Chapter V: Conclusion: 228 (3)

It was ten o'clock at night when I got home. I found Branwell ill.
He is so very often, owing to his own fault. I was not therefore
shocked at first. But when Anne informed me of the immediate cause
of his present illness I was very greatly shocked. He had last
Thursday received a note from Mr. ---- sternly dismissing him....
We have had sad work with him since. He thought of nothing but
stunning or drowning his distressed mind. No one in the house
could have rest, and at last we have been obliged to send him from
home for a week with someone to look after him. He has written to
me this morning, and expresses some sense of contrition for his
frantic folly. He promises amendment on his return, but so long
as he remains at home I scarce dare hope for peace in the house.
We must all, I fear, prepare for a season of distress and
disquietude. I cannot now ask Miss ---- or anyone else.

The gloom in the household deepened; but Charlotte was still strong enough and brave enough to meet the world, to retain her accustomed interest in her friends, and to discuss as of yore the characters and lives of those around her. Curious are the glimpses one gets of her circle of acquaintances at this time. Little did many of those with whom she was brought in contact think of the keen eyes which were gazing out at them from under the prominent forehead of the parson's daughter. Yet not the least interesting feature of her correspondence is the evidence it affords that she was gradually gaining that knowledge of character which was afterwards to be lavished upon her books. A string of extracts from letters hitherto unpublished will suffice to show how the current of her life and thoughts ran in those days of domestic darkness, whilst the dawn of her fame was still hidden in the blackest hour of the night:

I have just read M----'s letters. They are very interesting, and
show the original and vigorous cast of her mind. There is but one
thing I could wish otherwise in them, and that is a certain
tendency to flightiness. It is not safe, it is not wise; and will
often cause her to be misconstrued. Perhaps _flightiness_ is
not the right word; but it is a devil-may-care tone, which I do
not like when it proceeds from under a hat, and still less from
under a bonnet.

I return you Miss ----'s notes with thanks. I always like to read
them. They appear to me so true an index of an amiable mind, and
one not too conscious of its own worth. Beware of awakening in
her this consciousness by undue praise. It is a privilege of
simple-hearted, sensible, but not brilliant people that they can
_be_ and _do_ good without comparing their own thoughts and
actions too closely with those of other people, and thence drawing
strong food for self-appreciation. Talented people almost always
know full well the excellence that is in them.... You ask me if we
are more comfortable. I wish I could say anything favourable; but
how can we be more comfortable so long as Branwell stays at home
and degenerates instead of improving? It has been lately intimated
to him that he would be received again on the same railroad where
he was formerly stationed if he would behave more steadily, but he
refuses to make an effort. He will not work, and at home he is a
drain on every resource, an impediment to all happiness. But
there's no use in complaining.

I thank you again for your last letter, which I found as full or
fuller of interest than either of the preceding ones--it is just
written as I wish you to write to me--not a detail too much. A
correspondence of that sort is the next best thing to actual
conversation, though it must be allowed that between the two there
is a wide gulf still. I imagine your face, voice, presence very
plainly when I read your letters. Still imagination is not
reality, and when I return them to their envelope and put them by
in my desk I feel the difference sensibly enough. My curiosity is
a little piqued about that countess you mention. What is her name?
you have not yet given it. I cannot decide from what you say
whether she is really clever or only eccentric. The two sometimes
go together, but are often seen apart. I generally feel inclined
to fight very shy of eccentricity, and have no small horror of
being thought eccentric myself, by which observation I don't mean
to insinuate that I class myself under the head clever. God knows
a more consummate ass in sundry important points has seldom
browsed the green herb of His bounties than I. O Lord, Nell, I'm
in danger sometimes of falling into self-weariness. I used to say
and to think in former times that X---- would certainly be
married. I am not so sanguine on that point now. It will never
suit her to accept a husband she cannot love, or at least respect,
and it appears there are many chances against her meeting with
such a one under favourable circumstances; besides, from all I can
hear and see, money seems to be regarded as almost the Alpha and
Omega of requisites in a wife. Well, if she is destined to be an
old maid I don't think she will be a repining one. I think she
will find resources in her own mind and disposition which will
help her to get on. As to society, I don't understand much about
it, but from the few glimpses I have had of its machinery it seems
to me to be a very strange, complicated affair indeed, wherein
nature is turned upside down. Your well-bred people appear to me,
figuratively speaking, to walk on their heads, to see everything
the wrong way up--a lie is with them truth, truth a lie, eternal
and tedious botheration is their notion of happiness, sensible
pursuits their _ennui_. But this may be only the view ignorance
takes of what it cannot understand. I refrain from judging them,
therefore, but if I were called upon to _swop_--you know the word,
I suppose--to swop tastes and ideas and feelings with ----, for
instance, I should prefer walking into a good Yorkshire kitchen
fire and concluding the bargain at once by an act of voluntary
combustion.

I shall scribble you a short note about nothing, just to have a
pretext for screwing a letter out of you in return. I was sorry
you did not go to W----, firstly, because you lost the pleasure of
observation and enjoyment; and secondly, because I lost the
second-hand indulgence of hearing your account of what you had
seen. I laughed at the candour with which you give your reason for
wishing to be there. Thou hast an honest soul as ever animated
human carcase, and a clean one, for it is not ashamed of showing
its inmost recesses: only be careful with whom you are frank. Some
would not rightly appreciate the value of your frankness, and
never cast pearls before swine. You are quite right in wishing to
look well in the eyes of those whom you desire to please. It is
natural to desire to appear to advantage (_honest_ not _false_
advantage of course) before people we respect. Long may the power
and the inclination to do so be spared you; long may you look
young and handsome enough to dress in white; and long may you have
a right to feel the consciousness that you look agreeable. I know
you have too much judgment to let an over-dose of vanity spoil the
blessing and turn it into a misfortune. After all though, age will
come on, and it is well you have something better than a nice
face for friends to turn to when that is changed. I hope this
excessively cold weather has not harmed you or _yours_ much. It
has nipped me severely--taken away my appetite for a while, and
given me toothache; in short put me in the ailing condition in
which I have more than once had the honour of making myself such a
nuisance both at B---- and ----. The consequence is that at this
present speaking I look almost old enough to be your mother--gray,
sunk, and withered. To-day, however, it is milder, and I hope soon
to feel better; indeed, I am not _ill_ now, and my toothache is
quite subsided; but I experience a loss of strength and a
deficiency of spirit which would make me a sorry companion to you
or anyone else. I would not be on a visit now for a large sum of
money.

June, 1846.

I hope all the mournful contingencies of death are by this time
removed from ----, and that some little sense of relief is
beginning to be experienced by its wearied inmates. ---- suffered
greatly, I make no doubt; and I trust, and even believe, that his
long sufferings on earth will be taken as sufficient expiation for
his errors. One shudders for him, but it is his relations--his
mother and sisters--whom I truly and permanently pity.

July 10th, 1846.

DEAR ELLEN,--Who gravely asked you whether Miss Brontë was not
going to be married to ----? I scarcely need say that there never
was rumour more unfounded. It puzzles me to think how it could
possibly have originated. A cold, far-away sort of civility, are
the only terms on which I have ever been with Mr. ----. I could
by no means think of mentioning such a rumour to him, even as a
joke. It would make me the laughing-stock of himself and his
fellow-curates, for half a year to come. They regard me as an old
maid; and I regard them, one and all, as highly uninteresting,
narrow, and unattractive specimens of the "coarser sex."

VII.

AUTHORSHIP AND BEREAVEMENT.

The reader has seen that it was not the degradation of Branwell Brontë which formed the turning-point in Charlotte's life. Mrs. Gaskell, anxious to support her own conception of what _should have been_ Charlotte's feelings with regard to her brother's ruin, has scarcely done justice either to herself or to her heroine. Thus she makes use of a passage in one of the letters quoted in the foregoing chapter, but in doing so omits what are perhaps the most characteristic words in it. "He" (Branwell) "has written this morning expressing some sense of contrition; ... but as long as he remains at home I scarce dare hope for peace in the house." This is the form in which the passage appears in the "Biography," whereas Charlotte had written of her brother's having expressed "contrition for his frantic folly," and of his having "promised amendment on his return." Mrs. Gaskell could not bring herself to speak of such flagrant sins as those of which young Brontë had been guilty under the name of "folly," nor could she conceive that there was any possibility of amendment on the part of one who had fallen so low in vice. Moreover, one of her objects was to punish those who had shared the lad's misconduct, and to whom she openly attributed not only his ruin but the premature deaths of his sisters. Thus she felt compelled to take throughout her book a far deeper and more tragic view of this miserable episode in the Brontë story than Charlotte herself took. Having read all her letters written at this period of her life to her two most confidential friends, I am justified in saying that the impression produced on Charlotte by Branwell's degrading fall was not so deep as that which was produced on Mrs. Gaskell, who never saw young Brontë, by the mere recital of the story. Yet Charlotte, though too brave, healthy, and reasonable in all things to be utterly weighed down by the fact that her brother had fallen a victim to loathsome vice, was far from being insensible to the sadness and shamefulness of his condition. What she thought of it she has herself told the world in the story of "The Professor" (p. 198):

Limited as had yet been my experience of life, I had once had the
opportunity of contemplating near at hand an example of the
results produced by a course of interesting and romantic domestic
treachery. No golden halo of fiction was about this example; I saw
it bare and real, and it was very loathsome. I saw a mind degraded
by the practice of mean subterfuge, by the habit of perfidious
deception, and a body depraved by the infectious influence of the
vice-polluted soul. I had suffered much from the forced and
prolonged view of this spectacle; those sufferings I did not now
regret, for their simple recollection acted as a most wholesome
antidote to temptation. They had inscribed on my reason the
conviction that unlawful pleasure, trenching on another's rights,
is delusive and envenomed pleasure--its hollowness disappoints at
the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its effects
deprave for ever.

Upon the gentle and sensitive mind of Anne Brontë the effect of Branwell's fall was such as Mrs. Gaskell depicts. She was literally broken down by the grief she suffered in seeing her brother's ruin; but Charlotte and Emily were of stronger fibre than their sister, and their predominant feeling, as expressed in their letters, is one of sheer disgust at their brother's weakness, and of indignation against all who had in any way assisted in his downfall. This may not be consistent with the popular conception of Charlotte's character, but it is strictly true.

We must then dismiss from our minds the notion that the brother's fate exercised that paramount influence over the sisters' lives which seems to be believed. Yet, as we have seen, there was a very strong though hidden influence working in Charlotte during those years in which their home was darkened by Branwell's presence. Her yearning for Brussels and the life that now seemed like a vanished dream, continued almost as strong as ever. At Haworth everything was dull, commonplace, monotonous. The school-keeping scheme had failed; poverty and obscurity seemed henceforth to be the appointed lot of all the sisters. Even the source of intercourse with friends was almost entirely cut off; for Charlotte could not bear the shame of exposing the prodigal of the family to the gaze of strangers. It was at this time, and in the mood described in the letters quoted in the preceding chapter, that she took up her pen, and sought to escape from the narrow and sordid cares which environed her by a flight into the region of poetry. She had been accustomed from childhood to write verses, few of which as yet had passed the limits of mediocrity. Now, with all that heart-history through which she had passed at Brussels weighing upon her, she began to write again, moved by a stronger impulse, stirred by deeper thoughts than any she had known before. In this secret exercise of her faculties she found relief and enjoyment; her letters to her friend showed that her mind was regaining its tone, and the dreary out-look from "the hills of Judæa" at Haworth began to brighten. It was a great day in the lives of all the sisters when Charlotte accidentally discovered that Emily also had dared to "commit her soul to paper." The younger sister was keenly troubled when Charlotte made the discovery, for her poems had been written in absolute secrecy. But mutual confessions hastened her reconcilement. Charlotte produced her own poems, and then Anne also, blushing as was her wont, poured some hidden treasures of the same kind into the eldest sister's lap. So it came to pass that in 1846, unknown to their nearest friends, they presented to the world--at their own cost and risk, poor souls!--that thin volume of poetry "by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell," now almost forgotten, the merits of which few readers have recognised and few critics proclaimed.

Strong, calm, sincere, most of these poems are; not the spasmodic or frothy outpourings of Byron-stricken girls; not even mere echoes, however skilful, of the grand music of the masters. When we dip into the pages of the book, we see that these women write because they feel. They write because they have something to say; they write not for the world, but for themselves, each sister wrapping her own secret within her own soul. Strangely enough, it is not Charlotte who carries off the palm in these poems. Verse seems to have been too narrow for the limits of her genius; she could not soar as she desired to do within the self-imposed restraints of rhythm, rhyme, and metre. Here and there, it is true, we come upon lines which flash upon us with the brilliant light of genius; but, upon the whole, we need not wonder that Currer Bell achieved no reputation as a poet. Nor is Anne to be counted among great singers. Sweet, indeed her verses are, radiant with the tenderness, resignation, and gentle humility which were the prominent features of her character. One or two of her little poems are now included in popular collections of hymns used in Yorkshire churches; but, as a rule, her compositions lack the vigorous life which belongs to those of her sisters. It is Emily who takes the first place in this volume. Some of her poems have a lyrical beauty which haunts the mind ever after it has become acquainted with them; others have a passionate emphasis, a depth of meaning, an intensity and gravity which are startling when we know who the singer is, and which furnish a key to many passages in "Wuthering Heights" which the world shudders at and hastily passes by. Such lines as these ought to make the name of Emily Brontë far more familiar than it is to the students of our modern English literature:

Death! that struck when I was most confiding
In my certain faith of joy to be--
Strike again, Time's withered branch dividing
From the fresh root of Eternity!

Leaves upon Time's branch were growing brightly,
Full of sap and full of silver dew;
Birds beneath its shelter gathered nightly;
Daily round its flowers the wild bees flew.

Sorrow passed, and plucked the golden blossom;
Guilt stripped off the foliage in its pride;
But within its parent's kindly bosom
Flowed for ever Life's restoring tide.

Little mourned I for the parted gladness,
For the vacant nest and silent song--
Hope was there, and laughed me out of sadness,
Whispering, "Winter will not linger long!"

And behold! with tenfold increase blessing,
Spring adorned the beauty-burdened spray;
Wind and rain and fervent heat, caressing,
Lavished glory on that second May!

High it rose--no winged grief could sweep it;
Sin was scared to distance by its shine;
Love, and its own life, had power to keep it
From all wrong--from every blight but thine,

Cruel Death! The young leaves droop and languish;
Evening's gentle air may still restore--
No! the morning sunshine mocks my anguish--
Time, for me, must never blossom more!

Strike it down, that other boughs may flourish
Where that perished sapling used to be;
Thus at least its mouldering corpse will nourish
That from which it sprung--Eternity.

The little book was a failure. This first flight ended only in discomfiture; and Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell were once more left to face the realities of life in Haworth parsonage, uncheered by literary success. This was in the summer and autumn of 1846; about which time they were compelled to think of cares which came even nearer home than the failure of their volume of poems. Their father's eyesight was now almost gone, and all their thoughts were centred upon the operation which was to restore it. It was to Manchester that Mr. Brontë was taken by his daughters to undergo this operation. Many of the letters which were written by Charlotte at this period have already been published; but the two which I now quote are new, and they serve to show what were the narrow cares and anxieties which nipped the sisters at this eventful crisis in their lives:

September 22nd, 1846.

DEAR ELLEN,--I have nothing new to tell you, except that papa
continues to do well, though the process of recovery appears to me
very tedious. I daresay it will yet be many weeks before his sight
is completely restored; yet every time Mr. Wilson comes, he
expresses his satisfaction at the perfect success of the operation,
and assures me papa will, ere long, be able both to read and write.
He is still a prisoner in his darkened room, into which, however,
a little more light is admitted than formerly. The nurse goes
to-day--her departure will certainly be a relief, though she is, I
daresay, not the worst of her class.

September 29th, 1846.

DEAR ELLEN,--When I wrote to you last, our return was uncertain
indeed, but Mr. Wilson was called away to Scotland; his absence set
us at liberty. I hastened our departure, and now we are at home.
Papa is daily gaining strength. He cannot yet exercise his sight
much, but it improves, and I have no doubt will continue to do so.
I feel truly thankful for the good insured and the evil exempted
during our absence. What you say about ---- grieves me much, and
surprises me too. I know well the malaria of ----, it is an
abominable smell of gas. I was sick from it ten times a day while I
stayed there. That they should hesitate to leave from scruples
about furnishing new houses, provokes and amazes me. Is not the
furniture they have very decent? The inconsistency of human beings
passes belief. I wonder what their sister would say to them, if
they told her that tale? She sits on a wooden stool without a back,
in a log-house without a carpet, and neither is degraded nor thinks
herself degraded by such poor accommodation.

It was about the time when this journey to Manchester was first projected, and very shortly after they had become convinced that their poems were a failure, that the sisters embarked upon another and more important literary venture. The pen once taken up could not be laid down. By poetry they had only lost money; but the idea had occurred to them that by prose-writing money was to be made. At any rate, in telling the stories of imaginary people, in opening their hearts freely upon all those subjects on which they had thought deeply in their secluded lives, they would find relief from the solitude of Haworth. Each of the three accordingly began to write a novel. The stories were commenced simultaneously, after a long consultation, in which the outlines of the plots, and even the names of the different characters, were settled. How one must wish that some record of that strange literary council had been preserved! Charlotte, in after life, spoke always tenderly, lovingly, almost reverentially, of the days in which she and her well-beloved sisters were engaged in settling the plan and style of their respective romances. That time seemed sacred to her, and though she learnt to smile at the illusions under which the work was begun, and could see clearly enough the errors and crudities of thought and method which all three displayed, she never allowed any one in her presence to question the genius of Emily and Anne, or to ridicule the prosaic and business-like fashion in which the novel-writing was undertaken by the three sisters. Returning to the old customs of their childhood, they sat round the table of their sitting-room in the parsonage, each busy with her pen. No trace of their occupation at this time is to be found in their letters; and on the rare occasions on which the father or the brother came into their room, nothing was said as to the work that was going on. The novel-writing, like the writing and publishing of the poems, was still kept profoundly secret. "There is no gentleman of the name in this parish," said Mr. Brontë to the village postman, when the latter ventured to ask who the Mr. Currer Bell could be for whom letters came so frequently from London. But every night the three sisters, as they paced the barely-furnished room, or strained their eyes across the tombstones, to the spot where the weather-stained church-tower rose from a bank of nettles, told each other what the work of the day had been, and criticised each other's labours with the freedom of that perfect love which casts out all fear of misconception. And here I may interpolate two letters written whilst the novel-writing was in progress, which are in some respects not altogether insignificant:

DEAR NELL,--Your last letter both amused and edified me
exceedingly. I could not but laugh at your account of the fall in
B----, yet I should by no means have liked to have made a third
party in that exhibition. I have endured one fall in your company,
and undergone one of your ill-timed laughs, and don't wish to
repeat my experience. Allow me to compliment you on the skill with
which you can seem to give an explanation, without enlightening one
one whit on the question asked. I know no more about Miss R.'s
superstition now, than I did before. What is the superstition?--about
a dead body? And what is the inference drawn? Do you remember my
telling you--or did I ever tell you--about that wretched and most
criminal Mr. J. S.? After running an infamous career of vice, both
in England and France, abandoning his wife to disease and total
destitution in Manchester, with two children and without a
farthing, in a strange lodging-house? Yesterday evening Martha
came upstairs to say that a woman--"rather lady-like," as she
said--wished to speak to me in the kitchen. I went down. There
stood Mrs. S., pale and worn, but still interesting-looking, and
cleanly and neatly dressed, as was her little girl who was with
her. I kissed her heartily. I could almost have cried to see her,
for I had pitied her with my whole soul when I heard of her
undeserved sufferings, agonies, and physical degradation. She took
tea with us, stayed about two hours, and frankly entered into the
narrative of her appalling distresses. Her constitution has
triumphed over her illness; and her excellent sense, her activity,
and perseverance have enabled her to regain a decent position in
society, and to procure a respectable maintenance for herself and
her children. She keeps a lodging-house in a very eligible part of
the suburbs of ---- (which I know), and is doing very well. She
does not know where Mr. S. is, and of course can never more endure
to see him. She is now staying a few days at E----, with the ----s,
who I believe have been all along very kind to her, and the
circumstance is greatly to their credit.

I wish to know whether about Whitsuntide would suit you for coming
to Haworth. We often have fine weather just then. At least I
remember last year it was very beautiful at that season. Winter
seems to have returned with severity on us at present, consequently
we are all in the full enjoyment of a cold. Much blowing of noses
is heard, and much making of gruel goes on in the house. How are
you all?

May 12th, 1847.

DEAR ELLEN,--We shall all be glad to see you on the Thursday or
Friday of next week, whichever day will suit you best. About what
time will you be likely to get here, and how will you come--by
coach to Keighley, or by a gig all the way to Haworth? There must
be no impediments now. I could not do with them; I want very much
to see you. I hope you will be decently comfortable while you stay.
Branwell is quieter now, and for a good reason. He has got to the
end of a considerable sum of money, of which he became possessed in
the spring, and consequently is obliged to restrict himself in some
degree. You must expect to find him weaker in mind, and the
complete rake in appearance. I have no apprehension of his being at
all uncivil to you, on the contrary he will be as smooth as oil.

I pray for fine weather, that we may be able to get out while you
stay. Good-bye for the present. Prepare for much dulness and
monotony. Give my love to all at B----.

Is it needful to tell how the three stories--"The Professor," "Wuthering Heights," and "Agnes Grey"--are sent forth at last from the little station at Keighley, to fare as best they may in that unknown London which is still an ideal city to the sisters, peopled not with ordinary human beings, but with creatures of some strangely-different order? Can any one be ignorant of the weary months which passed whilst "The Professor" was going from hand to hand, and the stories written by Emily and Anne were waiting in a publisher's desk until they could be given to the world on the publisher's own terms? Charlotte had failed, but the brave heart was not to be baffled. No sooner had the last page of "The Professor" been finished than the first page of "Jane Eyre" was begun. The whole of that wondrous story passed through the author's busy brain whilst the life around her was clad in these sombre hues, and disappointment, affliction, and gloomy forebodings were her daily companions. The decisive rejection of her first tale by Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. had been accompanied by some kindly words of advice; so it is to that firm that she now entrusts the completed manuscript of "Jane Eyre." The result has already been told. On August 24, 1847, the story is sent from Leeds to London; and before the year is out, all England is ringing with the praises of the novel and its author.

Need I defend the sisters from the charge sometimes brought against them that they were unfaithful to their friends in not taking them into their confidence? Surely not. They had pledged themselves to each other that the secret should be sternly guarded as something sacred, kept even from those of their own household. They were not working for fame; for again and again they give proof that personal fame is the last thing to which they aspire. But they had found their true vocation; the call to work was irresistible; they had obeyed it, and all that they sought now was to leave their work to speak for itself, dissevered absolutely from the humble personality of the authors.

In a letter from Anne Brontë, written in January, 1848, at which time the literary quidnuncs both of England and America were eagerly discussing contradictory theories as to the authorship of "Jane Eyre," and of the two other stories which had appeared from the pens of Ellis and Acton Bell, I find the following passage: "I have no news to tell you, for we have been nowhere, seen no one, and done nothing (to _speak_ of) since you were here, and yet we contrive to be busy from morning till night." The gentle and scrupulously conscientious girl, whilst hiding the secret from her friend, cannot violate the truth even by a hairbreadth. The italics are her own. Nothing _that can be spoken of_ has been done. The friend had her own suspicions. Staying in a southern house for the winter, the new novel about which everybody was talking was produced, fresh from town. One of the guests was deputed to read it aloud, and before she had proceeded far Charlotte Brontë's schoolfellow had pierced the secret of the authorship. Three months before, Charlotte had been spending a few days at Miss N----'s house, and had openly corrected the proof-sheets of the story in the presence of her hostess; but she had given the latter no encouragement to speak to her on the subject, and nothing had been said. Now, however, in the surprise of the moment, Miss N---- told the company that this must have been written by Miss Brontë; and astute friends at once advised her not to mention the fact that she knew the author of "Jane Eyre" to any one, as her acquaintance with such a person would be regarded as a reflection on her own character! When Charlotte was challenged by her friend, she uttered stormy denials in general terms, which carried a complete confirmation of the truth; and when, in the spring of 1848, Miss N---- visited Haworth, full confession was made, and the poems brought forth and shown to her, in addition to the stories.

Those who read Charlotte Brontë's letters will see that even before this avowal of her flight in authorship there is a distinct change in their tone. Not that she is less affectionate towards her early friend, or that she shows the smallest abatement of her interest in the fortunes of her old companions. On the contrary, it would almost seem as though the great event, which had altered the current of her life, had only served to bind her more closely than before to those whom she had known and loved in her obscurity. But there is a perceptible growth of power and independence in her mode of handling the topics, often trivial enough in themselves, which arise in any prolonged correspondence, which shows how much her mind had grown, how greatly her views had been enlarged, by the intellectual labours through which she had passed. The following was the last letter written by her to her schoolfellow whilst the authorship of "Jane Eyre" was still a secret, and it will, I think, bear out what I have said:

April 25th, 1848.

I was not at all surprised at the contents of your note. Indeed,
what part of it was new to us? V---- has his good and bad side,
like most others. There is his own original nature, and there are
the alterations the world has made in him. Meantime, why do B----
and G---- trouble themselves with matching him? Let him, in God's
name, court half the country-side and marry the other half, if
such procedure seem good in his eyes, and let him do it all in
quietness. He has his own botherations, no doubt; it does not seem
to be such very easy work getting married, even for a man, since
it is necessary to make up to so many ladies. More tranquil are
those who have settled their bargain with celibacy. I like Q----'s
letters more and more. Her goodness is indeed better than mere
talent. I fancy she will never be married, but the amiability of
her character will give her comfort. To be sure, one has only her
letters to judge from, and letters often deceive; but hers seem so
artless and unaffected. Still, were I in your place I should feel
uneasy in the midst of this correspondence. Does a doubt of mutual
satisfaction in case you should one day meet never torment you?...
Anne says it pleases her to think that you have kept her little
drawing. She would rather have done it for you than for a
stranger.

Very quietly and sedately did "Currer Bell" take her sudden change of fortune. She corresponded freely with her publishers, and with the critics who had written to her concerning her book; she told her father the secret of her authorship, and exhibited to him the draft which was the substantial recompense of her labours; but in her letters to her friend no difference of tone is to be detected. Success was very sweet to her, as we know; but she bore her honours meekly, betraying nothing of the gratified ambition which must have filled her soul. She had not even revealed her identity to the publisher till, by an accident, she became aware of the rumour that the writer had satirised Mr. Thackeray under the character of Rochester, and had even obtruded on the sorrows of his private life. Shocked at this supposition, she went to London by the night train, accompanied by Anne, and having breakfasted at the station, walked to the establishment in Cornhill, where she had much difficulty in penetrating to the head of the house, having stated that he would not know her by her name. At last he came into the shop, saying, with some annoyance: "Young woman, what can you want with me?" "Sir, we have come up from Yorkshire. I wish to speak to you privately. I wrote 'Jane Eyre.'" "_You_ wrote 'Jane Eyre!'" cried the delighted publisher; and taking them into his office, insisted on their coming to the house of his mother, who would take every care of them. Charlotte related afterwards the strange contrast between the desolate waiting at the station in the early morning, and their loneliness in the crowd of the great city, and finding themselves in the evening seated among the brilliant company at the Opera House, listening to the performance of Jenny Lind.

But her thoughts were soon turned from her literary triumphs. Branwell, who had been so long the dark shadow in their "humble home," was taken from them without any lengthened preliminary warning. Sharing to the full the eccentricity of the family, he resolved to die as nobody else had ever died before; and when the last agony came on he rose to his feet, as though proudly defying death itself to do its worst, and expired standing. In the following letter, hitherto unpublished, to one of her friends--not to her old schoolfellow--Charlotte thus speaks of the last act in the tragedy of her brother's life:

Haworth, October 14th, 1848.

The event to which you allude came upon us indeed with startling
suddenness, and was a severe shock to us all. My poor brother has
long had a shaken constitution, and during the summer his appetite
had been diminished and he had seemed weaker; but neither we, nor
himself, nor any medical man who was consulted on his case,
thought it one of immediate danger: he was out of doors two days
before his death, and was only confined to bed one single day. I
thank you for your kind sympathy. Many, under the circumstances,
would think our loss rather a relief than otherwise; in truth, we
must acknowledge, in all humility and gratitude, that God has
greatly tempered judgment with mercy; but yet, as you doubtless
know from experience, the last earthly separation cannot take
place between near relations without the keenest pangs on the part
of the survivors. Every wrong and sin is forgotten then; pity and
grief share the heart and the memory between them. Yet we are not
without comfort in our affliction. A most propitious change marked
the few last days of poor Branwell's life; his demeanour, his
language, his sentiments, were all singularly altered and
softened, and this change could not be owing to the fear of death,
for within half an hour of his decease he seemed unconscious of
danger. In God's hands we leave him! He sees not as man sees.
Papa, I am thankful to say, has borne the event pretty well. His
distress was great at first. To lose an only son is no ordinary
trial. But his physical strength has not hitherto failed him, and
he has now in a great measure recovered his mental composure; my
dear sisters are pretty well also. Unfortunately illness attacked
me at the crisis, when strength was most needed; I bore up for a
day or two, hoping to be better, but got worse; fever, sickness,
total loss of appetite and internal pain were the symptoms. The
doctor pronounced it to be bilious fever--but I think it must have
been in a mitigated form; it yielded to medicine and care in a few
days; I was only confined to my bed a week, and am, I trust,
nearly well now. I felt it a grievous thing to be incapacitated
from action and effort at a time when action and effort were most
called for. The past month seems an overclouded period in my life.

Alas! the brave woman who felt it to be "a grievous thing" that she could not bear her full share of the family burden, little knew how terribly that burden was to be increased, how much heavier and blacker were the clouds which awaited her than any through which she had yet passed. The storm which even then was gathering upon her path was one which no sunshine of fame or prosperity could dissipate. The one to whom Charlotte's heart had always clung most fondly, the sister who had been nearest to her in age and nearest to her in affection, Emily, the brilliant but ill-fated child of genius, began to fade. "She had never," says Charlotte, speaking in the solitude of her fame, "lingered over any task in her life, and she did not linger now." Yet the quick decline of Emily Brontë is one of the saddest of all the sad features of the story. I have spoken of her reserve. So intense was it that when dying she refused to admit even to her own sisters that she was ill. They saw her fading before their eyes; they knew that the grave was yawning at her feet; and yet they dared not offer her any attention such as an invalid needed, and such as they were longing to bestow upon her. It was the cruellest torture of Charlotte's life. During the brief period of Emily's illness, her sister writes as follows to her friend:

I mentioned your coming to Emily as a mere suggestion, with the
faint hope that the prospect might cheer her, as she really
esteems you perhaps more than any other person out of this house.
I found, however, it would not do; any, the slightest excitement
or putting out of the way, is not to be thought of, and indeed I
do not think the journey in this unsettled weather, with the walk
from Keighley and back, at all advisable for yourself. Yet I
should have liked to see you, and so would Anne. Emily continues
much the same: yesterday I thought her a little better, but to-day
she is not so well. I hope still, for I _must_ hope; she is as dear
to me as life. If I let the faintness of despair reach my heart I
shall become worthless. The attack was, I believe, in the first
place, inflammation of the lungs; it ought to have been met
promptly in time; but she would take no care, use no means, she
is too intractable. I _our_ wish I knew her state and feelings
more clearly. The fever is not so high as it was, but the pain in
the side, the cough, the emaciation are there still.

The days went by in the parsonage, slowly, solemnly, each bringing some fresh burden of sorrow to the broken hearts of Charlotte and Anne. Emily's resolute spirit was unbending to the last. Day after day she refused to own that she was ill, refused to take rest or medicine or stimulants; compelled her trembling hands to labour as of old. And so came the bitter morning in December, the story of which has been told by Mrs. Gaskell with simple pathos, when she "arose and dressed herself as usual, making many a pause, but doing everything for herself," even going on with her sewing as at any time during the years past; until suddenly she laid the unfinished work aside, whispered faintly to her sister: "If you send for a doctor I will see him now," and in two hours passed quietly away.

The broken father, supported on either side by his surviving daughters, followed Emily to her grave in the old church. There was one other mourner--the fierce old dog whom she had loved better almost than any human being.

Yes--says Charlotte, writing to her friend--there is no Emily in
time or on earth now. Yesterday we put her poor wasted mortal
frame quietly under the church pavement. We are very calm at
present. Why should we be otherwise? The anguish of seeing her
suffer is over. We feel she is at peace. No need now to tremble
for the hard frost and the keen wind. Emily does not feel them.
She died in a time of promise. We saw her taken from life in its
prime. But it is God's will, and the place where she is gone is
better than that she has left.

It was in the very month of December, 1848, when Charlotte passed through this fierce ordeal, and wrote these tender words of love and resignation, that the _Quarterly Review_ denounced her as an improper woman, who "for some sufficient reason" had forfeited the society of her sex!

Terrible was the storm of death which in three short months swept off two of the little household at Haworth; but it had not even yet exhausted all its fury. Scarcely had Emily been laid in the grave than Anne, the youngest and gentlest of the three sisters, began to fade. Very slowly did she droop. The winter passed away, and the spring came with a glimmer of hope; but the following unpublished letter, written on the 16th of May, shows with what fears Charlotte set forth on that visit to Scarborough which her sister insisted upon undertaking as a last resource:

Next Wednesday is the day fixed for our departure; Ellen
accompanies us at her own kind and friendly wish. I would not
refuse her society, but dared not urge her to go, for I have
little hope that the excursion will be one of pleasure or benefit
to those engaged in it. Anne is extremely weak. She herself has a
fixed impression that the sea-air will give her a chance of
regaining strength. That chance therefore she must have. Having
resolved to try the experiment, misgivings are useless, and yet
when I look at her misgivings will rise. She is more emaciated
than Emily was at the very last, her breath scarcely serves her to
mount the stairs, however slowly. She sleeps very little at night,
and often passes most of the forenoon in a semi-lethargic state.
Still she is up all day, and even goes out a little when it is
fine. Fresh air usually acts as a temporary stimulus, but its
reviving power diminishes.

I am indebted to the faithful friend and companion to whom allusion is made above, for the following account of the sad journey to Scarborough, and of its tragic end:

On our way to Scarborough we stopped at York, and after a rest at
the George Hotel, and partaking of dinner, which she enjoyed, Anne
went out in a bath-chair, and made purchases, along with
Charlotte, of bonnets and dresses, besides visiting the minister.
The morning after her arrival at Scarborough, she insisted on
going to the baths, and would be left there with only the
attendant in charge. She walked back alone to her lodgings, but
fell exhausted as she reached the garden-gate. She never named
this, but it was discovered afterwards. The same day she had a
drive in a donkey carriage, and talked with the boy-driver on
kindness to animals. On Sunday she wanted again to be left alone,
and for us to go to church. Finding we would not leave her, she
begged that she might go out, and we walked down towards the
saloon, she resting half way, and sending us on with the excuse
that she wanted us to see the place, this being _our_ first
visit, though not hers. In the evening, after again asking us to
go to church, she sat by the sitting-room window, enjoying a very
glorious sunset. Next morning (the day she died) she rose by seven
o'clock and dressed herself, refusing all assistance. She was the
first of the little party to be ready to go downstairs; but when
she reached the head of the stairs, she felt fearful of
descending. Charlotte went to her and discovered this. I fancying
there was some difficulty, left my room to see what it was, when
Anne smilingly told me she felt afraid of the steps downward. I
immediately said: "Let me try to carry you;" she looked pleased,
but feared for me. Charlotte was angry at the idea, and greatly
distressed, I could see, at this new evidence of Anne's weakness.
Charlotte was at last persuaded to go to her room and leave us. I
then went a step or two below Anne, and begged her to put her arms
round my neck, and I said: "I will carry you like a baby." She
still feared, but on my promising to put her down if I could not
do it, she consented to trust herself to me. Strength seemed to be
given for the effort, but on reaching the foot of the stairs, poor
Anne's head fell like a leaden weight upon the top of mine. The
shock was terrible, for I felt it could only be death that was
coming. I just managed to bear her to the front of her easy-chair
and drop her into it, falling myself on my knees before her, very
miserable at the fact, and letting her fall at last, though it
was into her chair. She was shaken, but she put out her arms to
comfort me, and said: "You know it could not be helped, you did
your best." After this she sat at the breakfast-table and partook
of a basin of boiled milk prepared for her. As 11 A.M. approached,
she wondered if she could be conveyed home in time to die there. At
2 P.M. death had come, and left only her beautiful form in the
sweetest peace.

She rendered up her soul with that sweetness and resignation of
spirit which had adorned her throughout her brief life, even in
the last hour crying: "Take courage, Charlotte, take courage!" as
she bade farewell to the sister who was left.

Before me lie the few letters which remain of Emily and Anne.
There is little in them worth preserving. Both make reference to
the fact that Charlotte is the great correspondent of the family,
and that their brief and uninteresting epistles can have no charm
for one who is constantly receiving letters from her. Yet that
modest reserve which distinguished the greatest of the three is
plainly visible in what little remains of the correspondence of
the others. They had discovered before their death the real power
that lay within them; they had just experienced the joy which
comes from the exercise of this power; they had looked forward to
a future which should be sunny and prosperous, as no other part of
their lives of toil and patient endurance had been. Suddenly death
had confronted them, and they recognised the fact that they must
leave their work undone. Each faced the dread enemy in her own
way, but neither shrank even from that blow. Emily's proud spirit
refused to be conquered, and, as we have seen, up to the last
agony she carried herself as one sternly indifferent to the
weaknesses of the flesh, including that final weakness which must
conquer all of us in the end. Anne found consolation, pure and
deep, in her religious faith, and she died cheerfully in the firm
belief that she was but entering upon that fuller life which lay
beyond the grave. The one was defiant, the other resigned; but
courage and fortitude were shown by each in accordance with her
own special idiosyncrasy.

VIII.

"SHIRLEY."