Book: The Life of Charlotte Bronte

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I copy the following, for the sake of the few words describing
the appearance of the heathery moors in late summer.

TO SYDNEY DOBELL, ESQ.

"May 24th, 1851.

"My dear Sir,--I hasten to send Mrs. Dobell the autograph. It was
the word 'Album' that frightened me I thought she wished me to
write a sonnet on purpose for it, which I could not do.

"Your proposal respecting a journey to Switzerland is deeply
kind; it draws me with the force of a mighty Temptation, but the
stern Impossible holds me back. No! I cannot go to Switzerland
this summer.

"Why did the editor of the 'Eclectic' erase that most powerful
and pictorial passage? He could not be insensible to its beauty;
perhaps he thought it profane. Poor man!

"I know nothing of such an orchard-country as you describe. I
have never seen such a region. Our hills only confess the coming
of summer by growing green with young fern and moss, in secret
little hollows. Their bloom is reserved for autumn; then they
burn with a kind of dark glow, different, doubtless, from the
blush of garden blossoms. About the close of next month, I expect
to go to London, to pay a brief and quiet visit. I fear chance
will not be so propitious as to bring you to town while I am
there; otherwise, how glad I should be if you would call. With
kind regards to Mrs. Dobell,--Believe me, sincerely yours,

C. BRONTE."

Her next letter is dated from London.

"June 2nd.

"I came here on Wednesday, being summoned a day sooner than I
expected, in order to be in time for Thackeray's second lecture,
which was delivered on Thursday afternoon. This, as you may
suppose, was a genuine treat to me, and I was glad not to miss
it. It was given in Willis' Rooms, where the Almacks balls are
held--a great painted and gilded saloon with long sofas for
benches. The audience was said to be the cream of London society,
and it looked so. I did not at all expect the great lecturer
would know me or notice me under these circumstances, with
admiring duchesses and countesses seated in rows before him; but
he met me as I entered--shook hands--took me to his mother, whom
I had not before seen, and introduced me. She is a fine,
handsome, young-looking old lady; was very gracious, and called
with one of her grand-daughters next day.

"Thackeray called too, separately. I had a long talk with him,
and I think he knows me now a little better than he did: but of
this I cannot yet be sure; he is a great and strange man. There
is quite a furor for his lectures. They are a sort of essays,
characterised by his own peculiar originality and power, and
delivered with a finished taste and ease, which is felt, but
cannot be described. Just before the lecture began, somebody came
behind me, leaned over and said, 'Permit me, as a Yorkshireman,
to introduce myself.' I turned round--saw a strange, not
handsome, face, which puzzled me for half a minute, and then I
said, 'You are Lord Carlisle.' He nodded and smiled; he talked a
few minutes very pleasantly and courteously.

"Afterwards came another man with the same plea, that he was a
Yorkshireman, and this turned out to be Mr. Monckton Milnes. Then
came Dr. Forbes, whom I was sincerely glad to see. On Friday, I
went to the Crystal Palace; it is a marvellous, stirring,
bewildering sight--a mixture of a genii palace, and a mighty
bazaar, but it is not much in my way; I liked the lecture better.
On Saturday I saw the Exhibition at Somerset House; about half a
dozen of the pictures are good and interesting, the rest of
little worth. Sunday--yesterday--was a day to be marked with a
white stone; through most of the day I was very happy, without
being tired or over-excited. In the afternoon, I went to hear
D'Aubigne, the great Protestant French preacher; it was
pleasant--half sweet, half sad--and strangely suggestive to hear
the French language once more. For health, I have so far got on
very fairly, considering that I came here far from well."

The lady, who accompanied Miss Bronte to the lecture at
Thackeray's alluded to, says that, soon after they had taken
their places, she was aware that he was pointing out her
companion to several of his friends, but she hoped that Miss
Bronte herself would not perceive it. After some time, however,
during which many heads had been turned round, and many glasses
put up, in order to look at the author of "Jane Eyre", Miss
Bronte said, "I am afraid Mr. Thackeray has been playing me a
trick;" but she soon became too much absorbed in the lecture to
notice the attention which was being paid to her, except when it
was directly offered, as in the case of Lord Carlisle and Mr.
Monckton Milnes. When the lecture was ended, Mr. Thackeray came
down from the platform, and making his way towards her, asked her
for her opinion. This she mentioned to me not many days
afterwards, adding remarks almost identical with those which I
subsequently read in 'Villette,' where a similar action on the
part of M. Paul Emanuel is related.

"As our party left the Hall, he stood at the entrance; he saw and
knew me, and lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and
uttered the words 'Qu'en dites-vous?'--question eminently
characteristic, and reminding me, even in this his moment of
triumph, of that inquisitive restlessness, that absence of what I
considered desirable self-control, which were amongst his faults.
He should not have cared just then to ask what I thought, or what
anybody thought; but he DID care, and he was too natural to
conceal, too impulsive to repress his wish. Well! if I blamed his
over-eagerness, I liked his naivete. I would have praised him; I
had plenty of praise in my heart; but alas I no words on my lips.
Who HAS words at the right moment? I stammered some lame
expressions; but was truly glad when other people, coming up with
profuse congratulations, covered my deficiency by their
redundancy."

As they were preparing to leave the room, her companion saw with
dismay that many of the audience were forming themselves into two
lines, on each side of the aisle down which they had to pass
before reaching the door. Aware that any delay would only make
the ordeal more trying, her friend took Miss Bronte's arm in
hers, and they went along the avenue of eager and admiring faces.
During this passage through the "cream of society," Miss Bronte's
hand trembled to such a degree, that her companion feared lest
she should turn faint and be unable to proceed; and she dared not
express her sympathy or try to give her strength by any touch or
word, lest it might bring on the crisis she dreaded.

Surely, such thoughtless manifestation of curiosity is a blot on
the scutcheon of true politeness! The rest of the account of
this, her longest visit to London, shall be told in her own
words.

"I sit down to write to you this morning in an inexpressibly flat
state; having spent the whole of yesterday and the day before in
a gradually increasing headache, which grew at last rampant and
violent, ended with excessive sickness, and this morning I am
quite weak and washy. I hoped to leave my headaches behind me at
Haworth; but it seems I brought them carefully packed in my
trunk, and very much have they been in my way since I came. . . .
Since I wrote last, I have seen various things worth describing;
Rachel, the great French actress, amongst the number. But to-day
I really have no pith for the task. I can only wish you good-bye
with all my heart."

"I cannot boast that London has agreed with me well this time;
the oppression of frequent headache, sickness, and a low tone of
spirits, has poisoned many moments which might otherwise have
been pleasant. Sometimes I have felt this hard, and been tempted
to murmur at Fate, which compels me to comparative silence and
solitude for eleven months in the year, and in the twelfth, while
offering social enjoyment, takes away the vigour and cheerfulness
which should turn it to account. But circumstances are ordered
for us, and we must submit."

"Your letter would have been answered yesterday, but I was
already gone out before post time, and was out all day. People
are very kind, and perhaps I shall be glad of what I have seen
afterwards, but it is often a little trying at the time. On
Thursday, the Marquis of Westminster asked me to a great party,
to which I was to go with Mrs. D----, a beautiful, and, I think,
a kind woman too; but this I resolutely declined. On Friday I
dined at the ----'s, and met Mrs. D---- and Mr. Monckton Milnes.
On Saturday I went to hear and see Rachel; a wonderful
sight--terrible as if the earth had cracked deep at your feet,
and revealed a glimpse of hell. I shall never forget it. She made
me shudder to the marrow of my bones; in her some fiend has
certainly taken up an incarnate home. She is not a woman; she is
a snake; she is the ----. On Sunday I went to the Spanish
Ambassador's Chapel, where Cardinal Wiseman, in his
archiepiscopal robes and mitre, held a confirmation. The whole
scene was impiously theatrical. Yesterday (Monday) I was sent for
at ten to breakfast with Mr. Rogers, the patriarch-poet. Mrs.
D---- and Lord Glenelg were there; no one else this certainly
proved a most calm, refined, and intellectual treat. After
breakfast, Sir David Brewster came to take us to the Crystal
Palace. I had rather dreaded this, for Sir David is a man of
profoundest science, and I feared it would be impossible to
understand his explanations of the mechanism, etc.; indeed, I
hardly knew how to ask him questions. I was spared all trouble
without being questioned, he gave information in the kindest and
simplest manner. After two hours spent at the Exhibition, and
where, as you may suppose, I was VERY tired, we had to go to Lord
Westminster's, and spend two hours more in looking at the
collection of pictures in his splendid gallery."

To another friend she writes:--

"----may have told you that I have spent a month in London this
summer. When you come, you shall ask what questions you like on
that point, and I will answer to the best of my stammering
ability. Do not press me much on the subject of the 'Crystal
Palace.' I went there five times, and certainly saw some
interesting things, and the 'coup d'oeil' is striking and
bewildering enough; but I never was able to get any raptures on
the subject, and each renewed visit was made under coercion
rather than my own free will. It is an excessively bustling
place; and, after all, its wonders appeal too exclusively to the
eye, and rarely touch the heart or head. I make an exception to
the last assertion, in favour of those who possess a large range
of scientific knowledge. Once I went with Sir David Brewster, and
perceived that he looked on objects with other eyes than mine."

Miss Bronte returned from London by Manchester, and paid us a
visit of a couple of days at the end of June. The weather was so
intensely hot, and she herself so much fatigued with her London
sight-seeing, that we did little but sit in-doors, with open
windows, and talk. The only thing she made a point of exerting
herself to procure was a present for Tabby. It was to be a shawl,
or rather a large handkerchief, such as she could pin across her
neck and shoulders, in the old-fashioned country manner. Miss
Bronte took great pains in seeking out one which she thought
would please the old woman. On her arrival at home, she addressed
the following letter to the friend with whom she had been staying
in London:--

"Haworth, July 1st, 1851.

"My dear Mrs. Smith,--Once more I am at home, where, I am
thankful to say, I found my father very well. The journey to
Manchester was a little hot and dusty, but otherwise pleasant
enough. The two stout gentlemen, who filled a portion of the
carriage when I got in, quitted it at Rugby, and two other ladies
and myself had it to ourselves the rest of the way. The visit to
Mrs. Gaskell formed a cheering break in the journey. Haworth
Parsonage is rather a contrast, yet even Haworth Parsonage does
not look gloomy in this bright summer weather; it is somewhat
still, but with the windows open I can hear a bird or two singing
on certain thorn-trees in the garden. My father and the servants
think me looking better than when I felt home, and I certainly
feel better myself for the change. You are too much like your son
to render it advisable I should say much about your kindness
during my visit. However, one cannot help (like Captain Cuttle)
making a note of these matters. Papa says I am to thank you in
his name, and offer you his respects, which I do
accordingly.--With truest regards to all your circle, believe me
very sincerely yours,

C. BRONTE."

"July 8th, 1851.

"My dear Sir,--Thackeray's last lecture must, I think, have been
his best. What he says about Sterne is true. His observations on
literary men, and their social obligations and individual duties,
seem to me also true and full of mental and moral vigour. . . .
The International Copyright Meeting seems to have had but a
barren result, judging from the report in the Literary Gazette. I
cannot see that Sir E. Bulwer and the rest DID anything; nor can
I well see what it is in their power to do. The argument brought
forward about the damage accruing to American national literature
from the present piratical system, Is a good and sound argument,
but I am afraid the publishers--honest men--are not yet mentally
prepared to give such reasoning due weight. I should think, that
which refers to the injury inflicted upon themselves, by an
oppressive competition in piracy, would influence them more; but,
I suppose, all established matters, be they good or evil, are
difficult to change. About the 'Phrenological Character' I must
not say a word. Of your own accord, you have found the safest
point from which to view it: I will not say 'look higher!' I
think you see the matter as it is desirable we should all see
what relates to ourselves. If I had a right to whisper a word of
counsel, it should be merely this: whatever your present self may
be, resolve with all your strength of resolution, never to
degenerate thence. Be jealous of a shadow of falling off.
Determine rather to look above that standard, and to strive
beyond it. Everybody appreciates certain social properties, and
likes his neighbour for possessing them; but perhaps few dwell
upon a friend's capacity for the intellectual, or care how this
might expand, if there were but facilities allowed for
cultivation, and space given for growth. It seems to me that,
even should such space and facilities be denied by stringent
circumstances and a rigid fate, still it should do you good fully
to know, and tenaciously to remember, that you have such a
capacity. When other people overwhelm you with acquired
knowledge, such as you have not had opportunity, perhaps not
application, to gain--derive not pride, but support from the
thought. If no new books had ever been written, some of these
minds would themselves have remained blank pages: they only take
an impression; they were not born with a record of thought on the
brain, or an instinct of sensation on the heart. If I had never
seen a printed volume, Nature would have offered my perceptions a
varying picture of a continuous narrative, which, without any
other teacher than herself, would have schooled me to knowledge,
unsophisticated, but genuine.

"Before I received your last, I had made up my mind to tell you
that I should expect no letter for three months to come
(intending afterwards to extend this abstinence to six months,
for I am jealous of becoming dependent on this indulgence: you
doubtless cannot see why, because you do not live my life). Nor
shall I now expect a letter; but since you say that you would
like to write now and then, I cannot say 'never write,' without
imposing on my real wishes a falsehood which they reject, and
doing to them a violence, to which they entirely refuse to
submit. I can only observe that when it pleases you to write,
whether seriously or for a little amusement, your notes, if they
come to me, will come where they are welcome. Tell----I will try
to cultivate good spirits, as assiduously as she cultivates her
geraniums."



CHAPTER X.

Soon after she returned home, her friend paid her a visit. While
she stayed at Haworth, Miss Bronte 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
Bronte 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 bad, 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. BRONTE."

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 Bronte'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 Bronte
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, an d 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.

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