Book: The Life of Charlotte Bronte

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Kindly and faithful words! which Miss Martineau never knew of; to
be repaid in words more grand and tender, when Charlotte lay deaf
and cold by her dead sisters. In spite of their short sorrowful
misunderstanding, they were a pair of noble women and faithful
friends.

I turn to a pleasanter subject. While she was in London, Miss
Bronte had seen Lawrence's portrait of Mr. Thackeray, and admired
it extremely. Her first words, after she had stood before it some
time in silence, were, "And there came up a Lion out of Judah!"
The likeness was by this time engraved, and Mr. Smith sent her a
copy of it.

To G. SMITH, ESQ.

"Haworth, Feb. 26th, 1853.

"My dear Sir,--At a late hour yesterday evening, I had the honour
of receiving, at Haworth Parsonage, a distinguished guest, none
other than W. M. Thackeray, Esq. Mindful of the rites of
hospitality, I hung him up in state this morning. He looks superb
in his beautiful, tasteful gilded gibbet. For companion he has
the Duke of Wellington, (do you remember giving me that picture?)
and for contrast and foil Richmond's portrait of an unworthy
individual, who, in such society, must be name-less. Thackeray
looks away from the latter character with a grand scorn, edifying
to witness. I wonder if the giver of these gifts will ever see
them on the walls where they now hang; it pleases me to fancy
that one day he may. My father stood for a quarter of an hour
this morning examining the great man's picture. The conclusion of
his survey was, that he thought it a puzzling head; if he had
known nothing previously of the original's character; he could
not have read it in his features. I wonder at this. To me the
broad brow seems to express intellect. Certain lines about the
nose and cheek, betray the satirist and cynic; the mouth
indicates a child-like simplicity--perhaps even a degree of
irresoluteness, inconsistency--weakness in short, but a weakness
not unamiable. The engraving seems to me very good. A certain not
quite Christian expression--'not to put too fine a point upon
it'--an expression of spite, most vividly marked in the original,
is here softened, and perhaps a little--a very little--of the
power has escaped in this ameliorating process. Did it strike you
thus?"

Miss Bronte was in much better health during this winter of
1852-3, than she had been the year before.

"For my part," (she wrote to me in February) "I have thus far
borne the cold weather well. I have taken long walks on the
crackling snow, and felt the frosty air bracing. This winter has,
for me, not been like last winter. December, January, February,
'51-2, passed like a long stormy night, conscious of one painful
dream) all solitary grief and sickness. The corresponding months.
in '52-3 have gone over my head quietly and not uncheerfully.
Thank God for the change and the repose! How welcome it has been
He only knows! My father too has borne the season well; and my
book, and its reception thus far, have pleased and cheered him."

In March the quiet Parsonage had the honour of receiving a visit
from the then Bishop of Ripon. He remained one night with Mr.
Bronte". In the evening, some of the neighbouring clergy were
invited to meet him at tea and supper; and during the latter
meal, some of the "curates "began merrily to upbraid Miss Bronte"
with "putting them into a book;" and she, shrinking from thus
having her character as authoress thrust upon her at her own
table, and in the presence of a stranger, pleasantly appealed to
the bishop as to whether it was quite fair thus to drive her,
into a corner. His Lordship, I have been told, was agreeably
impressed with the gentle unassuming manners of his hostess, and
with the perfect propriety and consistency of the arrangements in
the modest household. So much for the Bishop's recollection of
his visit. Now we will turn to hers.

"March 4th.

"The Bishop has been, and is gone. He is certainly a most
charming Bishop; the most benignant gentleman that ever put on
lawn sleeves; yet stately too, and quite competent to check
encroachments. His visit passed capitally well; and at its close,
as he was going away, he expressed himself thoroughly gratified
with all he had seen. The Inspector has been also in the course
of the past week; so that I have had a somewhat busy time of it.
If you could have been at Haworth to share the pleasures of the
company, without having been inconvenienced by the little bustle
of the preparation, I should have been VERY glad. But the house
was a good deal put out of its way, as you may suppose; all
passed, however, orderly, quietly, and well. Martha waited very
nicely, and I had a person to help her in the kitchen. Papa kept
up, too, fully as well as I expected, though I doubt whether he
could have borne another day of it. My penalty came on in a
strong headache as soon as the Bishop was gone: how thankful I
was that it had patiently waited his departure. I continue stupid
to-day: of course, it is the reaction consequent on several days
of extra exertion and excitement. It is very well to talk of
receiving a Bishop without trouble, but you MUST prepare for
him."

By this time some of the Reviews had began to find fault with
"Villette." Miss Bronte made her old request.

TO W. S. WILLIAMS, ESQ.

"My dear Sir,--Were a review to appear, inspired with treble
their animus, PRAY do not withhold it from me. I like to see the
satisfactory notices,--especially I like to carry them to my
father; but I MUST see such as are UNsatisfactory and hostile;
these are for my own especial edification;--it is in these I best
read public feeling and opinion. To shun examination into the
dangerous and disagreeable seems to me cowardly. I long always to
know what really IS, and am only unnerved when kept in the dark.
. . . . . .

"As to the character of 'Lucy Snowe,' my intention from the first
was that she should not occupy the pedestal to which 'Jane Eyre'
was raised by some injudicious admirers. She is where I meant her
to be, and where no charge of self-laudation can touch her.

"The note you sent this morning from Lady Harriette St. Clair, is
precisely to the same purport as Miss Muloch's request,--an
application for exact and authentic information respecting the
fate of M. Paul Emanuel! You see how much the ladies think of
this little man, whom you none of you like. I had a letter the
other day; announcing that a lady of some note, who had always
determined that whenever, she married, her husband should be the
counterpart of 'Mr. Knightly' in Miss Austen's 'Emma,' had now
changed her mind, and vowed that she would either find the
duplicate of Professor Emanuel, or remain for ever single! I have
sent Lady Harriette an answer so worded as to leave the matter
pretty much where it was. Since the little puzzle amuses the
ladies, it would be a pity to spoil their sport by giving them
the key."

When Easter, with its duties arising out of sermons to be
preached by strange clergymen who had afterwards to be
entertained at the Parsonage,--with Mechanics' Institute
Meetings, and school tea-drinkings, was over and gone; she came,
at the close of April, to visit us in Manchester. We had a
friend, a young lady, staying with us. Miss Bronte had expected
to find us alone; and although our friend was gentle and sensible
after Miss Bronte's own heart, yet her presence was enough to
create a nervous tremour. I was aware that both of our guests
were unusually silent; and I saw a little shiver run from time to
time over Miss Bronte's frame. I could account for the modest
reserve of the young lady; and the next day Miss Bronte told me
how the unexpected sight of a strange face had affected her.

It was now two or three years since I had witnessed a similar
effect produced on her; in anticipation of a quiet evening at
Fox-How; and since then she had seen many and various people in
London: but the physical sensations produced by shyness were
still the same; and on the following day she laboured under
severe headache. I had several opportunities of perceiving how
this nervousness was ingrained in her constitution, and how
acutely she suffered in striving to overcome it. One evening we
had, among other guests, two sisters who sang Scottish ballads
exquisitely. Miss Bronte had been sitting quiet and constrained
till they began "The Bonnie House of Airlie," but the effect of
that and "Carlisle Yetts," which followed, was as irresistible as
the playing of the Piper of Hamelin. The beautiful clear light
came into her eyes; her lips quivered with emotion; she forgot
herself, rose, and crossed the room to the piano, where she asked
eagerly for song after song. The sisters begged her to come and
see them the next morning, when they would sing as long as ever
she liked; and she promised gladly and thankfully. But on
reaching the house her courage failed. We walked some time up and
down the street; she upbraiding herself all the while for folly,
and trying to dwell on the sweet echoes in her memory rather than
on the thought of a third sister who would have to be faced if we
went in. But it was of no use; and dreading lest this struggle
with herself might bring on one of her trying headaches, I
entered at last and made the best apology I could for her
non-appearance. Much of this nervous dread of encountering
strangers I ascribed to the idea of her personal ugliness, which
had been strongly impressed upon her imagination early in life,
and which she exaggerated to herself in a remarkable manner. "I
notice," said she, "that after a stranger has once looked at my
face, he is careful not to let his eyes wander to that part of
the room again!" A more untrue idea never entered into any one's
head. Two gentlemen who saw her during this visit, without
knowing at the time who she was, were singularly attracted by her
appearance; and this feeling of attraction towards a pleasant
countenance, sweet voice, and gentle timid manners, was so strong
in one as to conquer a dislike he had previously entertained to
her works.

There was another circumstance that came to my knowledge at this
period which told secrets about the finely-strung frame. One
night I was on the point of relating some dismal ghost story,
just before bed-time. She shrank from hearing it, and confessed
that she was superstitious, and, prone at all times to the
involuntary recurrence of any thoughts of ominous gloom which
might have been suggested to her. She said that on first coming
to us, she had found a letter on her dressing-table from a friend
in Yorkshire, containing a story which had impressed her vividly
ever since;--that it mingled with her dreams at night, and made
her sleep restless and unrefreshing.

One day we asked two gentlemen to meet her at dinner; expecting
that she and they would have a mutual pleasure in making each
other's acquaintance. To our disappointment she drew back with
timid reserve from all their advances, replying to their
questions and remarks in the briefest manner possible; till at
last they gave up their efforts to draw her into conversation in
despair, and talked to each other and my husband on subjects of
recent local interest. Among these Thackeray's Lectures (which
had lately been delivered in Manchester) were spoken of and that
on Fielding especially dwelt upon. One gentleman objected to it
strongly, as calculated to do moral harm, and regretted that a
man having so great an influence over the tone of thought of the
day, as Thackeray, should not more carefully weigh his words. The
other took the opposite view. He said that Thackeray described
men from the inside, as it were; through his strong power of
dramatic sympathy, he identified himself with certain characters,
felt their temptations, entered into their pleasures, etc. This
roused Miss Bronte, who threw herself warmly into the discussion;
the ice of her reserve was broken, and from that time she
showed her interest in all that was said, and contributed her
share to any conversation that was going on in the course of the
evening.

What she said, and which part she took, in the dispute about
Thackeray's lecture, may be gathered from the following letter,
referring to the same subject:--

"The Lectures arrived safely; I have read them through twice.
They must be studied to be appreciated. I thought well of them
when I heard them delivered, but now I see their real power; and
it is great. The lecture on Swift was new to me; I thought it
almost matchless. Not that by any means I always agree with Mr.
Thackeray's opinions, but his force, his penetration, his pithy
simplicity, his eloquence--his manly sonorous eloquence,--command
entire admiration. . . . Against his errors I protest, were it
treason to do so. I was present at the Fielding lecture: the hour
spent in listening to it was a painful hour. That Thackeray was
wrong in his way of treating Fielding's character and vices, my
conscience told me. After reading that lecture, I trebly felt
that he was wrong--dangerously wrong. Had Thackeray owned a son,
grown, or growing up, and a son, brilliant but reckless--would he
have spoken in that light way of courses that lead to disgrace
and the grave? He speaks of it all as if he theorised; as if he
had never been called on, in the course of his life, to witness
the actual consequences of such failings; as if he had never
stood by and seen the issue, the final result of it all. I
believe, if only once the prospect of a promising life blasted on
the outset by wild ways had passed close under his eyes, he never
COULD have spoken with such levity of what led to its piteous
destruction. Had I a brother yet living, I should tremble to let
him read Thackeray's lecture on Fielding. I should hide it away
from him. If, in spite of precaution, it should fall into his
hands, I should earnestly pray him not to be misled by the voice
of the charmer, let him charm never so wisely. Not that for a
moment I would have had Thackeray to ABUSE Fielding, or even
Pharisaically to condemn his life; but I do most deeply grieve
that it never entered into his heart sadly and nearly to feel the
peril of such a career, that he might have dedicated some of his
great strength to a potent warning against its adoption by any
young man. I believe temptation often assails the finest manly
natures; as the pecking sparrow or destructive wasp attacks the
sweetest and mellowest fruit, eschewing what is sour and crude.
The true lover of his race ought to devote his vigour to guard
and protect; he should sweep away every lure with a kind of rage
at its treachery. You will think this far too serious, I dare
say; but the subject is serious, and one cannot help feeling upon
it earnestly."



CHAPTER XIII.

After her visit to Manchester, she had to return to a re-opening
of the painful circumstances of the previous winter, as the time
drew near for Mr. Nicholl's departure from Haworth. A testimonial
of respect from the parishioners was presented, at a public
meeting, to one who had faithfully served them for eight years:
and he left the place, and she saw no chance of hearing a word
about him in the future, unless it was some second-hand scrap of
intelligence, dropped out accidentally by one of the neighbouring
clergymen.

I had promised to pay her a visit on my return from London in
June; but, after the day was fixed, a letter came from Mr.
Bronte, saying that she was suffering from so severe an attack of
influenza, accompanied with such excruciating pain in the head,
that he must request me to defer my visit until she was better.
While sorry for the cause, I did not regret that my going was
delayed till the season when the moors would be all glorious with
the purple bloom of the heather; and thus present a scene about
which she had often spoken to me. So we agreed that I should not
come to her before August or September. Meanwhile, I received a
letter from which I am tempted to take an extract, as it shows
both her conception of what fictitious writing ought to be, and
her always kindly interest in what I was doing.

"July 9th, 1853.

"Thank you for your letter; it was as pleasant as a quiet chat,
as welcome as spring showers, as reviving as a friend's visit; in
short, it was very like a page of 'Cranford.' . . . A thought
strikes me. Do you, who have so many friends,--so large a circle
of acquaintance,--find it easy, when you sit down to write, to
isolate yourself from all those ties, and their sweet
associations, so as to be your OWN WOMAN, uninfluenced or swayed
by the consciousness of how your work may affect other minds;
what blame or what sympathy it may call forth? Does no luminous
cloud ever come between you and the severe Truth, as you know it
in your own secret and clear-seeing soul? In a word, are you
never tempted to make your characters more amiable than the Life,
by the inclination to assimilate your thoughts to the thoughts of
those who always FEEL kindly, but sometimes fail to SEE justly?
Don't answer the question; it is not intended to be answered. . .
. Your account of Mrs. Stowe was stimulatingly interesting. I
long to see you, to get you to say it, and many other things, all
over again. My father continues better. I am better too; but
to-day I have a headache again, which will hardly let me write
coherently. Give my dear love to M. and M., dear happy girls as
they are. You cannot now transmit my message to F. and J. I
prized the little wild-flower,--not that I think the sender cares
for me; she DOES not, and CANNOT, for she does not know me;--but
no matter. In my reminiscences she is a person of a certain
distinction. I think hers a fine little nature, frank and of
genuine promise. I often see her; as she appeared, stepping
supreme from the portico towards the carriage, that evening we
went to see 'Twelfth Night.' I believe in J.'s future; I like
what speaks in her movements, and what is written upon her face."

Towards the latter end of September I went to Haworth. At the
risk of repeating something which I have previously said, I will
copy out parts of a letter which I wrote at the time.

"It was a dull, drizzly Indian-inky day, all the way on the
railroad to Keighley, which is a rising wool-manufacturing town,
lying in a hollow between hills--not a pretty hollow, but more
what the Yorkshire people call a 'bottom,' or 'botham.' I left
Keighley in a car for Haworth, four miles off--four tough, steep,
scrambling miles, the road winding between the wavelike hills
that rose and fell on every side of the horizon, with a long
illimitable sinuous look, as if they were a part of the line of
the Great Serpent, which the Norse legend says girdles the world.
The day was lead-coloured; the road had stone factories alongside
of it,--grey, dull-coloured rows of stone cottages belonging to
these factories, and then we came to poor, hungry-looking
fields;--stone fences everywhere, and trees nowhere. Haworth is a
long, straggling village one steep narrow street--so steep that
the flag-stones with which it is paved are placed end-ways, that
the horses' feet may have something to cling to, and not slip
down backwards; which if they did, they would soon reach
Keighley. But if the horses had cats' feet and claws, they would
do all the better. Well, we (the man, horse, car; and I)
clambered up this street, and reached the church dedicated to St.
Autest (who was he?); then we turned off into a lane on the left,
past the curate's lodging at the Sexton's, past the school-house,
up to the Parsonage yard-door. I went round the house to the
front door, looking to the church;--moors everywhere beyond and
above. The crowded grave-yard surrounds the house and small grass
enclosure for drying clothes.

"I don't know that I ever saw a spot more exquisitely clean; the
most dainty place for that I ever saw. To be sure, the life is
like clock-work. No one comes to the house; nothing disturbs the
deep repose; hardly a voice is heard; you catch the ticking of
the clock in the kitchen, or the buzzing of a fly in the parlour,
all over the house. Miss Bronte sits alone in her parlour;
breakfasting with her father in his study at nine o'clock. She
helps in the housework; for one of their servants, Tabby, is
nearly ninety, and the other only a girl. Then I accompanied her
in her walks on the sweeping moors the heather-bloom had been
blighted by a thunder-storm a day or two before, and was all of a
livid brown colour, instead of the blaze of purple glory it ought
to have been. Oh those high, wild, desolate moors, up above the
whole world, and the very realms of silence I Home to dinner at
two. Mr. Bronte has his dinner sent into him. All the small table
arrangements had the same dainty simplicity about them. Then we
rested, and talked over the clear, bright fire; it is a cold
country, and the fires were a pretty warm dancing light all over
the house. The parlour had been evidently refurnished within the
last few years, since Miss Bronte's success has enabled her to
have a little more money to spend. Everything fits into, and is
in harmony with, the idea of a country parsonage, possessed by
people of very moderate means. The prevailing colour of the room
is crimson, to make a warm setting for the cold grey landscape
without. There is her likeness by Richmond, and an engraving from
Lawrence's picture of Thackeray; and two recesses, on each side
of the high, narrow, old-fashioned mantelpiece, filled with
books,--books given to her; books she has bought, and which tell
of her individual pursuits and tastes; NOT standard books.

"She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way
she weakened her eyesight was this: When she was sixteen or
seventeen, she wanted much to draw; and she copied niminipimini
copper-plate engravings out of annuals, ('stippling,' don't the
artists call it?) every little point put in, till at the end of
six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the
engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing.
After she had tried to DRAW stories, and not succeeded, she took
the better mode of writing; but in so small a hand, that it is
almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time.

"But now to return to our quiet hour of rest after dinner. I soon
observed that her habits of order were such that she could not go
on with the conversation, if a chair was out of its place;
everything was arranged with delicate regularity. We talked over
the old times of her childhood; of her elder sister's (Maria's)
death,--just like that of Helen Burns in 'Jane Eyre;' of those
strange, starved days at school; of the desire (almost amounting
to illness) of expressing herself in some way,--writing or
drawing; of her weakened eyesight, which prevented her doing
anything for two years, from the age of seventeen to nineteen; of
her being a governess; of her going to Brussels; whereupon I said
I disliked Lucy Snowe, and we discussed M. Paul Emanuel; and I
told her of ----'s admiration of 'Shirley,' which pleased her;
for the character of Shirley was meant for her sister Emily,
about whom she is never tired of talking, nor I of listening.
Emily must have been a remnant of the Titans,--
great-grand-daughter of the giants who used to inhabit earth. One
day, Miss Bronte brought down a rough, common-looking
oil-painting, done by her brother, of herself,--a little, rather
prim-looking girl of eighteen,--and the two other sisters, girls
of sixteen and fourteen, with cropped hair, and sad,
dreamy-looking eyes. . . . Emily had a great dog--half mastiff,
half bull-dog--so savage, etc. . . . This dog went to her
funeral, walking side by side with her father; and then, to the
day of its death, it slept at her room door; snuffing under it,
and whining every morning.

"We have generally had another walk before tea, which is at six;
at half-past eight, prayers; and by nine, all the household are
in bed, except ourselves. We sit up together till ten, or past;
and after I go, I hear Miss Bronte comedown and walk up and down
the room for an hour or so."

Copying this letter has brought the days of that pleasant visit
very clear before me,--very sad in their clearness. We were so
happy together; we were so full of interest in each other's
subjects. The day seemed only too short for what we had to say
and to hear. I understood her life the better for seeing the
place where it had been spent--where she had loved and suffered.
Mr. Bronte was a most courteous host; and when he was with
us,--at breakfast in his study, or at tea in Charlotte's
parlour,--he had a sort of grand and stately way of describing
past times, which tallied well with his striking appearance. He
never seemed quite to have lost the feeling that Charlotte was a
child to be guided and ruled, when she was present; and she
herself submitted to this with a quiet docility that half amused,
half astonished me. But when she had to leave the room, then all
his pride in her genius and fame came out. He eagerly listened to
everything I could tell him of the high admiration I had at any
time heard expressed for her works. He would ask for certain
speeches over and over again, as if he desired to impress them on
his memory.

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