I have always been much struck with a passage in Mr. Forster's Life of
Goldsmith. Speaking of the scene after his death, the writer says:--
"The staircase of Brick Court is said to have been filled with mourners,
the reverse of domestic; women without a home, without domesticity of
any kind, with no friend but him they had come to weep for; outcasts of
that great, solitary, wicked city, to whom he had never forgotten to be
kind and charitable."
This came into my mind when I heard of some of the circumstances
attendant on Charlotte's funeral.
Few beyond that circle of hills knew that she, whom the nations praised
far off, lay dead that Easter mooring. Of kith and kin she had more in
the grave to which she was soon to be borne, than among the living. The
two mourners, stunned with their great grief, desired not the sympathy
of strangers. One member out of most of the families in the parish was
bidden to the funeral; and it became an act of self-denial in many a
poor household to give up to another the privilege of paying their last
homage to her; and those who were excluded from the formal train of
mourners thronged the churchyard and church, to see carried forth, and
laid beside her own people, her whom, not many months ago, they had
looked at as a pale white bride, entering on a new life with trembling
happy hope.
Among those humble friends who passionately grieved over the dead, was
a village girl who had been seduced some little time before, but who
had found a holy sister in Charlotte. She had sheltered her with her
help, her counsel, her strengthening words; had ministered to her needs
in her time of trial. Bitter, bitter was the grief of this poor young
woman, when she heard that her friend was sick unto death, and deep
is her mourning until this day. A blind girl, living some four miles
from Haworth, loved Mrs. Nicholls so dearly that, with many cries and
entreaties, she implored those about her to lead her along the roads,
and over the moor-paths, that she might hear the last solemn words,
"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope
of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Such were the mourners over Charlotte Brontë's grave.
I have little more to say. If my readers find that I have not said
enough, I have said too much. I cannot measure or judge of such a
character as hers. I cannot map out vices, and virtues, and debatable
land. One who knew her long and well,--the "Mary" of this Life--writes
thus of her dead friend:--
"She thought much of her duty, and had loftier and clearer notions of it
than most people, and held fast to them with more success. It was done,
it seems to me, with much more difficulty than people have of stronger
nerves, and better fortunes. All her life was but labour and pain; and
she never threw down the burden for the sake of present pleasure. I
don't know what use you can make of all I have said. I have written it
with the strong desire to obtain appreciation for her. Yet, what does
it matter? She herself appealed to the world's judgment for her use of
some of the faculties she had,--not the best,--but still the only ones
she could turn to strangers' benefit. They heartily, greedily enjoyed
the fruits of her labours, and then found out she was much to be blamed
for possessing such faculties. Why ask for a judgment on her from such a
world?"
But I turn from the critical, unsympathetic public--inclined to judge
harshly because they have only seen superficially and not thought
deeply. I appeal to that larger and more solemn public, who know how to
look with tender humility at faults and errors; how to admire generously
extraordinary genius, and how to reverence with warm, full hearts all
noble virtue. To that Public I commit the memory of Charlotte Brontë.