"I know that if women wish to escape the stigma of husband-hunting,
they must act and look like marble or clay,--cold, expressionless,
bloodless; for every appearance of feeling, of joy, sorrow,
friendliness, antipathy, admiration, disgust, are alike construed
by the world into an attempt to hook a husband. Never mind!
well-meaning women have their own consciences to comfort them,
after all. Do not therefore be too much afraid of showing yourself
as you are, affectionate and good-hearted; do not harshly repress
sentiments and feelings excellent in themselves, because you fear
that some puppy may fancy you are letting them come out to
fascinate him; do not condemn yourself to live only by halves,
because if you showed too much animation some pragmatical thing in
breeches might take it into his pate to imagine that you desired to
dedicate your life to inanity. Write again soon, for I feel rather
fierce and want stroking down."
That the sisters were not without their own perturbations and heart
troubles, even in the deep seclusion of their lonely home, may be judged
by some extracts from a poem written by Emily, who never confided
anything to any friend but her own sombre muse.
"Cold is the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave.
Have I forgot, my only love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave?
"Now, when removed, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern leaves cover
Thy noble heart forever, evermore?
"Cold in the grave, and fifteen wild Decembers
From these brown hills have melted into spring;
Faithful indeed the love is that remembers
After such years of change and suffering."
That Charlotte had some admirers among her father's curates is well
known, and that Mr. Nichols paid court to her eight years previous to
the time of her marriage with him. That she was capable of intense and
passionate devotion there can be no doubt, but we have no hint as to
whom she had lavished it upon, in any of her letters.
She was always extremely sensitive about her personal appearance,
considering herself irredeemably ugly, and always thinking that people
must be disgusted with her looks. She purposely made her heroine in
"Jane Eyre" unattractive, as she felt it an injustice that a woman must
always be judged by her looks, and she felt that novelists were somewhat
to blame in the matter, as they always made their heroines beautiful in
person, however unattractive in mind or character. She was extremely
short,--"stunted," as she herself calls it,--never having grown any
after the days of her starvation at Cowan's Bridge. She had soft brown
hair, and good and expressive eyes, though she was so near-sighted; a
large mouth; and a broad, square, somewhat overhanging forehead. Her
voice was very sweet, and she was not at all the unattractive person she
fancied herself, though by no means beautiful. She was exquisitely neat
in her dress, and dainty about her gloves and shoes. She had a keen and
delicate touch, and could do any difficult work with her hands, which
were the smallest perhaps ever seen upon a grown woman. Her needlework
was marvellous, and she was an exquisite housekeeper, attending to the
minutest details herself. Her circle of friends and acquaintances was a
very narrow one all her life, though after the publication of "Jane
Eyre" it of course widened and improved.
Harriet Martineau and Mrs. Gaskell proved themselves warm and
enthusiastic friends to Charlotte; and Thackeray, who met her in London,
where she visited her publishers, was much pleased with her, and wrote
very kindly of her after her death. Sir James and Lady Kay Shuttleworth
became much interested in her, and she enjoyed her visits to them in
Westmoreland very highly. The Lake country was a revelation to her,
though she was somewhat oppressed by seeing it all in company. She
writes:--
"If I could only have dropped unseen out of the carriage, and gone
away by myself in amongst those grand hills and sweet dales, I
should have drunk in the full power of this glorious scenery. In
company, this can hardly be."