarre character of Emily's genius was beginning to manifest itself, and her leaning towards weird and supernatural effects was exhibited whilst she com- posed her first fairy tales within the walls of her nursery. It may be well to bear in mind the fre- quency with which the critics have charged Charlotte Bronte with exaggerating the precocity of children. What we know of the early days of the Brontes proves that what would have been exaggeration in any other person was in the case of Charlotte nothing but a truthful reproduction of her own experiences. Only one specimen of these earliest writings of the . Brontes can be quoted here : it is that to 28 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [m which I have already referred, the play of "The Islanders : " June the 31st, 1829. The play of " The Islanders " was formed in December, 1827, in the following manner. One night, about the time when the cold sleet and stormy fogs of November are succeeded by the snow-storms and high piercing night-winds of confirmed winter, we were all sitting round the warm blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a quarrel with Tabby concerning the propriety of lighting a candle, from which she came off victorious, no candles having been produced. A long pause succeeded, which was at length broken by Bran well saying, in a lazy manner, ''I don't know what to do." This was echoed by Emily and Anne. Tabby. Wha, ya may go t' bed. 'Braftwell. I'd rather do anything than that. Charlotte. Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby? Oh ! suppose we had each an island of our own. Branwell. If we had, I would choose the Island of Man. Charlotte. And I would choose the Isle of Wight. Emily. The Isle of Arran for me. Anne. And mine shall be Guernsey. We then chose who should be the chief men in our islands. Branwell chose John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter Scott, Mr. Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart ; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, Sir Henry Hahord. • I chose the Duke of Wellington and two sons, Christopher North and Co., and Mr. Abernethy. Here our conversation was interrupted by the, to us, dismal sound of the clock striking seven, and we were summoned off to bed. IV. THE FAMILY AT HAWORTH. The years have slipped away, and the Brontes are no longer children. They have passed out of that strange condition of premature activity in which their brains were so busy, their lives so much at variance with the lives of others of their age ; they have even " finished " their education, according to the foolish phrase of the world, and, having made some ac- quaintances and a couple of friends at good Miss Wooler's school at Roehead, Charlotte is again at home, young, hopeful, and in her own way merry, waiting with her brother and her sisters till that mystery of life which seems filled with hidden charms to those who still have it all before them shall be revealed. One bright June morning in 1833, a handsome carriage and pair is standing opposite the Devon- shire Arms at Bolton Bridge, the spot loved by all anglers and artists who know anything of the scenery of the Wharfe. In the carriage with some com- panions is a young girl, whose face, figure, and manner may be conjured up by all who have read "Shirley," for this pleasant, comely Yorkshire maiden, 30 CHARLOTTE BRONT^, [iv. as we see her on this particular morning, is identical with the Caroline Helston who figures in the pages of that novel. Miss N is waiting for her quondam schoolfellow and present bosom friend, Charlotte Bronte, who is coming with her brother and sisters to join in an excursion to the enchanted site of Bolton Abbey hard by. Presently, on the steep road which stretches across the moors to Keighley, the sound of wheels is heard, mingled with the merry speech and merrier laughter of fresh young voices. Shall we go forward unseen, and study the approach- ing travellers whilst they are still upon the road } Their conveyance is no handsome carriage, but a rickety dogcart, unmistakably betraying its neigh- bourship to the carts and ploughs of some rural farmyard. The horse, freshly taken from the fields, is driven by a youth who, in spite of his countrified dress, is no mere bumpkin. His shock of red hair hangs down in somewhat ragged locks behind his ears, for Branwell Bronte esteems himself a genius and a poet, and, following the fashion of the times, has that abhorrence of the barber's shears which genius is supposed to affect. But the lad's face is a handsome and a striking one, full of Celtic fire and humour, untouched by the slightest shade of care, giving one the impression of somebody altogether hopeful, promising, even brilliant. How gaily he jokes with his three sisters ; with what inexhaustible volubility he pours out quotations from his favourite poets, applying them to the lovely scene around him ; IV.] AT BOLTON BRIDGE. 31 and with what a mischievous delight, in his superior nerve and mettle, he attempts feats of charioteering which fill the timid heart of the youngest of the party with sudden terrors ! Beside him, in a dress of marvellous plainness and ugliness, stamped with the brand "home-made" in characters which none can mistake, is the eldest of the sisters. Charlotte is talking too ; there are bright smiles upon her face ; she is enjoying everything around her, the splendid morning, the charms of leafy trees and budding roses, and the ever-musical stream ; most of all, perhaps, the charm of her brother's society, and the expecta- tion of that coming meeting with her friend, which is so near at hand. Behind sit a pretty little girl, with fine complexion and delicate regular features, whom the stranger would at once pick out as the beauty of the company, and a tall, rather angular figure, clad in a dress exactly resembling Charlotte's. Emily Bronte does not talk so much as the rest of the party, but her wonderful eyes, brilliant and unfathomable as the pool at the foot of a waterfall, but radiant also with a wealth of tenderness and warmth, show how her soul is expanding under the influences of the scene ; how quick she is to note the least prominent of the beauties around her, how intense is her enjoy- ment of the songs of the birds, the brilliancy of the sunshine, the rich scent of the flower-bespangled hedgerows. If she does not, like Charlotte and Anne, meet her brother's ceaseless flood of sparkling words with opposing currents of speech, she utters at 32 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [iv. times a strange, deep guttural sound which those who know her best interpret as the language of a joy too deep for articulate expression. Gaze at them as they pass you in the quiet road, and acknowledge that, in spite of their rough and even uncouth exteriors, a happier four could hardly be met with in this favourite haunt of pleasure-seekers during a long summer's day. Suddenly the dogcart rattles noisily into the open space in front of the Devonshire Arms, and the Brontes see the carriage and its occupants. In an instant there is silence; Branwell contrasts his humble equipage with that which already stands at the inn door, and a flush of mortified pride colours his face ; the sisters scarcely note this contrast, but to their "dismay they see that their friend is not alone, and each draws a long deep breath, and prepares for that fiercest of all the ordeals they know, a meeting with entire strangers. The laughter is stilled ; even Bran- welFs volubility is at an end ; the glad light dies out of their eyes, and when they alight and submit to the process of being introduced to Miss N 's com- panions, their faces are as dull and commonplace as their dresses. It is no imaginary scene we have been watching. Miss N still recalls that painful mo- ment when the merry talk and laughter of her friends were quenched at sight of the company awaiting them, and when throughout a day to which all had looked forward with anticipations of delight, the thret Brontes clung to each other or to their friend, scarcely IV.] HER SHYNESS. 33 venturing to speak above a whisper, and betraying in every look and word the positive agony which filled their hearts when a stranger approached them. It was this excessive shyness in the company of those who were unfamiliar to them which was the most marked characteristic of the sisters. The weakness was as much physical as moral ; and those who sup- pose that it was accompanied by any morbid depres- sion of spirits, or any lack of vigour and liveliness when the incubus of a stranger's presence was removed, entirely mistake their true character. Unhappily, first impressions are always strongest, and running through the whole of Mrs. Gaskell's story, may be seen the impression produced at her first meeting with Char- lotte Bronte by her nervous shrinking and awkward- ness in the midst of unknown faces. It was not thus with those who, brought into the closest of all fellowship with her, the fellowship of school society, knew the secrets of her heart far better than did any who became acquainted with her in after life. To such the real Charlotte Bronte, who knew no timidity in their presence, was a bold, clever, out- spoken and impulsive girl ; ready to laugh with the merriest, and not even indisposed to join in practical jokes with the rest of her schoolfellows. The picture we get in the " Life" is that of a victim to secret terrors and superstitious fancies. The real Charlotte Bronte, when stories were current as to the presence of a ghost in the upper chambers of the old school-house at Roehead, did not hesitate to go up to these rooms D 34 CHARLOTTE BRONTA [iv. alone and in the darkness of a winter's night, leaving her companions shivering in terror round the fire downstairs. When she had left school, and began that correspondence with Miss N which is the great source of our knowledge, not merely of the course of her life, but of the secrets of her heart, it must not be supposed that she wrote always in that serious spirit which pervades most of the letters quoted by Mrs. Gaskell. On the contrary, those who have access to the letters will find that even some of the passages given in the "Life" are allied to sentences showing that the frame of mind in which they were written was very different from that which it appears to have been. The following letter, written from Haworth in the beginning of 1835, is an example : Well, here I am as completely separated from you as if a hundred, instead of seventeen, miles intervened be- tween us. I can neither hear you nor see you nor feel you. You are become a mere thought, an unsubstantial impres- sion on the memory, which, however, is happily incapable of erasure. My journey home was rather melancholy, and would have been very much so but for the presence and conversation of my worthy companion. I found him a very intelligent man. He told me the adventures of his sailor's life, his shipwreck and the hurricane he had witnessed in the West Indies, with a much better flow of language than many of far greater pretensions are masters of I thought he appeared a little dismayed by the wildness of the country round Haworth, and I imagine he has carried back a pretty report of it. What do you think of the course politics are taking ? IV.] VARIABLE AS QUICKSILVER. 35 I make this inquiry because I now think you have a whole- some interest in the matter ; formerly you did not care greatly about it. B , you see, is triumphant. Wretch ! I am a hearty hater, and if there is any one I thoroughly abhor it is that man. But the Opposition is divided. Red- hots and lukewarms ; and the Duke {par excellence the Duke) and Sir Robert Peel show no signs of insecurity, although they have been twice beat. So " courage, mon amie!^' Heaven defend the right! as the old Cavahers used to say before they joined battle. Now, Ellen, laugh heartily at all that rodomontade. But you have brought it on yourself. Don't you remember telling me to write such letters to you as I wrote to Mary ? There's a specimen ! Hereafter should follow a long disquisition on books ; but I'll spare you that. Those who turn to Mrs. Gaskell's " Life" will find one of the sentences in this letter quoted, but without the burst of laughter over " all that rodomontade " at the end which shows that Charlotte's interest in politics was not unmingled with the happy levity of youth. Still more striking as an illustration of her true character, with its infinite variety of moods, its sudden transitions from grave to gay, is the letter I now quote : Last Saturday afternoon, being in one of my sentimental humours, I sat down and wrote to you such a note as I ought to have written to none but M , who is nearly as mad as myself; to-day, when I glanced it over, it occurred to me that Ellen's calm eye would look at this with scorn, so I determined to concoct some production more fit for the inspection of common sense. I will not tell you all I D 2 36 CHARLOTTE BRONTR. [iv. think and feel about you, Ellen. I will preserve unbroken that reserve which alone enables me to maintain a decent character for judgment; but for that I should long ago have been set down by all who know me as a Frenchified fool. You have been very kind to me of late, and gentle , and you have spared me those little sallies of ridicule which, owing to my miserable and wretched touchiness of character, used formerly to make me wince as if I had been touched with a hot iron ; things that nobody else cares for enter into my mind and rankle there like venom. I know these feelings are absurd, and therefore I try to hide them ; but they only sting the deeper for concealment^ and I'm an idiot. Ellen, I wish I could live with you always, I begin to cling to you more fondly than ever I did. If we had bat a cottage and a competency of our own, I do think we might live and love on till death, without being dependent on any third person for happiness. Mrs. Gaskell has made a very partial and imper- fect use of this letter, by quoting merely from the words " You have been very kind to me of late," down to "they only sting the deeper for concealment." Thus it will be seen that an importance is given to an evanescent mood which it was far from meriting, and that lighter side to Charlotte's character which was prominent enough to her nearest and dearest friends is entirely concealed from the outer world. Again, I say, we must not blame Mrs. Gaskell. Such sentences as those which she omitted from the letter I have just given are not only entirely inconsistent with that ideal portrait of " Currer Bell " which the world had formed for itself out of the bare materials in exist- IV.] A YOUNG POLITICIAN. 37 ence during the author's lifetime, but are also utterly at variance with Mrs. Gaskell's personal conception of Charlotte Bronte's character, founded upon her brief acquaintance with her during her years of loneliness and fame. The quick transitions which marked her moods in converse with her friends may be traced all through her letters to Miss N . The quotations I have already made show how suddenly on the sa^me page she passes from gaiety to sadness ; and so her letters, dealing as they do with an endless variety of topics, reflect only the mood of the writer at the moment that she penned them, and it is only by reading and studying the whole, not by selecting those which re- flect a particular phase of her character, that we can complete the portrait we would fain produce. Here are some extracts from letters which are not to be found in the " Life," and which illustrate what I have said. They were all written between the beginning of 1832 and the end of 1835 : Tell M I hope she will derive benefit from the perusal of Cobbett's lucubrations ; but I beg she will on no account burden her memory with passages to be repeated for my edification, lest I should not fully appreciate either her kindness or their merit, since that worthy personage and his principles, whether private or political, are no great favourites of mine. I am really very much obliged to you — she writes in September, 1832 — for your well-filled and very interesting letter. It forms a striking contrast to my brief meagre 38 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [iv. epistles; but I know you will excuse the utter dearth of news visible in them when you consider the situation in which I am placed, quite out of the reach of all intelligence except what I obtain through the medium of the news- papers, and I believe you would not find much to interest you in a political discussion, or a summary of the accidents of the week. ... I am sorry, very sorry, that Miss has turned out to be so different from what you thought her; but, my dearest Ellen, you must never expect per- fection in this world ; and I know your naturally confiding and affectionate disposition has led you to imagine that Miss was almost faultless. ... I think, dearest Ellen, our friendship is destined to form an exception to the general rule regarding school friendships. At least I know that absence has not in the least abated the sisterly affection which I feel towards you. Your last letter revealed a state of mind which promised much. As I read it, I could not help wishing that my own feelings more nearly resembled yours ; but unhappily all the good thoughts that enter i7iy mind evaporate almost before I have had time to ascertain their existence. Every right resolution which I form is so transient, so fragile, and so easily broken, that I sometimes fear I shall never be what I ought. I write a hasty line to assure you we shall be happy to see you on the day you mention. As you are now acquainted with the neighbourhood and its total want of society, and with our plain, monotonous mode of life, I do not fear so much as I used to do, that you will be disappointed with the dulness and sameness of your visit. One thing, how- ever, will make the daily routine more unvaried than ever. Branwell, who used to enliven us, is to leave us in a i^^f IV.] JUVENILE TORYISM. 39 days, and enter the situation of a private tutor in the neigh- bourhood of U . How he will like to settle remains yet to be seen. At present he is full of hope and resolution. I, who know his variable nature and his strong turn for active life, dare not be too sanguine. We are as busy as possible in preparing for his departure, and shirt-making and collar-stitching fully occupy our time. April, 1835. The election ! the election ! that cry has rung even among our lonely hills Hke the blast of a trumpet. How has it been round the populous neighbourhood of B ? Under what banner have your brothers ranged themselves ? the Blue or the Yellow ? Use your influence with them ; entreat them, if it be necessary on your knees, to stand by their country and religion in this day of danger ! . . . Stuart Wortley, the son of the most patriotic patrician Yorkshire owns, must be elected the representative of his native province. Lord Morpeth was at tiaworth last week, and I saw him. My opinion of his lordship is recorded in a letter I wrote yesterday to Mary. It is not worth writing over again, so I will not trouble you with it here. Even these brief extracts will show that Charlotte Brontes life at this time was not a morbid one. These years between 1832 and 1S35 must be counted among the happiest of her life — of all the lives of the little household at Haworth, in fact. The young people were accustomed to their father's coldness and eccentricity, and to their aunt's dainty distaste for all Northern customs and Northern people, them- selves included. Shy they were and peculiar, alike in their modes of life and their modes of thought ; 40 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [iv. but there was a wholesome, healthy happiness about all of them that gave promise of peaceful lives hereafter. Some literary efforts of a humble kind brightened their hopes at this time. Charlotte had written some juvenile poems (not now worth reprint- ing), and she sought the opinion of Southey upon them. The poet laureate gave her a kindly and considerate answer, which did not encourage her to persevere in these efforts ; nor was an attempt by Branwell to secure the patronage of Wordsworth for some productions of his own more successful. Had anybody ventured into the wilds of Haworth parish at this new year of 1835, ^^^ made acquaintance with the parson's family, it is easy to say upon whom the attention of the stranger would have been riveted. Branwell Bronte, of whom casual mention is made in one of the foregoing letters, was the hope and pride of the little household. All who knew him at this time bear testimony to his remarkable talents, his striking graces. Small in stature like Charlotte her- self, he was endowed with a rare personal beauty. But it was in his intellectual gifts that his chief charm was found. Even his father's dull parishioners re- cognised the fire of genius in the lad ; and any one who cares to go to Haworth now and inquire into the story of the Brontes, will find that the most vivid reminiscences, the fondest memories of the older people in the village, centre in this hapless youth. Ambitious and clever, he seemed destined to play a considerable part in the world. His conversational IV.] BRANWELL. 41 powers were remarkable ; he gave promise of more than ordinary ability as an artist, and he had even as a boy written verses of no common power. Among other accomplishments, more curious than useful, of which he could boast, was the ability to write two letters simultaneously. It is but a small trait in the history of this remarkable family, yet it deserves to be noticed, that its least successful member excelled Napoleon himself in one respect. The great conqueror could dictate half-a-dozen letters concurrently to his secretaries. Branwell Bronte could do more than this. With a pen in each hand, he could write two different letters at the same moment. Charlotte was Branwell's senior by one year. In 1835, when in her nineteenth year, she was by no means the unattractive person she has been repre- sented as being. There is a little caricature sketched by herself lying before me as I write. In it all the more awkward of her physical points are ingeniously exaggerated. The prominent forehead bulges out in an aggressive manner, suggestive of hydrocephalus, the nose, " tip-tilted like the petal of a flower," and the mouth are made unnecessarily large ; whilst the little figure is clumsy and ungainly. But though she could never pretend to beauty, she had redeeming features, her eyes, hair, and massive forehead all being attractive points. Emily, who was two years her junior, had, like Charlotte, a bad complexion ; but she was tall and well-formed, whilst her eyes were of remarkable beauty. All through her life her 42 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [iv. temperament was more than merely peculiar. She inherited not a little of her father's eccentricity, untempered by her father's savoir faire. Her aversion to strangers has been already mentioned. When the curates, who formed the only society of Haworth, found their way to the parsonage, she avoided them as though they had brought the pestilence in their train. On the rare occasions when she went out into the world, she would sit absolutely silent in the com.pany of those who were unfamiliar to her. So intense was this reserve that even in her own family, where alone she was at ease, something like dread was mingled with the affection felt towards her. On one occasion, whilst Charlotte's friend was visiting the parsonage, Charlotte herself was unable through illness to take any walks with her. To the amaze- ment of the household, Emily volunteered to ac- company Miss N on a ramble over the moors. They set off together, and the girl threw aside her reserve, and talked with a freedom and vigour which gave evidence of the real strength of her character. Her companion was charmed with her intelligence and geniality. But on returning to the parsonage Charlotte was found awaiting them, and, as soon as she had a chance of doing so, she anxiously put to Miss N the question, " How did Emily behave herself.?" It was the first time she had ever been known to invite the company of any one outside the narrow limits of the family circle. Her chief delight was to roam on the moors, followed by her dogs, to IV.] EMILY, 43 whom she would whistle in masculine fashion. Her heart, indeed, was given to these dumb creatures of the earth. She never forgave those who ill-treated them, nor trusted those whom they disliked. One is reminded of Shelley's "Sensitive Plant" by some traits of Emily Bronte : If the flowers had been her own infants, she Could never have nursed them more tenderly ; and, like the lady of the poem, her tenderness and charity could reach even the poor banished insects, whose intent, Although they did ill, was innocent. One instance of her remarkable personal courage is related in " Shirley," where she herself is sketched under the character of the heroine. It is her ad- venture with the mad dog which bit her at the door of the parsonage kitchen whilst she was offering it water. The brave girl took an iron from the fire, where it chanced to be heating, and immediately cauterised the wound on her arm, making a broad, deep scar, which was there until the day of her death. Not until many weeks after did she tell her sisters what had happened. Passionately fond of her home among the hills, and of the rough Yorkshire people among whom she had been reared, she sickened and pined away when absent from Haworth. A strange untamed and untamable character was hers ; and none but her two sisters ever seem to have appreciated her remarkable merits, or to have 44 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [IV. recognised the fine though immature genius which shows itself in every Hne of the weird story of " Wuthering Heights." Anne, the youngest of the family, had beauty in addition to her other gifts. Intellectually she was greatly inferior to her sisters ; but her mildness and sweetness of temperament won the affections of many who were repelled by the harsher exteriors of Char- lotte and Emily. This was the family which lived happily and quietly among the hills during those years when life with its vicissitudes still lay in the distance. Gay their existence could not be called ; but their letters show that it was unquestionably peaceful, happy, and wholesome ^ THE HOUSE THAT CHARLOTTE VISITED. V. LIFE AS A GOVERNESS. Moved by the hope of Hghtening the family expenses and enabling Branwell to get a thorough artistic train- ing at the Royal Academy, Charlotte resolved to go out as a governess. Her first " place " was at her old school at Roehead, where she was with her friend, Miss Wooler, and where she was also very near the home of her confidante, Miss N . Emily went with her for a time, but she soon sickened and pined for the moors, and after a trial of but a few months she returned to Haworth. A great deal of sympathy has been bestowed upon the Brontes in connection with their lives as governesses ; nor am I prepared to say that this sympathy is wholly misplaced. Their reserve, their affection for each other, their ignorance of the world, combined to make " the cup of life as it is mixed for the class termed governesses" — to use Charlotte's own phrase — particularly distasteful to them. But it is a mistake to suppose that they were treated with harshness during their governess life, or that Charlotte, at least, felt her trials to be at all un- bearable. It was decidedly unpleasant to sacrifice the independence and the family companionship of 46 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [v. Haworth for drudgery and loneliness in the house- hold of a stranger ; but it was a duty, and as such it was accepted without repining by two, at least, of the sisters. Emily's peculiar temperament made her quite unfitted for life among strangers ; she made many attempts to overcome her reserve, but all were unavailing ; and after a brief experience in one or two families in different parts of Yorkshire, she returned to Haworth to reside there permanently as her father's housekeeper. There is no need to dwell upon this episode in the lives of the Brontes. They were living among unfamiliar faces, and had little temptation to display themselves in their true characters, but extracts from a few of Charlotte's letters to her friends will show something of the course of her thought at this time. With the ex- ception of a detached sentence or two these letters will be quite new to the readers of Mrs. Gaskell's "Life:" I have been waiting for an opportunity of sending a letter to you as you wished ; but as no such opportunity offers itself, I have at length determined to write to you by post, fearing that if I delayed any longer you would attribute my tardiness to indifference. I can scarcely realise the dis- tance that lies between us, or the length of time which may elapse before we meet again. Now, Ellen, I have no news to tell you, no changes to communicate. My life since I saw you last has passed away as monotonously and unvary- ingly as ever — nothing but teach, teach, teach, from morn- ing till night. The greatest variety I ever have is afforded by a letter from you, a call from the T s, or by meeting v.] BOOKS. 47 with a pleasant new book. The " Life of Oberlin," and Legh Richmond's " Domestic Portraiture," are the last of this description I have perused. The latter work strongly attracted and strangely fascinated my attention. Beg, borrow, or steal it without delay, and read the " Memoir of Rich- mond." That short record of a brief and uneventful life I shall never forget. It is beautiful, not on account of the language in which it is written, not on account of the inci- dents it details, but because of the simple narration it gives of the life and death of a young, talented, sincere Christian. Get the book, Ellen (I wibh I had it to give you), read it, and tell me what you think of it. Yesterday I heard that you had been ill since you were in London. I hope you are better now. Are you any happier than you were ? Try to reconcile your mind to circumstances, and exert the quiet fortitude of which I know you are not destitute. Your absence leaves a sort of vacancy in my feelings which nothing has as yet offered of sufficient interest to supply. I do not forget ten o'clock. I remember it every night, and if a sincere petition for your welfare will do you any good you will be benefited. I know the Bible says : " The prayer of the righieous availeth much," and I am not righteous. Nevertheless I believe God despises no appli- cation that is uttered in sincerity. My own dear E , good-bye. I can write no more, for I am called to a less pleasant avocation. Dewsbury Moor, Oct. 2, 1836. I should have written to you a week ago, but my time has of late been so wholly taken up that till now I have really not had an opportunity of answering your last letter. I assure you I feel the kindness of so early a reply to my tardy correspondence. It gave me a sting of self-reproach. .... My sister Emily is gone into a situation as teacher 48 CHARLOTTE BRONTR [v. in a large school of near forty pupils, near Halifax. I have had one letter from her since her departure. It gives an appalling account of her duties. Hard labour from six in the morning till near eleven at night, with only one half- hour of exercise between. This is slavery. I fear she will never stand it. It gives me sincere pleasure, my dear Ellen, to learn that you have at last found a few associates of con- genial minds. I cannot conceive a life more dreary than that passed amidst sights, sounds, and companions all alien to the nature within us. From the tenor of your letters it seems that your mind remains fixed as it ever was, in no wise dazzled by novelty or warped by evil example. I am thankful for it. I could not help smiling at the paragraphs which related to . There was in them a touch of the genuine unworldly simplicity which forms part of your cha- racter. Ellen, depend upon it, all people have their dark side. Though some possess the power of throwing a fair veil over the defects, close acquaintance slowly removes the screen, and one by one the blots appear ; till at last we see the pattern of perfection all slurred over with stains which even affection cannot efface. The afifectionate commendations of her friend are constantly accompanied by references of a very dif- ferent character to herself. If I like people — she says in one of her letters — it is my nature to tell them so, and I am not afraid of offering incense to your vanity. It is from religion that you derive your chief charm, and may its influence always preserve you as pure, as unassuming, and as benevolent in thought and deed as you are now. What am I compared to you? I feel my own utter worthlessness when I make the com- A MENTAL STRUGGLE. 49 parison. I'm a very coarse, commonplace wretch ! I have some quaUties that make me very miserable, some feelings that you can have no participation in — that few, very few people in the world can at all understand. I don't pride myself on these peculiarities. I strive to conceal and sup- press them as much as I can, but they burst out sometimes, and then those who see the explosion despise me, and I hate myself for days afterwards. All my notes to you, Ellen, are written in a hurry. I am now snatching an opportunity. Mr. J is here ; by his means it will be transmitted to Miss E , by her means to X , by his means to you. I do not blame you for not coming to see me. I am sure you have been prevented by sufficient reasons ; but I do long to see you, and I hope I shall be gratified momentarily, at least, ere long. Next Friday, if all be well, I shall go to G . On Sunday I hope I shall at least catch a glimpse of you. Week after week I have lived on the expectation of your coming. Week after week I have been disappointed. I have not regretted what I said in my last note to you. The confession was wrung from me by sympathy and kind- ness, such as I can never be sufficiently thankful for. I feel in a strange state of mind ; still gloomy, but not despairing. I keep trying to do right, checking v/rong feelings, repressing wrong thoughts — but still, every instant I find myself going astray. I have a constant tendency to scorn people who are far better than I am. A horror at the idea of becoming one of a certain set — a dread lest if I made the slightest profession I should sink at once into Phariseeism, merge wholly in the ranks of the self-righteous. In writing at this moment I feel an irksome disgust at the idea of using a single phrase that sounds like religious cant. I abhor myself; I despise myself If the doctrine of Calvin 50 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. y.. be true, I am already an outcast. You cannot imagine how hard, rebelUous, and intractable all my feelings are. When I begin to study on the subject I almost grow blasphemous, atheistical in my sentiments. Don't desert me — don't be horrified at me. You know what I am. I wish I could see you, my darling. I have lavished the warmest affections of a very hot, tenacious heart upon you. If you grow cold it is over. You will excuse a very brief and meagre answer to your kind note when I tell you that at the moment it reached me, and that just now whilst I am scribbling a reply, the whole house is in the bustle of packing and pre- paration, for on this day we all go home. Your palliation of my defects is kind and charitable, but I dare not trust its truth. Few would regard them with so lenient an eye as you do. Your consolatory admonitions are kind, Ellen ; and when I can read them over in quietness and alone, I trust I shall derive comfort from them. But just now, in- the unsettled, excited state of mind which I now feel, I cannot enter into the pure scriptural spirit which they breathe. It would be wrong of me to continue the subject. My thoughts are distracted and absorbed by other ideas. You do not mention your visit to Haworth. Have you spoken of it to the family? Have they agreed to let you come ? But I will write when I get home. Ever since last Friday I have been as busy as I could be in finishing up the half-year's lessons, which concluded with a terrible fog in geographical problems (think of explaining that to Misses and !), and subsequently in mending Miss 's clothes. Miss is calling me : something about my protegee's nightcap. Good-bye. We shall meet again ere many days, I trust. Here it will be seen that the religious struggle v.] THE FIRST OFFER. 51 was renewed. The woman who was afterwards to be accused of '' heathenism " was going through tortures such as Cowper knew in his darkest hours, and, hke him, was acquiring faith, humiHty, and resignation in the midst of the conflict. But such letters as this are only episodical ; in general she writes cheerfully, sometimes even merrily. What would the Quarterly reviewer and the other charitable people, who openly declared their con- viction that the author of " Jane Eyre " was an improper person, who had written an improper book, have said had they been told that she had written the following letter on the subject of her first offer of marriage — written it, too, at the time when she was a governess, and in spite of the fact that the offer opened up to her a way of escape from all anxiety as to her future life t You ask me whether I have received a letter from T . I have about a week since. The contents I con- fess did a little surprise me ; but I kept them to myself, and unless you had questioned me on the subject I would never have adverted to it. T says he is comfortably settled at , and that his health is much improved. He then intimates that in due time he will want a wife, and frankly asks me to be that wife. Altogether the letter is written without cant or flattery, and in common-sense style which does credit to his judgment. Now there were in this proposal some things that might have proved a strong temptation. I thought if I were to marry so could live with me, and how happy I should be. But again I asked myself two questions : Do I love T as much as £ 2 52 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [v. a woman ought to love her husband ? Am I the person best quahfied to make him happy ? Alas ! my conscience answered " No " to both these questions. I felt that though I esteemed T , though I had a kindly leaning towards him, because he is an amiable, well-disposed man, yet I had not and never could have that intense attachment which would make me willing to die for him — and if ever I marry it must be in that light of adoration that I will regard my husband. Ten to one I shall never have the chance again ; but ii!importe. Moreover, I was aware he knew so little of me he could hardly be conscious to whom he was writing. Why, it would startle him to see me in my natural home character. He would think I was a wild, romantic enthu- siast indeed. I could not sit all day long making a grave face before my husband. I would laugh and satirise, and say whatever came into my head first ; and if he were a clever man and loved me, the whole world weighed in the balance against his smallest wish would be light as air. Could I, knowing my mind to be such as that, conscien- tiously say that I would take a grave, quiet young man like T ? No ; it would have been deceiving him, and de- ception of that sort is beneath me. So I wrote a long letter back in which I expressed my refusal as gently as I could, and also candidly avowed my reasons for that refusal. I described to him, too, the sort of character I thought would suit him for a wife. The girl who could thus calmly decline a more than merely *' eligible " offer, and thus honestly state her reasons for doing so to the friend she trusted, was strangely different from the author of " Jane Eyre " pictured by the critics and the public. Perhaps the full cost of the refusal related in the foregoing letter v.] SYMPATHY WITH OTHERS. 53 is only made clear when it is brought into contrast with such a confession as the following, made very soon afterwards : I am miserable when I allow myself to dwell on the necessity of spending my life as a governess. The chief requisite for that station seems to me to be the power of taking things easily when they come, and of making oneself comfortable and at home wherever one may chance to be — qualities in which all our family are singularly deficient. I know I cannot live with a person like Mrs. ; but I hope all women are not like her, and my motto is " Try again." How thoroughly at all times she could sym- pathise alike with the joys and sorrows of others, is proved by many letters extending over the whole period of her life. The following is neither the earliest nor the most characteristic of those utterances of a tender and heartfelt sympathy with her special friend, which are to be found in her correspondence, but as Mrs. Gaskell has not made use of it, I may quote it here : 1838. We were at breakfast when your note reached me, and I consequently write in great hurry. Your trials seem to thicken. I trust God will either remove them or give you strength to bear them. If I could but come to you and offer you all the little assistance either my head or hands could afford ! But that is impossible. I scarcely dare offer to comfort you about lest my consolation should seem like mockery. I know that in cases of sickness strangers cannot measure what relations feel. One thing, however, I 54 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [v. need not remind you of. You will have repeated it over and over to yourself before now : God does all for the best ; and even should the worst happen, and Death seem finally to destroy hope, remember that this will be but a practical test of the strong faith and calm devotion which have marked you a Christian so long. I would hope, however, that the time for this test is not yet come, that your brother may recover, and all be well. It grieves me to hear that your own health is so indifferent. Once more I wish I were with you to lighten at least by sympathy the burden that seems so unsparingly laid upon you. Let me thank you for remembering me in the midst of such hurry and afflic- tion. We are all apt to grow selfish in distress. This, so far as I have found, is not your case. W/ie?t shall I see you again ? The uncertainty in which the answer to that ques- tion must be involved gives me a bitter feeling. Through all changes, through all chances, I trust I shall love you as I do now. We can pray for each other and think of each other. Distance is no bar to recollection. You have pro- mised to write to me, and I do not doubt that you will keep your word. Give my love to M and your mother. Take with you my blessing and affection, and all the warmest wishes of a warm heart for your welfare. From one of her situations as governess in a private family (she had long since left the kind shelter of Miss Wooler's house) she writes in 1841 a series of letters showing how little she relished the ''cup of life as it is mixed for the class termed governesses." It is twelve o'clock at night ; but I must just write you a word before I go to bed. If you think I'm going to refuse your invitation, or if you sent it me with that idea, you're v.] LIFE AS A GOVERNESS. 55 mistaken. As soon as I had read your shabby httle note, I gathered up my spirits directly, walked on the impulse of the moment into Mrs. 's presence, popped the question, and for two minutes received no answer. "Will she. refuse me when I work so hard for her ?" thought I. "Ye — e — es," drawled madam in a reluctant, cold tone. " Thank you, madam ! " said I with extreme cordiality, and was marching from the room when she recalled me with " You'd better go on Saturday afternoon, then, when the children have holiday, and if you return in time for them to have all their lessons on Monday morning, I don't see that much will be lost." You are a genuine Turk, thought I ; but again I assented, and so the bargain was struck. Saturday after next, then, is the day appointed. I'll come, God knows, with a thankful and joyful heart, glad of a day's reprieve from labour. If you don't send the gig I'll walk. I am coming to taste the pleasure of liberty ; a bit of pleasant congenial talk, and a sight of two or three faces I like. God bless you ! I want to see you again. Huzza for Saturday afternoon after next ! Good-night, my lass ! During the last three weeks that hideous operation called " a thorough clean " has been going on in the house. It is now nearly completed, for which I thank my stars, as during its progress I have fulfilled the double character of nurse and governess, while the nurse has been transmuted into cook and housemaid. That nurse, by-the-bye, is the prettiest lass you ever saw I was beginning to think Mrs. a good sort of body in spite of her bouncing and boasting, her bad grammar and worse orthography ; but I have had experience of one little trait in her character which condemns her a long way with me. After treating a person on the most familiar terms of equality for a long time, if any little thing goes wrong, she does not scruple to 56 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [v. give way to anger in a very coarse, unladylike manner, though in justice no blame could be attached where she ascribed it all. I think passion is the true test of vulgarity or refinement. This place looks exquisitely beautiful just now. The grounds are certainly lovely, and all as green as an emerald. I wish you would just ccme and look at it VI. THE TURNING-POINT. The " storm and stress " period of Charlotte Bronte s life was not what the world believes it to have been. Like the rest of our race, she had to fight her own battle in the wilderness, not with one devil, but with many; and it was this sharp contest with the tempta- tions which crowd the threshold of an opening life which made her what she was. The world believes that it was under the parsonage roof that the author pf ''Jane Eyre " gathered up the precious experiences which were afterwards turned to such good account. Mrs. Gaskell, who was carried away by her honest womanly horror of hardened vice, gives us to under- stand that the tragic turning-point in the history of the sisters was connected with the disgrace and ruin of their brother. We are even asked to believe that but for the folly of a single woman, whom it is probable that Charlotte never saw, *' Currer Bell " would never have taken up her pen, and no halo of glory would have settled on the scarred and rugged brows of prosaic Haworth. It is not so. There may be disappointment among those who have been nurtured on the traditions of 58 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [vi. the Bronte romance when they find that the reality is different from what they supposed it to be ; some shallow judges may even assume that Charlotte her- self loses in moral stature when it is shown that it was not her horror at her brother's fall which drove her to find relief in literary speech. But the truth must be told ; and for my part I see nothing in that truth which affects, even in an infinitesimal degree, the fame and the honour of the woman of whom I write. It was Charlotte's visit to Brussels, then, first as pupil and afterwards as teacher in the school of Madame Heger, which was the turning-point in her life, which changed its currents, and gave to it a new purpose and a new meaning. Up to the moment of that visit she had been the simple, kindly, truthful Yorkshire girl, endowed with strange faculties, carried away at times by burning impulses, moved often by emotions the nature of which she could not fathom, but always hemmed in by her narrow experiences, her hmited knowledge of life and the world. Until she went to Belgium, her sorest troubles had been associated with her dislike to the society of strangers, her heaviest burden had been the necessity under which she lay of tasting that "cup of life as it is mixed for governesses" which she detested so heartily. Under the belief that they could qualify themselves to keep a school of their own if they had once mastered the delicacies of the French and German languages, she and Emily set off for this sojourn in Brussels. VI.] BRUSSELS. 59 One may be forgiven for speculating as to her future lot had she accepted the offer of marriage she received in her early governess days, and settled down as the faithful wife of a sober English gentle- man. In that case " Shirley " perhaps might have been written, but "Jane Eyre" and '*Villette " never. She learnt much during her two years' sojourn in the Belgian capital ; but the greatest of all the lessons she mastered whilst there was that self-knowledge the taste of which is so bitter to the mouth, though so wholesome to the life. Mrs. Gaskell has made such ample use of the letters she penned during the long months which she spent as an exile from England^ that there is comparatively little left to cull from them. Everybody knows the outward circumstances of her story at this time. For a brief period she had the company of Emily ; and the two sisters, working together with the unremitting zeal of those who have learned that time is money, were happy and hopeful, enjoying the novel sights of the gay foreign capital, gathering fresh experiences every day, and looking forward to the moment when they would return to familiar Haworth, and realise the dream of their lives by opening a school of their own within the walls of the parsonage. But then Emily left, and Charlotte, after a brief holiday at home, returned alone. Years after, writing to her friend, she speaks of her return in these words : " I returned to Brussels after aunt^s death against my conscience, prompted by what then seemed an irresistible impulse. I was punished for 6o CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [vi. my selfish folly by a total withdrawal for more than two years of happiness and peace of mind." Why did she thus go back " against her conscience ? " Her friends declared that her future husband dwelt some- where within sound of the chimes of St. Gudule, and that she insisted upon returning to Brussels because she was about to be married there. We know now how different was the reality. The husband who awaited her was even then about to begin his long apprenticeship of love at Haworth. Yet none the less had her spirit, if not her heart, been captured and held captive in the Belgian city. It is not in her letters that we find the truth regarding her life at this time. The truth indeed is there, but not all the truth. " In catalepsy and dread trance," says Lucy Snowe, " I studiously held the quick of my nature. It is on the surface only the common gaze will fall." The secrets of her inner life could not be trusted to paper, even though the lines were intended for no eyes but those of her friend and confidante. There are some things, as we know well, that the heart hides as by instinct, and which even frank and open natures only reveal under compulsion. Waiting to her friend from Brussels in October, 1843, she says : " I have much to say, Ellen ; many little odd things, queer and puzzling enough, which I do not like to trust to a letter, but which one day, perhaps, or rather one evening, if ever we should find ourselves again by the fireside at Haworth, or at B , with our feet on the fender, curling our hair, I may communicate to VI.] DISILLUSIONED. 6i you." One of the hardest features of the last year she spent at Brussels was the necessity she was under of locking all the deepest emotions of her life within her own breast, of preserving the calm and even cold exterior, which should tell nothing to the common gaze, above the troubled, fevered heart that beat within. When do you think I shall see you ? — she cries to her friend within a few days of her final return to Haworth — I have, of course, much to tell you, and I dare say you have much also to tell me — things which we should neither of us wish to commit to paper I do not know whether you feel as I do, but there are times now when it appears to me as if all my ideas and feelings, except a few friendships and affections, are changed from what they used to be. Something in me which used to be enthusiasm is tamed down and broken. I have fewer illusions. What I wish for now is active exertion — a stake in life. Haworth seems such a lonely, quiet spot, buried away from the world. I no longer regard myself as young ; indeed, I shall soon be twenty-eight, and it seems as if I ought to be working and braving the rough realities of the world, as other people do. It is, however, my duty to restrain this feeling at present, and I will endeavour to do so. Yes ; she was " disillusioned " now, and she had brought back from Brussels a heart which could never be quite so light, a spirit which could never again soar so buoyantly, as in those earlier years when the tree of knowledge was still untasted, and the mystery of life still unrevealed. This stay in Belgium was, as I have said, the turning-point in Charlotte Bronte's 62 CHARLOTTE BRONTP.. [vi. career, and its true history and meaning is to be found, not in her "Life" and letters, but in "Villette," the master-work of her mind, and the revelation of the most vivid passages in her own heart's history. " I said I disliked Lucy Snowe," is a remark which Mrs. Gaskell innocently repeats in her memoir of Charlotte Bronte. One need not be surprised at it. Lucy Snowe was never meant to be liked — by every- body ; but none the less is Lucy Snowe the truest picture we possess of the real Charlotte Bronte ; whilst not a few of the fortunes which befell this strange heroine are literal transcripts from the life of her creator. One little incident in " Villette " — Lucy's impulsive visit to a Roman Catholic confessor — is taken direct from Charlotte's own experience. During one of the long lonely holidays in the foreign school, when her mind was restless and disturbed, her heart heavy, her nerves jarred and jangled, she fled from the great empty schoolrooms to seek peace in the street ; and she found, not peace perhaps, but sympathy at least, in the counsels of a priest, seated at the Confessional in a church into which she wan- dered, who took pity on the little heretic, and soothed her troubled spirit without attempting to enmesh it in the folds of Romanism. It was from experiences such as these, with a chastened heart and a nature tamed down, though by no means broken, that she returned to familiar Haworth, to face "the rough realities of the world." Rough, indeed, those realities were in her case VI.] AT HOME. 63 Her brother, once the hope of the family, had now become its burden and its curse ; and from that moment he was to be the prodigal for whom no fatted calf would ever be killed. Her father was fast losing his eyesight ; she and her sisters were getting on in life, and " something must be done." Charlotte had returned home, but her heart was still in Brussels, and the wings of her spirit began to beat impatiently against the cage in which she found herself im- prisoned. It was only the old story. She had gone out into the world, had tasted strange joys, and drunk deep of waters the very bitterness of which seemed to endear them to her. Returning to Haworth she went back a new woman, with tastes and hopes which it was hard to reconcile with the monotony of life in the parsonage which had once satisfied her completely. " If I could leave home I should not be at Ha- worth," she says soon after her return. " I know life is passing away, and I am doing nothing, earning nothing ; a very bitter knowledge it is at moments, but I see no way out of the mist." And then, almost for the first time in her life, something like a ciy of despair goes up from her lips : " Probably, when I am free to leave home, I shall neither be able to find place nor employment. Perhaps, too, I shall be quite past the prime of life, my faculties will be wasted, and my few acquirements in a great measure forgotten. These ideas sting me keenly sometimes; but when- ever I consult my conscience, it affirms that I am doing right in staying at home, and bitter are its 64 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [vr. upbraidlngs when I yield to an eager desire for release." But this outburst of personal feeling was ex- ceptional, and was uttered in one ear only. Within the walls of her home Charlotte again became the house-mother, busying herself with homely cares, and ever watching for some opportunity of carrying her plan of school-keeping into execution. Nor did she allow either the troubles at home, or that weight at her own heart which she bore in secrecy, to render her spirit morbid and melancholy. Not a few who have read Mrs. Gaskell's work labour under the belief that this was the effect that Charlotte Bronte's trials had upon her. As a matter of fact, however, she was far too strong, brave, cheerful — one had almost said manly — to give way to any such selfish repinings. She never was one of those sickly souls who go about "glooming over the woes of existence, and how un- worthy God's universe is to have so distinguished a resident." Even when her own sorrows were deepest, and her lot seemed hardest, she found a lively pleasure in discussing the characters and lots of others, and expended as much pains and time in analysing the inner lives of her friends as our sham Byrons are wont to expend upon the study of their own feelings and emotions. Indeed, of that self-pity which is so common a characteristic of the young, no trace is to be found in her correspondence. Let the following letter, hitherto unpublished, written at the very time when the household clouds were blackest, speak for VI.] A FALLEN LDOL. 65 her freedom from morbid self-consciousness, as well as for her hearty interest in the well-being of those around her : You are a very good girl indeed to send me such a long and interesting letter. In all that account of the young lady and gentleman in the railway carriage I recognise your faculty for observation, which is a rarer gift than you imagine. You ought to be thankful for it. I never yet met with an individual devoid of observation whose conversation was interesting, nor with one possessed of that power in whose society I could not manage to pass a pleasant hour. I was amused with your allusions to individuals at . I have little doubt of the truth of the report you mention about Mr. Z paying assiduous attention to . Whether it will ever come to a match is another thing. Money would decide that point, as it does most others of a similar nature. You are perfectly right in saying that Mr. Z is more influenced by opinion than he himself suspects. I saw his lordship in a new light last time I was at . Sometimes I could scarcely believe my ears when I heard the stress he laid on wealth, appearance, family, and all those advantages which are the idols of the world. His conversation on marriage (and he talked much about it) differed in no degree from that of any hackneyed fortune-hunter, except that with his own peculiar and native audacity he avowed views and principles which more timid individuals conceal. Of course I raised no argument against anything he said. I listened, and laughed inwardly to think how indignant I should have been eight years since if anyone had accused Z of being a worshipper of Mammon and of Interest. Indeed, I still believe that the Z of ten years ago is not the Z of to-day. The world, with its hardness and 66 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [vi. selfishness, has utterly changed him. He thinks himself grown wiser than the wisest. In a worldly sense he is wise. His feelings have gone through a process of petrifaction which will prevent them from ever warring against his interest ; but Ichabod ! all glory of principle, and much elevation of character are gone ! I learnt another thing. Fear the smooth side of Z 's tongue more than the rough side. He has the art of paying peppery little com- pliments, which he seems to bring out with a sort of diffi- culty, as if he were not used to that kind of thing, and did it rather against his will than otherwise. These compliments you feel disposed to value on account of their seeming rarity. Fudge ! They are at any one's disposal, and are confessedly hollow blarney. Still more significant, however, is the following letter, showing so kindly and careful an interest in the welfare of the friend to whom it is addressed, even whilst it bears the bitter tidings of a great household sorrow : July 31, 1845. I was glad to get your little packet. It was quite a treasure of interest to me. I think the intelligence about G is cheering. I have read the lines to Miss . They are expressive of the affectionate feelings of his nature, and are poetical, insomuch as they are true. Faults in expression, rhythm, metre, were of course to be expected. All you say about Mr. amused me much. Still, I cannot put out of my mind one fear, viz. that you should think too much about him. Faulty as he is, and as you know him to be, he has still certain qualities which might create an interest in your mind before you were aware. He has the art of impressing ladies by something involuntary in VI.] A MEETING. 67 his look and manner, exciting in them the notion that he cares for them, while his words and actions are all careless, inattentive, and quite uncompromising for himself. It is only men who have seen much of life and of the world, and who are become in a measure indifferent to female attractions, that possess this art. So be on your guard. These are not pleasant or flattering words, but they are the words of one who has known you long enough to be indif- ferent about being temporarily disagreeable, provided she can be permanently useful. I got home very well. There was a gentleman in the railroad carriage whom I recognised by his features imme- diately as a foreigner and a Frenchman. So sure was I of it that I ventured to say to him, " Mo7isieur est francais, n'est-ce pas?" He gave a start of surprise, and answered immediately in his own tongue. He appeared still more astonished and even puzzled when, after a few minutes' further conversation, I inquired if he had not passed the greater part of his life in Germany. He said the surmise was correct. I guessed it from his speaking French with the German accent. It was ten o'clock at night when I got home. I found Branwell ill. He is so very often, owing to his own fault. I was not therefore shocked at first. But when Anne informed me of the immediate cause of his present illness I was very greatly shocked. He had last Thursday received a note from Mr. sternly dismissing him We have had sad work with him since. He thought of nothing but stunning or drowning his distressed mind. No one in the house could have rest, and at last we have been obliged to send him from home for a week with someone to look after him. He has written to me this morning, and expresses some sense of contrition for his frantic folly. He promises F 2 6S CHARLOTTE BRONTE, [vi. amendment on his return, but so long as he remains at home I scarce dare hope for peace in the house. We must all, I fear, prepare for a season of distress and disquietude. I cannot now ask Miss or anyone else. The gloom in the household deepened ; but Char- lotte was still strong enough and brave enough to meet the world, to retain her accustomed interest in her friends, and to discuss as of yore the characters and lives of those around her. Curious are the glimpses one gets of her circle of acquaintances at this time. Little did many of those with whom she was brought in contact think of the keen eyes which were gazing out at them from under the prominent forehead of the parson's daughter. Yet not the least interesting feature of her correspondence is the evi- dence it affords that she was gradually gaining that knowledge of character which was afterwards to be lavished upon her books. A string of extracts from letters hitherto unpublished will suffice to show how the current of her life and thoughts ran in those days of domestic darkness, whilst the dawn of her fame was still hidden in the blackest hour of the night : I have just read M 's letters. They are very in- teresting, and show the original and vigorous cast of her mind. There is but one thing I could wish otherwise in them, and that is a certain tendency to flightiness. It is not safe, it is not wise ; and will often cause her to be mis- construed. Perhaps flightifiess is not the right word ; but it is a devil-may-care tone, which I do not like when it proceeds from under a hat, and still less from under a bonnet. VI.] BRANWELL. 69 I return you Miss 's notes with thanks. I ahvays hke to read them. They appear to me so true an index of an amiable mind, and one not too conscious of its own worth. Beware of awakening in her this consciousness by undue praise. It is a privilege of simple-hearted, sensible, but not brilliant people that they can be and do good with- out comparing their own thoughts and actions too closely with those of other people, and thence drawing strong food for self-appreciation. Talented people almost always know full well the excellence that is in them You ask me if we are more comfortable. I wish I could say anything favourable ; but how can we be more comfortable so long as Branwell stays at home and degenerates instead of im- proving ? It has been lately intimated to him that he would be received again on the same railroad where he was for- merly stationed if he would behave more steadily, but he refuses to make an effort. He will not work, and at home he is a drain on every resource, an impediment to all happi- ness. But there's no use in complaining. I thank you again for your last letter, which I found as full or fuller of interest than either of the preceding ones — • it is just written as I wish you to write to me — not a detail too much. A correspondence of that sort is the next best thing to actual conversation, though it must be allowed that between the two there is a wide gulf still. I imagine your face, voice, presence very plainly when I read your letters. Still imagination is not reality, and when I return them to their envelope and put them by in my desk I feel the differ- ence sensibly enough. My curiosity is a little piqued about that countess you mention. What is her name ? you have not yet given it. I cannot decide from what you say whether she is really clever or only eccentric, The two sometimes go together, but are often seen apart. I gene- fo CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [vi. rally feel inclined to fight very shy of eccentricity, and have no small horror of being thought eccentric myself, by which observation I don't mean to insinuate that I class myself under the head clever. God knows a more consummate ass in sundry important points has seldom browsed the green herb of His bounties than I. O Lord, Nell, I'm in danger sometimes of falling into self-weariness. I used to say and to think in former times that X would certainly be married. I am not so sanguine on that point now. It will never suit her to accept a husband she cannot love, or at least respect, and it appears there are many chances against her meeting with such a one under favourable circumstances ; besides, from all I can hear and see, money seems to be regarded as almost the Alpha and Omega of requisites in a wife. Well, if she is destined to be an old maid I don't think she will be a repining one. I think she will find resources in her own mind and disposition which will help her to get on. As to society, I don't understand much about it, but from the few glimpses I have had of its machinery it seems to me to be a very strange, complicated affair indeed, wherein nature is turned upside down. Your well-bred people appear to me, figuratively speaking, to walk on their heads, to see everything the wrong way up — a lie is with them truth, truth a lie, eternal and tedious botheration is their notion of happiness, sensible pursuits their ennui. But this may be only the view ignorance takes of what it cannot understand. 1 refrain from judging them, therefore, but if I were called upon to swop — you know the word, I suppose — to swop tastes and ideas and feelings with , for instance, I should prefer walking into a good Yorkshire kitchen fire and concluding the bargain at once by an act of voluntary combustion. I shall scribble you a short note about nothing, just to have a pretext for screwing a letter out of you in return. I VI.] LETTERS. ji was sorry you did not go to W , firstly, because you lost the pleasure of observation and enjoyment ; and secondly, because I lost the second-hand indulgence of hearing your account of what you had seen. I laughed at the candour with which you give your reason for v/ishing to be there. Thou hast an honest soul as ever animated human carcase, and a clean one, for it is not ashamed of showing its inmost recesses : only be careful with whom you are frank. Some would not rightly appreciate the value of your frankness, and never cast pearls before swine. You are quite right in wishing to look well in the eyes of those whom you desire to please. It is natural to desire to appear to advantage {honest not false advantage of course) before people we respect. Long may the power and the inclination to do so be spared you ; long may you look young and handsome enough to dress in white ; and long may you have a right to feel the consciousness that you look agreeable. I know you have too much judgment to let an over-dose of vanity spoil the blessing and turn it into a misfortune. After all though, age will come on, and it is well you have something better than a nice face for friends to turn to when that is changed. I hope this excessively cold weather has not harmed you or yours much. It has nipped me severely — taken away my appetite for a while, and given me tooth- ache ; in short put me in the ailing condition in which I have more than once had the honour of making myself such a nuisance both at B and . The consequence is that at this present speaking I look almost old enough to be your mother — gray, sunk, and withered. To-day, however, it is milder, and I hope soon to feel better ; indeed, I am not /// now, and my toothache is quite subsided ; but I ex- perience a loss of strength and a deficiency of spirit which would make me a sorry companion to you or anyone else. I would not be on a visit now for a large sum of monev. 72 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [vi. June, 1846. I hope all the mournful contingencies of death are by this time removed from , and that some little sense of relief is beginning to be experienced by its wearied inmates. suffered greatly, I make no doubt ; and I trust, and even believe, that his long sufferings on earth will be taken as sufficient expiation for his errors. One shudders for him, but it is his relations — his mother and sisters — whom I truly and permanently pity. July loth, 1846. Dear Ellen, — Who gravely asked you whether Miss Bronte was not going to be married to ? I scarcely need say that there never was rumour more unfounded. It puzzles me to think how it could possibly have originated. A cold, far-away sort of civility, are the only terms on which I have ever been with Mr. . I could by no means think of mentioning such a rumour to him, even as a joke. It would make me the laughing-stock of himself and his fellow-curates, for half a year to come. They regard me as an old maid ; and I regard them, one and all, as highly uninteresting, narrow, and unattractive specimens of the " coarser sex." VII. AUTHORSHIP AND BEREAVEMENT. The reader has seen that it was not the degrada- tion of Branwell Bronte which formed the turning- point in Charlotte's hfe. Mrs. Gaskell, anxious to support her own conception of what sJioidd have been Charlotte's feelings with regard to her brother's ruin, has scarcely done justice either to herself or to her heroine. Thus she makes use of a passage in one of the letters quoted in the foregoing chapter, but in doing so omits what are perhaps the most character- istic words in it. " He" (Branwell) '' has written this morning expressing some sense of contrition ; . . . . but as long as he remains at home I scarce dare hope for peace in the house." This is the form in which the passage appears in the '* Biography," whereas Charlotte had written of her brother's having ex- pressed " contrition for his frantic folly," and of his having "promised amendment on his return." Mrs. Gaskell could not bring herself to speak of such fla- grant sins as those of which young Bronte had been guilty under the name of " folly," nor could she con- ceive that there was any possibility of amendment on the part of one who had fallen so low in vice. More- 74 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. ' [yu. over, one of her objects was to punish those who had shared the lad's misconduct, and to whom she openly attributed not only his ruin but the premature deaths of his sisters. Thus she felt compelled to take throughout her book a far deeper and more tragic view of this miserable episode in the Bronte story than Charlotte herself took. Having read all her letters written at this period of her life to her two most confidential friends, I am justified in saying that the impression produced on Charlotte by Branwell's degrading fall was not so deep as that which was produced on Mrs. Gaskell, who never saw young Bronte, by the mere recital of the story. Yet Charlotte, though too brave, healthy, and reasonable in all things to be utterly weighed down by the fact that her brother had fallen a victim to loathsome vice, was far from being insensible to the sadness and shamefulness of his condition. What she thought of it she has herself told the world in the story of " The Professor" (p. 198) : Limited as had yet been my experience of life, I had once had the opportunity of contemplating near at hand an example of the results produced by a course of interesting and romantic domestic treachery. No golden halo of fiction was about this example ; I saw it bare and real, and it was very loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by the practice of mean subterfuge, by the habit of perfidious de- ception, and a body depraved by the infectious influence of the vice-polluted soul. I had suffered much from the forced and prolonged view of this spectacle ; those suffer- VII.] THE POEMS. 75 ings I did not now regret, for their simple recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote to temptation. They had in- scribed on my reason the conviction that unlawful pleasure, trenching on another's rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasure — its hollowness disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects deprave for ever. Upon the gentle and sensitive mind of Anne Bronte the effect of Branwell's fall was such as Mrs. Gaskell depicts. She was literally broken down by the grief she suffered in seeing her brother's ruin ; but Charlotte and Emily were of stronger fibre than their sister, and their predominant feeling, as expressed in their letters, is one of sheer disgust at their brother's weakness, and of indignation against all who had in any way assisted in his downfall. This may not be consistent w^ith the popular conception of Charlotte^s character, but it is strictly true. We must then dismiss from our minds the notion that the brother's fate exercised that paramount in- fluence over the sisters' lives which seems to be be- lieved. Yet, as we have seen, there was a very strong though hidden influence working in Charlotte during those years in which their home was darkened by Branwell's presence. Her yearning for Brussels and the life that now seemed like a vanished dream, con- tinued almost as strong as ever. At Haworth every- thing was dull, commonplace, monotonous. The school-keeping scheme had failed ; poverty and obscurity seemed henceforth to be the appointed lot of all the sisters. Even the source of intercourse 76 CHARLOTTE BRONTE, [vir. with friends was almost entirely cut off; for Charlotte could not bear the shame of exposing the prodigal of the family to the gaze of strangers. It was at this time, and in the mood described in the letters quoted in the preceding chapter, that she took up her pen, and sought to escape from the narrow and sordid cares which environed her by a flight into the region of poetry. She had been accustomed from childhood to write verses, few of which as yet had passed the limits of mediocrity. Now, with all that heart-history through which she had passed at Brussels weighing upon her, she began to write again, moved by a stronger impulse, stirred by deeper thoughts than any she had known before. In this secret exercise of her faculties she found relief and enjoyment ; her letters to her friend showed that her mind was regaining its tone, and the dreary outlook from "the hills of Judaea " at Haworth began to brighten. It was a great day in the lives of all the sisters when Charlotte accidentally discovered that Emily also had dared to " commit her soul to paper." The younger sister was keenly troubled when Charlotte made the discovery, for her poems had been written in absolute secrecy. But mutual confessions hastened her reconcilement. Charlotte produced her own poems, and then Anne also, blushing as was her wont, poured some hidden treasures of the same kind into the eldest sister's lap. So it came to pass that in 1846, unknown to their nearest friends, they presented to the world — at their own cost and risk, poor souls ! — that thin volume of VII.] EMILY'S POETRY. 77 poetry " by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell," now almost forgotten, the merits of which few readers have recog- nised and few critics proclaimed. Strong, calm, sincere, most of these poems are ; not the spasmodic or frothy outpourings of Byron- stricken girls ; not even mere echoes, however skilful, of the grand music of the masters. When we dip into the pages of the book, we see that these women write because they feel. They write because they have something to say ; they write not for the world, but for themselves, each sister wrapping her own secret within her own soul. Strangely enough, it is not Charlotte who carries off the palm in these poems. Verse seems to have been too narrow for the limits of her genius ; she could not soar as she desired to do within the self-imposed restraints of rhythm, rhyme, and metre. Here and there, it is true, we come upon lines which flash upon us with the brilliant light of genius ; but, upon the whole, we need not wonder that Currer Bell achieved no re- putation as a poet. Nor is Anne to be counted among great singers. Sweet, indeed her verses are, radiant with the tenderness, resignation, and gentle humility which were the prominent features of her character. One or two of her little poems are now included in popular collections of hymns used in Yorkshire churches ; but, as a rule, her compositions lack the vigorous life which belongs to those of her sisters. It is Emily who takes the first place in this volume. Some of her poems have a lyrical 78 CHARLOTTE BRONTA VII. beauty which haunts the mind ever after it has become acquainted with them ; others have a pas- sionate emphasis, a depth of meaning, an intensity and gravity which are startHng when we know who the singer is, and which furnish a key to many passages in " Wuthering Heights " which the world shudders at and hastily passes by. Such lines as these ought to make the name of Emily Bronte far more familiar than it is to the students of our modern English literature : Death ! that struck when I was most confiding In my certain faith of joy to be — Strike again, Time's withered branch dividing From the fresh root of Eternity ! Leaves upon Time's branch were growing brightly, Full of sap and full of silver dew ; Birds beneath its shelter gathered nightly ; Daily round its flowers the wild bees flew. Sorrow passed, and plucked the golden blossom ; Guilt stripped off the foliage in its pride ; But within its parent's kindly bosom Flowed for ever Life's restoring tide. Little mourned I for the parted gladness. For the vacant nest and silent song — Hope was there, and laughed me out of sadness, Whispering, " Winter will not linger long ! " And behold ! with tenfold increase blessing, Spring adorned the beauty-burdened spray ; Wind and rain and fervent heat, caressing, Lavished glory on that second May ! High it rose — no winged grief could sweep it ; Sin was scared to distance by its shine ; Love, and its own life, had power to. keep it From all wrong— from every blight but thine, VII.] J^AMILY CARES. 79 Cruel Death ! The young leaves droop and languish ; Evening's gentle air may still restore — No ! the morning sunshine mocks my anguish^ Time, for me, must never blossom more ! Strike it down, that other boughs may flourish Where that perished sapling used to be ; Thus at least its mouldering corpse will nourish That from which it sprung — Eternity. The little book was a failure. This first flight ended only in discomfiture ; and Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell were once more left to face the realities of life in Haworth parsonage, uncheered by literary success. This v/as in the summer and autumn of 1846 ; about which time they were compelled to think of cares which came even nearer home than the failure of their volume of poems. Their father's eyesight was now almost gone, and all their thoughts were centred upon the operation which was to restore it. It was to Manchester that Mr. Bronte was taken by his daughters to undergo this operation. Many of the letters which were written by Charlotte at this period have already been published ; but the two which I now quote are new, and they serve to show what were the narrow cares and anxieties which nipped the sisters at this eventful crisis in their lives : September 22nd, 1846. Dear Ellen, — I have nothing new to tell you, except that papa continues to do well, though the process of recovery appears to me very tedious. I daresay it will yet be many weeks before his sight is completely restored j yet every time Mr. Wilson comes, he expresses 8o CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [vii. his satisfaction at the perfect success of the operation, and assures me papa will, ere long, be able both to read and write. He is still a prisoner in his darkened room, into which, however, a little more light is admitted than formerly. The nurse goes to-day — her departure will certainly be a relief, though she is, I daresay, not the worst of her class. September 29th, 1846. Dear Ellen, — When I wrote to you last, our return was uncertain indeed, but Mr. Wilson was called away to Scotland; his absence set us at liberty. I hastened our departure, and now we are at home. Papa is daily gaining strength. He cannot yet exercise his sight much, but it improves, and I have no doubt will continue to do so. I feel truly thankful for the good insured and the evil exempted during our absence. What you say about grieves me much, and surprises me too. I know well the malaria of , it is an abominable smell of gas. I was sick from it ten times a day while I stayed there. That they should hesitate to leave from scruples about furnishing new houses, provokes and amazes me. Is not the furniture they have very decent ? The inconsistency of human beings passes belief. I wonder what their sister would say to them, if they told her that tale ? She sits on a wooden stool without a back, in a log-house without a carpet, and neither is degraded nor thinks herself degraded by such poor accommodation. It was about the time when this journey to Man- chester was first projected, and very shortly after they had become convinced that their poems were a failure, that the sisters embarked upon another and more important literary venture. The pen once taken VII.] NOVEL-WRITING BEGUN 8i up could not be laid down. By poetry they had only lost money ; but the idea had occurred to them that by prose-writing money was to be made. At any rate, in telling the stories of imaginary people, in opening their hearts freely upon all those subjects on which they had thought deeply in their secluded lives, they would find relief from the solitude of Haworth. Each of the three accordingly began to write a novel. The stories were commenced simul- taneously, after a long consultation, in which the outlines of the plots, and even the names of the difterent characters, were settled. How one must wish that some record of that strange literary council had been preserved ! Charlotte, in after life, spoke always tenderly, lovingly, almost reverentially, of the days in which she and her well-beloved sisters were engaged in settling the plan and style of their re- spective romances. That time seemed sacred to her, and though she learnt to smile at the illusions under which the work was begun, and could see clearly enough the errors and crudities of thought and method which all three displayed, she never allowed any one in her presence to question the genius of Emily and Anne, or to ridicule the prosaic and business-like fashion in which the novel-writing was undertaken by the three sisters. Returning to the old customs of their childhood, they sat round the table of their sitting-room in the parsonage, each busy with her pen. No trace of their occupation at this time is to be found in their letters ; and on the G S2 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [vii. rare occasions on which the father or the brother came into their room, nothing was said as to the work that was going on. The novel-writing, Hke the writing and pubhshing of the poems, was still kept profoundly secret. " There is no gentleman of the name in this parish," said Mr. Bronte to the village postman, when the latter ventured to ask who the Mr. Currer Bell could be for whom letters came so frequently from London. But every night the three sisters, as they paced the barely-furnished room, or strained their eyes across the tombstones, to the spot where the weather-stained church-tower rose from a bank of nettles, told each other what the work of the day had been, and criticised each other's labours with the freedom of that perfect love which casts out all fear of misconception. And here I may interpolate two letters written whilst the novel-writing was in progress, which are in some respects not altogether insignificant : Dear Nell, — Your last letter both amused and edified me exceedingly. I could not but laugh at your account of the fall in B , yet I should by no means have liked to have made a third party in that exhibition. I have endured one fall in your company, and undergone one of your ill-timed laughs, and don't wish to repeat my experience. Allow me to com- pliment you on the skill with which you can seem to give an explanation, without enlightening one one whit on the question asked. I know no more about Miss R.'s super- stition now, than I did before. What is the superstition ? — about a dead body ? And what is the inference drawn ? viT.] A DESERTED WIFE. z^^ Do you remember my telling you — or did I ever tell you — about that wretched and most criminal Mr. J. S. ? After running an infamous career of vice, both in England and France, abandoning his wife to disease and total destitution in Manchester, with two children and without a farthing, in a strange lodging-house ? Yesterday evening Martha came upstairs to say that a woman — "rather lady-like," as she said — wished to speak to me in the kitchen. I went down. There stood Mrs. S., pale and worn, but still interesting- looking, and cleanly and neatly dressed, as was her little girl who was with her. I kissed her heartily. I could almost have cried to see her, for I had pitied her with my whole soul when I heard of her undeserved sufferings, agonies, and physical degradation. She took tea with us, stayed about two hours, and frankly entered into the narrative of her appalling distresses. Her constitution has triumphed over her illness ; and her excellent sense, her activity, and perseverance have enabled her to regain a decent position in society, and to procure a respectable maintenance for herself and her children. She keeps a lodging-house in a very eligible part of the suburbs of (which I know), and is doing very well. She does not know where Mr. S. is, and of course can never more endure to see him. She is now staying a few days at E , with the s, who I believe have been all along very kind to her, and the circumstance is greatly to their credit. I wish to know whether about Whitsuntide would suit you for coming to Haworth. We often have fine weather just then. At least I remember last year it was very beautiful at that season. Winter seems to have returned with severity on us at present, consequently we are all in the full enjoy ment of a cold. Much blowing of noses is heard, and much making of gruel goes on in the house. How are you all ? G 2 84 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [vii. May 1 2th, 1847. Dear Ellen, — We shall all be glad to see you on the Thursday or Friday of next week, whichever day will suit you best. About what time will you be likely to get here, and how will you come — by coach to Keighley, or by a gig all the way to Haworth ? There must be no impediments now. I could not do with them ; I want very much to see you. I hope you will be decently comfortable while you stay. Branwell is quieter now, and for a good reason. He has got to the end of a considerable sum of money, of which he became possessed in the spring, and consequently is obliged to restrict himself in some degree. You must expect to find him weaker in mind, and the complete rake in appearance. I have no apprehension of his being at all uncivil to you, on the contrary he will be as smooth as oil. I pray for fine weather, that we may be able to get out while you stay. Good-bye for the present. Prepare for much dulness and monotony. Give my love to all at B . Is it needful to tell how the three stones — " The Professor," " Wuthering Heights," and " Agnes Grey " — are sent forth at last from the little station at Keighley, to fare as best they may in that unknown London which is still an ideal city to the sisters, peopled not with ordinary human beings, but with creatures of some strangely-different order } Can any one be ignorant of the weary months which passed whilst "The Professor" was going from hand to hand, and the stories written by Emily and Anne were waiting in a publisher's desk until vil] ''JANE eyre:' 85 they could be given to the world on the pub- lisher's own terms? Charlotte had failed, but the brave heart was not to be baffled. No sooner had the last page of " The Professor " been finished than the first page of "Jane Eyre" was begun. The whole of that wondrous story passed through the author's busy brain whilst the life around her was clad in these sombre hues, and disappointment, affliction, and gloomy forebodings were her daily companions. The decisive rejection of her first tale by Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. had been accom- panied by some kindly words of advice ; so it is to that firm that she now entrusts the completed manu- script of " Jane Eyre." The result has already been told. On August 24, 1847, the story is sent from Leeds to London; and before the year is out, all England is ringing with the praises of the novel and its author. Need I defend the sisters from the charge some- times brought against them that they were unfaithful to their friends in not taking them into their con- fidence } Surely not. They had pledged themselves to each other that the secret should be sternly guarded as something sacred, kept even from those of their own household. They were not working for fame ; for again and again they give proof that personal fame is the last thing to which they aspire. But they had found their true vocation ; the call to work was irresistible ; they had obeyed it, and all that they souo-ht now was to leave their work to speak for S6 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [vii. itself, dissevered absolutely from the humble per- sonality of the authors. In a letter from Anne Bronte, written in January, 1848, at which time the literary quidnuncs both of England and America were eagerly discussing con- tradictory theories as to the authorship of ''Jane Eyre," and of the two other stories which had ap- peared from the pens of Ellis and Acton Bell, I find the following passage : '' I have no news to tell you, for we have been nowhere, seen no one, and done nothing (to speak of) since you were here, and yet we contrive to be busy from morning till night." The gentle and scrupulously conscientious girl, whilst hiding the secret from her friend, cannot violate the truth even by a hairbreadth. The italics are her own. Nothing that can be spoken of has been done. The friend had her own suspicions. Staying in a southern house for the winter, the new novel about which everybody was talking was produced, fresh from town. One of the guests was deputed to read it aloud, and before she had proceeded far Charlotte Bronte's schoolfellow had pierced the secret of the authorship. Three months before, Charlotte had been spending a few days at Miss N 's house, and had openly corrected the proof-sheets of the story in the presence of her hostess ; but she had given the latter no encouragement to speak to her on the subject, and nothing had been said. Now, however, in the surprise of the moment, Miss N VTi.] GROWTH OF POWER. 87 told the company that this must have been written by Miss Bronte ; and astute friends at once advised her not to mention the fact that she knew the author of "Jane Eyre" to any one, as her acquaintance with such a person would be regarded as a reflection on her own character ! When Charlotte was challenged by her friend, she uttered stormy denials in general terms, which carried a complete confirmation of the truth ; and when, in the spring of 1848, Miss N visited Haworth, full confession was made, and the poems brought forth and shown to her, in addition to the stories. Those who read Charlotte Bronte's letters will see that even before this avowal of her flight in author- ship there is a distinct change in their tone. Not that she is less affectionate towards her early friend, or that she shows the smallest abatement of her interest in the fortunes of her old companions. On the contrary, it would almost seem as though the great event, which had altered the current of her life, had only served to bind her more closely than before to those whom she had known and loved in her obscurity. But there is a perceptible growth of power and independence in her mode of handling the topics, often trivial enough in themselves, which arise in any prolonged correspondence, which shows how much her mind had grown, how greatly her views had been enlarged, by the intellectual labours through which she had passed. The following was the last letter 88 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [vii. written by her to her schoolfellow whilst the author- ship of "Jane Eyre" was still a secret, and it will, I think, bear out what I have said : April 25th, 1848. I was not at all surprised at the contents of your note. Indeed, what part of it was new to us ? V has his good and bad side, like most others. There is his own original nature, and there are the alterations the world has made in him. Meantime, why do B and G trouble them- selves with matching him ? Let him, in God's name, court half the country-side and marry the other half, if such proce- dure seem good in his eyes, and let him do it all in quietness. He has his own botherations, no doubt ; it does not seem to be such very easy work getting married, even for a man, since it is necessary to make up to so many ladies. More tranquil are those who have settled their bargain with celi- bacy. I like Q 's letters more and more. Her goodness is indeed better than mere talent. I fancy she will never be married, but the amiability of her character will give her comfort. To be sure, one has only her letters to judge from, and letters often deceive; but hers seem so artless and unaffected. Still, were I in your place I should feel uneasy in the midst of this correspondence. Does a doubt of mutual satisfaction in case you should one day meet never torment you? .... Anne says it pleases her to think that you have kept her little drawing. She would rather have done it for you than for a stranger. Very quietly and sedately did " Currer Bell " take her sudden change of fortune. She corresponded freely with her publishers, and with the critics who VII.] BR AN WELL S DEATH, 89 had written to her concerning her book ; she told her father the secret of her authorship, and exhibited to him the draft which was the substantial recompense of her labours ; but in her letters to her friend no difference of tone is to be detected. Success was very sweet to her, as we know ; but she bore her honours meekly, betraying nothing of the gratified ambition which must have filled her soul. She had not even revealed her identity to the publisher till, by an acci- dent, she became aware of the rumour that the writer had satirised Mr. Thackeray under the character of Rochester, and had even obtruded on the sorrows of his private life. Shocked at this supposition, she went to London by the night train, accompanied by Anne, and having breakfasted at the station, walked to the establishment in Cornhill, where she had much difficulty in penetrating to the head of the house, having stated that he would not know her by her name. At last he came into the shop, saying, with some annoyance : "Young woman, what can you want with me.?" ''Sir, we have come up from Yorkshire. I wish to speak to you privately. I wrote 'Jane Eyre.'" ''You wrote 'Jane Eyre!'" cried the delighted publisher ; and taking them into his office, insisted on their coming to the house of his mother, who would take every care of them. Charlotte related afterwards the strange contrast between the desolate waiting at the station in the early morning, and their loneliness in the crowd of the great city, and finding themselves in the evening seated among the brilliant company 90 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [vii. at the Opera House, listening to the performance of Jenny Lind. But her thoughts were soon turned from her literary triumphs. Branwell, who had been so long the dark shadow in their " humble home," was taken from them without any lengthened preliminary warn- ing. Sharing to the full the eccentricity of the family, he resolved to die as nobody else had ever died before ; and when the last agony came on he rose to his feet, as though proudly defying death itself to do its worst, and expired standing. In the follow- ing letter, hitherto unpublished, to one of her friends — not to her old schoolfellow — Charlotte thus speaks of the last act in the tragedy of her brother's hfe : Haworth, October 14th, 1848. The event to which you allude came upon us indeed with startling suddenness, and was a severe shock to us all. My poor brother has long had a shaken constitution, and during the summer his appetite had been diminished and he had seemed weaker; but neither we, nor himself, nor any medical man who was consulted on his case, thought it one of immediate danger : he was out of doors two days before his death, and was only confined to bed one single day. I thank you for your kind sympathy. Many, under the circumstances, would think our loss rather a relief than otherwise ; in truth, we must acknowledge, in all humility and gratitude, that God has greatly tempered judgment with mercy; but yet, as you doubtless know from experience, the last earthly separation cannot take place between near relations without the keenest pangs on the part of the sur- VII.] EMILY'S DECLINE, 91 vivors. Every wrong and sin is forgotten then ; pity and grief share the heart and the memory between them. Yet we are not without comfort in our affliction. A most pro- pitious change marked the few last days of poor Branwell's life ; his demeanour, his language, his sentiments, were all singularly altered and softened, and this change could not be owing to the fear of death, for within half an hour of his decease he seemed unconscious of danger. In God's hands we leave him ! He sees not as man sees. Papa, I am thankful to say, has borne the event pretty well. His dis- tress was great at first. To lose an only son is no ordinary trial. But his physical strength has not hitherto failed him, and he has now in a great measure recovered his mental composure ; my dear sisters are pretty well also. Unfor- tunately illness attacked me at the crisis, when strength was most needed ; I bore up for a day or two, hoping to be better, but got worse ; fever, sickness, total loss of appetite and internal pain were the symptoms. The doctor pro- nounced it to be bilious fever — but I think it must have been in a mitigated form ; it yielded to medicine and care in a few days ; I was only confined to my bed a week, and am, I trust, nearly well now. I felt it a grievous thing to be incapacitated from action and effort at a time when action and effort were most called for. The past month seems an overclouded period in my life. grievous thing " that she could not bear her full share of the family burden, little knew how terribly that burden was to be increased, how much heavier and blacker were the clouds which awaited her than any through which she had yet passed. The storm which even then was gathering upon her path was one 92 CHARLOTTE BRONTJ^. [vii. which no sunshine of fame or prosperity could dis- sipate. The one to whom Charlotte's heart had always clung most fondly, the sister who had been nearest to her in age and nearest to her in affection, Emily, the brilliant but ill-fated child of genius, began to fade. " She had never," says Charlotte, speaking in the solitude of her fame, " lingered over any task in her life, and she did not linger now." Yet the quick decline of Emily Bronte is one of the saddest of all the sad features of the story. I have spoken of her reserve. So intense was it that when dying she refused to admit even to her own sisters that she was ill. They saw her fading before their eyes ; they knew that the grave was yawning at her feet ; and yet they dared not offer her any attention such as an invalid needed, and such as they were longing to bestow upon her. It was the cruellest torture of Charlotte's life. During the brief period of Emily's illness, her sister writes as follows to her friend : I mentioned your coming to Emily as a mere suggestion, with the faint hope that the prospect might cheer her, as she really esteems you perhaps more than any other person out of this house. I found, however, it would not do ; any, the slightest excitement or putting out of the way, is not to be thought of, and indeed I do not think the journey in this unsetded weather, with the walk from Keighley and back, at all advisable for yourself. Yet I should have hked to see you, and so would Anne. Emily continues much the same : yesterday I thought her a little better, but to-day she is not so well. I hope still, for I must hope j she is as VII.] EMILY'S FUNERAL. 93 dear to me as life. If I let the faintness of despair reach my heart I shall become worthless. The attack was, I believe, in the first place, inflammation of the lungs ; it ought to have been met promptly in time ; but she would take no care, use no means, she is too intractable. I do wish I knew her state and feelings more clearly. The fever is not so high as it was, but the pain in the side, the cough, the emaciation are there still. The days went by in the parsonage, slowly, solemnly, each bringing some fresh burden of sorrow to the broken hearts of Charlotte and Anne. Emily's resolute spirit was unbending to the last. Day after day she refused to own that she was ill, refused to take rest or medicine or stimulants ; compelled her trembling hands to labour as of old. And so came the bitter morn- ing in December, the story of which has been told by Mrs. Gaskell with simple pathos, when she *' arose and dressed herself as usual, making many a pause, but doing everything for herself," even going on with her sewing as at any time during the years past ; until suddenly she laid the unfinished work aside, whispered faintly to her sister : ** If you send for a doctor I will see him now," and in two hours passed quietly away. The broken father, supported on either side by his surviving daughters, followed Emily to her grave in the old church. There was one other mourner — ■ the fierce old dog whom she had loved better almost than any human being. Yes — says Charlotte, writing to her friend — there is no Emily in time or on earth now. Yesterday we put her poor 94 CHARLOTTE BRONTA [vii. wasted mortal frame quietly under the church pavement. We are very calm at present. Why should we be otherwise ? The anguish of seeing her suffer is over. We feel she is at peace. No need now to tremble for the hard frost and the keen wind. Emily does not feel them. She died in a time of promise. We saw her taken from life in its prime. But it is God's will, and the place where she is gone is better than that she has left. It was In the very month of December, 1848, when Charlotte passed through this fierce ordeal, and wrote these tender words of love and resignation, that the Qiia7'terly Review denounced her as an improper woman, who " for some sufficient reason " had forfeited the society of her sex ! Terrible was the storm of death which in three short months swept off two of the little household at Haworth ; but it had not even yet exhausted all its fury. Scarcely had Emily been laid in the grave than Anne, the youngest and gentlest of the three sisters, began to fade. Very slowly did she droop. The winter passed away, and the spring came with a glimmer of hope ; but the following unpublished letter, written on the i6th of May, shows with what fears Charlotte set forth on that visit to Scarborough which her sister insisted upon undertaking as a last resource : Next Wednesday is the day fixed for our departure ; Ellen accompanies us at her own kind and friendly wish, I would not refuse her society, but dared not urge her to go, for I have little hope that the excursion will be one of vii.] DEAJ^H OF ANNE. 95 pleasure or benefit to those engaged in it. Anne is ex- tremely weak. She herself has a fixed impression that the sea-air will give her a chance of regaining strength. That chance therefore she must have. Having resolved to try the experiment, misgivings are useless, and yet when I look at her misgivings will rise. She is more emaciated than Emily was at the very last, her breath scarcely serves her to mount the stairs, however slowly. She sleeps very little at night, and often passes most of the forenoon in a semi- lethargic state. Still she is up all day, and even goes out a little when it is fine. Fresh air usually acts as a tem- porary stimulus, but its reviving power diminishes. I am indebted to the faithful friend and com- panion to whom allusion is made above, for the following account of the sad journey to Scarborough, and of its tragic end : On our way to Scarborough we stopped at York, and after a rest at the George Hotel, and partaking of dinner, which she enjoyed, Anne went out in a bath-chair, and made purchases, along with Charlotte, of bonnets and dresses, besides visiting the minister. The morning after her arrival at Scarborough, she insisted on going to the baths, and would be left there with only the attendant in charge. She walked back alone to her lodgings, but fell exhausted as she reached the garden-gate. She never named this, but it was discovered afterwards. The same day she had a drive in a donkey carriage, and talked with the boy-driver on kindness to animals. On Sunday she wanted again to be left alone, and for us to go to church. Finding we would not leave her, she begged that she might go out, and we walked down towards the saloon, she resting halfway, and sending us on with the excuse that she wanted us to see the place, this 96 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [vii. being oui' first visit, though not hers. In the evening, after again asking us to go to church, she sat by the sitting-room window, enjoying a very glorious sunset. Next morning (the day she died) she rose by seven o'clock and dressed herself, refusing all assistance. She was the first of the little party to be ready to go downstairs ; but when she reached the head of the stairs, she felt fearful of descending. Charlotte went to her and discovered this. I fancying there was some difficulty, left my room to see what it was, when Anne smilingly told me she felt afraid of the steps down- ward. I immediately said : " Let me try to carry you ;" she looked pleased, but feared for me. Charlotte was angry at the idea, and greatly distressed, I could see, at this new evidence of Anne's weakness. Charlotte was at last per- suaded to go to her room and leave us. I then went a step or two below Anne, and begged her to put her arms round my neck, and I said : " I will carry you like a baby." She still feared, but on my promising to put her down if I could not do it, she consented to trust herself to me. Strength seemed to be given for the effort, but on reaching the foot of the stairs, poor Anne's head fell like a leaden weight upon the top of mine. The shock was terrible, for I felt it could only be death that was coming. I just managed to bear her to the front of her easy-chair and drop her into it, falling myself on my knees before her, very miserable at the fact, and letting her fall at last, though it was into her chair. She was shaken, but she put out her arms to comfort me, and said : " You know it could not be helped, you did your best." After this she sat at the breakfast-table and partook of a basin of boiled milk prepared for her. As ii a.m. approached, she wondered if she -could be conveyed home in time to die there. At 2 p.m. death had come, and left only her beautiful form in the sweetest peace. VII.] EMILY AND ANNE. 97 She rendered up her soul with that sweetness and resignation of spirit which had adorned her through- out her brief hfe, even in the last hour crying : ''Take courage, Charlotte, take courage!" as she bade farewell to the sister who was left. Before me lie the few letters which remain of Emily and Anne. There is little in them worth preserving. Both make reference to the fact that Charlotte is the great correspondent of the family, and that their brief and uninteresting epistles can have no charm for one who is constantly receiving letters from her. Yet that modest reserve which dis- tinguished the greatest of the three is plainly visible in what little remains of the correspondence of the others. They had discovered before their death the real power that lay within them ; they had just ex- perienced the joy which comes from the exercise of this power ; they had looked forward to a future which should be sunny and prosperous, as no other part of their lives of toil and patient endurance had been. Suddenly death had confronted them, and they recognised the fact that they must leave their work undone. Each faced the dread enemy in her own way, but neither shrank even from that blow. Emily's proud spirit refused to be conquered, and, as we have seen, up to the last agony she carried her- self as one sternly indifferent to the weaknesses of the flesh, including that final weakness which must conquer all of us in the end. Anne found conso- lation, pure and deep, in her religious faith, and she H 98 CHARLOTTE BR0NT2. [vii. died cheerfully in the firm belief that she was but entering upon that fuller life which lay beyond the grave. The one was defiant, the other resigned ; but courage and fortitude were shown by each in accord- ance with her ov/n special idiosyncrasy. vrii. "SHIRLEY." Charlotte went back from Scarborough to Haworth alone. Her father met her with unwonted demon- strations of affection, and she " tried to be glad " that she was once more under the familiar roof " But this time joy was not to be the sensation." Yet the courage which had held her sisters to the end sup- ported her amid the pangs of loneliness and bereave- ment. Even now there was no bitterness, no morbid gloom in the heart which had suffered so keenly. Quietly but resolutely setting aside her own sorrow, refusing all the invitations of her friend to seek temporary relief in change of scene, she sat down to complete the story which was intended to tell the world what the lost Emily had seemed to be in the eyes of her fond sister. By herself, in the room in which a short year ago three happy sisters had worked together, within the walls which could never again echo with the old voices, or walking on the moors, which would never more be trodden by the firm, elastic step of Emily, she composed the brilliant story of " Shirley " — the brightest and healthiest of her works. As she writes she sometimes sends forth H 2 100 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [viii. messages to those who love her, which tell us of the spirit of the hero or the martyr burning within the frail frame of the solitary woman. " Submission, courage, exertion when practicable — these seem to be the weapons with which we must fight life's long battle ;" and that these are no mere words she proves with all her accustomed honesty and sincerity, by acting up to them to the very letter. But at times the burden presses upon her till it is almost past endurance. Strangely enough, it is a comparative trifle, as the world counts it, the illness of a servant, that occasions her fiercest outburst of open grief: You have to fight your way through labour and difficulty at home, it appears, but I am truly glad now you did not come to Haworth. As matters have turned out you would have found only discomfort and gloom. Both Tabby and Martha are at this moment ill in bed. Martha's illness has been most serious. She was seized with internal inflam- mation ten days ago ; Tabby's lame leg has broken out, she cannot stand or walk. I have one of Martha's sisters to help me, and her mother comes up sometimes. There was one day last week when I fairly broke down for ten minutes, and sat down and cried like a fool. Martha's illness was at its height ; a cry from Tabby had called me into the kitchen, and I had found her laid on the floor, her head under the kitchen-grate. She had fallen from her chair in attempting to rise. Papa had just been declaring that Martha was in imminent danger; I was myself de- pressed with headache and sickness that day ; I hardly knew what to do or where to turn. Thank God, Martlm is now convalescent; Tabby, I trust, will be better soon. VIII.] ''SHIRLEY'' COMPLETED, loi Papa is pretty well. I have the satisfaction of knowing that my publishers are delighted with what T sent them — this supports me, but life is a battle. May we all be enabled to fight it well. This letter is dated September 24, 1849, at which time " Shirley " is written, and in the hands of her publishers. She has painted the character of Emily in that of Shirley herself; and her friend Ellen is sliadowed forth to the world in the person of Caroline Helston. When the book, with its vivid pictures of Yorkshire life at the beginning of the century, and its masterly sketches of characters as real as those v/hich Shakespeare brings upon the stage, is published, there is but one outcry of praise, even from the critics who were so eager to condemn " Jane Eyre." Up to this point she had preserved her anonymity, but now she is discovered, and her admirers in London persuade her at last to visit them, and make acquaintance with her peers in the Republic of Letters, the men and women whose names were household words in Ha- worth Parsonage long before " Currer Bell " had made her first modest appeal to the world. A passage from one of the following letters, written during this first sojourn in London, has already been published ; but it will well bear re- printing : December, 1849. I have just remembered that as you do not know my address you cannot write to me till you get it. 1 came to this big Babylon last Thursday, and have been in what I02 CHARLOTTE BRONTE, [viir. seems to me a sort of whirl ever since ; for changes, scenes, and stimulus, which would be a trifle to others, are much to me. I found when I mentioned to Mr. my plan of going to Dr. 's it would not do at all. He would have been seriously hurt : he made his mother write to me, and thus I was persuaded to make my principal stay at his house. So far I have found no reason to regret this deci- sion. Mrs. received me at first like one who has had the strictest orders to be scrupulously attentive. I had fire in my bedroom evening and morning, two wax candles, &c., and Mrs. and her daughters seemed to look on me with a mixture of respect and alarm. But all this is changed; that is to say, the attention and politeness continue as great as ever, but the alarm and estrangement are quite gone ; she treats me as if she liked me, and I begin to like her much. Kindness is a potent heart-winner. I had not judged too favourably of on a first impression — he pleases me nuich : I like him better as a son and brother than as a man of business. Mr. W too is really most gentlemanly and well-informed ; his weak points he certainly has, but these are not seen in society. Mr. X (the little man) has again shown his parts. Of him I have not yet come to a clear decision. Abilities he has, for he rules his firm and keeps forty young men under strict control by his iron will. His young superior likes him, which, to speak the truth, is more than I do at present. In fact, I suspect that he is of the Helston order of men — rigid, despotic, and self-willed. He tries to be very kind, and even to express sympathy sometimes, and he does not manage it. He has a determined, dreadful nose in the middle of his face, which, when poked into my countenance, cuts into my soul like iron. Still he is horribly nitelligent, quick, searching, saga- cious, and with a memory of relentless tenacity : to turn to VIII.] LONDON. 103 after him is to turn from granite to easy down or warm fur. I have seen Thackeray. As to being happy, I am under scenes and circumstances of excitement, but I suffer acute pain sometimes — mental pain, I mean. At the moment Mr. Thackeray presented himself I was thoroughly faint from inanition, having eaten nothing since a very slight breakfast, and it was then seven o'clock in the evening. Excitement and exhaustion together made savage work of me that evening. What he thought of me I cannot tell. This evening I am going to meet Miss Martineau ; she has written to me most kindly ; she knows me only as Currer Bell ; I am going alone ; how I shall get on I do not know. If Mrs. were not kind, I should sometimes be miserable ; but she treats me almost affection- ately, her attentions never flag. I have seen many things ; I hope some day to tell you what. Yesterday I went over the new Houses of Parliament with Mr. . An attack of rheumatic fever has kept poor Mr. X out of the way since I wrote last. I am sorry for his sake. It grows quite dark, I must stop. I shall not stay in London a day longer than I first intended. On those points I form my resolutions, and will not be shaken. The thundering Times has attacked me savagely. The following letters (with one exception not pre- viously published) belong to the spring of 1850, when Charlotte was at home again, engaged in attending to her father and to the household cares which shared her attention with literary work and anxieties. The first, which refers exclusively to her visit to London, was addressed to one of her old friends in York- shire : I04 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [viii. Ellen it seems told you that I spent a fortnight in London last December. They wished me very much to stay a month, alleging that I should in that time be able to secure a complete circle of acquaintance, but I found a fort- night of such excitement quite enough. The whole day was usually devoted to sight-seeing, and often the evening was spent in society ; it was more than I could bear for any length of time. On one occasion I met a party of my critics — seven of them. Some of them had been my bitter foes in print, but they were prodigiously civil face to face. These gentlemen seemed infinitely grander, more pompous, dashing, showy, than the few authors I saw. Mr. Thackeray, for example, is a man of very quiet, simple demeanour ; he is, however, looked upon with some awe and even dis- trust. His conversation is very peculiar, too perverse to be pleasant. It was proposed to me to see Charles Dickens, Lady Morgan, Mesdames Trollope, Gore, and some others ; but I was aware these introductions would bring a degree of notoriety I was not disposed to encounter ; I declined there- fore with thanks. Nothing charmed me more during my stay in town than the pictures I saw ; one or two private collections of Turner's best water-colours were indeed a treat. His later oil paintings are strange things — things that baffle description. I have twice seen Macready act ; once in " Macbeth," and once in " Othello." I astounded a dinner-party by honestly saying I did not like him. It is the fashion to rave about his splendid acting ; anything more false and artificial, less genuinely impressive than his whole style, I could scarcely have imagined. The fact is, the stage system altogether is hollow nonsense. They act farces well enough ; the actors comprehend their parts and do them justice. They comprehend nothing about tragedy or Shakespeare, and it is a failure. I said so, and by so viii.] AUTHORS AND CRITICS. 105 saving produced a blank silence, a mute consternation. I was indeed obliged to dissent on many occasions, and to offend by dissenting. It seems now very much the custom to admire a certain wordy, intricate, obscure style of poetry, such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes. Some pieces were referred to, about which Currer Bell was expected to be very rapturous, and failing in this he disappointed. London people strike a provincial as being very much taken up with little matters, about which no one out of particular town circles cares much. They talk too of persons, literary men and women, whose names are scarcely heard in the country, and in whom you cannot get up an interest. I think I should scarcely like to live in London, and were I obliged to live there I should certainly go little into com- pany — especially I should eschew the literary critics. I have, since you went, 'had a remarkable epistle from Thackeray, long, interesting, characteristic ; but it unfor- tunately concludes with the strict injunction, Show this letter to no one; adding that if he thought his letters were seen by others, he would either cease to write, or write only what was conventional. But for this circumstance I should have sent it with the others. I answered it at length. Whether my reply will give satisfaction or displeasure remains yet to be ascertained. Thackeray's feelings are not such as can be gauged by ordinary calculation : variable weather is what I should ever expect from that quarter. Yet in correspond- ence, as in verbal intercourse, this would torment me. I believe I should have written to you before, but I don't know what heaviness of spirit has beset me of late, made my faculties dull, made rest weariness, and occupation burdensome. Now and then the silence of the house, the solitude of the room has pressed on me with a weight I io6 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [viii. found it difficult to bear, and recollection has not failed to be as alert, poignant, obtrusive, as other feelings were lan- guid. I attribute this state of things partly to the weather. Quicksilver invariably falls low in storms and high winds, and I have ere this been warned of approaching disturbance in the atmosphere by a sense of bodily weakness, and deep, heavy mental sadness, which some would call presenthnent. Presentiment indeed it is, but not at all supernatural. The Haworth people have been making great fools of themselves about '' Shirley ;" they take it in the enthusiastic light. When they got the volumes at the Mechanics' Institution, all the members wanted them ; they cast lots for the whole three, and whoever got a volume was only allowed to keep it two days, and to be fined a shilling per diem for longer detention. It would be mere nonsense and vanity to tell you what they say. I have had no letters from London for a long time, and am very much ashamed of myself to find, now that that stimulus is withdrawn, how dependent upon it I had become. I cannot help feeling something of the excitement of expectation till post-hour comes, and when day after day it brings nothing I get low. This is a stupid, disgraceful, unmeaning state of things. I feel bitterly enraged at my own dependence and folly. It is so bad for the mind to be quite alone, to have none with whom to talk over little crosses and disappointments, and laugh them away. If I could write I daresay I should be better, but I cannot write a line. However (d.v.), I shall contend against the idiocy. I had rather a foolish letter from Miss the other day. Some things in it nettled me, especially an unnecessarily earnest assurance that in spite of all I had gone and done in the writing line I still retained a place in her esteem. My answer took strong and high ground at once. I said I had been troubled by no doubts on the VIII.] ''JANE eyre:' 107 subject, that I neither did myself nor her the injustice to suppose there was anything in what I had written to incur the just forfeiture of esteem. I was aware, I intimated, that some persons thought proper to take exceptions at " Jane Eyre," and that for their own sakes I was sorry, as I inva- riably found them individuals in whom the animal largely predominated over the intellectual, persons by nature coarse, by inclination sensual, whatever they might be by education and principle. I enclose a slip of newspaper for your amusement. Me it both amused and touched, for it alludes to some who are in this world no longer. It is an extract from an American paper, and is written by an emigrant from Haworth. You will find it a curious mixture of truth and inaccuracy. Return it when you write again. I also send you for perusal an opinion of " Jane Eyre," written by a working 7nan in this village ; rather, I should say, a record of the feelings the book excited in the poor fellow's mind ; it was not written for my inspection, nor does the writer now know that his little document has by intricate ways come into my possession, and I have forced those who gave it to promise that they will never inform him of this circumstance. He is a modest, thoughtful, feeling, reading being, to whom I have spoken perhaps about three times in the course of my life ; his delicate health renders him incapable of hard or close labour ; he and his family are often under the pressure of want. He feared that if Miss Bronte saw what he had written she would laugh it to scorn. But Miss Bronte considers it one of the highest, because one of the most truthful and artless tributes her work has yet received. You must return this likewise. I do you great honour in showing it to you. io8 CHARLOTTE BRONTR. [viii. Once more we can see that the healthy, happy- interest she takes in the welfare of others is beginning to assert itself. For a time, under the keen smart of the wounds death had inflicted on her, she had found little heart to discuss the affairs of her circle of friends in her correspondence ; but now the outer world vin- dicates its claim to her renewed attention, and she again begins to discuss and analyse the characters of her acquaintances with a skill and minuteness which make them as interesting even to strangers as any of the most closely-studied characters of fiction can be. I return Q 's letter. The business is a most un- pleasant one to be concerned in. It seems to me now altogether unworthy in its beginning, progress, and ending. Q is the only pure thing about it ; she stands between her coarse father and cold, unloving suitor, Hke innocence between a pair of world-hardened knaves. The comparison seems rather hard to be applied to V , but as I see him now he merits it. If V has no means of keeping a wife, if he does not possess a sixpence he is sure of, how can he think of marrying a woman from whom he cannot expect she should work to keep herself? V— — 's want of candour, the twice-falsified account he gave of the matter, tells pain- fully and deeply against him. It shows a glimpse of his hidden motives such as I refrain from describing in words. After all he is perhaps only like the majority of men. Certainly those men who lead a gay life in their youth, and arrive at middle life with feeHngs blunted and passions ex- hausted, can have but one aim in marriage — the selfish advancement of their interest. And to think that such men take as wives — as second selves — women young, modest, sin- VIII.] IMPORTUNATE CORRESPONDENTS. 109 cere, pure in heart and life, with feelings all fresh and emo- tions all unworn, and bind such virtue and vitality to their own withered existence, such sincerity to their own hollow- ness, such disinterestedness to their own haggard avarice ! to think this, troubles the soul to its inmost depths. Nature and justice forbid the banns of such wedlock. This note is written under excitement. Q 's letter seems to have lifted so fraudulent a veil, and to show both father and suitor lurking behind in shadow so dark, acting from motives so poor and low, so conscious of each other's httleness, and consequently so destitute of mutual respect ! These things incense me, but I shall cool down. I cannot find your last letter to refer to, and therefore this will be no answer to it. You must write again by return of post if possible, and let me know how you are progressing. What you said in your last confirmed my opinion that your late attack had been coming on for a long time. Your wish for a cold-water bath, &c., is, I should think, the result of fever. Almost everyone has complained lately of some tendency to slow fever. T have felt it in frequent thirst and in frequent appetite. Papa too, and even Martha, have complained. I fear this damp weather will scarcely suit you ; but write and say all. Of late I have had many letters to answer ; and some very bothering ones from people who want opinions about their books, who seek acquaintance, and who flatter to get it ; people who utterly mistake all about me. They are most difficult to answer, put off, and appease, without offending; for such characters are excessively touchy, and when affronted turn maUgnant. Their books are too often deplorable. In June, 1850, she is induced to pay another visit to London, going upon this occasion whilst the season no CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [viii. is at its height, though she has stipulated before going that she is " not to be honised." I came to London last Thursday. I am staying at . Here I feel very comfortable. Mrs. treats me with a serene, equable kindness which just suits me. Her son is as before — genial and friendly. I have seen very few persons, and am not likely to see many, as the agreement was that I was to be very quiet. We have been to the exhibition of the Royal Academy, to the opera, and the Zoological Gardens. The weather is splendid. I shall not stay longer than a fortnight in London ; the feverishness and exhaustion beset me somewhat, but I think not quite so badly as before — as indeed I have not yet been so much tired. I am leaving London if all be well on Tuesday, and shall be very glad to come to you for a few days if that arrangement still remains convenient to you. My London visit has much surpassed my expectations this time. I have suffered less, and enjoyed more than before ; rather a trying termination yet remains to me. Mrs. 's youngest son is at school in Scotland, and her eldest is going to fetch him home for the vacation. The other evening he announced his intention of taking one of his sisters with him, and the evening after he further proposed that Miss Bronte should go down to Edinburgh and join them there, and see that city and its suburbs. I concluded he was joking, laughed and declined. However, it seems he was in earnest, and being always accustomed to have his will, he brooks opposi- tion ill. The thing appearing to me perfectly out of the question, I still refused. Mrs. did not at all favour it, but her worthy son only waxed more determined. This morning she came and entreated me to go ; G wished viiT.] A SAFEGUARD. iii it so much, he had begged lier to use her influence, &c. &c. Now, I believe that he and I understand each other very well, and respect each other very sincerely. We both know the wide breach time has made between us. We do not embarrass each other, or very rarely. My six or eight years of seniority, to say nothing of lack of all pretensions to beauty, &c., are a perfect safeguard. I should not in the least fear to go with him to China. I like to see him pleased. I greatly dislike to ruffle and disappoint him ; so he shall have his mind, and if all be well I mean to join him in Edinburgh, after I have spent a few days with you. With his buoyant animal spirits and youthful vigour he will make severe demands on my muscles and nerves ; but I daresay I shall get through somehow. IX. LONELINESS AND FAME. Charlotte Bronte's letters during 1850 and 1851 are among the most valuable illustrations of the true character of the woman which we possess. Stricken as she had been by successive bereavements, which had robbed her of her dearest friends and companions, and left her the sole prop of the dull house on the moors and of its aged head, she had yet recovered much of her peace of mind and even of her vitality and cheerful- ness. She had now, also, begun to see something of life as it is presented, not to despised governesses, but to successful authoresses. Her visits to London had brought her into contact with some of the leaders of the hterary world. Who can have forgotten her inter- view with Thackeray, when she was " moved to speak to the giant of some of his shortcomings .? " Haworth itself had become a point of attraction to curious persons, and not a few visitors found their way under one pretence or another to the old parsonage, to be received with effusive courtesy by Mr. Bronte, and with shy indifference by his daughter. Her corre- spondence, too, became widely-spread among men and women of distinction in the world and in Society. IX.] STEADFAST AFFECTION. 113 Altogether it was a different life upon which she now looked out from her remote eyrie among the hills— a life with many new interests in it, with much that was calculated to awaken chords in her heart hitherto untouched, and to bring to light new characteristics of her temper and genius. One would fain speculate upon what might have been, but for the desolation wrought in her home and heart by that tempest of death which raged during the autumn of 1 848 and the spring of 1849. As it was, no novelty could make her forget what had been ; no new faces, however wel- come, could dim the tender visions of the faces that were seen no more, or could weaken in any degree the affection with which she still clung to the friend of her school-days. Simplicity and sincerity are the prevailing features of her letters, during this critical time in her life, as during all the years which had preceded it. They reflect her mind in many moods ; they show her in many different situations ; but they never fail to give the impression of one whose alle- giance to her own conscience and whose reverence for truth and purity remain now what they had been in her days of happy and unworldly obscurity. The letters I now quote are quite new to the public. July 1 8th, 1850. You must cheer up, for your letter proves to me that you are low-spirited. As for me, what I said is to be taken in this sense : that, under the circumstances, it would be presumptuous in me to calculate on a long life— a truth obvious enough. For the rest, we are all in the hands of I 114 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. fix. Him who apportions His gifts, health or sickness, length or brevity of days, as is best for the receiver : to him who has work to do time will be given in which to do it ; for him to whom no task is assigned the season of rest will come earlier. As to the suffering preceding our last sleep, the sickness, decay, the struggle of flesh and spirit, it must come sooner or later to all. If, in one point of view, it is sad to have few ties in the world, in another point of view it is soothing ; women who have husbands and children must look forward to death with more pain, more fear, than those who have none. To dismiss the subject, I wish (without cant, and not in any hackneyed sense) that both you and I could always say in this matter, the will of God be done. I am beginning to get settled at home, but the solitude seems heavy as yet. It is a great change, but in looking forward I try to hope for the best. So little faith have I in the power of any temporary excitement to do real good that I put off day by day writing to London to tell them I have come home ; and till then it was agreed I should not hear from them. It is painful to be dependent on the small stimulus letters give. I sometimes think I will renounce it altogether, close all correspondence on some quiet pretext, and cease to look forward at post-time for any letters but yours. August 1st, 1850. My dear E., — I have certainly felt the late wet weather a good deal, and been somewhat bothered with frequently- returning colds, and so has Papa. About him I have been far from happy: every cold seems to make and leave him so weak. It is easy to say this world is only a scene of proba- tion, but it is a hard thing to feel. Your friends the s seem to be happy just now, and long may they continue to be so ! Give C. Bronte's sincere love to R and tell her she IX.] HER PORTRAIT. 115 hopes Mr. will make her a good husband. If he does not, woe be to him ! I wish a similar wish for Q ; and then I do really think there will be a kind of happiness. That proposition about remaining at H sounds like beginning life sensibly, with no showy dash — I like it. Are you comfortable amongst all these turtle-doves ? I could not maintain your present position for a day ; I should feel de trop, as the French say ; that is in the way. But you are different to me. My portrait is come from London, and the Duke of Wellington's, and kind letters enough. Papa thinks the portrait looks older than I do. He says the features are far from flattered, but acknowledges that the expression is wonderfully good and life-like. I left the book called " Social Aspects " at B ; accept it from me. I may well give it you, for the author has kindly sent me another copy You ask for some promise : who that does not know the future can make promises ? Not I. September 2ncl, 1850. Poor Mrs. A it seems is gone ; I saw her death in the papers. It is another lesson on the nature of life, on its strange brevity, and in many instances apparent futility. V came here on Saturday last ; T , who was to have accompanied him, was prevented from executing his intention. I regretted his absence, for I by no means coveted the long tcte-a-tete with V . However, it passed off pretty well. He is satisfied now with his own prospects, and this makes him — on the surface — satisfied with other things. He spoke of Q with content and approbation. He looks forward to marriage as a sort of harbour where he is to lay up his now r-omewhat battered vessel in quiet moorings. He has seen all he wants to see of life ; now he IS prepared to settle. I listened to all with equanimity and ii6 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [tx. cheerfulness — not assumed but real — for Papa is now some- what better ; his appetite and spirits are improved, and that eases my mind of cankering anxiety. My own health, too, is, I think, really benefited by the late changes of air and scene ; I fancy, at any rate, that I feel stronger. Still I mused in my own way on V 's character — its depth and scope, I believe, are ascertained. I saw the governess at ; she looked a little better and more cheerful. She was almost as pleased to see me as if we had been related ; and when I bid her good-bye expressed an earnest hope that I would soon come again. The children seem fond of her, and on the whole obedient — two great alleviations of the inevitable evils of her position. Cheer up, dear Nell, and try not to stagnate ; or, when you cannot help it, and when your heart is constricted and oppressed, remember what life is and must be to all : some moments of sunshine alternating with many of overclouded and often tempestuous darkness. Humanity cannot escape its fate, which is to drink a mixed cup. Let us believe that the gall and the vinegar are salutary. Sept. 14th, 1850. I wish, dear Ellen, you would tell me what is the " twaddle " about my marrying, which you hear. If I knew the details I should have a better chance of guessing the quarter from which such gossip comes. As it is I am quite at a loss. Whom am I to marry ? I think I have scarcely seen a single man with whom such a union would be pos- sible since I left London. Doubtless there are men whom, if I chose to encourage, I might marry. But no matrimonial lot is even remotely offered me which seems to me truly desirable. And even if that were the case there would be many obstacles. The least allusion to such a thing is most offensive to Papa. An article entitled " Currer Bell " has IX.] A HONEYMOON. 117 lately appeared in The Palladimn, a new periodical pub- lished in Edinburgh. It is an eloquent production, and one of such warm sympathy and high appreciation as I had never expected to see. It makes mistakes about author- ship, &c., but those I hope one day to set right. Mr. X (the Httle man) first informed me of this article. I was somewhat surprised to receive his letter, having concluded nine months ago that there would be no more correspon- dence from that quarter. I enclose a note from him received subsequently, in answer to my acknowledgment. Read it, and tell me exactly how it impresses you regarding the writer's character, &c. He is deficient neither in spirit nor sense. October 14th, 1850. I return Q 's letter. She seems quite happy and fully satisfied of her husband's affection. Is this the usual way of spending the honeymoon ? To me it seems as if they overdo it. That travelling, and tugging, and fagging about, and getting drenched and muddled, by no means harmonises with my notions of happiness. Besides, the two meals a day, &c., would do one up. It all reminds me too sharply of the few days I spent with V in London nearly ten years since, when I was many a time fit to drop with the fever and the faintness resulting from long fasting and excessive fatigue. However, no doubt a bride can bear such things better than others. I smiled to myself at some passages. She has wondrous faith in her husband's intellectual powers and acquirements. V 's illusions will soon be over, but Q 's will not — and therein she is happier than he I suppose will probably dis- cover that he, too, wants a wife. But I will say no more. You know I disapprove of jesting and teasing on these matters. Idle words sometimes do unintentional harm. ii8 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [ix. December, 1850. I got home all right yesterday soon after two o'clock, and found Papa, thank God, well and free from cold. To-day some amount of sickliness and headache is bothering me, but nothing to signify The Christmas books waiting for me were, as I expected, from Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell, and Mr. Ruskin. No letter from Mr. W . It is six weeks since I heard from him. I feel uneasy, but do not like to write. The Exammei' is very sore about my Preface, because I did not make it a special exception in speaking of the mass of critics. The soreness is unfortunate and gratuitous, for in my mind I certainly excepted it. Another paper shows painful sensitiveness on the same account j but it does not matter, these things are all transitory. The " Preface " to which she alludes in the fore- going letter, was that to her collected edition of Emily and Anne Bronte's works, in which she makes allusion to the fact that the " critics failed to do justice " to *'Wuthering Heights'^ and "Agnes Grey'' when they were published. Jan. 20th, 185 1. Thank you heartily for the two letters I owe you. You seem very gay at present, and provided you only take care not to catch cold with coming home at night, I am not sorry to hear it ; a little movement, cheerfulness, stimulus, is not only beneficial, but necessary. Your last letter but one made me smile. I think you draw great conclusions from small inferences. I think those '' fixed intentions " you fancy are imaginary. I think the " under-current " amounts simply to this, a kind of natural liking and sense of some- thing congenial. Were there no vast barrier of age, for IX.] CONDITIONS OF MATRIMONY. time, &c., there is perhaps enough personal regard to make things possible which now are impossible. If men and women married because they like each other's temper, look, conversation, nature, and so on — and if, besides, years were more nearly equal — the chance you allude to might be admitted as a chance ; but other reasons regulate matri- mony — reasons of convenience, of connection, of money. Meantime I am content to know him as a friend, and pray God to continue to me the common sense to look on one so young, so rising, and so hopeful in no other light. The hint about the Rhine disturbs me ; I am not made of stone and what is mere excitement to others is fever to me. How- ever it is a matter for the future, and long to look forward to. As I see it now, the journey is out of the question — ■ for many reasons — I rather wonder he should think of it. Good-bye. Heaven grant us both some quiet wisdom and strength, not merely to bear the trial of pain, but to resist the lure of pleasure when it comes in such a shape as our better judgment disapproves. Feb. 26th, 185 1. You ought always to conclude that when I don't write it is simply because I have nothing particular to say. Be sure that ill news will travel fast enough, and good news too when such commodity comes. It I could often be or seem in brisk spirits, I might write oftener, knowing that my letters would amuse. But as times go, a glimpse of sun, shine now and then is as much as one has a right to expect. However, I get on very decently. I am now and then tempted to break through my resolution of not having you to come before summer, and to ask you to come to this Patmos in a week or two. But it would be dull — very dull — for you What would you say to coming here the week after next to stay only just so long as you could com- I20 CHARLOTTE BRONTE, [ix. fortably bear the monotony ? If the weather were dry, and the moors fine, I should not mind it so much — we could walk for change. About this time it is clear that Miss Bronte was sufifering from one of her periodical attacks of nervous exhaustion. She makes repeated references in her letters to her ailments, attributing them generally to her liver, and she also mentions frequently an occur- rence which had given her not a little anxiety and concern. This was an ofifer of marriage from a business man in a good position, whom she had already met in London. The following letters, which are inserted here without regard to the precise date, and of which Mrs. Gaskell has merely used half-a- dozen lines, relate to this subject : You are to say no more about " Jupiter " and " Venus." What do you mean by such heathen trash ? The fact is no fallacy can be wilder, and I won't have it hinted at, even in jest, because my common sense laughs it to scorn. The idea of X shocks me less ; it would be a more likely match, if '• matches " were at all in question, which they are not. He still sends his little newspaper, and the other day there came a letter of a bulk, volume, pith, judgment, and knowledge, worthy to have been the product of a giant. X has been, and is gone ; things are just as they were. I only know, in addition to the slight information I possessed before, that this Australian undertaking is neces- sary to the continued prosperity of his firm, that he alone was pronounced to possess the power and means to carry it out successfully, that mercantile honour, combined with his Tx.] A PAINFUL PARTING. 121 jwn sense of duty, obliged him to accept the post of honour and of danger to which he has been appointed, that he goes with great personal reluctance, and that he contemplates an absence of five years. He looked much thinner and older. I saw him very near, and once through my glass. The yesemblance to Bran well struck me forcibly ; it is marked. He is not ugly, but very peculiar. The lines in his face show an inflexibility, and, I must add, a hardness of cha- racter, which does not attract. As he stood near me, as he looked at me in his keen way, it was all I could do to stand my ground tranquilly and steadily, and not to recoil as before. It is no use saying anything if I am not candid. I avow then that on this occasion, predisposed as I was to regard him very favourably, his manners and his personal appearance scarcely pleased me more than at the first inter- view. He gave me a book at parting, requesting in his brief way that I would keep it for his sake, and adding hastily : " I shall hope to hear from you in Australia ; your letters have been and icn'll be a greater refreshment than you can think or I can tell." And so he is gone, and stern and abrupt little man as he is, too often jarring as are his manners, his absence and the exclusion of his idea from my mind, leave me certainly with less support and in deeper solitude than before. You see, dear Nell, we are still pre- cisely on the same level. You are not isolated. I feel that there is a certain mystery about this transaction yet, and w^hether it will ever be cleared up to me, 1 do not know. However, my plain duty is to wean my mind from the subject, and if possible to avoid pondering over it I feel that in his way he has a regard for me ; a regard which I cannot bring myself entirely to reciprocate in kind, and yet its withdrawal leaves a painful blank. I have just got your note. Above, you have all the account of my visitor. 122 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [ix. I dare not aver that your kind wish that the visit would yield me more pleasure than pain has been fulfilled. Some- thing at my heart aches and gnaws drearily. But I must cultivate fortitude. Thank you for your kind note. It was kind of you to write it, though it luas your school-day. I never knew you to let a slight impediment stand in your way when doing a friendly action. Certainly I shall not soon forget last Friday, and never, I think, the evening and night succeed- ing that morning and afternoon. Evils seldom come singly, and soon after X was gone Papa grew much worse. He went to bed early. Was sick and ill for an hour, and when at last he began to doze and I left him, I came down to the dining-room with a sense of weight, fear, and desolation hard to express and harder to endure. A wish that you were with me did cross my mind ; but I repelled it as a most selfish wish. Indeed it was only short-lived ; my natural tendency in moments of this sort is to get through the struggle alone ; to think that one is burdening others makes all worse. You speak to ' me in soft, consolatory accents ; but I hold far sterner language to myself, dear Nell. An absence of five years ; a dividing expanse of three oceans ; the wide difference between a man's active career and a woman's passive existence. These things are almost equivalent to a life-long separation. But there is another thing which forms a barrier more difficult to pass than any of these. Would X and I ever suit ? Could I ever feel for him enough love to accept of him as a hus- band ? Friendship, gratitude, esteem, I have ; but each moment that he came near me, and that I could see his eyes fastened upon me, my veins ran ice. Now that he is away I feel far more gently towards him ; it is only close by that I grow rigid. I did not want to be proud nor intend IX.] IMPORTANT DECISION. 123 to be proud, but I was forced to be so. Most true is it that we are overruled by One above us, that in His hands our very will is as clay in the hands of the potter. I trust Papa is not worse ; but he varies. He has never been down to breakfast but once since you left. The circumstance of having him to think about just now is good for me in one way ; it keeps my thoughts off other matters which have been complete bitterness and ashes ; for I do assure you a more entire crumbling away of a seeming foun- dation of support and prospect of hope than that which I allude to can scarcely be realised. I have heard from X to-day, a quiet little note. He returned to London a week since on Saturday. He leaves England next month. His note concludes with ask- ing whether he has any chance of seeing me in London before that time. I must tell him that I have already fixed June for my visit, and, therefore, in all human probability we shall see each other no more. There is still a want of plain mutual understanding in this business, and there is sadness and pain in more ways than one. My conscience, I can truly say, does not now accuse me of having treated X with injustice or unkindness. What I once did wrong in this way I have endeavoured to remedy both to himself and in speaking of him to others. I am sure he has estimable and sterling qualities ; but with every disposi- tion — with every wish — with every intention even to look on him in the most favourable point of view at his last visit, it was impossible for me in my inmost heart to think of him as one that might one day be acceptable as a husband. .... No, if X be the only husband fate offers to me, single I must always remain. But yet at times I grieve for him ; and perhaps it is superfluous, for I cannot thmk he 124 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [ix. will suffer much — a hard nature, occupation, change of scene will befriend him. I have had a long, kind letter from Miss Martineau lately. She says she is well and happy. Also I have had a very long letter from Mr. , the first for many weeks. He speaks of X with much respect and regret, and says he will be greatly missed by many friends. I discover with some surprise that Papa has taken a decided liking to X . The marked kindness of his manner to him when he bade him good-bye, exhorting him to be "true to himself, his country, and his God," and wishing him all good wishes, struck me with some astonishment at the time ; and when- ever he has alluded to him since, it has been with significant eulogy You say Papa has penetration. On this subject I believe he has indeed. I have told him nothing, yet he seems to be au fait to the whole business. I could think at some moments his guesses go further than mine. I believe he thinks a prospective union, deferred for five years, with such a decorous, reliable personage, would be a very proper and advisable affair. However I ask no ques- tions, and he asks me none ; and if he did I should have nothing to tell him. The summer following this affair of the heart wit- nessed another visit to London, where she heard Mr. Thackeray^s lectures on the humourists. How she enjoyed listening to her Idol, In one of his best moods, need not be told. Some there are still living who remember that first lecture, when all London had assembled to listen to the author of " Vanity Fair," and the rumour suddenly ran round the room that the author oi "Jane Eyre" was among IX.] MR. THACKERAY'S LECTURES. 125 the audience. Men and women were at fault at first, in their efforts to distinguish *' Currer Bell " in that brilliant company of literary and social notabilities ; but at last she was discovered hiding under the motherly wing of a chaperon, timid, blushing, but excited and pleased — not at the attention she herself attracted, but at the treat she had in prospect. One or two gentlemen sought and obtained introduc- tions to her — amongst them Lord Carlisle and Mr. Monckton Milnes. They were not particularly impressed by the appearance or the speech of the parson's daughter. Her person was insignificant, her dress somewhat rustic, her language quaintly precise and formal, her manner odd and constrained. Alto- gether this was a woman whom even London could not lionise ; somebody outwardly altogether too plain, simple, unpretending, to admit of hero-worship. Within there was, as we know, something entirely exceptional and extraordinary; but, like LucySnowe, she still kept her real self hidden under a veil which no casual friend or chance acquaintance was allowed to lift. It was but a brief visit to the " Big Babylon," and then back to Haworth, to loneliness and duty ! In July, 185 1, she writes from the parsonage to one of her friends as follows : My first feeling on receiving your note was one of dis- appointment, but a little consideration sufficed to show me that " all was for the best." In truth it was a great piece of extravagance on my part to ask you and Ellen together ; ii is much better to divide such good things. To have your 126 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [ix. visit in prospect will console me when hers is in retrospect. Not that I mean to yield to the weakness of clinging de- pendently to the society of friends, however dear ; but still as an occasional treat I must value and even seek such society as a necessary of life. Let me know then whenever it suits your convenience to come to Haworth, and, unless some change I cannot now foresee occurs, a ready and warm welcome will await you. Should there be any cause render- ing it desirable to defer the visit, I will tell you frankly. , The pleasures of society I cannot offer you ; nor those of f^ ,*fine scenery. But I place very much at your command — the moors, some books, a series of quiet " curling-hair- times," and an old pupil into the bargain. Ellen may have told you that I spent a month in London this summer. When you come you shall ask what questions you like on that point, and I will answer to the best of my stammering ability. Do not press me much on the subject of the Crystal Palace. I went there five times, and certainly saw some interesting things, and the coup d'oeil is striking and bewildering enough. But I never was able to get up any raptures on the subject, and each renewed visit was made under coercion rather than my own free will. It is an excessively bustling place ; and after all, its wonders appeal too exclusively to the eye, and rarely touch the heart or head. I make an exception to the last assertion in favour of those who possess a large range of scientific knowledge. Once I went with Sir David Brewster, and perceived that he looked on objects with other eyes than mine. X. " VILLETTE." With the autumn of 185 1 another epoch in the life^l of Charlotte Bronte was ushered in. She began ^^ write "Villette." Something has already been said of the true character of that marvellous book, in which her own deepest experiences and ripest wisdom are given to the world. Of the manner in which it was written her readers know nothing. Yet this, the best-beloved child of her genius, was brought forth with a travail so bitter that more than once she was tempted to lay aside her pen and hush her voice for ever. Every sentence was wrung from her as though it had been a drop of blood, and the book was built up bit by bit, amid paroxysms of positive anguish, occasioned in part by her own physical weakness and suffering, but still more by the torture through which her mind passed as she depicted scene after scene from the darkest chapter in her own life, for the benefit of those for whom she wrote. It is from her letters that at this time also we get the best indica- tions of what she was passing through. Few, perhaps, reading these letters would suppose that their writer was at that very time engaged in the production of a 128 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [x. great masterpiece, destined to hold its own among the ripest and finest fruits of EngHsh genius. But no one can read them without seeing how true the woman's soul was, how deep her sympathy with those she loved, how keen her criticisms of even the dull and commonplace characters around her, how vivid and sincere her interest in everything which was pass- ing either in the great world which lay afar off, or in the little world the drama of which was being enacted under her own eyes. Even the ordinary incidents mentioned in her letters, the chance expressions which drop from her pen, have an interest when we re- member who it is that speaks, and at what hour in her life this speech falls from her. September, 185 1. I have mislaid your last letter, and so cannot look it over to see what there is in it to answer ; but it is time it was answered in some fashion, whether I have anything to say or not. Miss 's note is very like her. All that talk about "friendship," "mutual friends," "auld lang syne," &c., sounds very like palaver. Mrs. wrote to me a week or a fortnight since — a well-meaning, amiable note, dwelling a good deal, excusably perhaps, on the good time that is coming. I mean, to speak plain English, on her expectation of soon becoming a mother. No doubt it is very natural in her to feel as if no woman had ever been a mother before ; but I could not help inditing an answer calculated to shake her up a bit. A day or two since I had another note from her, quite as good as usual, but I think a trifle nonplussed by the rather unceremonious fashion in which her terrors and the expected personage were handled. . . . X.] LETTER FROAI AUSTRALIA. 129 It is useless to tell you how I live. I endure life; but whether I enjoy it or not is another question. However, I get on. The weather, I think, has not been very good lately ; or else the beneficial effects of change of air and scene are evaporating. In spite of regular exercise the old headaches and starting, wakeful nights are coming upon me again. But I do get on, and have neither wish nor right to complain. October, 1851. I am not at all intending to go from home at present. I have just refused successively Miss Martineau, Mrs. Gaskell, and Mrs. Forster. I could not go if I would. One person after another in the house has been aiHng for the last month and more. First Tabby had the influenza, then Martha took it and is ill in bed now, and I grieve to say Papa too has taken cold. So far I keep pretty well, and am thankful for it, for who else would nurse them all ? Some painful mental worry I have gone through this autumn ; but there is no use in dwelling on all that. At present I seem to have some respite. I feel more disin- clined than ever for letter-writing Life is a struggle. November, 1851. Papa, Tabby, and Martha are at present all better, but yet none of them well. Martha especially looks feeble. I wish she had a better constitution. As it is, one is always afraid of giving her too much to do ; and yet there are many things I cannot undertake myself; and we do not like to change when we have had her so long. The other day I received the enclosed letter from Austraha. I had had one before from the same quarter, which is still un- answered. I told you I did not expect to hear thence — nor did I. The letter is long, but it will be worth your while to read it. In its way it has merit — that cannot be denied — K 130 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [x. abundance of information, talent of a certain kind, alloyed (I think) here and there with errors of taste. This little man with all his long letters remains as much a conundrum to me as ever. Your account of the H " domestic joys " amused me much. The good folks seem very happy ; long may they continue so ! It somewhat cheers me to know that such happiness does exist on earth. November, 185 1. All here is pretty much as usual The only events of my life consist in that little change occasional letters bring. I have had two from Miss W since she left Haworth, which touched me much. She seems to think so much of a little congenial company, a little atten- tion and kindness. She says she has not for many days known such enjoyment as she experienced during the ten days she stayed here. Yet you know what Haworth is — dull enough. Before answering X 's letter from Australia I got up my courage to write to and beg him to give me an impartial account of X 's character and disposi- tion, owning that I was very much in the dark on these points and did not like to continue correspondence without further information. I got the answer which I enclose. Since receiving it I have replied to X in a calm, civil manner. At the earliest I cannot hear from him again before the spring. December, 185 1. I hope you have got on this last week well. It has been very trying here. Papa so far has borne it unhurt ; but these winds and changes have given me a bad cold ; however, I am better now than I was. Poor old Keeper (Emily's dog) died last Monday morning, after being ill one night. He went gently to sleep ; we laid his old faithful head in the garden. Flossy is dull, and misses him. X.J DEATH OF EMILY'S DOG. 131 There was something very sad in losing the old dog ; yet I am glad he met a natural fate. People kept hinting that he ought to be put away, which neither Papa nor I liked to think of. If I were near a town, and could get cod-liver oil fresh and sweet, I really would most gladly take your advice and try it ; but how I could possibly procure it at Haworth I do not see You ask about " The Lily and the Bee." If you have read it, you have effected an exploit beyond me. I glanced at a few pages, and laid it down hopeless, nor can I now find courage to resume it. But then, I never liked Warren's writings. " Margaret Maitland " is a good book, I doubt not. At this point the illness of which she makes light in these letters increased to such an extent as to alarm her father, and at last she consented to lay aside her work and allow herself the pleasure and comfort of a visit from her friend. The visit was a source of happiness whilst it lasted ; but when it was over the depression returned, and there was a serious relapse. Something of her sufferings at this time — whilst " Villette " was still upon the stocks — will be gathered from the following letter, dated January 1852: I wish you could have seen the coolness with which I captured your letter on its way to Papa, and at once con- jecturing its tenor, made the contents my own. Be quiet. Be tranquil. It is, dear Nell, my decided intention to come to B for a few days when I can come ; but of this last I must positively judge for myself, and I must take my time. I am better to-day — much better ; but you can have little idea of the sort of condition into which mercury K 2 132 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. ' [x. throws people to ask me to go from home anywhere in close or open carriage. And as to talking — four days ago I could not well have articulated three sentences. Yet I did not need nursing, and I kept out of bed. It was enough to burden myself; it would have been misery to me to have annoyed another. March, 1852. The news of E. T.'s death came to me last week in a letter from M , a long letter, which wrung my heart so in its simple, strong, truthful emotion, I have only ventured to read it once. It ripped up half-scarred wounds with terrible force — the death-bed was just the same — breath failing, &c. She fears she will now in her dreary solitude become " a stern, harsh, selfish woman." This fear struck home. Again and again I have felt it for myself; and what is my position to M 's ? I should break out in energetic wishes that she would return to England, if reason would permit me to believe that prosperity and happiness would there await her. But I see no such prospect. May God help her as God only can help ! To another friend she writes as follows, in reply to an invitation to leave Haworth for a short visit : March 12 th, 1852. Your kind note holds out a strong temptation, but one that must be resisted. From home I must not go unless health or some cause equally imperative render a change necessary. For nearly four months now {i.e. since I first became ill) I have not put pen to paper ; my work has been lying untouched, and my faculties have been rusting for want of exercise ; further relaxation is out of the question, and / will not permit myself to think of it. My publisher groans over my long delays j I am sometimes X.] VISIT TO SCARBOROUGH. i33 provoked to check the expression of his irr,patience with Tort and crusty answers. Yet the pleasure I now deny myself I would fain regard as only defer ed, I heard Something about your purposing to visit S-borough m *e course of the summer; and could I by the do ^ ofju Y or August bring my task to a certam point, how glad should I be to join you there for a whUe ! .... However, I dare not lay plans at this distance of time ; for me so much nu t depend first, on Papa's health (which th^ughou Ae winter h'as been, I am thankful to -y, -ally ex e lent) and second, on the progress of work-a matter not wholly contingent on wish or will, but lyu.g m a great measure beyond the reach of effort, or out of the pale of calculation. As the summer advanced her sufferings were scarcely abated, and at last, in search of some relief, she made a sudden visit by herself to Filey, msp.red in part by her desire to see the memonal-stone erected above her sister's grave at Scarborough. riley Bay, June, 1852. MY DEAR Miss ,-Your kind and welcome note reached me at this place, where I have been staying three veet pate alone. Change and sea-air had become necessary Distance and other considerations forbade my -ccompanymg Ellen to the South, much as I should have liked it had I felt nuke free and unfettered. Ellen told me some time ago S you were not likely to visit Scarborough till the autumn so I forthwith packed my trunk and betook myself here^ The first week or ten days I greatly feared the seaside would not su me, for I suffered almost incessantly from headache and otherhlrassing ailments ; the weather, too, was dark, stormy, 134 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [x. and excessively — bitterly — cold. My solitude under such circumstances partook of the character of desolation ; I had some dreary evening hours and night vigils. However, that passed. I think I am now better and stronger for the change, and in a day or two hope to return home. Ellen told me that Mr. W said people with my tendency to congestion of the hver should walk three or four hours every day ; accordingly, I have waliced as much as I could since I came here, and look almost as sunburnt and weather-beaten as a fisherman or a bathing-woman, with being out in the open air. As to my work, it has stood obstinately still for a long while ; certainly a torpid liver makes a torpid brain. No spirit moves me. If this state of things does not entirely change, my chance of a holiday in the autumn is not worth much ; yet I should be very sorry not to meet you for a little while at Scarborough. The duty to be discharged at Scarborough was the chief motive that drew me to the east coast. I have been there, visited the churchyard, and seen the stone. There were five errors ; consequently I had to give directions for its being re-faced and re-lettered. The sea-air did her good ; but she was still unable to carry her great work forward, in spite of the urgent pressure put upon her by those who in this respect merely expressed the impatience of the public. Haworth, July, 1852. I am again at home, where (thank God) I found all well. I certainly feel much better than I did, and would fain trust that the improvement may prove permanent. The first fortnight I was at Filey I had constantly recurring pain in the right side, and sick headache into the .^czr-^./^ x-'-'^^ ,L^ &^ ■ /^ r::^^. ..w^^^ ^^^ ...^y^..^^ .i^^-x --. ^-"-^ -^--^t Z:.;?^?: /-^^^ o..,^.^.^.^ ...-^v^'.-^-^,^ L 3 ^ a~ /" *" <=^ ^'^ ^ ^ ^,_^ . ^ (y^i^ , / • /^ ,0.1^ 'toe ^-^ .::^ /V^ ^ ^--K- C7 „_^ ^ . >— T7 ^^^^^C7^,^^^- X.] SUSPENDED LABOURS 135 bargain. My spirits at the same time were cruelly depressed — prostrated sometimes. I feared the miseries and the suffering of last winter were all returning ; consequently I am now indeed thankful to find myself so much better. ..... You ask about Australia. Let us dismiss the subject in a few words, and not recur to it. All is silent as the grave. Cornhill is silent too ; there has been bitter disappointment there at my having no work ready for this season. Ellen, we must not rely upon our fellow-creatures — only on ourselves, and on Him who is above both us and them. My labours, as you call them, stand in abeyance, and I cannot hurry them. I must take my own time, however long that time may be. August, 1852. I am thankful to say that Papa's convalescence seems now to be quite confirmed. There is scarcely any remainder of the inflammation in his eyes, and his general health progresses satisfactorily. He begins even to look forward to resuming his duty ere long, but caution must be observed on that head. Martha has been very willing and helpful during Papa's illness. Poor Tabby is ill herself at present with English cholera, which complaint, together with in- fluenza, has lately been almost universally prevalent in this district. Of the last I have myself had a touch ; but it went off very gently on the whole, affecting my chest and liver less than any cold has done for the last three years. I write to you about yourself rather under con- straint and in the dark ; for your letters, dear Nell, are most remarkably oracular, dropping nothing but hints which tie my tongue a good deal. What, for instance, can I say to your last postscript ? It is quite sibylline. I can hardly guess what checks you in writing to me. Perhaps you think that as / generally write with some reserve, you ought to do 136 CHARLOTTE BRONTR. [x. the same. My reserve, however, has its origin not in design, but in necessity. I am silent because I have Hterally nothing to say. I might, indeed, repeat over and over again that my hfe is a pale blank, and often a very weary burden, and that the future sometimes appals me ; but what end could be answered by such repetition, except to weary you and enervate myself? The evils that now and then wring a groan from my heart lie in my position — not that I am a single woman and likely to remain a single woman, but because I am a lonely woman and likely to be lo?tely. But it cannot be helped, and therefore imperatively must be borne, and borne, too, with as few Avords about it as may be. I write this just to prove to you that whatever you would freely say to me you may just as freely write. Understand that I remain just as resolved as ever not to allow myself the holiday of a visit from you till / have done my work. After labour, pleasure ; but while work was lying at the wall undone, I never yet could enjoy recreation. Slowly page after page of " Villette " was now being written. The reader sees from these letters that the book was composed in no happy mood. Writing to her publisher a few weeks after the date of the last letter printed above, she says : " I can hardly tell you how I hunger to hear some opinions beside my own, and how I have sometimes desponded and almost despaired, because there was no one to whom to read a line, or of whom to ask a counsel. * Jane Eyre ' was not written under such circum- stances, nor were two-thirds of * Shirley.' I got so miserable about it that I could bear no allusion to X.] BORROWED PLUMES. 137 the book. It is not finished yet ; but now I hope." But though her work pressed so incessantly upon her, and her feverish anxiety to have it done weighed so heavily upon her health and spirits, she could still find time to answer her friend's letters in a way which showed that her interest in the outer world was as keen as ever ; September, 1852. Thank you for A 's notes. I like to read them, they are so full of news, but they are illegible. A great many words I really cannot make out. It is pleasing to hear that M is doing so well, and the tidings about seem also good. I get a note from every now and then, but I fear my last reply has not given much satisfaction. It contained a taste of that unpalatable commodity called advice — such advice, too, as might be, and I dare say was, construed into faint reproof I can scarcely tell what there is about that, in spite of one's conviction of her amiability, in spite of one's sincere wish for her welfare, palls upon one, satiates, stirs impatience. She will com- placently put forth opinions and tastes as her own which are not her own, nor in any sense natural to her. My patience can really hardly sustain the test of such a jay in borrowed plumes. She prated so much about the fine wilful spirit of her child, whom she describes as a hard, brown little thing, who will do nothing but what pleases himself, that I hit out at last — not very hard, but enough to make her think herself ill-used, I doubt not. Can't help it. She often says she is not " absorbed in self," but the fact is, I have seldom seen anyone more unconsciously, thoroughly, and often weakly egotistic. Then, too, she is inconsistent. In the same breath she boasts her matri- 138 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [x. monial happiness and whines for sympathy. Don't under- stand it. With a paragon of a husband and child, why that whining, craving note ? Either her lot is not all she pro- fesses it to be, or she is hard to content. In October the resolute determination to allow herself no relaxation until " Villette " was finished broke down. She was compelled to call for help, and to acknowledge herself beaten in her attempt to crush out the yearning for company : October, 1852. Papa expresses so strong a wish that I should ask you to come, and I feel some httle refreshment so absolutely necessary myself, that I really must beg you to come to Haworth for one single week. I thought I would persist in denying myself till I had done my work, but I find it won't do. The matter refuses to progress, and this excessive solitude presses too heavily. So let me see your dear face, Nell, just for one reviving week. Could you come on Wednesday ? Write to-morrow, and let me know by what train you would reach Keighley, that I may send for you. The visit was a pleasant one in spite of the weariness of body and mind which troubled Charlotte. She laid aside her task for that " one little week," went out upon the moors with her friend, talked as of old, and at last, when she was left alone once more, declared that the change had done her "in- expressible good." Writing to her friend immediately -after the latter had left her, she says : Your note came only this morning. I had expected it X.] COMPLETION OF " VILLETTE." 139 yesterday, and was beginning actually to feel weary— like you. This won't do. I am afraid of caring for you too much. You must have come upon at an unfavourable moment, seen it under a cloud. Surely they are not always or often thus, or else married life is indeed but a slipshod paradise. I only send The Examiner, not having yet read The Leader. I was spared the remorse I feared. On Saturday I fell to business, and as the welcome mood is still decently existent, and my eyes consequently excessively tired with scribbling, you must excuse a mere scrawl. Papa was glad to hear you had got home well — as well as we. I do miss my dear bed-fellow ; no more of that calm sleep. Her pen now began to move nnore quickly, and the closing chapters of " Villette " were written with comparative ease, so that at last she writes thus, on November 22nd : Monday morning. Truly thankful am I to be able to tell you that I finished my long task on Saturday, packed and sent off the parcel to Cornhill. I said my prayers when I had done it. Whether it is well or ill done I don't know. D.V., I will now try to wait the issue quietly. The book, I think, will not be considered pretentious, nor is it of a character to excite hostility. As Papa is pretty well, I may, I trust, dear Nell, do as you wish me, and come for a few days to B . Miss Martineau has also urgently asked me to go and see her. I promised, if all were well, to do so at the close of November or the commencement of December, so that I could go on from B to Westmoreland. Would Wednesday suit you ? " Esmond " shall come with me — i.e. Thackeray's novel. 140 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [x. Every reader knows in what fashion '' Villette " ends, and most persons also know from Mrs. Gaskell that the reason why the actual issue is left in some uncertainty was the author's filial desire to gratify her father. Charlotte herself was firmly resolved that she would not make Lucy Snowe the happy wife of Paul Emanuel. She never meant to " appoint her lot in pleasant places." Lucy was to bear the storm and stress of life in the same manner as that in which her creator had been compelled to bear it ; and she was to be left in the end alone, robbed for ever of the hope of spending the happy afternoon of her existence in the sunshine of love and congenial society. But Mr. Bronte, altogether unconscious of that tragedy of heart-sickness and soul-weariness which was being enacted under his own roof, and which furnished so striking a parallel to the story which ran through "Villette," would not brook a gloomy ending to the tale, and by protestations and entreaties induced his daughter at least so far to alter her plan as to leave the issue in doubt. So "Villette" went its way, as "Jane Eyre" and " Shirley " had done before it, from the secluded parsonage at Haworth up to the busy publishing- house in Cornhill, and thence out into the world. There was some fear on Charlotte's part when the MS. had been despatched. She herself was gradually forming that which remained the fixed conviction of her life — the conviction that in "Villette" she had done her best, and that, for good or for ill, by it her X.] A TEST. 141 reputation must stand or fall. But she was intensely- anxious, as we have seen, to have the opinions of others upon the story. Nor was it only a general verdict on its merits for which she called. She was uneasy upon some minor points. According to her wont, she had taken most of her characters from life, and it was not during her stay at Brussels alone that she had studied the models which she employed when writing the book. Naturally, she was curious to know whether she had painted her portraits too literally. So " Villette " was allowed to pass, whilst still in MS., into the hands of the original of " Dr. John." When that gentleman had read the story, and criticised all the characters with the freedom of unconsciousness, her mind was set at rest, and she knew that she had not transgressed the bounds which divide the story-teller from the biographer. In the meantime, her work done, she hurried away from Haworth to spend a well-earned holiday at B with her friend. " Esmond " accompanied her, and the quiet afternoons were spent in reading it aloud. On December 9th she writes from Haworth, announcing her safe return to her own home : I got home safely at five o'clock yesterday afternoon, and, I am most thankful to say, found Papa and all the rest quite well I did my business satisfactorily in Leeds, getting the head-dress rearranged as I wished. It is now a very different matter to the bushy, tasteless thing it was before. On my arrival I found no proof-sheets, but a letter from Mr. S , which I would have enclosed, but so many 142 CHARLOTTE BRONTE, [x. words are scarce legible you would have no pleasure in reading it. He continues to make a mystery of Tiis '' reason " ; something in the third volume sticks con- foundedly in his throat; and as to the "female character" about which I asked, he responds that " she is an odd, fascinating little puss," but affirms that " he is not in love with her." He tells me also that he will answer no more questions about " Villette." This morning I have a brief note from Mr. Williams, intimating that he has not yet been permitted to read the third volume. Also there is a note from Mrs. , very kind. I almost wish I could still look on that kindness just as I used to do : it was very pleasant to me once. Write immediately^ dear Nell, and tell me how your mother is. Give my kindest regards to her and all others at B . Everybody seemed very good to me this last visit. I remember it with corresponding pleasure. The private reception of " Villette ^^ was not altogether that for vv^hich its author had hoped. Her publisher had objections to urge against certain features of the story, and those who saw the book in manuscript were not slow to express their own disapproval. It was evident that there was dis- appointment at Cornhill ; and the proud spirit of Miss Bronte was keenly troubled. The letters in which she dwells on what was passing at that time need not be reproduced here, for their purport is sufficiently indicated by that which has just been given. But it is worth while to notice the scrupulous modesty with which she listened to all that was said by those who found fault, her careful anxiety to ^'VILLETTE'' AND THE CRITICS. 143 understand their objections, such as they were, and her perfect readiness to discuss every point raised with them. Of irritabihty under this criticism there is no trace, only a certain sadness and sorrow at the discovery that she had not succeeded in impressing others as she had hoped to do. Yet she is scarcely surprised that it is so. Had she not written years before, when "Shirley" was first produced, these words i^ — No matter, whether known or unknown, misjudged or the contrary, I am resolved not to write otherwise. I shall bend as my powers tend. The two human beings who understood me, and whom I understood, are gone. I have some that love me yet, and whom I love without expectmg, or having a right to expect, that they shall perfectly under- stand me. I am satisfied, but I must have my own way in the matter of writing I am thankful to God who gave me the faculty ; and it is for me a part of my religion to defend this gift and to profit by its possession. So now she is not astonished at finding herself misunderstood. Nor is she angry. She is perfectly ready to explain her real meaning to those who have misjudged her, but she is resolute in abiding by what she has written. The work wrung from her during those two years of pain and sorrow is not work which can be altered at will to please another. Even to meet the entreaties of her father she had refused to do more than draw a veil over the catastrophe in which the plot ends ; and she cannot introduce new incidents, or lay on new colours, because the little 144 CHARLOTTE BRONTJ^. [x, circle of critics sitting in judgment on her manuscript have pronounced it to be imperfect " I fear they " (the readers) " must be satisfied with what is offered. My palette affords no brighter tints ; were I to attempt to deepen the reds or burnish the yellows, I should but blotch." Yet she admits that those who judge the book only from the outside have some reason to complain that it is not as other novels are : You say that Lucy Snowe may be thought morbid and weak, unless the history of her life be more freely given. I consider that she is both morbid and weak at times ; her character sets up no pretensions to unmixed strength, and anybody living her life would necessarily become morbid. It was no impetus of healthy feeling which urged her to the confessional, for instance; it was the semi-delirium of solitary grief and sickness. If, however, the book does not express all this, there must be a great fault somewhere. I might explain away a few other points, but it would be too much like drawing a picture and then writing underneath the name of the object intended to be represented. Happily, the heart of the great reading world is bigger and truer as a whole than any part of it is. What those who read the manuscript of " Villette '* failed to see at the first glance was seen instantly by the public when the book was placed in its hands. From critics of every school and degree there came up a cry of wonder and admiration, as men saw out of what simple characters and commonplace incidents genius had evoked this striking work of literary art. REVIEWS. 145 Popular, perhaps, the book could scarcely hope to be, in the vulgar acceptation of the word. The author had carefully avoided the " flowery and inviting " course of romance, and had written in silent obedience to the stern dictates of an inspiration which, as we have seen, only came at intervals, leaving her between its visits cruelly depressed and pained, but which when it came held her spell-bound and docile. Yet out of the dull record of humble woes, marked by no startling episodes, adorned by few of the flowers of poetry, she had created such a heart-history as remains to this day without a rival in the school of English fiction to which it belongs. I bring together a batch of notes, not all addressed to the same person, which give her account of the reception and success of the book : February nth, 1853. Excuse a very brief note, for I have time only to thank you for your last kind and welcome letter, and to say that, in obedience to your wishes, I send you by this day's post two reviews — T/ie Exaiiiiiier and The Morning Adihrtisei' — which, perhaps, you will kindly return at your leisure. Ellen has a third — The Literary Gazette — which she will likewise send. The reception of the book has been favour- able thus far — for which I am thankful — less, I trust, on my own account than for the sake of those few real friends who take so sincere an interest in my welfare as to be happy in my happiness. February 15 th. I am very glad to hear that you got home all right, and that you managed to execute your commissions in Leeds so L 146 CHARLOTTE BRONTE, [x. satisfactorily. You do not say whether you remembered to order the Bishop's dessert; I shall know, however, by to- morrow morning. I got a budget of no less than seven papers yesterday and to-day. The import of all the notices is such as to make my heart swell with thankfulness to Him who takes note both of suffering and work and motives. Papa is pleased too. As to friends in general, I believe I can love them still without expecting them to take any large share in this sort of gratiucation. The longer I live, the more plainly I see that gentle must be the strain on fragile human nature. It will not bear much. I have heard from Mrs. Gaskell. Very kind, panegyrical, and so on. Mr. S tells me he has ascertained that Miss Martineau did write the notice in The Daily Neuis. J. T, offers to give me a regular blowing-up and setting down for ^5, but I tell him The Times will probably let me have the same gratis. March loth, 1853. I only got The Guardian newspaper yesterday morning, and have not yet seen either The Critic or Sharpens Magazine. The Guardian does not wound me much. I see the motive, which, indeed, there is no attempt to disguise. Still I think it a choice little morsel for foes (Mr. was the first to bring the news of the review to Papa), and a still choicer morsel for " friends " who — bless them ! — while they would not perhaps positively do one an injury, still take a dear delight in dashing with bitterness the too sweet cup of success. Is Shai-pe's small article like a bit of sugar- candy, too, Ellen ? or has it the proper wholesome worm- wood flavour ? Of course I guess it will be like The Guardia?i. My '•' dear friends " will weary of waiting for The Times. " O Sisera ! why tarry the wheels of thy chariot so long?" X.] UNFAVOURABLE NOTICES. 147 March 22nd. Thank you for sending 's notes. Though I have not attended to them lately, they always amuse me. I like to read them ; one gets from them a clear enough idea of her sort of life. — ■- — 's attempts to improve his good partner's mind make me smile, I think it all right enough, and doubt not they are happy in their way ; only the direction he gives his efforts seems of rather problematic wisdom. Algebra and optics ! Why not enlarge her views by a little well-chosen general reading? However, they do right to amuse them- selves in their own way. The rather dark view you seem to take of the general opinion about " Villette " surprises me the less, as only the more unfavourable reviews seem to have come in your way. Some reports reach me of a different tendency ; but no matter ; time will show. As to the character of Lucy Snowe, my intention from the first was Jiat she should not occupy the pedestal to which "Jane Eyre" was raised by some injudicious admirers. She is where I meant her to be, and where no charge of self- laudation can touch her. XI. MARRIAGE AND DEATH. Every book, as we know, has its secret history, hidden from the world which reads only the printed pages, but legible enough to the author, who sees something- more than the words he has set down for the public to read. Thackeray tells us how, reading again one of his smaller stories, written at a sad period of his own life, he brought back all the scene amid which the little tale was composed, and woke again to a consciousness of the pangs which tore his heart when his pen was busy with the imaginary fortunes of the puppets he had placed upon the mimic stage. Between the lines he read quite a different story from that which was laid before the reader. I have tried to show how largely this was the case with Charlotte Bronte's novels. Each was a double romance, having one meaning for the world, and another for the author. Yet she herself, when she wrote " Shirley " and " Villette," had no conception of the strange blending of the secret currents of the two books which was in store for her, or of the unexpected fate which was to befall the real heroine of her last work — to wit, herself XI.] A FORECAST. 149 I have told how fixed was her beHef that " Lucy Snowe's " fate was to be a tragic one — a life the closing years of which were to be spent in loneliness and anguish, and amid the bitterness of withered hopes. Very few readers can have forgotten the closing passage of " Villette," in which the catastrophe, though veiled, can be readily discovered : The sun passes the equinox ; the days shorten, the leaves grow sere ; but — he is coming. Frosts appear at night ; November has sent his fogs in advance ; the wind takes its autumn moan ; but — he is coming. The skies hang full and dark — a rack sails from the west ; the clouds cast themselves into strange forms — arches and broad radiations ; there rise resplendent mornings — glorious, royal, purple as a monarch in his state ; the heavens are one flame ; so wild are they, they rival battle at its thickest — so bloody, they shame Victory in her pride. I know some signs of the sky ; I have noted them ever since childhood. God, watch that sail ! Oh ! guard it ! The wind shifts to the west. Peace, peace, Banshee — • "keening" at every window ! It will rise — it will sv/ell — it shrieks out long : wander as I may through the house this night, I cannot lull the blast. The advancing hours make it strong : by midnight, all sleepless watchers hear and fear a wild south-west storm Peace, be still ! Oh ! a thousand weepers, praying in agony on waiting shores, listened for that voice, but it was not uttered — not uttered till, when the hush came, some could not feel it ; till,, when the sun returned, his light was night to some ! In darkness such as here is shadowed forth, ISO CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [xl Charlotte Bronte believed that her own life would close ; all sunshine gone, all joys swept clean away by the bitter blast of death, all hopes withered or up- rooted. But the end which she pictured was not to be. God was more merciful than her own imaginings ; and at eventide there was light and peace upon her troubled path. Those who turn to the closing passage of " Shirley" will find there reference to " a true Christian gentle- man," who had taken the place of the hypocrite Malone, one of the famous three curates of the story. This gentleman, a Mr. McCarthy, was, like the rest, no fictitious personage. His original was to be found in the person of Mr. Nicholls, who for several years had lived a simple, unobtrusive life at Haworth, as curate to Mr. Bronte, and whose name often occurs in Charlotte's letters to her friend. In none of these references to him is there the slightest indication that he was more than an honoured friend. Nor was it so. Whilst Mr. Nicholls, dwelling near Miss Bronte, and observing her far more closely than any other person could do, had formed a deep and abiding attachment for her, she herself was wholly unconscious of the fact. Its first revelation came upon her as something like a shock ; as something also like a reproach. Whilst she had thought herself alone, doomed to a life of solitude and pain, a tender yet a manly love had all the while been growing round her. It is obvious that the letters which she addressed at this time (December, 1852) to her friend cannot XI.] MR. NICHOLLS. 151 be printed here. Yet no letters more honourable to the woman, the daughter, and the lover have ever been penned. There is no restraint now in the out- pourings of her heart. Her friend is taken into her full confidence, and every hope and fear and joy is spoken out as only women who are pure and truthful and entirely noble can venture to speak out. Mrs. Gaskell has briefly but distinctly stated the broad features of this strange love story, giving such promise at the time, so happy and beautiful in its brief fruition, so soon to be quenched in the great darkness. Mr. Bronte resented the attentions of Mr. NichoUs to his daughter in a manner which brought to light all the sternness and bitterness of his character. There had been of late years a certain mellowing of his dis- position, which Charlotte had dwelt upon with hopeful joy, as her one comfort in her lonely life at Haworth. How much he owed to her none knew but himself. When he was sinking under the burden of his son^s death, she had rescued him ; when, for one dark and bitter interval, he had sought refuge from grief and remorse in the coward^s solace, her brave heart, her gentleness, her unyielding courage, had brought him back again from evil ways, and sustained and kept him m the path of honour ; and now his own ambitions were more than satisfied by her success ; he found himself shining in the reflected glory of his daughter's fame, and sunned himself, poor man, in the light and warmth. But all the old jealousy, the intense acerbity of his character, broke out when he saw another 152 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [xi. person step between himself and her, and that other no idol of the great world of London, but simply the honest man who had dwelt almost under his own roof-tree for years. When, having heard with surprise and emotion, the story of Mr. Nicholls's attachment, Charlotte communicated his offer to her father, " agitation and anger disproportionate to the occasion ensued. My blood boiled with a sense of injustice. But Papa worked himself into a state not to be trifled with. The veins on his forehead started up like whipcord, and his eyes became suddenly bloodshot. I made haste to promise that on the morrow Mr. NichoUs should have a distinct refusal." It so happened that very soon after this, that is to say when " Villette" was published. Miss Martineau caused deep pain to its writer by condemning the manner in which " all the female characters in all their thoughts and lives " were represented as '* being full of one thing — love." The critic not unjustly pointed out that love was not the be-all and the end-all of a woman's life. Per- haps her pen would not have been so sharp in touch- ing on this subject, had she known with what quiet self-sacrifice the author of " Villette " had but a few weeks before set aside her own preferences and inclinations, and submitted her lot to her father's angry will. This truly must be reckoned as another illustration of the extent to which the Quarterly reviewer of 1848 had formed an accurate conception of the character of " Currer Bell." XI.] A CRUEL STRUGGLE. 153 Not only was the struggle which followed sharp and painful, it was also stubborn and prolonged. Mr. NichoUs resigned the curacy he had held so many years, and prepared to leave Haworth. Mr. Bronte not only showed no signs of relenting, but openly exulted in his departure, and lost no oppor- tunity of expressing in bitterly sarcastic language his opinion of his colleague's conduct. How deeply Charlotte suffered at this time is proved by the letters before me. Firmly convinced that her first duty was to the parent whose only remaining stay she was, she never wavered in her determination to sacrifice every wish of her own to his comfort. But her heart was racked with pity for the man who was suffering through his love for her, and her indignation was roused to fever-heat by the gross injustice of her father's conduct. Compassion or relenting is no more to be looked for from Papa than sap from firewood. I never saw a battle more sternly fought with the feelings than Mr. N. fights with his, and when he yields momentarily, you are almost sickened by the sense of the strain upon him. However, he is to go, and I cannot speak to him or look at him or comfort him a whit— and I must submit. Providence is over all ; that is the only consolation. In all this— she says, after speaking again of the severity of the struggle— it is not /who am to be pitied at all and of course nobody pities me. They all thmk in Haworth that I have disdainfully refused him. If pity would do him any good he ought to have, and I befieve 154 CHARLOTTE BRONT&. [xi. has, it. They may abuse me if they will. Whether they do or not I can't tell. I thought of you on New Year's Day, and hope you got well over your formidable tea-making. I am busy, to(^, in my little way, preparing to go to London this week — a matter which necessitates some little application to the needle. I find it quite necessary I should go to superin- tend the press, as Mr. S seems quite determined not to let the printing get on till I come. I have actually only received three proof-sheets since I was at Brookroyd. Papa wants me to go too, to be out of the way, I suppose ; but I am sorry for one other person whom nobody pities but me They don't understand the nature of his feelings, but I see now what they are. Mr. N is one of those who attach themselves to very few, whose sensations are close and deep, like an underground stream, running strong but in a narrow channel. He con- tinues restless and ill. He carefully performs the occa- sional duty, but does not come near the church, procuring a substitute every Sunday. A few days since he wrote to Papa requesting permission to withdraw his resignation. Papa answered that he should only do so on condition of giving his written promise never again to broach the obnoxious subject either to him or to me. This he has evaded doing, so the matter remains unsettled. I feel persuaded the termination will be, his departure for Aus- traUa. Dear Nell, without loving him, I don't like to think of him suffering in solitude, and wish him anywhere so that he were happier. He and Papa have never met or spoken yet. During this crisis in her life, when suffering had come to her in a new and sharp form, but when XI.] VISIT TO LONDON, 155 happily the black cloud was lit up on the other side by the rays of the sun, she went up to London to spend a few weeks. From the letters written during her visit I make these extracts : January nth, 1853. I came here last Wednesday. I had a delightfLil day for my journey, and was kindly received at the close. My time has passed pleasantly enough since I came, yet I have not much to tell you ; nor is it likely I shall have. ^ I do not mean to go out much or see many people. Sir J. S wrote to me two or three times before I left home, and made me promise to let him know when I should be in town, but I reserve to myself the right of deferring the com- munication till the latter part of my stay. All in this house appear to be pretty much as usual, and yet I see some changes. Mrs. and her daughter look well enough ; but on Mr. hard work is telling early. Both his complexion, his countenance, and the very lines of his features are altered. It is rather the remembrance of what he was than the fact of what he is which can warrant the picture I have been accustomed to give of him. One feels pained to see a physical alteration of this kind \ yet I feel glad and thankful that it is merely physical. As far as I can judge, mind and manners have undergone no deterioration — rather, I think, the contrary. January 19th, 1853. I still continue to get on very comfortably and quietly in London, in the way I like, seeing rather things than persons. Being allowed to have my own choice of sights this time I selected the real rather than the decorative side of life. I have been over two prisons, ancient and modern, Newgate and Pentonville ; also the Bank, the Exchange, the Found- 156 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. [xi. ling Hospital ; and to-day, if all be well, I go with Dr. Forbes to see Bethlehem Hospital. Mrs. and her daughters are, I believe, a little amazed at my gloomy tastes ; but I take no notice. Papa, I am glad to say, continues well. I enclose portions of two notes of his which will show you better than anything I can say how he treats a certain subject. My book is to appear at the close of this month. Mrs. Gaskell wrote to beg that it should not clash with " Ruth," and it was impossible to refuse to defer the publication a week or two. The visit to London did good ; but it could not remove the pain which she suffered during this period of conflict. Ha worth, May 19th, 1853. It is almost a relief to hear that you only think of staying at G a month ; though of course one must not be selfish in wishing you to come home soon I can- not help feeling satisfaction in finding that the people here are getting up a subscription to offer a testimonial of respect to Mr. N on his leaving the place. Many are express- ing both their commiseration and esteem for him. The churchwardens recently put the question to him plainly : Why was he going ? Was it Mr. Bronte's fault or his own ? His own, he answered. Did he blame Mr. Bronte ? No, he did not : if anybody was wrong, it was himself. Was he willing to go ? No ; it gave him great pain. Yet he is not always right. I must be just. Papa addressed him at the school tea-drinking with constrained civility, but still with civility. He did not reply civilly ; he cut short further words. This sort of treatment is what Papa never will forget or forgive. It inspires him with a silent bitterness not to be expressed. .... It is a dismal state of things.- XI.] DEPARTURE OF MR. NICHOLLS. 157 The weather is fine now, dear Nell. We will take these sunny days as a good omen for your visit. May 27lh, 1853. You will want to know about the leave-taking. The whole matter is but a painful subject, but I must treat it briefly. The testimonial was presented in a public meeting. Mr. F and Mr. G were there. Papa was not very well, and I advised him to stay away, which he did. As to the last Sunday, it was a cruel struggle. Mr. N ought not to have had to take any duty. He left Haworth this morning at six o'clock. Yesterday evening he called to render into Papa's hands the deeds of the National School, and to say good-bye. They were busy cleaning, washing the paint, tsic, so he did not find me there. I would not go into the parlour to speak to him in Papa's presence. He v/ent out, thinking he was not to see me ; and indeed till the very last moment I thought it best not. But perceiving that he stayed long before going out at the gate, and re- membering his long grief, I took courage, and went out, trembling and miserable. I found him leaning against the garden door Of course I went straight to him. Very few words were interchanged ; those few barely articu- late : several things I should have liked to ask him were swept entirely from my memory. Poor fellow ! but he wanted such hope and such encouragement as I could not give him. Still I trust he must know now that I am not cruelly blind and indifferent to his constancy and grief For a few weeks he goes to the South of luigland — after- wards he takes a curacy somewhere in Yorkshire, but I don't know where. Papa has been far from strong lately. I dare not mention Mr. N 's name to him. He speaks of him quietly and without opprobrium to others ; but to me he is implacable on the matter. However, he is gone — gone — 158 CHARLOTTE BRONT&, [xi. and there's an end of it ! I see no chance of hearing a word about him in future, unless some stray shred of intelH- gence comes through Mr. G or some other second-hand source. The remainder of the year 1853 was a chequered one. Mr.Nicholls left Haworth ; Charlotte remained with her father. Those who saw her at this time bear testimony to the unfailing, never-flagging- devotion she displayed towards one who was wounding her cruelly. But she bore this sorrow, like those which had preceded it, bravely and cheerfully. To her friend she opened her heart at times, revealing something of what she was suffering ; but to all others she was silent. Haworth, April 13th, 1853. My dear Miss , — ^Your last kind letter ought to have been answered long since, and would have been, did I find it practicable to propcrdon the promptitude of the response to the value I place upDn my correspondents and their com- munications. You will easily understand, however, that the contrary rule often holds good, and that the epistle which importunes often takes precedence of that \yhich interests. My publishers express entire satisfaction with the reception which has been accorded to " Villette." And, indeed, the majority of the reviews has been favourable enough. You will be aware, however, that there is a minority, small in character, which views the work with no favourable eye. *' Currer Bell's " remarks on Romanism have drawn down on him the condign displeasure of the High Church party, which displeasure has been unequivocally expressed through their principal organs. The Guardian^ The English Churchviait^ and The Christian Remembrancer. I can well understand XL] MISS MARTINEAU. i59 that some of the charges launched against me by these pub- lications will tell heavily to my prejudice in the minds of most readers. But this must be borne ; and for my part, I can suffer no accusation to oppress me much which is not sup- ported by the inward evidence of Conscience and Reason. - Extremes meet," says the proverb ; in proof whereof I would mention that Miss Martineau finds with " ViUette nearly the same fault as the Puseyites. She accuses me of attacking Popery " with virulence," of gomg out of my way to assault it " passionately." In other respects she has shown with reference to the work, a spirit so strangely and unexpectedly acrimonious, that I have gathered courage to tell her that the gulf of mutual difference between her and me is so wide and deep, the bridge of union so slight and uncertain, I have come to the conclusion that frequent intercourse would be most perilous and unadvisable, and have begged to adjourn sine die my long-projected visit to her. Of course she is now very angry, but it cannot be helped. Two or three weeks since I received a long and kind letter from Mr. , which I answered a short time ao-o I believe he thinks me a much better advocate for c1ian Stanley's ^Dean) Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. Third Series. 8vo. 4 00 Uet^rv/eg's History of Philosophy. Neno and cheaper editim. 2 vols. Sv) 500 Van Ooslerzee's Christian Dogmatics. New and cheaper edition. 2 vols. Svo 500 Verne's (Jules) Mysterious Island. Three vols, in one. Illustrated 3 00 . Michael StrogofF. Illustrated. Cr. Svo .3 «» 4lny o* all of the above sent, /jo»« or ex2>ress char(/ea pttidy tfn receipt 0/ the price by the publishers.