Chapter VI: Conclusion: 228 (4)

Charlotte went back from Scarborough to Haworth alone. Her father met her with unwonted demonstrations of affection, and she "tried to be glad" that she was once more under the familiar roof. "But this time joy was not to be the sensation." Yet the courage which had held her sisters to the end supported her amid the pangs of loneliness and bereavement. Even now there was no bitterness, no morbid gloom in the heart which had suffered so keenly. Quietly but resolutely setting aside her own sorrow, refusing all the invitations of her friend to seek temporary relief in change of scene, she sat down to complete the story which was intended to tell the world what the lost Emily had seemed to be in the eyes of her fond sister. By herself, in the room in which a short year ago three happy sisters had worked together, within the walls which could never again echo with the old voices, or walking on the moors, which would never more be trodden by the firm, elastic step of Emily, she composed the brilliant story of "Shirley"--the brightest and healthiest of her works. As she writes she sometimes sends forth messages to those who love her, which tell us of the spirit of the hero or the martyr burning within the frail frame of the solitary woman. "Submission, courage, exertion when practicable--these seem to be the weapons with which we must fight life's long battle;" and that these are no mere words she proves with all her accustomed honesty and sincerity, by acting up to them to the very letter. But at times the burden presses upon her till it is almost past endurance. Strangely enough, it is a comparative trifle, as the world counts it, the illness of a servant, that occasions her fiercest outburst of open grief:

You have to fight your way through labour and difficulty at home,
it appears, but I am truly glad now you did not come to Haworth.
As matters have turned out you would have found only discomfort
and gloom. Both Tabby and Martha are at this moment ill in bed.
Martha's illness has been most serious. She was seized with
internal inflammation ten days ago; Tabby's lame leg has broken
out, she cannot stand or walk. I have one of Martha's sisters to
help me, and her mother comes up sometimes. There was one day last
week when I fairly broke down for ten minutes, and sat down and
cried like a fool. Martha's illness was at its height; a cry from
Tabby had called me into the kitchen, and I had found her laid on
the floor, her head under the kitchen-grate. She had fallen from
her chair in attempting to rise. Papa had just been declaring that
Martha was in imminent danger; I was myself depressed with
headache and sickness that day; I hardly knew what to do or where
to turn. Thank God, Martha is now convalescent; Tabby, I trust,
will be better soon. Papa is pretty well. I have the satisfaction
of knowing that my publishers are delighted with what I sent
them--this supports me, but life is a battle. May we _all_ be
enabled to fight it well.

This letter is dated September 24, 1849, at which time "Shirley" is written, and in the hands of her publishers. She has painted the character of Emily in that of Shirley herself; and her friend Ellen is shadowed forth to the world in the person of Caroline Helston. When the book, with its vivid pictures of Yorkshire life at the beginning of the century, and its masterly sketches of characters as real as those which Shakespeare brings upon the stage, is published, there is but one outcry of praise, even from the critics who were so eager to condemn "Jane Eyre." Up to this point she had preserved her anonymity, but now she is discovered, and her admirers in London persuade her at last to visit them, and make acquaintance with her peers in the Republic of Letters, the men and women whose names were household words in Haworth Parsonage long before "Currer Bell" had made her first modest appeal to the world.

A passage from one of the following letters, written during this first sojourn in London, has already been published; but it will well bear reprinting:

December, 1849.

I have just remembered that as you do not know my address you
cannot write to me till you get it. I came to this big Babylon
last Thursday, and have been in what seems to me a sort of whirl
ever since; for changes, scenes, and stimulus, which would be a
trifle to others, are much to me. I found when I mentioned to Mr.
---- my plan of going to Dr. ----'s it would not do at all. He
would have been seriously hurt: he made his mother write to me,
and thus I was persuaded to make my principal stay at his house.
So far I have found no reason to regret this decision. Mrs. ----
received me at first like one who has had the strictest orders to
be scrupulously attentive. I had fire in my bedroom evening and
morning, two wax candles, &c., and Mrs. ---- and her daughters
seemed to look on me with a mixture of respect and alarm. But all
this is changed; that is to say, the attention and politeness
continue as great as ever, but the alarm and estrangement are
quite gone; she treats me as if she liked me, and I begin to like
her much. Kindness is a potent heart-winner. I had not judged too
favourably of ---- on a first impression--he pleases me much: I
like him better as a son and brother than as a man of business.
Mr. W---- too is really most gentlemanly and well-informed; his
weak points he certainly has, but these are not seen in society.
Mr. X---- (the little man) has again shown his parts. Of him I
have not yet come to a clear decision. Abilities he has, for he
rules his firm and keeps forty young men under strict control by
his iron will. His young superior likes him, which, to speak the
truth, is more than I do at present. In fact, I suspect that he is
of the Helston order of men--rigid, despotic, and self-willed. He
tries to be very kind, and even to express sympathy sometimes, and
he does not manage it. He has a determined, dreadful nose in the
middle of his face, which, when poked into my countenance, cuts
into my soul like iron. Still he is horribly intelligent, quick,
searching, sagacious, and with a memory of relentless tenacity: to
turn to--after him is to turn from granite to easy down or warm
fur. I have seen Thackeray.

As to being happy, I am under scenes and circumstances of
excitement, but I suffer acute pain sometimes--mental pain, I
mean. At the moment Mr. Thackeray presented himself I was
thoroughly faint from inanition, having eaten nothing since a very
slight breakfast, and it was then seven o'clock in the evening.
Excitement and exhaustion together made savage work of me that
evening. What he thought of me I cannot tell. This evening I am
going to meet Miss Martineau; she has written to me most kindly;
she knows me only as Currer Bell; I am going alone; how I shall
get on I do not know. If Mrs. ---- were not kind, I should
sometimes be miserable; but she treats me almost affectionately,
her attentions never flag. I have seen many things; I hope some
day to tell you what. Yesterday I went over the new Houses of
Parliament with Mr. ----. An attack of rheumatic fever has kept
poor Mr. X---- out of the way since I wrote last. I am sorry for
_his_ sake. It grows quite dark. I must stop. I shall not stay in
London a day longer than I first intended. On those points I form
my resolutions, and will not be shaken. The thundering _Times_ has
attacked me savagely.

The following letters (with one exception not previously published) belong to the spring of 1850, when Charlotte was at home again, engaged in attending to her father and to the household cares which shared her attention with literary work and anxieties. The first, which refers exclusively to her visit to London, was addressed to one of her old friends in Yorkshire:

Ellen it seems told you that I spent a fortnight in London last
December. They wished me very much to stay a month, alleging that
I should in that time be able to secure a complete circle of
acquaintance, but I found a fortnight of such excitement quite
enough. The whole day was usually devoted to sight-seeing, and
often the evening was spent in society; it was more than I could
bear for any length of time. On one occasion I met a party of my
critics--seven of them. Some of them had been my bitter foes in
print, but they were prodigiously civil face to face. These
gentlemen seemed infinitely grander, more pompous, dashing, showy,
than the few authors I saw. Mr. Thackeray, for example, is a man
of very quiet, simple demeanour; he is, however, looked upon with
some awe and even distrust. His conversation is very peculiar, too
perverse to be pleasant. It was proposed to me to see Charles
Dickens, Lady Morgan, Mesdames Trollope, Gore, and some others;
but I was aware these introductions would bring a degree of
notoriety I was not disposed to encounter; I declined therefore
with thanks. Nothing charmed me more during my stay in town than
the pictures I saw; one or two private collections of Turner's
best water-colours were indeed a treat. His later oil paintings
are strange things--things that baffle description. I have twice
seen Macready act; once in "Macbeth," and once in "Othello." I
astounded a dinner-party by honestly saying I did not like him. It
is the fashion to rave about his splendid acting; anything more
false and artificial, less genuinely impressive than his whole
style, I could scarcely have imagined. The fact is, the stage
system altogether is hollow nonsense. They act farces well enough;
the actors comprehend their parts and do them justice. They
comprehend nothing about tragedy or Shakespeare, and it is a
failure. I said so, and by so saying produced a blank silence, a
mute consternation. I was indeed obliged to dissent on many
occasions, and to offend by dissenting. It seems now very much the
custom to admire a certain wordy, intricate, obscure style of
poetry, such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes. Some pieces
were referred to, about which Currer Bell was expected to be very
rapturous, and failing in this he disappointed. London people
strike a provincial as being very much taken up with little
matters, about which no one out of particular town circles cares
much. They talk too of persons, literary men and women, whose
names are scarcely heard in the country, and in whom you cannot
get up an interest. I think I should scarcely like to live in
London, and were I obliged to live there I should certainly go
little into company--especially I should eschew the literary
critics.

I have, since you went, had a remarkable epistle from Thackeray,
long, interesting, characteristic; but it unfortunately concludes
with the strict injunction, _Show this letter to no one_; adding
that if he thought his letters were seen by others, he would either
cease to write, or write only what was conventional. But for this
circumstance I should have sent it with the others. I answered it
at length. Whether my reply will give satisfaction or displeasure
remains yet to be ascertained. Thackeray's feelings are not such as
can be gauged by ordinary calculation: variable weather is what I
should ever expect from that quarter. Yet in correspondence, as in
verbal intercourse, this would torment me.

I believe I should have written to you before, but I don't know
what heaviness of spirit has beset me of late, made my faculties
dull, made rest weariness, and occupation burdensome. Now and then
the silence of the house, the solitude of the room has pressed on
me with a weight I found it difficult to bear, and recollection
has not failed to be as alert, poignant, obtrusive, as other
feelings were languid. I attribute this state of things partly to
the weather. Quicksilver invariably falls low in storms and high
winds, and I have ere this been warned of approaching disturbance
in the atmosphere by a sense of bodily weakness, and deep, heavy
mental sadness, which some would call _presentiment_. Presentiment
indeed it is, but not at all supernatural. The Haworth people have
been making great fools of themselves about "Shirley;" they take it
in the enthusiastic light. When they got the volumes at the
Mechanics' Institution, all the members wanted them; they cast lots
for the whole three, and whoever got a volume was only allowed to
keep it two days, and to be fined a shilling _per diem_ for longer
detention. It would be mere nonsense and vanity to tell you what
they say. I have had no letters from London for a long time, and am
very much ashamed of myself to find, now that that stimulus is
withdrawn, how dependent upon it I had become. I cannot help
feeling something of the excitement of expectation till post-hour
comes, and when day after day it brings nothing I get low. This is
a stupid, disgraceful, unmeaning state of things. I feel bitterly
enraged at my own dependence and folly. It is so bad for the mind
to be quite alone, to have none with whom to talk over little
crosses and disappointments, and laugh them away. If I could write
I daresay I should be better, but I cannot write a line. However
(D. V.), I shall contend against the idiocy. I had rather a foolish
letter from Miss ---- the other day. Some things in it nettled me,
especially an unnecessarily earnest assurance that in spite of all
I had gone and done in the writing line I still retained a place in
her esteem. My answer took strong and high ground at once. I said I
had been troubled by no doubts on the subject, that I neither did
myself nor her the injustice to suppose there was anything in what
I had written to incur the just forfeiture of esteem. I was aware,
I intimated, that some persons thought proper to take exceptions at
"Jane Eyre," and that for their own sakes I was sorry, as I
invariably found them individuals in whom the animal largely
predominated over the intellectual, persons by nature coarse, by
inclination sensual, whatever they might be by education and
principle.

I enclose a slip of newspaper for your amusement. Me it both
amused and touched, for it alludes to some who are in this world
no longer. It is an extract from an American paper, and is written
by an emigrant from Haworth. You will find it a curious mixture of
truth and inaccuracy. Return it when you write again. I also send
you for perusal an opinion of "Jane Eyre," written by a _working
man_ in this village; rather, I should say, a record of the
feelings the book excited in the poor fellow's mind; it was not
written for my inspection, nor does the writer now know that his
little document has by intricate ways come into my possession, and
I have forced those who gave it to promise that they will never
inform him of this circumstance. He is a modest, thoughtful,
feeling, reading being, to whom I have spoken perhaps about three
times in the course of my life; his delicate health renders him
incapable of hard or close labour; he and his family are often
under the pressure of want. He feared that if Miss Brontë saw what
he had written she would laugh it to scorn. But Miss Brontë
considers it one of the highest, because one of the most truthful
and artless tributes her work has yet received. You must return
this likewise. I do you great honour in showing it to you.

Once more we can see that the healthy, happy interest she takes in the welfare of others is beginning to assert itself. For a time, under the keen smart of the wounds death had inflicted on her, she had found little heart to discuss the affairs of her circle of friends in her correspondence; but now the outer world vindicates its claim to her renewed attention, and she again begins to discuss and analyse the characters of her acquaintances with a skill and minuteness which make them as interesting even to strangers as any of the most closely-studied characters of fiction can be.

I return Q----'s letter. The business is a most unpleasant one to
be concerned in. It seems to me _now_ altogether unworthy in its
beginning, progress, and ending. Q---- is the only pure thing about
it; she stands between her coarse father and cold, unloving suitor,
like innocence between a pair of world-hardened knaves. The
comparison seems rather hard to be applied to V----, but as I see
him now he merits it. If V---- has no means of keeping a wife, if
he does not possess a sixpence he is sure of, how can he think of
marrying a woman from whom he cannot expect she should work to keep
herself? V----'s want of candour, the twice-falsified account he
gave of the matter, tells painfully and deeply against him. It
shows a glimpse of his hidden motives such as I refrain from
describing in words. After all he is perhaps only like the majority
of men. Certainly those men who lead a gay life in their youth, and
arrive at middle life with feelings blunted and passions exhausted,
can have but one aim in marriage--the selfish advancement of their
interest. And to think that such men take as wives--as second
selves--women young, modest, sincere, pure in heart and life, with
feelings all fresh and emotions all unworn, and bind such virtue
and vitality to their own withered existence, such sincerity to
their own hollowness, such disinterestedness to their own haggard
avarice! to think this, troubles the soul to its inmost depths.
Nature and justice forbid the banns of such wedlock. This note is
written under excitement. Q----'s letter seems to have lifted so
fraudulent a veil, and to show both father and suitor lurking
behind in shadow so dark, acting from motives so poor and low, so
conscious of each other's littleness, and consequently so destitute
of mutual respect! These things incense me, but I shall cool down.

I cannot find your last letter to refer to, and therefore this
will be no answer to it. You must write again by return of post if
possible, and let me know how you are progressing. What you said
in your last confirmed my opinion that your late attack had been
coming on for a long time. Your wish for a cold-water bath, &c,
is, I should think, the result of fever. Almost everyone has
complained lately of some tendency to slow fever. I have felt it
in frequent thirst and in frequent appetite. Papa too, and even
Martha, have complained. I fear this damp weather will scarcely
suit you; but write and say all. Of late I have had many letters
to answer; and some very bothering ones from people who want
opinions about their books, who seek acquaintance, and who flatter
to get it; people who utterly mistake all about me. They are most
difficult to answer, put off, and appease, without offending; for
such characters are excessively touchy, and when affronted turn
malignant. Their books are too often deplorable.

In June, 1850, she is induced to pay another visit to London, going upon this occasion whilst the season is at its height, though she has stipulated before going that she is "not to be lionised."

I came to London last Thursday. I am staying at ----. Here I feel
very comfortable. Mrs. ---- treats me with a serene, equable
kindness which just suits me. Her son is as before--genial and
friendly. I have seen very few persons, and am not likely to see
many, as the agreement was that I was to be very quiet. We have
been to the exhibition of the Royal Academy, to the opera, and the
Zoological Gardens. The weather is splendid. I shall not stay
longer than a fortnight in London; the feverishness and exhaustion
beset me somewhat, but I think not quite so badly as before--as
indeed I have not yet been so much tired.

I am leaving London if all be well on Tuesday, and shall be very
glad to come to you for a few days if that arrangement still
remains convenient to you. My London visit has much surpassed my
expectations this time. I have suffered less, and enjoyed more
than before; rather a trying termination yet remains to me. Mrs.
----'s youngest son is at school in Scotland, and her eldest is
going to fetch him home for the vacation. The other evening he
announced his intention of taking one of his sisters with him, and
the evening after he further proposed that Miss Brontë should go
down to Edinburgh and join them there, and see that city and its
suburbs. I concluded he was joking, laughed and declined. However,
it seems he was in earnest, and being always accustomed to have
his will, he brooks opposition ill. The thing appearing to me
perfectly out of the question, I still refused. Mrs. ---- did not
at all favour it, but her worthy son only waxed more determined.
This morning she came and entreated me to go; G---- wished it so
much, he had begged her to use her influence, &c. &c. Now, I
believe that he and I understand each other very well, and respect
each other very sincerely. We both know the wide breach time has
made between us. We do not embarrass each other, or very rarely.
My six or eight years of seniority, to say nothing of lack of all
pretensions to beauty, &c, are a perfect safeguard. I should not
in the least fear to go with him to China. I like to see him
pleased. I greatly _dis_like to ruffle and disappoint him; so
he shall have his mind, and if all be well I mean to join him in
Edinburgh, after I have spent a few days with you. With his
buoyant animal spirits and youthful vigour he will make severe
demands on my muscles and nerves; but I daresay I shall get
through somehow.

IX.

LONELINESS AND FAME.

Charlotte Brontë's letters during 1850 and 1851 are among the most valuable illustrations of the true character of the woman which we possess. Stricken as she had been by successive bereavements, which had robbed her of her dearest friends and companions, and left her the sole prop of the dull house on the moors and of its aged head, she had yet recovered much of her peace of mind and even of her vitality and cheerfulness. She had now, also, begun to see something of life as it is presented, not to despised governesses, but to successful authoresses. Her visits to London had brought her into contact with some of the leaders of the literary world. Who can have forgotten her interview with Thackeray, when she was "moved to speak to the giant of some of his shortcomings?" Haworth itself had become a point of attraction to curious persons, and not a few visitors found their way under one pretence or another to the old parsonage, to be received with effusive courtesy by Mr. Brontë, and with shy indifference by his daughter. Her correspondence, too, became widely-spread among men and women of distinction in the world and in Society. Altogether it was a different life upon which she now looked out from her remote eyrie among the hills--a life with many new interests in it, with much that was calculated to awaken chords in her heart hitherto untouched, and to bring to light new characteristics of her temper and genius. One would fain speculate upon what might have been, but for the desolation wrought in her home and heart by that tempest of death which raged during the autumn of 1848 and the spring of 1849. As it was, no novelty could make her forget what had been; no new faces, however welcome, could dim the tender visions of the faces that were seen no more, or could weaken in any degree the affection with which she still clung to the friend of her school-days. Simplicity and sincerity are the prevailing features of her letters, during this critical time in her life, as during all the years which had preceded it. They reflect her mind in many moods; they show her in many different situations; but they never fail to give the impression of one whose allegiance to her own conscience and whose reverence for truth and purity remain now what they had been in her days of happy and unworldly obscurity. The letters I now quote are quite new to the public.

July 18th, 1850.

You must cheer up, for your letter proves to me that you are
low-spirited. As for me, what I said is to be taken in this sense:
that, under the circumstances, it would be presumptuous in me to
calculate on a long life--a truth obvious enough. For the rest, we
are all in the hands of Him who apportions His gifts, health or
sickness, length or brevity of days, as is best for the receiver:
to him who has work to do time will be given in which to do it;
for him to whom no task is assigned the season of rest will come
earlier. As to the suffering preceding our last sleep, the
sickness, decay, the struggle of flesh and spirit, it _must_
come sooner or later to all. If, in one point of view, it is sad
to have few ties in the world, in another point of view it is
soothing; women who have husbands and children must look forward
to death with more pain, more fear, than those who have none. To
dismiss the subject, I wish (without cant, and not in any
hackneyed sense) that both you and I could always say in this
matter, the will of God be done. I am beginning to get settled at
home, but the solitude seems heavy as yet. It is a great change,
but in looking forward I try to hope for the best. So little faith
have I in the power of any temporary excitement to do real good
that I put off day by day writing to London to tell them I have
come home; and till then it was agreed I should not hear from
them. It is painful to be dependent on the small stimulus letters
give. I sometimes think I will renounce it altogether, close all
correspondence on some quiet pretext, and cease to look forward at
post-time for any letters but yours.

August 1st, 1850.

MY DEAR E.,--I have certainly felt the late wet weather a good
deal, and been somewhat bothered with frequently-returning colds,
and so has Papa. About him I have been far from happy: every cold
seems to make and leave him so weak. It is easy to say this world
is only a scene of probation, but it is a hard thing to feel. Your
friends the ----s seem to be happy just now, and long may they
continue to be so! Give C. Brontë's sincere love to R---- and tell
her she hopes Mr. ---- will make her a good husband. If he does
not, woe be to him! I wish a similar wish for Q----; and then I do
really think there will be a kind of happiness. That proposition
about remaining at H---- sounds like beginning life sensibly, with
no showy dash--I like it. Are you comfortable amongst all these
turtle-doves? I could not maintain your present position for a day;
I should feel _de trop_, as the French say; that is in the way. But
you are different to me. My portrait is come from London, and the
Duke of Wellington's, and kind letters enough. Papa thinks the
portrait looks older than I do. He says the features are far from
flattered, but acknowledges that the expression is wonderfully good
and life-like. I left the book called "Social Aspects" at B----;
accept it from me. I may well give it you, for the author has
kindly sent me another copy.... You ask for some promise: who that
does not know the future can make promises? Not I.

September 2nd, 1850.

Poor Mrs. A---- it seems is gone; I saw her death in the papers.
It is another lesson on the nature of life, on its strange
brevity, and in many instances apparent futility.... V---- came
here on Saturday last; T----, who was to have accompanied him, was
prevented from executing his intention. I regretted his absence,
for I by no means coveted the long _tête-à-tête_ with V----.
However, it passed off pretty well. He is satisfied now with his
own prospects, and this makes him--on the surface--satisfied with
other things. He spoke of Q---- with content and approbation. He
looks forward to marriage as a sort of harbour where he is to lay
up his now somewhat battered vessel in quiet moorings. He has seen
all he wants to see of life; now he is prepared to settle. I
listened to all with equanimity and cheerfulness--not assumed but
real--for Papa is now somewhat better; his appetite and spirits
are improved, and that eases my mind of cankering anxiety. My own
health, too, is, I think, really benefited by the late changes of
air and scene; I fancy, at any rate, that I feel stronger. Still I
mused in my own way on V----'s character--its depth and scope, I
believe, are ascertained.

I saw the governess at ----; she looked a little better and more
cheerful. She was almost as pleased to see me as if we had been
related; and when I bid her good-bye expressed an earnest hope
that I would soon come again. The children seem fond of her, and
on the whole obedient--two great alleviations of the inevitable
evils of her position.

Cheer up, dear Nell, and try not to stagnate; or, when you cannot
help it, and when your heart is constricted and oppressed,
remember what life is and must be to all: some moments of sunshine
alternating with many of overclouded and often tempestuous
darkness. Humanity cannot escape its fate, which is to drink a
mixed cup. Let us believe that the gall and the vinegar are
salutary.

Sept. 14th, 1850.

I wish, dear Ellen, you would tell me what is the "twaddle" about
my marrying, which you hear. If I knew the details I should have a
better chance of guessing the quarter from which such gossip
comes. As it is I am quite at a loss. Whom am I to marry? I think
I have scarcely seen a single man with whom such a union would be
possible since I left London. Doubtless there are men whom, if I
chose to encourage, I might marry. But no matrimonial lot is even
remotely offered me which seems to me truly desirable. And even if
that were the case there would be many obstacles. The least
allusion to such a thing is most offensive to Papa. An article
entitled "Currer Bell" has lately appeared in _The Palladium_,
a new periodical published in Edinburgh. It is an eloquent
production, and one of such warm sympathy and high appreciation as
I had never expected to see. It makes mistakes about authorship,
&c, but those I hope one day to set right. Mr. X---- (the little
man) first informed me of this article. I was somewhat surprised to
receive his letter, having concluded nine months ago that there
would be no more correspondence from that quarter. I enclose a note
from him received subsequently, in answer to my acknowledgment.
Read it, and tell me exactly how it impresses you regarding the
writer's character, &c. He is deficient neither in spirit nor
sense.

October 14th, 1850.

I return Q----'s letter. She seems quite happy and fully satisfied
of her husband's affection. Is this the usual way of spending the
honeymoon? To me it seems as if they overdo it. That travelling,
and tugging, and fagging about, and getting drenched and muddled,
by no means harmonises with my notions of happiness. Besides, the
two meals a day, &c, would do one up. It all reminds me too
sharply of the few days I spent with V---- in London nearly ten
years since, when I was many a time fit to drop with the fever and
the faintness resulting from long fasting and excessive fatigue.
However, no doubt a bride can bear such things better than others.
I smiled to myself at some passages. She has wondrous faith in her
husband's intellectual powers and acquirements. V----'s illusions
will soon be over, but Q----'s will not--and therein she is
happier than he.... I suppose ---- will probably discover that
he, too, wants a wife. But I will say no more. You know I
disapprove of jesting and teasing on these matters. Idle words
sometimes do unintentional harm.

December, 1850.

I got home all right yesterday soon after two o'clock, and found
Papa, thank God, well and free from cold. To-day some amount of
sickliness and headache is bothering me, but nothing to
signify.... The Christmas books waiting for me were, as I
expected, from Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell, and Mr. Ruskin. No letter
from Mr. W----. It is six weeks since I heard from him. I feel
uneasy, but do not like to write. _The Examiner_ is very sore
about my Preface, because I did not make it a special exception in
speaking of the mass of critics. The soreness is unfortunate and
gratuitous, for in my mind I certainly excepted it. Another paper
shows painful sensitiveness on the same account; but it does not
matter, these things are all transitory.

The "Preface" to which she alludes in the foregoing letter, was that to her collected edition of Emily and Anne Brontë's works, in which she makes allusion to the fact that the "critics failed to do justice" to "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey" when they were published.

Jan. 20th, 1851.

Thank you heartily for the two letters I owe you. You seem very
gay at present, and provided you only take care not to catch cold
with coming home at night, I am not sorry to hear it; a little
movement, cheerfulness, stimulus, is not only beneficial, but
necessary. Your last letter but one made me smile. I think you
draw great conclusions from small inferences. I think those "fixed
intentions" you fancy are imaginary. I think the "under-current"
amounts simply to this, a kind of natural liking and sense of
something congenial. Were there no vast barrier of age, fortune,
&c, there is perhaps enough personal regard to make things
possible which now are impossible. If men and women married
because they like each other's temper, look, conversation, nature,
and so on--and if, besides, years were more nearly equal--the
chance you allude to might be admitted as a chance; but other
reasons regulate matrimony--reasons of convenience, of connection,
of money. Meantime I am content to know him as a friend, and pray
God to continue to me the common sense to look on one so young, so
rising, and so hopeful in no other light. The hint about the Rhine
disturbs me; I am not made of stone and what is mere excitement to
others is fever to me. However it is a matter for the future, and
long to look forward to. As I see it now, the journey is out of
the question--for many reasons--I rather wonder he should think of
it. Good-bye. Heaven grant us both some quiet wisdom and strength,
not merely to bear the trial of pain, but to resist the lure of
pleasure when it comes in such a shape as our better judgment
disapproves.

Feb. 26th, 1851.

You ought always to conclude that when I don't write it is simply
because I have nothing particular to say. Be sure that ill news
will travel fast enough, and good news too when such commodity
comes. If I could often _be_ or _seem_ in brisk spirits, I might
write oftener, knowing that my letters would amuse. But as times
go, a glimpse of sunshine now and then is as much as one has a
right to expect. However, I get on very decently. I am now and then
tempted to break through my resolution of not having you to come
before summer, and to ask you to come to this Patmos in a week or
two. But it would be dull--very dull--for you.... What would you
say to coming here the week after next to stay only just so long as
you could comfortably bear the monotony? If the weather were dry,
and the moors fine, I should not mind it so much--we could walk for
change.

About this time it is clear that Miss Brontë was suffering from one of her periodical attacks of nervous exhaustion. She makes repeated references in her letters to her ailments, attributing them generally to her liver, and she also mentions frequently an occurrence which had given her not a little anxiety and concern. This was an offer of marriage from a business man in a good position, whom she had already met in London. The following letters, which are inserted here without regard to the precise date, and of which Mrs. Gaskell has merely used half-a-dozen lines, relate to this subject:

You are to say no more about "Jupiter" and "Venus." What do you
mean by such heathen trash? The fact is no fallacy can be wilder,
and I won't have it hinted at, even in jest because my common
sense laughs it to scorn. The idea of X---- shocks me less; it
would be a more likely match, if "matches" were at all in
question, _which they are not_. He still sends his little
newspaper, and the other day there came a letter of a bulk,
volume, pith, judgment, and knowledge, worthy to have been the
product of a giant.

X---- has been, and is gone; things are just as they were. I only
know, in addition to the slight information I possessed before,
that this Australian undertaking is necessary to the continued
prosperity of his firm, that he alone was pronounced to possess
the power and means to carry it out successfully, that mercantile
honour, combined with his own sense of duty, obliged him to accept
the post of honour and of danger to which he has been appointed,
that he goes with great personal reluctance, and that he
contemplates an absence of five years. He looked much thinner and
older. I saw him very near, and once through my glass. The
resemblance to Branwell struck me forcibly; it is marked. He is
not ugly, but very peculiar. The lines in his face show an
inflexibility, and, I must add, a hardness of character, which
does not attract. As he stood near me, as he looked at me in his
keen way, it was all I could do to stand my ground tranquilly and
steadily, and not to recoil as before. It is no use saying
anything if I am not candid. I avow then that on this occasion,
predisposed as I was to regard him very favourably, his manners
and his personal appearance scarcely pleased me more than at the
first interview. He gave me a book at parting, requesting in his
brief way that I would keep it for his sake, and adding hastily:
"I shall hope to hear from you in Australia; your letters _have_
been and _will_ be a greater refreshment than you can think or I
can tell." And so he is gone, and stern and abrupt little man as
he is, too often jarring as are his manners, his absence and the
exclusion of his idea from my mind, leave me certainly with less
support and in deeper solitude than before. You see, dear Nell, we
are still precisely on the same level. _You_ are not isolated. I
feel that there is a certain mystery about this transaction yet,
and whether it will ever be cleared up to me, I do not know.
However, my plain duty is to wean my mind from the subject, and if
possible to avoid pondering over it.... I feel that in his way he
has a regard for me; a regard which I cannot bring myself entirely
to reciprocate in kind, and yet its withdrawal leaves a painful
blank. I have just got your note. Above, you have all the account
of my visitor. I dare not aver that your kind wish that the visit
would yield me more pleasure than pain has been fulfilled.
Something at my heart aches and gnaws drearily. But I must
cultivate fortitude.

Thank you for your kind note. It was kind of you to write it,
though it _was_ your school-day. I never knew you to let a
slight impediment stand in your way when doing a friendly action.
Certainly I shall not soon forget last Friday, and never, I think,
the evening and night succeeding that morning and afternoon. Evils
seldom come singly, and soon after X---- was gone Papa grew much
worse. He went to bed early. Was sick and ill for an hour, and
when at last he began to doze and I left him, I came down to the
dining-room with a sense of weight, fear, and desolation hard to
express and harder to endure. A wish that you were with me did
cross my mind; but I repelled it as a most selfish wish. Indeed it
was only short-lived; my natural tendency in moments of this sort
is to get through the struggle alone; to think that one is
burdening others makes all worse. You speak to me in soft,
consolatory accents; but I hold far sterner language to myself,
dear Nell. An absence of five years; a dividing expanse of three
oceans; the wide difference between a man's active career and a
woman's passive existence. These things are almost equivalent to a
life-long separation. But there is another thing which forms a
barrier more difficult to pass than any of these. Would X---- and
I ever suit? Could I ever feel for him enough love to accept of
him as a husband? Friendship, gratitude, esteem, I have; but each
moment that he came near me, and that I could see his eyes
fastened upon me, my veins ran ice. Now that he is away I feel far
more gently towards him; it is only close by that I grow rigid. I
did not want to be proud nor intend to be proud, but I was forced
to be so. Most true is it that we are overruled by One above us,
that in His hands our very will is as clay in the hands of the
potter.

I trust Papa is not worse; but he varies. He has never been down
to breakfast but once since you left. The circumstance of having
him to think about just now is good for me in one way; it keeps my
thoughts off other matters which have been complete bitterness and
ashes; for I do assure you a more entire crumbling away of a
seeming foundation of support and prospect of hope than that which
I allude to can scarcely be realised.

I have heard from X---- to-day, a quiet little note. He returned
to London a week since on Saturday. He leaves England next month.
His note concludes with asking whether he has any chance of seeing
me in London before that time. I must tell him that I have already
fixed June for my visit, and, therefore, in all human probability
we shall see each other no more. There is still a want of plain
mutual understanding in this business, and there is sadness and
pain in more ways than one. My conscience, I can truly say, does
not _now_ accuse me of having treated X---- with injustice or
unkindness. What I once did wrong in this way I have endeavoured
to remedy both to himself and in speaking of him to others. I am
sure he has estimable and sterling qualities; but with every
disposition--with every wish--with every intention even to look on
him in the most favourable point of view at his last visit, it was
impossible for me in my inmost heart to think of him as one that
might one day be acceptable as a husband.... No, if X---- be the
only husband fate offers to me, single I must always remain. But
yet at times I grieve for him; and perhaps it is superfluous, for
I cannot think he will suffer much--a hard nature, occupation,
change of scene will befriend him.

I have had a long, kind letter from Miss Martineau lately. She
says she is well and happy. Also I have had a very long letter
from Mr. ----, the first for many weeks. He speaks of X---- with
much respect and regret, and says he will be greatly missed by
many friends. I discover with some surprise that Papa has taken a
decided liking to X----. The marked kindness of his manner to him
when he bade him good-bye, exhorting him to be "true to himself,
his country, and his God," and wishing him all good wishes, struck
me with some astonishment at the time; and whenever he has alluded
to him since, it has been with significant eulogy.... You say Papa
has penetration. On this subject I believe he has indeed. I have
told him nothing, yet he seems to be _au fait_ to the whole
business. I could think at some moments his guesses go further
than mine. I believe he thinks a prospective union, deferred for
five years, with such a decorous, reliable personage, would be a
very proper and advisable affair. However I ask no questions, and
he asks me none; and if he did I should have nothing to tell him.

The summer following this affair of the heart witnessed another visit to London, where she heard Mr. Thackeray's lectures on the humourists. How she enjoyed listening to her idol, in one of his best moods, need not be told. Some there are still living who remember that first lecture, when all London had assembled to listen to the author of "Vanity Fair," and the rumour suddenly ran round the room that the author of "Jane Eyre" was among the audience. Men and women were at fault at first, in their efforts to distinguish "Currer Bell" in that brilliant company of literary and social notabilities; but at last she was discovered hiding under the motherly wing of a chaperon, timid, blushing, but excited and pleased--_not_ at the attention she herself attracted, but at the treat she had in prospect. One or two gentlemen sought and obtained introductions to her--amongst them Lord Carlisle and Mr. Monckton Milnes. They were not particularly impressed by the appearance or the speech of the parson's daughter. Her person was insignificant, her dress somewhat rustic, her language quaintly precise and formal, her manner odd and constrained. Altogether this was a woman whom even London could not lionise; somebody outwardly altogether too plain, simple, unpretending, to admit of hero-worship. Within there was, as we know, something entirely exceptional and extraordinary; but, like Lucy Snowe, she still kept her real self hidden under a veil which no casual friend or chance acquaintance was allowed to lift. It was but a brief visit to the "Big Babylon," and then back to Haworth, to loneliness and duty! In July, 1851, she writes from the parsonage to one of her friends as follows:

My first feeling on receiving your note was one of disappointment,
but a little consideration sufficed to show me that "all was for
the best." In truth it was a great piece of extravagance on my
part to ask you and Ellen together; it is much better to divide
such good things. To have your visit in prospect will console me
when hers is in retrospect. Not that I mean to yield to the
weakness of clinging dependently to the society of friends,
however dear; but still as an occasional treat I must value and
even seek such society as a necessary of life. Let me know then
whenever it suits your convenience to come to Haworth, and, unless
some change I cannot now foresee occurs, a ready and warm welcome
will await you. Should there be any cause rendering it desirable
to defer the visit, I will tell you frankly. The pleasures of
society I cannot offer you; nor those of fine scenery. But I place
very much at your command--the moors, some books, a series of
quiet "curling-hair-times," and an old pupil into the bargain.
Ellen may have told you that I 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 up 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.

X.

"VILLETTE."

With the autumn of 1851 another epoch in the life of Charlotte Brontë was ushered in. She began to write "Villette." Something has already been said of the true character of that marvellous book, in which her own deepest experiences and ripest wisdom are given to the world. Of the manner in which it was written her readers know nothing. Yet this, the best-beloved child of her genius, was brought forth with a travail so bitter that more than once she was tempted to lay aside her pen and hush her voice for ever. Every sentence was wrung from her as though it had been a drop of blood, and the book was built up bit by bit, amid paroxysms of positive anguish, occasioned in part by her own physical weakness and suffering, but still more by the torture through which her mind passed as she depicted scene after scene from the darkest chapter in her own life, for the benefit of those for whom she wrote. It is from her letters that at this time also we get the best indications of what she was passing through. Few, perhaps, reading these letters would suppose that their writer was at that very time engaged in the production of a great masterpiece, destined to hold its own among the ripest and finest fruits of English genius. But no one can read them without seeing how true the woman's soul was, how deep her sympathy with those she loved, how keen her criticisms of even the dull and commonplace characters around her, how vivid and sincere her interest in everything which was passing either in the great world which lay afar off, or in the little world the drama of which was being enacted under her own eyes. Even the ordinary incidents mentioned in her letters, the chance expressions which drop from her pen, have an interest when we remember who it is that speaks, and at what hour in her life this speech falls from her.

September, 1851.