Soon after she returned home, her friend paid her a visit. While she
stayed at Haworth, Miss Brontë wrote the letter from which the following
extract is taken. The strong sense and right feeling displayed in it on
the subject of friendship, sufficiently account for the constancy of
affection which Miss Brontë earned from all those who once became her
friends.
To W. S. WILLIAMS, ESQ.
"July 21th, 1851.
". . . I could not help wondering whether Cornhill will ever change for
me, as Oxford has changed for you. I have some pleasant associations
connected with it now--will these alter their character some day?
"Perhaps they may--though I have faith to the contrary, because, I
THINK, I do not exaggerate my partialities; I THINK I take faults along
with excellences--blemishes together with beauties. And, besides, in the
matter of friendship, I have observed that disappointment here arises
chiefly, NOT from liking our friends too well, or thinking of them too
highly, but rather from an over-estimate of THEIR liking for and opinion
of US; and that if we guard ourselves with sufficient scrupulousness of
care from error in this direction, and can be content, and even happy
to give more affection than we receive--can make just comparison of
circumstances, and be severely accurate in drawing inferences thence,
and never let self-love blind our eyes--I think we may manage to get
through life with consistency and constancy, unembittered by that
misanthropy which springs from revulsions of feeling. All this sounds a
little metaphysical, but it is good sense if you consider it. The moral
of it is, that if we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we
must love our friends for THEIR sakes rather than for OUR OWN; we must
look at their truth to THEMSELVES, full as much as their truth to US. In
the latter case, every wound to self-love would be a cause of coldness;
in the former, only some painful change in the friend's character
and disposition--some fearful breach in his allegiance to his better
self--could alienate the heart.
"How interesting your old maiden-cousin's gossip about your parents
must have been to you; and how gratifying to find that the reminiscence
turned on none but pleasant facts and characteristics! Life must,
indeed, be slow in that little decaying hamlet amongst the chalk hills.
After all, depend upon it, it is better to be worn out with work in a
thronged community, than to perish of inaction in a stagnant solitude:
take this truth into consideration whenever you get tired of work and
bustle."
I received a letter from her a little later than this; and though there
is reference throughout to what I must have said in writing to her, all
that it called forth in reply is so peculiarly characteristic, that I
cannot prevail upon myself to pass it over without a few extracts:--
"Haworth, Aug. 6th, 1851.
"My dear Mrs. Gaskell,--I was too much pleased with your letter, when I
got it at last, to feel disposed to murmur now about the delay.
"About a fortnight ago, I received a letter from Miss Martineau; also
a long letter, and treating precisely the same subjects on which yours
dwelt, viz., the Exhibition and Thackeray's last lecture. It was
interesting mentally to place the two documents side by side--to study
the two aspects of mind--to view, alternately, the same scene through
two mediums. Full striking was the difference; and the more striking
because it was not the rough contrast of good and evil, but the more
subtle opposition, the more delicate diversity of different kinds of
good. The excellences of one nature resembled (I thought) that of
some sovereign medicine--harsh, perhaps, to the taste, but potent to
invigorate; the good of the other seemed more akin to the nourishing
efficacy of our daily bread. It is not bitter; it is not lusciously
sweet: it pleases, without flattering the palate; it sustains, without
forcing the strength.
"I very much agree with you in all you say. For the sake of variety, I
could almost wish that the concord of opinion were less complete.
"To begin with Trafalgar Square. My taste goes with yours and Meta's
completely on this point. I have always thought it a fine site (and
SIGHT also). The view from the summit of those steps has ever struck
me as grand and imposing--Nelson Column included the fountains I could
dispense with. With respect, also, to the Crystal Palace, my thoughts
are precisely yours.
"Then I feel sure you speak justly of Thackeray's lecture. You do well
to set aside odious comparisons, and to wax impatient of that trite
twaddle about 'nothing newness'--a jargon which simply proves, in those
who habitually use it, a coarse and feeble faculty of appreciation; an
inability to discern the relative value of ORIGINALITY and NOVELTY; a
lack of that refined perception which, dispensing with the stimulus of
an ever-new subject, can derive sufficiency of pleasure from freshness
of treatment. To such critics, the prime of a summer morning would
bring no delight; wholly occupied with railing at their cook for not
having provided a novel and piquant breakfast-dish, they would remain
insensible to such influences as lie in sunrise, dew, and breeze:
therein would be 'nothing new.'
"Is it Mr. ----'s family experience which has influenced your feelings
about the Catholics? I own, I cannot be sorry for this commencing
change. Good people--VERY good people--I doubt not, there are amongst
the Romanists, but the system is not one which would have such sympathy
as YOURS. Look at Popery taking off the mask in Naples!
"I have read the 'Saints' Tragedy.' As a 'work of art' it seems to me
far superior to either 'Alton Locke' or 'Yeast.' Faulty it may be,
crude and unequal, yet there are portions where some of the deep chords
of human nature are swept with a hand which is strong even while it
falters. We see throughout (I THINK) that Elizabeth has not, and never
had, a mind perfectly sane. From the time that she was what she herself,
in the exaggeration of her humility, calls 'an idiot girl,' to the hour
when she lay moaning in visions on her dying bed, a slight craze runs
through her whole existence. This is good: this is true. A sound mind,
a healthy intellect, would have dashed the priest-power to the wall;
would have defended her natural affections from his grasp, as a lioness
defends her young; would have been as true to husband and children, as
your leal-hearted little Maggie was to her Frank. Only a mind weak with
some fatal flaw COULD have been influenced as was this poor saint's.
But what anguish what struggles! Seldom do I cry over books; but here,
my eyes rained as I read. When Elizabeth turns her face to the wall--I
stopped--there needed no more.
"Deep truths are touched on in this tragedy--touched on, not fully
elicited; truths that stir a peculiar pity--a compassion hot with wrath,
and bitter with pain. This is no poet's dream: we know that such things
HAVE been done; that minds HAVE been thus subjugated, and lives thus
laid waste.
"Remember me kindly and respectfully to Mr. Gaskell, and though I
have not seen Marianne, I must beg to include her in the love I send
the others. Could you manage to convey a small kiss to that dear, but
dangerous little person, Julia? She surreptitiously possessed herself of
a minute fraction of my heart, which has been missing, ever since I saw
her.--Believe me, sincerely and affectionately yours,
C. BRONTË."
The reference which she makes at the end of this letter is to my
youngest little girl, between whom and her a strong mutual attraction
existed. The child would steal her little hand into Miss Brontë's
scarcely larger one, and each took pleasure in this apparently
unobserved caress. Yet once when I told Julia to take and show her the
way to some room in the house, Miss Brontë shrunk back: "Do not BID her
do anything for me," she said; "it has been so sweet hitherto to have
her rendering her little kindnesses SPONTANEOUSLY."
As illustrating her feelings with regard to children, I may give what
she says ill another of her letters to me.
"Whenever I see Florence and Julia again, I shall feel like a fond but
bashful suitor, who views at a distance the fair personage to whom, in
his clownish awe, he dare not risk a near approach. Such is the clearest
idea I can give you of my feeling towards children I like, but to
whom I am a stranger;--and to what children am I not a stranger? They
seem to me little wonders; their talk, their ways are all matter of
half-admiring, half-puzzled speculation."
The following is part of a long letter which I received from her, dated
September 20th, 1851:--
". . . Beautiful are those sentences out of James Martineau's sermons;
some of them gems most pure and genuine; ideas deeply conceived, finely
expressed. I should like much to see his review of his sister's book.
Of all the articles respecting which you question me, I have seen none,
except that notable one in the 'Westminster' on the Emancipation of
Women. But why are you and I to think (perhaps I should rather say to
FEEL) so exactly alike on some points that there can be no discussion
between us? Your words on this paper express my thoughts. Well-argued
it is,--clear, logical,--but vast is the hiatus of omission; harsh
the consequent jar on every finer chord of the soul. What is this
hiatus? I think I know; and, knowing, I will venture to say. I think
the writer forgets there is such a thing as self-sacrificing love and
disinterested devotion. When I first read the paper, I thought it was
the work of a powerful-minded, clear-headed woman, who had a hard,
jealous heart, muscles of iron, and nerves of bend[*] leather; of a
woman who longed for power, and had never felt affection. To many women
affection is sweet, and power conquered indifferent--though we all like
influence won. I believe J. S. Mill would make a hard, dry, dismal
world of it; and yet he speaks admirable sense through a great portion
of his article--especially when he says, that if there be a natural
unfitness in women for men's employment, there is no need to make laws
on the subject; leave all careers open; let them try; those who ought
to succeed will succeed, or, at least, will have a fair chance--the
incapable will fall back into their right place. He likewise disposes of
the 'maternity' question very neatly. In short, J. S. Mill's head is,
I dare say, very good, but I feel disposed to scorn his heart. You are
right when you say that there is a large margin in human nature over
which the logicians have no dominion; glad am I that it is so.
[*] "Bend," in Yorkshire, is strong ox leather.
"I send by this post Ruskin's 'Stones of Venice,' and I hope you
and Meta will find passages in it that will please you. Some parts
would be dry and technical were it not for the character, the marked
individuality which pervades every page. I wish Marianne had come to
speak to me at the lecture; it would have given me such pleasure. What
you say of that small sprite Julia, amuses me much. I believe you don't
know that she has a great deal of her mama's nature (modified) in her;
yet I think you will find she has as she grows up.
"Will it not be a great mistake, if Mr. Thackeray should deliver his
lectures at Manchester under such circumstances and conditions as will
exclude people like you and Mr. Gaskell from the number of his audience?
I thought his London-plan too narrow. Charles Dickens would not thus
limit his sphere of action.
"You charge me to write about myself. What can I say on that precious
topic? My health is pretty good. My spirits are not always alike.
Nothing happens to me. I hope and expect little in this world, and am
thankful that I do not despond and suffer more. Thank you for inquiring
after our old servant; she is pretty well; the little shawl, etc.,
pleased her much. Papa likewise, I am glad to say, is pretty well; with
his and my kindest regards to you and Mr. Gaskell--Believe me sincerely
and affectionately yours,
C. BRONTË."
Before the autumn was far advanced, the usual effects of her solitary
life, and of the unhealthy situation of Haworth Parsonage, began to
appear in the form of sick headaches, and miserable, starting, wakeful
nights. She does not dwell on this in her letters; but there is an
absence of all cheerfulness of tone, and an occasional sentence forced
out of her, which imply far more than many words could say. There was
illness all through the Parsonage household--taking its accustomed forms
of lingering influenza and low fever; she herself was outwardly the
strongest of the family, and all domestic exertion fell for a time upon
her shoulders.
TO W. S. WILLIAMS, ESQ.
"Sept. 26th.
"As I laid down your letter, after reading with interest the graphic
account it gives of a very striking scene, I could not help feeling with
renewed force a truth, trite enough, yet ever impressive; viz., that it
is good to be attracted out of ourselves--to be forced to take a near
view of the sufferings, the privations, the efforts, the difficulties
of others. If we ourselves live in fulness of content, it is well to be
reminded that thousands of our fellow-creatures undergo a different lot;
it is well to have sleepy sympathies excited, and lethargic selfishness
shaken up. If, on the other hand, we be contending with the special
grief,--the intimate trial,--the peculiar bitterness with which God has
seen fit to mingle our own cup of existence,--it is very good to know
that our overcast lot is not singular; it stills the repining word and
thought,--it rouses the flagging strength, to have it vividly set before
us that there are countless afflictions in the world, each perhaps
rivalling--some surpassing--the private pain over which we are too prone
exclusively to sorrow.
"All those crowded emigrants had their troubles,--their untoward causes
of banishment; you, the looker-on, had 'your wishes and regrets,'--your
anxieties, alloying your home happiness and domestic bliss; and the
parallel might be pursued further, and still it would be true,--still
the same; a thorn in the flesh for each; some burden, some conflict for
all.
"How far this state of things is susceptible of amelioration from
changes in public institutions,--alterations in national habits,--may
and ought to be earnestly considered: but this is a problem not easily
solved. The evils, as you point them out, are great, real, and most
obvious; the remedy is obscure and vague; yet for such difficulties as
spring from over-competition, emigration must be good; the new life
in a new country must give a new lease of hope; the wider field, less
thickly peopled, must open a new path for endeavour. But I always think
great physical powers of exertion and endurance ought to accompany such
a step. . . . I am truly glad to hear that an ORIGINAL writer has fallen
in your way. Originality is the pearl of great price in literature,--the
rarest, the most precious claim by which an author can be recommended.
Are not your publishing prospects for the coming season tolerably rich
and satisfactory? You inquire after 'Currer Bell.' It seems to me that
the absence of his name from your list of announcements will leave
no blank, and that he may at least spare himself the disquietude of
thinking he is wanted when it is certainly not his lot to appear.
"Perhaps Currer Bell has his secret moan about these matters; but if so,
he will keep it to himself. It is an affair about which no words need
be wasted, for no words can make a change: it is between him and his
position, his faculties and his fate."
My husband and I were anxious that she should pay us a visit before
the winter had set completely in; and she thus wrote, declining our
invitation:--
"Nov. 6th.
"If anybody would tempt me from home, you would; but, just now, from
home I must not, will not go. I feel greatly better at present than
I did three weeks ago. For a month or six weeks about the equinox
(autumnal or vernal) is a period of the year which, I have noticed,
strangely tries me. Sometimes the strain falls on the mental, sometimes
on the physical part of me; I am ill with neuralgic headache, or I am
ground to the dust with deep dejection of spirits (not, however, such
dejection but I can keep it to myself). That weary time has, I think
and trust, got over for this year. It was the anniversary of my poor
brother's death, and of my sister's failing health: I need say no more.
"As to running away from home every time I have a battle of this sort
to fight, it would not do besides, the 'weird' would follow. As to
shaking it off, that cannot be. I have declined to go to Mrs. ----, to
Miss Martineau, and now I decline to go to you. But listen do not think
that I throw your kindness away; or that it fails of doing the good you
desire. On the contrary, the feeling expressed in your letter,--proved
by your invitation--goes RIGHT HOME where you would have it to go, and
heals as you would have it to heal.
"Your description of Frederika Bremer tallies exactly with one I read
somewhere, in I know not what book. I laughed out when I got to the
mention of Frederika's special accomplishment, given by you with a
distinct simplicity that, to my taste, is what the French would call
'impayable.' Where do you find the foreigner who is without some little
drawback of this description? It is a pity."
A visit from Miss Wooler at this period did Miss Brontë much good for
the time. She speaks of her guest's company as being very pleasant,"like
good wine," both to her father and to herself. But Miss Wooler could
not remain with her long; and then again the monotony of her life
returned upon her in all its force; the only events of her days and
weeks consisting in the small changes which occasional letters brought.
It must be remembered that her health was often such as to prevent her
stirring out of the house in inclement or wintry weather. She was liable
to sore throat, and depressing pain at the chest, and difficulty of
breathing, on the least exposure to cold.
A letter from her late visitor touched and gratified her much; it was
simply expressive of gratitude for attention and kindness shown to her,
but it wound up by saying that she had not for many years experienced
so much enjoyment as during the ten days passed at Haworth. This little
sentence called out a wholesome sensation of modest pleasure in Miss
Brontë's mind; and she says, "it did me good."
I find, in a letter to a distant friend, written about this time, a
retrospect of her visit to London. It is too ample to be considered as
a mere repetition of what she had said before; and, besides, it shows
that her first impressions of what she saw and heard were not crude and
transitory, but stood the tests of time and after-thought.
"I spent a few weeks in town last summer, as you have heard; and was
much interested by many things I heard and saw there. What now chiefly
dwells in my memory are Mr. Thackeray's lectures, Mademoiselle Rachel's
acting, D'Aubigne's, Melville's, and Maurice's preaching, and the
Crystal Palace.
"Mr. Thackeray's lectures you will have seen mentioned and commented on
in the papers; they were very interesting. I could not always coincide
with the sentiments expressed, or the opinions broached; but I admired
the gentlemanlike ease, the quiet humour, the taste, the talent, the
simplicity, and the originality of the lecturer.
"Rachel's acting transfixed me with wonder, enchained me with interest,
and thrilled me with horror. The tremendous force with which she
expresses the very worst passions in their strongest essence forms an
exhibition as exciting as the bull fights of Spain, and the gladiatorial
combats of old Rome, and (it seemed to me) not one whit more moral
than these poisoned stimulants to popular ferocity. It is scarcely
human nature that she shows you; it is something wilder and worse; the
feelings and fury of a fiend. The great gift of genius she undoubtedly
has; but, I fear, she rather abuses it than turns it to good account.
"With all the three preachers I was greatly pleased. Melville seemed to
me the most eloquent, Maurice the most in earnest; had I the choice, it
is Maurice whose ministry I should frequent.
"On the Crystal Palace I need not comment. You must already have heard
too much of it. It struck me at the first with only a vague sort of
wonder and admiration; but having one day the privilege of going over it
in company with an eminent countryman of yours, Sir David Brewster, and
hearing, in his friendly Scotch accent, his lucid explanation of many
things that had been to me before a sealed book, I began a little better
to comprehend it, or at least a small part of it: whether its final
results will equal expectation, I know not."
Her increasing indisposition subdued her at last, in spite of all her
efforts of reason and will. She tried to forget oppressive recollections
in writing. Her publishers were importunate for a new book from her pen.
"Villette" was begun, but she lacked power to continue it.
"It is not at all likely" (she says) "that my book will be ready at the
time you mention. If my health is spared, I shall get on with it as
fast as is consistent with its being done, if not WELL, yet as well as
I can do it. NOT ONE WHIT FASTER. When the mood leaves me (it has left
me now, without vouchsafing so much as a word or a message when it will
return) I put by the MS. and wait till it comes back again. God knows,
I sometimes have to wait long--VERY long it seems to me. Meantime, if
I might make a request to you, it would be this. Please to say nothing
about my book till it is written, and in your hands. You may not like
it. I am not myself elated with it as far as it is gone, and authors,
you need not be told, are always tenderly indulgent, even blindly
partial to their own. Even if it should turn out reasonably well, still
I regard it as ruin to the prosperity of an ephemeral book like a novel,
to be much talked of beforehand, as if it were something great. People
are apt to conceive, or at least to profess, exaggerated expectation,
such as no performance can realise; then ensue disappointment and the
due revenge, detraction, and failure. If when I write, I were to think
of the critics who, I know, are waiting for Currer Bell, ready 'to break
all his bones or ever he comes to the bottom of the den,' my hand would
fall paralysed on my desk. However, I can but do my best, and then
muffle my head in the mantle of Patience, and sit down at her feet and
wait."
The "mood" here spoken of did not go off; it had a physical origin.
Indigestion, nausea, headache, sleeplessness,--all combined to produce
miserable depression of spirits. A little event which occurred about
this time, did not tend to cheer her. It was the death of poor old
faithful Keeper, Emily's dog. He had come to the Parsonage in the
fierce strength of his youth. Sullen and ferocious he had met with his
master in the indomitable Emily. Like most dogs of his kind, he feared,
respected, and deeply loved her who subdued him. He had mourned her with
the pathetic fidelity of his nature, falling into old age after her
death. And now, her surviving sister wrote: "Poor old Keeper died last
Monday morning, after being ill one night; he went gently to sleep; we
laid his old faithful head in the garden. Flossy (the 'fat curly-haired
dog') is dull, and misses him. There was something very sad in losing
the old dog; yet I am glad he met a natural fate. People kept hinting he
ought to be put away, which neither papa nor I liked to think of."
When Miss Brontë wrote this, on December 8th, she was suffering from a
bad cold, and pain in her side. Her illness increased, and on December
17th, she--so patient, silent, and enduring of suffering--so afraid of
any unselfish taxing of others--had to call to her friend for help:
"I cannot at present go to see you, but I would be grateful if you could
come and see me, even were it only for a few days. To speak truth, I
have put on but a poor time of it during this month past. I kept hoping
to be better, but was at last obliged to have recourse to a medical man.
Sometimes I have felt very weak and low, and longed much for society,
but could not persuade myself to commit the selfish act of asking you
merely for my own relief. The doctor speaks encouragingly, but as yet
I get no better. As the illness has been coming on for a long time,
it cannot, I suppose, be expected to disappear all at once. I am not
confined to bed, but I am weak,--have had no appetite for about three
weeks--and my nights are very bad. I am well aware myself that extreme
and continuous depression of spirits has had much to do with the origin
of the illness; and I know a little cheerful society would do me more
good than gallons of medicine. If you CAN come, come on Friday. Write
to-morrow and say whether this be possible, and what time you will be at
Keighley, that I may send the gig. I do not ask you to stay long; a few
days is all I request."
Of course, her friend went; and a certain amount of benefit was derived
from her society, always so grateful to Miss Brontë. But the evil was
now too deep-rooted to be more than palliated for a time by "the little
cheerful society" for which she so touchingly besought.
A relapse came on before long. She was very ill, and the remedies
employed took an unusual effect on her peculiar sensitiveness of
constitution. Mr. Brontë was miserably anxious about the state of
his only remaining child, for she was reduced to the last degree of
weakness, as she had been unable to swallow food for above a week
before. She rallied, and derived her sole sustenance from half-a-tea-cup
of liquid, administered by tea-spoonfuls, in the course of the day. Yet
she kept out of bed, for her father's sake, and struggled in solitary
patience through her worst hours.
When she was recovering, her spirits needed support, and then she
yielded to her friend's entreaty that she would visit her. All the time
that Miss Brontë's illness had lasted, Miss ---- had been desirous
of coming to her; but she refused to avail herself of this kindness,
saying, that "it was enough to burden herself; that it would be
misery to annoy another;" and, even at her worst time, she tells her
friend, with humorous glee, how coolly she had managed to capture one
of Miss ----'s letters to Mr. Brontë, which she suspected was of a
kind to aggravate his alarm about his daughter's state, "and at once
conjecturing its tenor, made its contents her own."
Happily for all parties, Mr. Brontë was wonderfully well this winter;
good sleep, good spirits, and an excellent steady appetite, all seemed
to mark vigour; and in such a state of health, Charlotte could leave him
to spend a week with her friend, without any great anxiety.
She benefited greatly by the kind attentions and cheerful society of
the family with whom she went to stay. They did not care for her in
the least as "Currer Bell," but had known and loved her for years as
Charlotte Brontë. To them her invalid weakness was only a fresh claim
upon their tender regard, from the solitary woman, whom they had first
known as a little, motherless school-girl.
Miss Brontë wrote to me about this time, and told me something of what
she had suffered.
"Feb. 6th, 1852.
"Certainly, the past winter has been to me a strange time; had I the
prospect before me of living it over again, my prayer must necessarily
be, 'Let this cup pass from me.' That depression of spirits, which I
thought was gone by when I wrote last, came back again with a heavy
recoil; internal congestion ensued, and then inflammation. I had severe
pain in my right side, frequent burning and aching in my chest; sleep
almost forsook me, or would never come, except accompanied by ghastly
dreams; appetite vanished, and slow fever was my continual companion.
It was some time before I could bring myself to have recourse to
medical advice. I thought my lungs were affected, and could feel no
confidence in the power of medicine. When, at last, however, a doctor
was consulted, he declared my lungs and chest sound, and ascribed all
my sufferings to derangement of the liver, on which organ it seems the
inflammation had fallen. This information was a great relief to my
dear father, as well as to myself; but I had subsequently rather sharp
medical discipline to undergo, and was much reduced. Though not yet
well, it is with deep thankfulness that I can say, I am GREATLY BETTER.
My sleep, appetite, and strength seem all returning."
It was a great interest to her to be allowed an early reading of Esmond;
and she expressed her thoughts on the subject, in a criticising letter
to Mr. Smith, who had given her this privilege.
"Feb. 14th, 1852.
"My dear Sir,--It has been a great delight to me to read Mr. Thackeray's
work; and I so seldom now express my sense of kindness that, for once,
you must permit me, without rebuke, to thank you for a pleasure so rare
and special. Yet I am not going to praise either Mr. Thackeray or his
book. I have read, enjoyed, been interested, and, after all, feel full
as much ire and sorrow as gratitude and admiration. And still one can
never lay down a book of his without the last two feelings having their
part, be the subject or treatment what it may. In the first half of
the book, what chiefly struck me was the wonderful manner in which the
writer throws himself into the spirit and letters of the times whereof
he treats; the allusions, the illustrations, the style, all seem to
me so masterly in their exact keeping, their harmonious consistency,
their nice, natural truth, their pure exemption from exaggeration. No
second-rate imitator can write in that way; no coarse scene-painter
can charm us with an allusion so delicate and perfect. But what bitter
satire, what relentless dissection of diseased subjects! Well, and this,
too, is right, or would be right, if the savage surgeon did not seem so
fiercely pleased with his work. Thackeray likes to dissect an ulcer or
an aneurism; he has pleasure in putting his cruel knife or probe into
quivering, living flesh. Thackeray would not like all the world to be
good; no great satirist would like society to be perfect.
"As usual, he is unjust to women; quite unjust. There is hardly any
punishment he does not deserve for making Lady Castlewood peep through a
keyhole, listen at a door, and be jealous of a boy and a milkmaid. Many
other things I noticed that, for my part, grieved and exasperated me as
I read; but then, again, came passages so true, so deeply thought, so
tenderly felt, one could not help forgiving and admiring.
* * * * *
But I wish he could be told not to care much for dwelling on the
political or religious intrigues of the times. Thackeray, in his heart,
does not value political or religious intrigues of any age or date. He
likes to show us human nature at home, as he himself daily sees it; his
wonderful observant faculty likes to be in action. In him this faculty
is a sort of captain and leader; and if ever any passage in his writings
lacks interest, it is when this master-faculty is for a time thrust into
a subordinate position. I think such is the case in the former half
of the present volume. Towards the middle, he throws off restraint,
becomes himself, and is strong to the close. Everything now depends on
the second and third volumes. If, in pith and interest, they fall short
of the first, a true success cannot ensue. If the continuation be an
improvement upon the commencement, if the stream gather force as it
rolls, Thackeray will triumph. Some people have been in the habit of
terming him the second writer of the day; it just depends on himself
whether or not these critics shall be justified in their award. He need
not be the second. God made him second to no man. If I were he, I would
show myself as I am, not as critics report me; at any rate, I would do
my best. Mr. Thackeray is easy and indolent, and seldom cares to do his
best. Thank you once more; and believe me yours sincerely,
C. BRONTË."
Miss Brontë's health continued such, that she could not apply herself
to writing as she wished, for many weeks after the serious attack from
which she had suffered. There was not very much to cheer her in the
few events that touched her interests during this time. She heard in
March of the death of a friend's relation in the Colonies; and we see
something of what was the corroding dread at her heart.
"The news of E----'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, etc. She fears she shall now, in her dreary solitude, become a
'stern, harsh, selfish woman.' This fear struck home; again and again
have I felt it for myself, and what is MY position to M----'s? May God
help her, as God only can help!"
Again and again, her friend urged her to leave home; nor were various
invitations wanting to enable her to do this, when these constitutional
accesses of low spirits preyed too much upon her in her solitude. But
she would not allow herself any such indulgence, unless it became
absolutely necessary from the state of her health. She dreaded the
perpetual recourse to such stimulants as change of scene and society,
because of the reaction that was sure to follow. As far as she could
see, her life was ordained to be lonely, and she must subdue her
nature to her life, and, if possible, bring the two into harmony. When
she could employ herself in fiction, all was comparatively well. The
characters were her companions in the quiet hours, which she spent
utterly alone, unable often to stir out of doors for many days together.
The interests of the persons in her novels supplied the lack of interest
in her own life; and Memory and Imagination found their appropriate
work, and ceased to prey upon her vitals. But too frequently she could
not write, could not see her people, nor hear them speak; a great mist
of head-ache had blotted them out; they were non-existent to her.
This was the case all through the present spring; and anxious as her
publishers were for its completion, Villette stood still. Even her
letters to her friend are scarce and brief. Here and there I find a
sentence in them which can be extracted, and which is worth preserving.
"M----'s letter is very interesting; it shows a mind one cannot but
truly admire. Compare its serene trusting strength, with poor ----'s
vacillating dependence. When the latter was in her first burst of
happiness, I never remember the feeling finding vent in expressions of
gratitude to God. There was always a continued claim upon your sympathy
in the mistrust and doubt she felt of her own bliss. M---- believes;
her faith is grateful and at peace; yet while happy in herself, how
thoughtful she is for others!"
"March 23rd, 1852.
"You say, dear E----, that you often wish I would chat on paper, as you
do. How can I? Where are my materials? Is my life fertile in subjects of
chat? What callers do I see? What visits do I pay? No, you must chat,
and I must listen, and say 'Yes,' and 'No,' and 'Thank you!' for five
minutes' recreation.
* * * * *
"I am amused at the interest you take in politics. Don't expect to
rouse me; to me, all ministries and all oppositions seem to be pretty
much alike. D'Israeli was factious as leader of the Opposition; Lord
John Russell is going to be factious, now that he has stepped into
D'Israeli's shoes. Lord Derby's 'Christian love and spirit,' is worth
three half-pence farthing."
To W. S. WILLIAMS, ESQ.
"March 25th, 1852.
"My dear Sir,--Mr. Smith intimated a short time since, that he had some
thoughts of publishing a reprint of Shirley. Having revised the work,
I now enclose the errata. I have likewise sent off to-day, per rail, a
return-box of Cornhill books.
"I have lately read with great pleasure, 'The Two Families.' This work,
it seems, should have reached me in January; but owing to a mistake,
it was detained at the Dead Letter Office, and lay there nearly two
months. I liked the commencement very much; the close seemed to me
scarcely equal to 'Rose Douglas.' I thought the authoress committed a
mistake in shifting the main interest from the two personages on whom
it first rests--viz., Ben Wilson and Mary--to other characters of quite
inferior conception. Had she made Ben and Mary her hero and heroine, and
continued the development of their fortunes and characters in the same
truthful natural vein in which she commences it, an excellent, even an
original, book might have been the result. As for Lilias and Ronald,
they are mere romantic figments, with nothing of the genuine Scottish
peasant about them; they do not even speak the Caledonian dialect; they
palaver like a fine lady and gentleman.
"I ought long since to have acknowledged the gratification with which
I read Miss Kavanagh's 'Women of Christianity.' Her charity and (on
the whole) her impartiality are very beautiful. She touches, indeed,
with too gentle a hand the theme of Elizabeth of Hungary; and, in her
own mind, she evidently misconstrues the fact of Protestant charities
SEEMING to be fewer than Catholic. She forgets, or does not know, that
Protestantism is a quieter creed than Romanism; as it does not clothe
its priesthood in scarlet, so neither does it set up its good women for
saints, canonise their names, and proclaim their good works. In the
records of man, their almsgiving will not perhaps be found registered,
but Heaven has its account as well as earth.
"With kind regards to yourself and family, who, I trust, have all safely
weathered the rough winter lately past, as well as the east winds, which
are still nipping our spring in Yorkshire,--I am, my dear Sir, yours
sincerely,
C. BRONTË."
"April 3rd, 1852.
"My dear Sir,--The box arrived quite safely, and I very much thank you
for the contents, which are most kindly selected.
"As you wished me to say what I thought of 'The School for Fathers,'
I hastened to read it. The book seems to me clever, interesting, very
amusing, and likely to please generally. There is a merit in the choice
of ground, which is not yet too hackneyed; the comparative freshness of
subject, character, and epoch give the tale a certain attractiveness.
There is also, I think, a graphic rendering of situations, and a lively
talent for describing whatever is visible and tangible--what the eye
meets on the surface of things. The humour appears to me such as would
answer well on the stage; most of the scenes seem to demand dramatic
accessories to give them their full effect. But I think one cannot with
justice bestow higher praise than this. To speak candidly, I felt, in
reading the tale, a wondrous hollowness in the moral and sentiment; a
strange dilettante shallowness in the purpose and feeling. After all,
'Jack' is not much better than a 'Tony Lumpkin,' and there is no very
great breadth of choice between the clown he IS and the fop his father
would have made him. The grossly material life of the old English
fox-hunter, and the frivolous existence of the fine gentleman present
extremes, each in its way so repugnant, that one feels half inclined to
smile when called upon to sentimentalise over the lot of a youth forced
to pass from one to the other; torn from the stables, to be ushered
perhaps into the ball-room. Jack dies mournfully indeed, and you are
sorry for the poor fellow's untimely end; but you cannot forget that, if
he had not been thrust into the way of Colonel Penruddock's weapon, he
might possibly have broken his neck in a fox-hunt. The character of Sir
Thomas Warren is excellent; consistent throughout. That of Mr. Addison
not bad, but sketchy, a mere outline--wanting colour and finish. The
man's portrait is there, and his costume, and fragmentary anecdotes of
his life; but where is the man's nature--soul and self? I say nothing
about the female characters--not one word; only that Lydia seems to me
like a pretty little actress, prettily dressed gracefully appearing and
disappearing, and reappearing in a genteel comedy, assuming the proper
sentiments of her part with all due tact and naivete, and--that is all.
"Your description of the model man of business is true enough, I doubt
not; but we will not fear that society will ever be brought quite to
this standard; human nature (bad as it is) has, after all, elements that
forbid it. But the very tendency to such a consummation--the marked
tendency, I fear, of the day--produces, no doubt, cruel suffering. Yet,
when the evil of competition passes a certain limit, must it not in time
work its own cure? I suppose it will, but then through some convulsed
crisis, shattering all around it like an earthquake. Meantime, for how
many is life made a struggle; enjoyment and rest curtailed; labour
terribly enhanced beyond almost what nature can bear I often think that
this world would be the most terrible of enigmas, were it not for the
firm belief that there is a world to come, where conscientious effort
and patient pain will meet their reward.--Believe me, my dear Sir,
sincerely yours,
C. BRONTË."
A letter to her old Brussels schoolfellow gives a short retrospect of
the dreary winter she had passed through.
"Haworth, April 12th, 1852.
". . . I struggled through the winter, and the early part of the spring,
often with great difficulty. My friend stayed with me a few days in the
early part of January; she could not be spared longer. I was better
during her visit, but had a relapse soon after she left me, which
reduced my strength very much. It cannot be denied that the solitude
of my position fearfully aggravated its other evils. Some long stormy
days and nights there were, when I felt such a craving for support and
companionship as I cannot express. Sleepless, I lay awake night after
night, weak and unable to occupy myself. I sat in my chair day after
day, the saddest memories my only company. It was a time I shall never
forget; but God sent it, and it must have been for the best.
"I am better now; and very grateful do I feel for the restoration of
tolerable health; but, as if there was always to be some affliction,
papa, who enjoyed wonderful health during the whole winter, is ailing
with his spring attack of bronchitis. I earnestly trust it may pass over
in the comparatively ameliorated form in which it has hitherto shown
itself.
"Let me not forget to answer your question about the cataract. Tell your
papa that MY father was seventy at the time he underwent an operation;
he was most reluctant to try the experiment; could not believe that, at
his age, and with his want of robust strength, it would succeed. I was
obliged to be very decided in the matter, and to act entirely on my own
responsibility. Nearly six years have now elapsed since the cataract
was extracted (it was not merely depressed); he has never once during
that time regretted the step, and a day seldom passes that he does not
express gratitude and pleasure at the restoration of that inestimable
privilege of vision whose loss he once knew."
I had given Miss Brontë; in one of my letters, an outline of the story
on which I was then engaged, and in reply she says:--
"The sketch you give of your work (respecting which I am, of course,
dumb) seems to me very noble; and its purpose may be as useful in
practical result as it is high and just in theoretical tendency. Such a
book may restore hope and energy to many who thought they had forfeited
their right to both; and open a clear course for honourable effort to
some who deemed that they and all honour had parted company in this
world.
"Yet--hear my protest!
"Why should she die? Why are we to shut up the book weeping?
"My heart fails me already at the thought of the pang it will have to
undergo. And yet you must follow the impulse of your own inspiration.
If THAT commands the slaying of the victim, no bystander has a right to
put out his hand to stay the sacrificial knife: but I hold you a stern
priestess in these matters."
As the milder weather came on, her health improved, and her power of
writing increased. She set herself with redoubled vigour to the work
before her; and denied herself pleasure for the purpose of steady
labour. Hence she writes to her friend:--
"May 11th.
"Dear E----, --I must adhere to my resolution of neither visiting nor
being visited at present. Stay you quietly at B., till you go to S., as
I shall stay at Haworth; as sincere a farewell can be taken with the
heart as with the lips, and perhaps less painful. I am glad the weather
is changed; the return of the south-west wind suits me; but I hope you
have no cause to regret the departure of your favourite east wind. What
you say about ---- does not surprise me; I have had many little notes
(whereof I answer about one in three) breathing the same spirit,--self
and child the sole all-absorbing topics, on which the changes are rung
even to weariness. But I suppose one must not heed it, or think the case
singular. Nor, I am afraid, must one expect her to improve. I read in a
French book lately, a sentence to this effect, that 'marriage might be
defined as the state of two-fold selfishness.' Let the single therefore
take comfort. Thank you for Mary's letter. She DOES seem most happy;
and I cannot tell you how much more real, lasting, and better-warranted
her happiness seems than ever ----'s did. I think so much of it is in
herself, and her own serene, pure, trusting, religious nature. ----'s
always gives me the idea of a vacillating, unsteady rapture, entirely
dependent on circumstances with all their fluctuations. If Mary lives to
be a mother, you will then see a greater difference.
"I wish you, dear E., all health and enjoyment in your visit; and, as
far as one can judge at present, there seems a fair prospect of the wish
being realised.--Yours sincerely,
"C. BRONTË."