We translate the following for the _International_ from a letter dated
London, June 15, to the _Cologne Gazette_.
"Among the most remarkable writers of romances in England, three women
are entitled to be reckoned in the first rank, namely, Miss Jewsbury,
Miss Bronte, and Mrs. Gaskell. Miss Jewsbury issued her first work
about four years since, a novel, in three volumes, under the title of
'Zoe,' and since then she has published the 'Half Sisters.' Both these
works are excellent in manner as well as ideas, and show that their
author is a woman of profound thought and deep feeling. Both are
drawn from country life and the middle class, a sphere in which Miss
Jewsbury is at home. The tendency of the first is speculative, and
is based on religion; that of the second is social, relating to the
position of woman.
"Miss Jewsbury is still young, for an authoress. She counts only some
thirty years, and many productions may be confidently expected from
her hand, though perhaps none will excel those already published,
for, after gaining a certain climax, no one excels himself. Her
usual residence is Manchester; it is but seldom that she visits the
metropolis; she is now here. She has lively and pleasing manners, a
slight person, fine features, a beautiful, dreamy, light brown eye.
She is attractive without being beautiful, retiring, altogether
without pretensions, and in conversation is neither brilliant nor very
intellectual,--a still, thoughtful, modest character.
"Miss Bronte was long involved in a mysterious obscurity, from which
she first emerged into the light as an actually existing being, at her
present visit to London. Two years ago there appeared a romance, 'Jane
Eyre,' by 'Currer Bell,' which threw all England into astonishment.
Everybody was tormenting himself to discover the real author, for
there was no such person as Currer Bell, and no one could tell
whether the book was written by a man or woman, because the hues of
the romance now indicated a male and now female hand, without any
possibility of supposing that the whole originated with a single
pencil. The public attributed it now to one, now to another, and the
book passed to a second edition without the solution of the riddle.
At last there came out a second romance, 'Shirley,' by the same
author, which was devoured with equal avidity, although it could
not be compared to the former in value; and still the incognito was
preserved. Finally, late in the autumn of last year the report was
spread about that the image of Jane Eyre had been discovered in London
in the person of a pale young lady, with gray eyes, who had been
recognized as the long-sought authoress. Still she remained invisible.
And again, in June 1850, it is said that Currer Bell, Jane Eyre, Miss
Bronte,--for all three names mean the same person,--is in London,
though to all inquiries concerning the where and how a satisfactory
answer is still wanting. She is now indeed here, but not for the
curious public; she will not serve society as a lioness, will not be
gazed and gaped at. She is a simple child of the country, brought up
in the little parsonage of her father, in the North of England, and
must first accustom her eye to the gleaming diadem with which fame
seeks to deck her brow, before she can feel herself at home in her own
sunshine.
"Our third lady, Mrs. Gaskell, belongs also to the country, and is
the wife of a Unitarian clergyman. In this capacity she has probably
had occasion to know a great deal of the poorer classes, to her honor
be it said. Her book, 'Mary Barton,' conducts us into the factory
workman's narrow dwelling, and depicts his joys and sorrows, his
aims and efforts, his wants and his misery, with a power of truth
that irresistibly lays hold upon the heart. The scene of the story
alternates from there to the city mansion of the factory owner,
where, along with luxury and splendor we find little love and little
happiness, and where sympathy with the condition of the workman is
wanting only because it is not known, and because no one understands
why or how the workman suffers. The book, is at once very beautiful,
very instructive, and written, in a spirit of conciliation."
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