It was thought desirable about this time, to republish "Wuthering
Heights" and "Agnes Grey", the works of the two sisters, and Charlotte
undertook the task of editing them.
She wrote to Mr. Williams, September 29th, 1850, "It is my intention
to write a few lines of remark on 'Wuthering Heights,' which, however,
I propose to place apart as a brief preface before the tale. I am
likewise compelling myself to read it over, for the first time of
opening the book since my sister's death. Its power fills me with
renewed admiration; but yet I am oppressed: the reader is scarcely
ever permitted a taste of unalloyed pleasure; every beam of sunshine
is poured down through black bars of threatening cloud; every page
is surcharged with a sort of moral electricity; and the writer was
unconscious of all this--nothing could make her conscious of it.
"And this makes me reflect,--perhaps I am too incapable of perceiving
the faults and peculiarities of my own style.
"I should wish to revise the proofs, if it be not too great an
inconvenience to send them. It seems to me advisable to modify the
orthography of the old servant Joseph's speeches; for though, as it
stands, it exactly renders the Yorkshire dialect to a Yorkshire ear,
yet, I am sure Southerns must find it unintelligible; and thus one of
the most graphic characters in the book is lost on them.
"I grieve to say that I possess no portrait of either of my sisters."
To her own dear friend, as to one who had known and loved her sisters,
she writes still more fully respecting the painfulness of her task.
"There is nothing wrong, and I am writing you a line as you desire,
merely to say that I AM busy just now. Mr. Smith wishes to reprint some
of Emily's and Annie's works, with a few little additions from the
papers they have left; and I have been closely engaged in revising,
transcribing, preparing a preface, notice, etc. As the time for doing
this is limited, I am obliged to be industrious. I found the task at
first exquisitely painful and depressing; but regarding it in the light
of a SACRED DUTY, I went on, and now can bear it better. It is work,
however, that I cannot do in the evening, for if I did, I should have no
sleep at night. Papa, I am thankful to say, is in improved health, and
so, I think, am I; I trust you are the same.
"I have just received a kind letter from Miss Martineau. She has got
back to Ambleside, and had heard of my visit to the Lakes. She expressed
her regret, etc., at not being at home.
"I am both angry and surprised at myself for not being in better
spirits; for not growing accustomed, or at least resigned, to the
solitude and isolation of my lot. But my late occupation left a
result for some days, and indeed still, very painful. The reading
over of papers, the renewal of remembrances brought back the pang
of bereavement, and occasioned a depression of spirits well nigh
intolerable. For one or two nights, I scarcely knew how to get on till
morning; and when morning came, I was still haunted with a sense of
sickening distress. I tell you these things, because it is absolutely
necessary to me to have some relief. You will forgive me, and not
trouble yourself, or imagine that I am one whit worse than I say. It is
quite a mental ailment, and I believe and hope is better now. I think
so, because I can speak about it, which I never can when grief is at its
worst.
"I thought to find occupation and interest in writing, when alone at
home, but hitherto my efforts have been vain; the deficiency of every
stimulus is so complete. You will recommend me, I dare say, to go from
home; but that does no good, even could I again leave Papa with an easy
mind (thank God! he is better). I cannot describe what a time of it I
had after my return from London, Scotland, etc. There was a reaction
that sunk me to the earth; the deadly silence, solitude, desolation,
were awful; the craving for companionship, the hopelessness of relief,
were what I should dread to feel again.
"Dear ----, when I think of you, it is with a compassion and tenderness
that scarcely cheer me. Mentally, I fear, you also are too lonely and
too little occupied. It seems our doom, for the present at least. May
God in His mercy help us to bear it!"
During her last visit to London, as mentioned in one of her letters,
she had made the acquaintance of her correspondent, Mr. Lewes. That
gentleman says:--
"Some months after" (the appearance of the review of "Shirley" in the
Edinburgh), "Currer Bell came to London, and I was invited to meet her
at your house. You may remember, she asked you not to point me out to
her, but allow her to discover me if she could. She DID recognise me
almost as soon as I came into the room. You tried me in the same way;
I was less sagacious. However, I sat by her side a great part of the
evening and was greatly interested by her conversation. On parting we
shook hands, and she said, 'We are friends now, are we not?' 'Were we
not always, then?' I asked. 'No! not always,' she said, significantly;
and that was the only allusion she made to the offending article. I lent
her some of Balzac's and George Sand's novels to take with her into the
country; and the following letter was written when they were returned:"--
"I am sure you will have thought me very dilatory in returning the books
you so kindly lent me. The fact is, having some other books to send, I
retained yours to enclose them in the same parcel.
"Accept my thanks for some hours of pleasant reading. Balzac was for me
quite a new author; and in making big acquaintance, through the medium
of 'Modeste Mignon,' and 'Illusions perdues,' you cannot doubt I have
felt some interest. At first, I thought he was going to be painfully
minute, and fearfully tedious; one grew impatient of his long parade
of detail, his slow revelation of unimportant circumstances, as he
assembled his personages on the stage; but by and bye I seemed to enter
into the mystery of his craft, and to discover, with delight, where
his force lay: is it not in the analysis of motive; and in a subtle
perception of the most obscure and secret workings of the mind? Still,
admire Balzac as we may, I think we do not like him; we rather feel
towards him as towards an ungenial acquaintance who is for ever holding
up in strong light our defects, and who rarely draws forth our better
qualities.
"Truly, I like George Sand better.
"Fantastic, fanatical, unpractical enthusiast as she often is--far from
truthful as are many of her views of life--misled, as she is apt to be,
by her feelings--George Sand has a better nature than M. de Balzac; her
brain is larger, her heart warmer than his. The 'Lettres d'un Voyageur'
are full of the writer's self; and I never felt so strongly, as in the
perusal of this work, that most of her very faults spring from the
excess of her good qualities: it is this excess which has often hurried
her into difficulty, which has prepared for her enduring regret.
"But I believe her mind is of that order which disastrous experience
teaches, without weakening or too much disheartening; and, in that case,
the longer she lives the better she will grow. A hopeful point in all
her writings is the scarcity of false French sentiment; I wish I could
say its absence; but the weed flourishes here and there, even in the
'Lettres.'"
I remember the good expression of disgust which Miss Brontë made use of
in speaking to me of some of Balzac's novels: "They leave such a bad
taste in my mouth."
The reader will notice that most of the letters from which I now quote
are devoted to critical and literary subjects. These were, indeed, her
principal interests at this time; the revision of her sister's works,
and writing a short memoir of them, was the painful employment of every
day during the dreary autumn of 1850. Wearied out by the vividness
of her sorrowful recollections, she sought relief in long walks on
the moors. A friend of hers, who wrote to me on the appearance of the
eloquent article in the Daily News upon the "Death of Currer Bell,"
gives an anecdote which may well come in here.
"They are mistaken in saying she was too weak to roam the hills for
the benefit of the air. I do not think any one, certainly not any
woman, in this locality, went so much on the moors as she did, when the
weather permitted. Indeed, she was so much in the habit of doing so,
that people, who live quite away on the edge of the common, knew her
perfectly well. I remember on one occasion an old woman saw her at a
little distance, and she called out, 'How! Miss Brontë! Hey yah (have
you) seen ought o' my cofe (calf)?' Miss Brontë told her she could not
say, for she did not know it. 'Well!' she said, 'Yah know, it's getting
up like nah (now), between a cah (cow) and a cofe--what we call a stirk,
yah know, Miss Brontë; will yah turn it this way if yah happen to see't,
as yah're going back, Miss Brontë; nah DO, Miss Brontë.'"
It must have been about this time that a visit was paid to her by
some neighbours, who were introduced to her by a mutual friend. This
visit has been described in a letter from which I am permitted to
give extracts, which will show the impression made upon strangers by
the character of the country round her home, and other circumstances.
"Though the weather was drizzly, we resolved to make our long-planned
excursion to Haworth; so we packed ourselves into the buffalo-skin,
and that into the gig, and set off about eleven. The rain ceased, and
the day was just suited to the scenery,--wild and chill,--with great
masses of cloud glooming over the moors, and here and there a ray of
sunshine covertly stealing through, and resting with a dim magical
light upon some high bleak village; or darting down into some deep
glen, lighting up the tall chimney, or glistening on the windows and
wet roof of the mill which lies couching in the bottom. The country got
wilder and wilder as we approached Haworth; for the last four miles we
were ascending a huge moor, at the very top of which lies the dreary
black-looking village of Haworth. The village-street itself is one of
the steepest hills I have ever seen, and the stones are so horribly
jolting that I should have got out and walked with W----, if possible,
but, having once begun the ascent, to stop was out of the question.
At the top was the inn where we put up, close by the church; and the
clergyman's house, we were told, was at the top of the churchyard. So
through that we went,--a dreary, dreary place, literally PAVED with
rain-blackened tombstones, and all on the slope, for at Haworth there
is on the highest height a higher still, and Mr. Brontë's house stands
considerably above the church. There was the house before us, a small
oblong stone house, with not a tree to screen it from the cutting wind;
but how were we to get at it from the churchyard we could not see!
There was an old man in the churchyard, brooding like a Ghoul over the
graves, with a sort of grim hilarity on his face. I thought he looked
hardly human; however, he was human enough to tell us the way; and
presently we found ourselves in the little bare parlour. Presently the
door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old
gentleman very like Miss Brontë, who shook hands with us, and then went
to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old
dog, and looked at a picture of Miss Brontë, by Richmond, the solitary
ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bare walls,
and at the books on the little shelves, most of them evidently the gift
of the authors since Miss Brontë's celebrity. Presently she came in, and
welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet,
and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs
and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously
clean and neat. When we went into the parlour again, we began talking
very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Brontë looked in; seeing
his daughter there, I suppose he thought it was all right, and he
retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage; presently
emerging again to bring W---- a country newspaper. This was his last
appearance till we went. Miss Brontë spoke with the greatest warmth of
Miss Martineau, and of the good she had gained from her. Well! we talked
about various things; the character of the people,--about her solitude,
etc., till she left the room to help about dinner, I suppose, for she
did not return for an age. The old dog had vanished; a fat curly-haired
dog honoured us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a
wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed
by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable; and we had
some very pleasant conversation, in the midst of which time passed
quicker than we supposed, for at last W---- found that it was half-past
three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us. So we hurried
off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring;
and the old gentleman having issued once more from his study to say
good-bye, we returned to the inn, and made the best of our way homewards.
"Miss Brontë put me so in mind of her own 'Jane Eyre.' She looked
smaller than ever, and moved about so quietly, and noiselessly, just
like a little bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds are
joyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it was
first built; and yet, perhaps, when that old man married, and took home
his bride, and children's voices and feet were heard about the house,
even that desolate crowded grave-yard and biting blast could not quench
cheerfulness and hope. Now there is something touching in the sight of
that little creature entombed in such a place, and moving about herself
like a spirit, especially when you think that the slight still frame
encloses a force of strong fiery life, which nothing has been able to
freeze or extinguish."
In one of the preceding letters, Miss Brontë referred to am article in
the Palladium, which had rendered what she considered the due meed of
merit to "Wuthering Heights", her sister Emily's tale. Her own works
were praised, and praised with discrimination, and she was grateful for
this. But her warm heart was filled to the brim with kindly feelings
towards him who had done justice to the dead. She anxiously sought out
the name of the writer; and having discovered that it was Mr. Sydney
Dobell he immediately became one of her
"Peculiar people whom Death had made dear."
She looked with interest upon everything he wrote; and before long we
shall find that they corresponded.
To W. S. WILLIAMS, ESQ.
"Oct. 25th.
"The box of books came last night, and, as usual, I have only gratefully
to admire the selection made: 'Jeffrey's Essays,' 'Dr. Arnold's Life,'
'The Roman,' 'Alton Loche,' these were all wished for and welcome.
"You say I keep no books; pardon me--I am ashamed of my own
rapaciousness I have kept 'Macaulay's History,' and Wordsworth's
'Prelude', and Taylor's 'Philip Van Artevelde.' I soothe my conscience
by saying that the two last,--being poetry--do not count. This is a
convenient doctrine for me I meditate acting upon it with reference to
the Roman, so I trust nobody in Cornhill will dispute its validity or
affirm that 'poetry' has a value, except for trunk-makers.
"I have already had 'Macaulay's Essays,' 'Sidney Smith's Lectures
on Moral Philosophy,' and 'Knox on Race.' Pickering's work on the
same subject I have not seen; nor all the volumes of Leigh Hunt's
Autobiography. However, I am now abundantly supplied for a long time to
come. I liked Hazlitt's Essays much.
"The autumn, as you say, has been very fine. I and solitude and memory
have often profited by its sunshine on the moors.
"I had felt some disappointment at the non-arrival of the proof-sheets
of 'Wuthering Heights;' a feverish impatience to complete the revision
is apt to beset me. The work of looking over papers, etc., could not be
gone through with impunity, and with unaltered spirits; associations too
tender, regrets too bitter, sprang out of it. Meantime, the Cornhill
books now, as heretofore, are my best medicine,--affording a solace
which could not be yielded by the very same books procured from a common
library.
"Already I have read the greatest part of the 'Roman;' passages in
it possess a kindling virtue such as true poetry alone can boast;
there are images of genuine grandeur; there are lines that at once
stamp themselves on the memory. Can it be true that a new planet has
risen on the heaven, whence all stars seemed fast fading? I believe
it is; for this Sydney or Dobell speaks with a voice of his own,
unborrowed, unmimicked. You hear Tennyson, indeed, sometimes, and Byron
sometimes, in some passages of the Roman; but then again you have a new
note,--nowhere clearer than in a certain brief lyric, sang in a meeting
of minstrels, a sort of dirge over a dead brother;--THAT not only
charmed the ear and brain, it soothed the heart."
The following extract will be read with interest as conveying her
thoughts after the perusal of Dr. Arnold's Life:--
"Nov. 6th.
"I have just finished reading the 'Life of Dr. Arnold;' but now when I
wish, according to your request, to express what I think of it, I do
not find the task very easy; proper terms seem wanting. This is not
a character to be dismissed with a few laudatory words; it is not a
one-sided character; pure panegyric would be inappropriate. Dr. Arnold
(it seems to me) was not quite saintly; his greatness was cast in a
mortal mould; he was a little severe, almost a little hard; he was
vehement and somewhat oppugnant. Himself the most indefatigable of
workers, I know not whether he could have understood, or made allowance
for, a temperament that required more rest; yet not to one man in twenty
thousand is given his giant faculty of labour; by virtue of it he seems
to me the greatest of working men. Exacting he might have been, then, on
this point; and granting that he were so, and a little hasty, stern, and
positive, those were his sole faults (if, indeed, that can be called a
fault which in no shape degrades the individual's own character; but is
only apt to oppress and overstrain the weaker nature of his neighbours).
Afterwards come his good qualities. About these there is nothing
dubious. Where can we find justice, firmness, independence, earnestness,
sincerity, fuller and purer than in him?
"But this is not all, and I am glad of it. Besides high intellect and
stainless rectitude, his letters and his life attest his possession of
the most true-hearted affection. WITHOUT this, however one might admire,
we could not love him; but WITH it I think we love him much. A hundred
such men--fifty--nay, ten or five such righteous men might save any
country; might victoriously champion any cause.
"I was struck, too, by the almost unbroken happiness of his life; a
happiness resulting chiefly, no doubt, from the right use to which he
put that health and strength which God had given him, but also owing
partly to a singular exemption from those deep and bitter griefs which
most human beings are called on to endure. His wife was what he wished;
his children were healthy and promising; his own health was excellent;
his undertakings were crowned with success; even death was kind,--for,
however sharp the pains of his last hour, they were but brief. God's
blessing seems to have accompanied him from the cradle to the grave. One
feels thankful to know that it has been permitted to any man to live
such a life.
"When I was in Westmoreland last August, I spent an evening at Fox How,
where Mrs. Arnold and her daughters still reside. It was twilight as
I drove to the place, and almost dark ere I reached it; still I could
perceive that the situation was lovely. The house looked like a nest
half buried in flowers and creepers: and, dusk as it was, I could FEEL
that the valley and the hills round were beautiful as imagination could
dream."
If I say again what I have said already before, it is only to impress
and re-impress upon my readers the dreary monotony of her life at this
time. The dark, bleak season of the year brought back the long evenings,
which tried her severely: all the more so, because her weak eyesight
rendered her incapable of following any occupation but knitting by
candle-light. For her father's sake, as well as for her own, she found
it necessary to make some exertion to ward off settled depression of
spirits. She accordingly accepted an invitation to spend a week or ten
days with Miss Martineau at Ambleside. She also proposed to come to
Manchester and see me, on her way to Westmoreland. But, unfortunately,
I was from home, and unable to receive her. The friends with whom I
was staying in the South of England (hearing me express my regret that
I could not accept her friendly proposal, and aware of the sad state
of health and spirits which made some change necessary for her) wrote
to desire that she would come and spend a week or two with me at their
house. She acknowledged this invitation in a letter to me, dated--
"Dec. 13th, 1850.
"My dear Mrs. Gaskell,--Miss ----'s kindness and yours is such that I am
placed in the dilemma of not knowing how adequately to express my sense
of it. THIS I know, however, very well-that if I COULD go and be with
you for a week or two in such a quiet south-country house, and with such
kind people as you describe, I should like it much. I find the proposal
marvellously to my taste; it is the pleasantest, gentlest, sweetest,
temptation possible; but, delectable as it is, its solicitations are by
no means to be yielded to without the sanction of reason, and therefore
I desire for the present to be silent, and to stand back till I have
been to Miss Martineau's, and returned home, and considered well whether
it is a scheme as right as agreeable.
"Meantime, the mere thought does me good."
On the 10th of December, the second edition of "Wuthering Heights" was
published. She sent a copy of it to Mr. Dobell, with the following
letter:--
To MR. DOBELL.
"Haworth, near Keighley, Yorkshire,
"Dec. 8th, 1850.
"I offer this little book to my critic in the 'Palladium,' and he must
believe it accompanied by a tribute of the sincerest gratitude; not so
much for anything he has said of myself, as for the noble justice he
has rendered to one dear to me as myself--perhaps dearer; and perhaps
one kind word spoken for her awakens a deeper, tenderer, sentiment
of thankfulness than eulogies heaped on my own head. As you will see
when you have read the biographical notice, my sister cannot thank
you herself; she is gone out of your sphere and mine, and human blame
and praise are nothing to her now. But to me, for her sake, they are
something still; it revived me for many a day to find that, dead as she
was, the work of her genius had at last met with worthy appreciation.
"Tell me, when you have read the introduction, whether any doubts still
linger in your mind respecting the authorship of 'Wuthering Heights,'
'Wildfell Hall,' etc. Your mistrust did me some injustice; it proved a
general conception of character such as I should be sorry to call mine;
but these false ideas will naturally arise when we only judge an author
from his works. In fairness, I must also disclaim the flattering side
of the portrait. I am no 'young Penthesilea mediis in millibus,' but a
plain country parson's daughter.
"Once more I thank you, and that with a full heart.
"C. BRONTË."