Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, afterwards Mrs. Gaskell, was
born at Chelsea on September 29, 1810. At the age of
twenty-two she married William Gaskell, a minister of the
Unitarian Church in Manchester. She became famous in 1848 on
the publication of "Mary Barton," a novel treating of factory
life. Her "Life of Charlotte Brontë," published in 1857,
caused much controversy, which became bitter, and occasioned
the fixed resolve on the part of its author that her own
memoirs should never be published. This gloomily-haunting,
vivid human "Life of Charlotte Brontë" was written at the
request of the novelist's father, who placed all the materials
in his possession at the disposal of the biographer. Mrs.
Gaskell took great pains to make her work complete, and,
though published only two years after Charlotte Brontë's
death, it still holds the field unchallenged. Mrs. Gaskell
died on November 12, 1865.
_I.--The Children Who Never Played_
Into the midst of the lawless yet not unkindly population of Haworth, in
the West Riding, the Rev. Patrick Brontë brought his wife and six little
children in February, 1820, seven heavily-laden carts lumbering slowly
up the long stone street bearing the "new parson's" household goods.
A native of County Down, Mr. Brontë had entered St. John's College,
Cambridge, in 1802, obtained his B.A. degree, and after serving as a
curate in Essex, had been appointed curate at Hartshead, in Yorkshire.
There he was soon captivated by Maria Branwell, a little gentle
creature, the third daughter of Mr. Thomas Branwell, merchant, of
Penzance. In 1816 he received the living of Thornton, in Bradford
Parish, and there, on April 21, Charlotte Brontë was born. She was the
third daughter, Maria and Elizabeth being her elder sisters, and fast on
her heels followed Patrick Branwell, Emily Jane and Anne.
"They kept themselves to themselves very close," in the account given by
those who remember the family coming to Haworth. From the first, the
walks of the children were directed rather towards the heathery moors
sloping upwards behind the parsonage than towards the long descending
village street. Hand in hand they used to make their way to the glorious
moors, which in after days they loved so passionately.
They were grave and silent beyond their years. "You would never have
known there was a child in the house, they were such still, noiseless,
good little creatures," said one of my informants. "Maria would often
shut herself up" (Maria of seven!) "in the children's study with a
newspaper or a periodical, and be able to tell anyone everything when
she came out, debates in parliament, and I know not what all."
Mr. Brontë wished to make the children hardy, and indifferent to the
pleasures of eating and dress. His strong passionate nature was in
general compressed down with resolute stoicism. Mrs. Brontë, whose sweet
spirit thought invariably on the bright side, would say: "Ought I not to
be thankful that he never gave me an angry word?"
In September, 1821, Mrs. Brontë died, and the lives of those quiet
children must have become quieter and lonelier still. Their father did
not require companionship, and the daughters grew out of childhood into
girlhood bereft in a singular manner of such society as would have been
natural to their age, sex and station. The children did not want
society. To small infantine gaieties they were unaccustomed. They were
all in all to each other. They had no children's books, but their eager
minds "browsed undisturbed among the wholesome pasturage of English
literature," as Charles Lamb expressed it.
Their father says of their childhood that "since they could read and
write they used to invent and act little plays of their own, in which
the Duke of Wellington, Charlotte's hero, was sure to come off
conqueror. When the argument got warm I had sometimes to come in as
arbitrator." Long before Maria Brontë died, at the age of eleven, her
father used to say he could converse with her on any topic with as much
freedom and pleasure as with any grown-up person.
In 1824, the four elder girls were admitted as pupils to Cowan Bridge
School for the daughters of clergymen, where they were half starved amid
the most insanitary surroundings. Helen Burns in "Jane Eyre" is as exact
a transcript of Maria Brontë as Charlotte's wonderful power of
representing character could give. In 1825 both Maria and Elizabeth died
of consumption, and Charlotte was suddenly called from school into the
responsibilities of the eldest sister in a motherless family.
At the end of the year, Charlotte and Emily returned home, where
Branwell was being taught by his father, and their aunt, Miss Branwell,
who acted as housekeeper, taught them what she could. An immense amount
of manuscript dating from this period is in existence--tales, dramas,
poems, romances, written principally by Charlotte, in a hand it is
almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying glass.
They make in the whole twenty-two volumes, each volume containing from
sixty to a hundred pages, and all written in about fifteen months. The
quality strikes me as of singular merit for a girl of thirteen or
fourteen.
_II.--Girlhood of Charlotte Bronte_
In 1831, Charlotte Brontë was a quiet, thoughtful girl, nearly fifteen
years of age, very small in figure--stunted was the word she applied to
herself--fragile, with soft, thick, brown hair, and peculiar eyes. They
were large and well shaped, their colour a reddish brown, and if the
iris was closely examined, it appeared to be composed of a great variety
of tints. The usual expression was of quiet, listening intelligence, but
now and then, on some just occasion for vivid interest or wholesome
indignation, a light would shine out as if some spiritual lamp had been
kindled which glowed behind those expressive orbs. I never saw the like
in any other human creature. The rest of her features were plain, large,
and ill-set; but you were hardly aware of the fact, for the eyes and
power of the countenance overbalanced every physical defect. The crooked
mouth and the large nose were forgotten, and the whole face arrested the
attention, and presently attracted all those whom she would herself have
cared to attract. Her hands and feet were the smallest I ever saw; when
one of her hands was placed in mine it was like the soft touch of a bird
in the middle of my palm.
In January, 1831, Charlotte was sent to school again, this time as a
pupil of Miss Wooler, who lived at Roe Head, between Leeds and
Huddersfield, the surroundings being those described in "Shirley." The
kind motherly nature of Miss Wooler, and the small number of the girls,
made the establishment more like a private family than a school. Here
Charlotte formed friendships with Miss Wooler and girls attending the
school--particularly Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor--which lasted through
life.
Writing of Charlotte at this time "Mary" says the other girls "thought
her very ignorant, for she had never learned grammar at all, and very
little geography, but she would confound us by knowing things that were
out of our range altogether. She said she had never played, and could
not play. She used to draw much better and more quickly than we had seen
before, and knew much about celebrated pictures and painters. She made
poetry and drawing very interesting to me, and then I got the habit I
have yet of referring mentally to her opinion all matters of that kind,
resolving to describe such and such things to her, until I start at the
recollection that I never shall."
This tribute to her influence was written eleven years after Mary had
seen Charlotte, nearly all those years having been passed by Mary at the
Antipodes.
"Her idea of self improvement," continues Mary, "was to cultivate her
tastes. She always said there was enough of useful knowledge forced on
us by necessity, and that the thing most needed was to soften and refine
our minds, and she picked up every scrap of information concerning
painting, sculpture and music, as if it were gold."
In spite of her unsociable habits, she was a favourite with her
schoolfellows, and an invaluable story-teller, frightening them almost
out of their lives as they lay in bed.
_III.--Her Life as a Governess_
After a year and a half's residence at Roe Head, beloved and respected
by all, laughed at occasionally by a few, but always to her face,
Charlotte returned home to educate her sisters, to practise household
work under the supervision of her somewhat exacting aunt, and to write
long letters to her girl friends, Mary and Ellen--Mary, the Rose Yorke,
and Ellen, the Caroline Helstone of "Shirley." Three years later she
returned to Roe Head as a teacher, in order that her brother Branwell
might be placed at the Royal Academy and her sister Emily at Roe Head.
Emily Brontë, however, only remained three months at school, her place
being taken there by her younger sister, Anne.
"My sister Emily loved the moors," wrote Charlotte, explaining the
change. "Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the
heath for her; out of a sullen hollow in the livid hillside her mind
could make an Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many a dear delight;
and not the least and best loved was liberty. Without it she perished.
Her nature proved here too strong for her fortitude. In this struggle
her health was quickly broken. I felt in my heart that she would die if
she did not go home, and with this conviction obtained her recall."
Charlotte's own life at Miss Wooler's was a very happy one until her
health failed, and she became dispirited, and a prey to religious
despondency. During the summer holidays of 1836, all the members of the
family were occupied with thoughts of literature. Charlotte wrote to
Southey, and Branwell to Wordsworth, of their ambitions, and Southey
replied that "literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and
ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties the less
leisure she will have for it, even as an accomplishment and recreation."
To this Charlotte meekly replied: "I trust I shall never more feel
ambitious to see my name in print."
On the school being removed to Dewsbury Moor, Charlotte, whose health
and spirits had been affected by the change, and Anne returned home. "I
stayed at Dewsbury Moor," she said in a letter to Ellen Nussey, "as long
as I was able; but at length I neither could nor dare stay any longer.
My life and spirits had utterly failed me; so home I went, and the
change at once roused and soothed me."
At this time Charlotte received an offer of marriage from a clergyman
having a resemblance to St. John Rivers in "Jane Eyre"--a brother of her
friend Ellen; but she refused him as she explains:
"I had a kindly leaning towards him as an amiable and well-disposed man.
Yet I had not and could not 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."
Teaching now seemed to the three sisters to be the only way of earning
an independent livelihood, though they were not naturally fond of
children. The hieroglyphics of childhood were an unknown language to
them, for they had never been much with those younger than themselves;
and they were not as yet qualified to take charge of advanced pupils.
They knew but little French, and were not proficient in music. Still,
Charlotte and Anne both took posts as governesses, and eventually formed
a plan of starting a school on their own account, their housekeeping
Aunt Branwell providing the necessary capital. To fit them for this work
Charlotte and Emily entered, in February, 1842, the Héger Pensionnat,
Brussels, and meantime Anne came home to Haworth from her governess
life. The brother, Branwell, had now given up his idea of art, and was a
clerk on the Leeds and Manchester Railway.
In Brussels, Emily was homesick as ever, the suffering and conflict
being heightened, in the words of Charlotte, "by the strong recoil of
her upright, heretic, and English spirit from the gentle Jesuitry of the
foreign and Romish system. She was never happy till she carried her
hard-won knowledge back to the remote English village, the old parsonage
house, and desolate Yorkshire hills." "We are completely isolated in the
midst of numbers. Yet I think I am never unhappy; my present life is so
delightful, so congenial to my own nature, compared with that of a
governess," was Charlotte's further description.
The sisters were so successful with their study of French that Madame
Héger proposed that both should stay another half year, Charlotte to
teach English, and Emily music; but from Brussels the girls were brought
hastily home by the illness and death of their aunt, who left to each of
them independently a share of her savings--enough to enable them to make
whatever alterations were needed to turn the parsonage into a school.
Emily now stayed at home, and Charlotte (January, 1843) returned to
Brussels to teach English to Belgian pupils, under a constant sense of
solitude and depression, while she learned German. A year later she
returned to Haworth, on receiving news of the distressing conduct of her
brother Branwell and the rapid failure of her father's sight. On leaving
Brussels, she took with her a diploma certifying that she was perfectly
capable of teaching the French language, and her pupils showed for her,
at parting, an affection which she observed with grateful surprise.
_IV.--The Sisters' Book of Poems_
The attempt to secure pupils at Haworth failed. At this time the conduct
of the now dissipated brother Branwell--conduct bordering on
insanity--caused the family the most terrible anxiety; their father was
nearly blind with cataract, and Charlotte herself lived under the dread
of blindness. It was now that she paid a visit to her friends the
Nusseys, at Hathersage, in Derbyshire, the scene of the later chapters
of "Jane Eyre." On her return she found her brother dismissed from his
employment, a slave to opium, and to drink whenever he could get it, and
for some time before he died he had attacks of delirium tremens of the
most frightful character.
In the course of this sad autumn of 1845 a new interest came into the
lives of the sisters through the publication, at their own expense, of
"Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell," as explained in the
biographical notice of her sisters, which Charlotte prefaced to the
edition of "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey," that was published in
1850.
"One day in the autumn of 1845 I accidentally lighted on a manuscript
volume of verses in my sister Emily's handwriting. Of course I was not
surprised, knowing that she could and did write verses. I looked it
over, and then something more than surprise seized me--a deep conviction
that these were not common effusions, not at all like the poetry a woman
generally writes. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and
genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music, wild, melancholy, and
elevating. I took hours to reconcile my sister to the discovery I had
made, and days to persuade her that such poems merited publication.
Meantime, my younger sister quietly produced some of her own
compositions, intimating that since Emily's had given me pleasure I
might like to look at hers. I thought that these verses too had a sweet
sincere pathos of their own. We had very early cherished the dream of
one day being authors. We agreed to arrange a small selection of our
poems, and if possible get them printed."
The "Poems" obtained no sale until the authors became otherwise known.
During the summer of 1846 the three sisters made attempts to find a
publisher for a volume that was to consist of three prose tales,
"Wuthering Heights," by Emily, "Agnes Grey" by Anne, and "The Professor"
by Charlotte. Eventually the two former were accepted for a three-volume
issue, though eighteen months passed and much happened before the book
was actually circulated. Meantime, "The Professor" was plodding its way
round London through many rejections. Under these circumstances, her
brother's brain mazed and his gifts and life lost, her father's sight
hanging on a thread, her sisters in delicate health and dependent on her
care, did the brave genius begin, with steady courage, the writing of
"Jane Eyre." While refusing to publish "The Professor," Messrs. Smith,
Elder & Co. expressed their willingness to consider favourably a new
work in three volumes which "Currer Bell" informed them he was writing;
and by October 16, 1847, the tale--"Jane Eyre"--was accepted, printed,
and published.
_V.--The Coming of Success_
The gentleman connected with the firm who first read the manuscript was
so powerfully struck by the character of the tale that he reported his
impressions in very strong terms to Mr. Smith, who appears to have been
much amused by the admiration excited. "You seem to have been so
enchanted that I do not know how to believe you," he laughingly said.
But when a second reader, in the person of a clear-headed Scotsman, not
given to enthusiasm, had taken the manuscript home in the evening, and
became so deeply interested in it as to sit up half the night to finish
it, Mr. Smith's curiosity was sufficiently excited to prompt him to read
it himself; and great as were the praises which had been bestowed upon
it he found that they did not exceed the truth. The power and
fascination of the tale itself made its merits known to the public
without the kindly fingerposts of professional criticism, and early in
December the rush for copies began.
When the demand for the work had assured success, her sisters urged
Charlotte to tell their father of its publication. She accordingly went
into his study one afternoon, carrying with her a copy of the book and
two or three reviews, taking care to include a notice adverse to it, and
the following conversation took place.
"Papa, I've been writing a book."
"Have you, my dear?"
"Yes; and I want you to read it."
"I am afraid it will try my eyes too much."
"But it is not in manuscript; it is printed."
"My dear, you've never thought of the expense it will be! It will be
almost sure to be a loss; for how can you get a book sold? No one knows
you or your name."
"But, papa, I don't think it will be a loss. No more will you if you
will just let me read you a review or two, and tell you more about it."
So she sat down and read some of the reviews to her father, and then,
giving him the copy of "Jane Eyre" that she intended for him, she left
him to read it. When he came in to tea he said: "Girls, do you know
Charlotte has been writing a book, and it is much better than likely?"
Soon the whole reading world of England was in a ferment to discover the
unknown author. Even the publishers were ignorant whether "Currer Bell"
was a real or an assumed name till a flood of public opinion had lifted
the book from obscurity and had laid it high on the everlasting hills of
fame.
The authorship was kept a close secret in the Brontë family, and not
even the friend who was all but a sister--Ellen Nussey--knew more about
it than the rest of the world. It was indeed through an attempt at sharp
practice by another firm that Messrs. Smith & Elder became aware of the
identity of the author with Miss Brontë. In the June of 1848, "The
Tenant of Wildfell Hall," a second novel by Anne Brontë--"Acton
Bell"--was submitted for publication to the firm which had previously
published "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey," and this firm announced
the new book in America as by the author of "Jane Eyre," although
Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. had entered into an agreement with an
American house for the publication of "Currer Bell's" next tale. On
hearing of this, the sisters, Charlotte and Anne, set off instantly for
London to prove personally that they were two and not one; and women,
not men.
On reaching Mr. Smith's office, Charlotte put his own letter into his
hand as an introduction.
"Where did you get this?" said he, as if he could not believe that the
two young ladies dressed in black, of slight figures and diminutive
stature, looking pleased yet agitated, could be the embodied Currer and
Acton Bell for whom curiosity had been hunting so eagerly in vain.
An explanation ensued, and the publisher at once began to form plans for
the amusement of the visitors during their three days' stay in London.
In September, 1848, her brother Branwell died. After the Sunday
succeeding Branwell's death, Emily Brontë never went out of doors, and
in less than three months she, too, was dead. To the last she adhered
tenaciously to her habits of independence. She would suffer no one to
assist her. On the day of her death she arose, dressed herself, and
tried to take up her sewing.
Anne Brontë, too, drooped and sickened from this time in a similar
consumption, and on May 28, 1849, died peacefully at Scarborough,
pathetically appealing to Charlotte with her ebbing breath: "Take
courage, Charlotte; take courage."
_VI.--Charlotte Brontë's Closing Years_
"Shirley" had been begun soon after the publication of "Jane Eyre."
Shirley herself is Charlotte's representation of Emily as she would have
been if placed in health and prosperity. It was published five months
after Anne's death. The reviews, Charlotte admitted, were "superb."
Visits to London made Miss Brontë acquainted with many of the literary
celebrities of the day, including Thackeray and Miss Martineau. In
Yorkshire her success caused great excitement. She tells herself how
"Martha came in yesterday puffing and blowing, and much excited.
'Please, ma'am, you've been and written two books--the grandest books
that ever was seen. They are going to have a meeting at the Mechanics'
Institute to settle about ordering them.' When they got the volumes at
the Mechanics' Institute, all the members wanted them. They cast lots,
and whoever got a volume was allowed to keep it two days, and was to be
fined a shilling per diem for longer detention."
In the spring of 1850, Charlotte Brontë paid another visit to London,
and later to Scotland, where she found Edinburgh "compared to London
like a vivid page of history compared to a dull treatise on political
economy; as a lyric, brief, bright, clean, and vital as a flash of
lightning, compared to a great rumbling, rambling, heavy epic."
She was in London again in 1851, and was dismayed by the attempts to
lionise her. "Villette," written in a constant fight against ill-health,
was published in 1853, and was received with one burst of acclamation.
This brought to a close the publication of Charlotte's life-time.
The personal interest of the two last years of Charlotte Brontë's life
centres on her relations with her father's curate, the Rev. A.B.
Nicholls. In 1853, he asked her hand in marriage. He was the fourth man
who had ventured on the same proposal. Her father disapproved, and Mr.
Nicholls resigned his curacy. Next year, however, her father relented.
Mr. Nicholls again took up the curacy, and the marriage was celebrated
on June 29, 1854. Henceforward the doors of home are closed upon her
married life.
On March 31, 1855, she died before she had attained to motherhood, her
last recorded words to her husband being: "We have been so happy." Her
life appeals to that large and solemn public who know how to admire
generously extraordinary genius, and how to reverence all noble virtue.
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