 Volume 2, Section 11 of THE LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRANTE. CHAPTER VIII. It was thought desirable about this time to republish Wuthering Heights and Agnes Gray, the works of the two sisters, and Charlotte undertook the task of editing them. She wrote to Mr. Williams, September 29th, 1850. It is my intention to write a few lines of remark on Wuthering Heights, which however I propose to place a part as a brief preface before the tale. I am likewise compelling myself to read it over for the first time of opening the book since my sister's death. Its power fills me with renewed admiration, but yet I am oppressed. The reader is scarcely ever permitted a taste of unalloyed pleasure. Every beam of sunshine is poured down through black bars of threatening cloud. Every page is surcharged with a sort of moral electricity, and the writer was unconscious of all this. Nothing could make her conscious of it. And this makes me reflect, perhaps I am too incapable of perceiving the faults and peculiarities of my own style. I should wish to revise the proofs if it be not too great an inconvenience to send them. It seems to me advisable to modify the orthography of the old servant Joseph's speeches. For though, as it stands, it exactly renders the Yorkshire dialect to a Yorkshire ear, yet I am sure Southerns must find it unintelligible, and thus one of the most graphic characters in the book is lost on them. I grieve to say that I possess no portrait of either of my sisters. To her own dear friend, as to one who had known and loved her sisters, she writes still more fully respecting the painfulness of her task. There is nothing wrong, and I am writing you a line as you desire, merely to say that I am busy just now. Mr. Smith wishes to reprint some of Emily's and Annie's works, with a few little additions from the papers they have left, and I have been closely engaged in revising, transcribing, preparing a preface, notice, etc. As the time for doing this is limited, I am obliged to be industrious. I found the task at first exquisitely painful and depressing, but regarding it in the light of a sacred duty I went on, and now can bear it better. It is work, however, that I cannot do in the evening, for if I did I should have no sleep at night. Papa, I am thankful to say, is in improved health, and so I think am I. I trust you are the same. I have just received a kind letter from Miss Martino. She has got back to Ambleside, and had heard of my visit to the lakes. She expressed her regret, etc., at not being at home. I am both angry and surprised at myself for not being in better spirits, for not growing accustomed or at least resigned to the solitude and isolation of my lot, but my late occupation left a result for some days and indeed still very painful. The reading over of papers, the renewal of remembrances, brought back the pang of bereavement, an occasion to depression of spirits well nigh intolerable. For one or two nights I scarcely knew how to get on till morning, and when morning came I was still haunted with a sense of sickening distress. I tell you these things, because it is absolutely necessary to me to have some relief. You will forgive me, and not trouble yourself, for imagine that I am one whit worse than I say. It is quite a mental ailment, and I believe in hope is better now. I think so, because I can speak about it, which I never can when grief is at its worst. I thought to find occupation and interest in writing, when alone at home, but hitherto my efforts have been vain. The deficiency of every stimulus is so complete. You will recommend me, I daresay, to go from home, but that does no good. Even could I again leave papa with an easy mind. Thank God he is better. I cannot describe what a time of it I had after my return from London, Scotland, etc. There was a reaction that sunk me to the earth. The deadly silence, solitude, desolation were awful. The craving for companionship, the hopelessness of relief were what I should dread to feel again. Dear f***, when I think of you, it is with a compassion and tenderness that scarcely cheer me. Mentally, I fear, you also are too lonely and too little occupied. It seems our doom, for the present at least. May God and His mercy help us to bear it. During her last visit to London, as mentioned in one of her letters, she had made the acquaintance of her correspondent, Mr. Luz, that gentleman says. Some months after, the appearance of the review of Shirley and the Edinburgh, Currer Bell came to London and I was invited to meet her at your house. You may remember, she asked you not to point me out to her, but allow her to discover me if she could. She did recognize me almost as soon as I came into the room. You tried me in the same way. I was less sagacious. However, I sat by her side a great part of the evening and was greatly interested by her conversation. In parting, we shook hands and she said, We are friends now, are we not? Were we not always then, I asked? No, not always, she said, significantly, and that was the only illusion she made to the offending article. I lent her some of Balzac's and George Sand's novels to take with her into the country and the following letter was written when they were returned. I am sure you will have thought me very dilatory in returning the books you so kindly lent me. The fact is, having some other books to send, I retained yours to enclose them in the same parcel. Except my thanks for some hours of pleasant reading. Balzac was for me quite a new author, and in making big acquaintance through the medium of modest mignon and illusions per deux, you cannot doubt I have felt some interest. At first I thought he was going to be painfully minute and fearfully tedious. One grew impatient of his long parade of detail, his slow revelation of unimportant circumstances as he assembled his personages on the stage. But by and by I seem to enter into the mystery of his craft and to discover with delight where his force lay. Is it not in the analysis of motive and in a subtle perception of the most obscure and secret workings of the mind? Still, admire Balzac as we may, I think we do not like him. We rather feel towards him as towards an ungenial acquaintance who is forever holding up in strong light our defects and who rarely draws forth our better qualities. Fantastic, fanatical, unpractical enthusiast as she often is, far from truthful as are many of her views of life, misled as she is apt to be by her feelings, George Sand has a better nature than Monsieur de Balzac. Her brain is larger, her heart warmer than his. The lettres d'un voyageur are full of the writer's self, and I never felt so strongly as in the perusal of this work that most of her very faults spring from the excess of her good qualities. It is a success which has often hurried her into difficulty, which is prepared for her enduring regret. But I believe her mind is of that order which disastrous experience teaches without weakening or too much disheartening, and in that case, the longer she lives the better she will grow. A hopeful point in all her writings is the scarcity of false French sentiment. I wish I could say its absence, but the weed flourishes here and there, even in the lettres. I remember the good expression of disgust which Miss Bronte made use of in speaking to me of some of Balzac's novels. They leave such a bad taste in my mouth. The reader will notice that most of the lettres from which I now quote are devoted to critical and literary subjects. These were indeed her principal interests at this time. The revision of her sister's works and writing a short memoir of them was the painful employment of every day during the dreary autumn of 1850. We're read out by the vividness of her sorrowful recollections. She sought relief in long walks on the moors. A friend of hers who wrote to me on the appearance of the eloquent article in the daily news upon the death of Kerr or Bell, gives an anecdote which may well come in here. They are mistaken in saying she was too weak to roam the hills for the benefit of the air. I do not think anyone, certainly not any woman, in this locality went so much on the moors as she did when the weather permitted. Indeed she was so much in the habit of doing so that people who live quite away on the edge of the common knew her perfectly well. I remember on one occasion an old woman saw her at a little distance and she called out, How, Miss Bronte? Hey, ya, have you seen out of my cuff? Cough. Miss Bronte told her she could not say, for she did not know it. Well, she said, you know, it's getting up like nah, now, between a ca, cow, and a cuff. What we call a sterk, you know, Miss Bronte? Will you turn it this way if you happen to see it as you're going back, Miss Bronte? Nah, do, Miss Bronte. It must have been about this time that a visit was paid to her by some neighbors who were introduced to her by a mutual friend. This visit has been described in a letter from which I am permitted to give extracts, which will show the impression made upon strangers by the character of the country around her home and other circumstances. Though the weather was drizzly, we resolved to make our long planned excursion to Haworth, so we packed ourselves into the buffalo skin and that into the gig and set off about 11. The rain ceased and the day was just suited to the scenery, wild and chill, with great masses of cloud glooming over the moors, and here and there a ray of sunshine covertly stealing through and resting with a dim magical light upon some high bleak village, or darting down into some deep glen, lighting up the tall chimney or glistening on the windows and wet roof of the mill which lies couching in the bottom. The country got wilder and wilder as we approached Haworth. For the last four miles we were ascending a huge moor at the very top of which lies the dreary black-looking village of Haworth. The village street itself is one of the steepest hills I have ever seen, and the stones are so horribly jolting that I should have got out and walked with what if possible, but having once begun the ascent to stop was out of the question. At the top was the inn where we put up, close by the church, and the clergyman's house, we were told, was at the top of the churchyard. So through that we went, a dreary, dreary place, literally paved with rain-blackened tombstones, and all on the slope, for at Haworth there is on the highest height a higher still, and Mr. Bronte's house stands considerably above the church. There was the house before us, a small oblong stone house, with not a tree to screen it from the cutting wind, but how were we to get at it from the churchyard we could not see. There was an old man in the churchyard, brooding like a ghoul over the graves, with a sort of grim hilarity on his face. I thought he looked hardly human, however he was human enough to tell us the way, and presently we found ourselves in the little bear parlor. Presently the door opened and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Mr. Bronte, who shook hands with us and then went to call his daughter. A long interval during which we coaxed the old dog and looked at a picture of Mr. Bronte by Richmond, the solitary ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bear walls, and at the books on the little shelves most of them evidently the gift of the authors since Mr. Bronte's celebrity. Presently she came in and welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet, and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously clean and neat. When we went into the parlor again we began talking very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Bronte looked in. Seeing his daughter there I suppose he thought it was all right, and he retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage, presently emerging again to bring water or a country newspaper. This was his last appearance till we went. Ms. Bronte spoke with the greatest warmth of Ms. Martinot and of the good she had gained from her. Well, we talked about various things, the character of the people, about her solitude, etc., till she left the room to help about dinner I suppose, for she did not return for an age. The old dog had vanished. A fat curly-haired dog honored us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable, and we had some very pleasant conversation, in the midst of which time passed quicker than we supposed, for at last we found that it was half past three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us. So we hurried off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring, and the old gentleman having issued once more from his study to say goodbye, we returned to the inn, and made the best of our way homewards. Miss Bronte put me so in mind of her own Jane Eyre. She looked smaller than ever, and moved about so quietly, and noiselessly, just like a little bird, as Rockchester called her, barring that all birds are joyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it was first built. And yet, perhaps, when that old man married and took home his bride, and children's voices and feet were heard about the house, even that desolate crowded graveyard and biting blast could not quench cheerfulness and hope. Now there is something touching in the sight of that little creature entombed in such a place, and moving about herself like a spirit, especially when you think that the slight still frame encloses a force of strong, fiery life which nothing has been able to freeze or extinguish. In one of the preceding letters, Miss Bronte referred to an article in the Palladium, which had rendered what she considered the doommeat of merit to weathering heights, her sister Emily's tale. Her own works were praised, and praised with discrimination, and she was grateful for this. But her warm heart was filled to the brim with kindly feelings towards him who had done justice to the dead. She anxiously sought out the name of the writer, and having discovered that it was Mr. Sidney Dobell, he immediately became one of her peculiar people whom death had made dear. She looked with interest upon everything he wrote, and before long we shall find that they corresponded. To W. S. Williams, Esquire, October 25th. The box of books came last night, and as usual I have only gratefully to admire the selection made. Jeffrey's essays, Dr. Arnold's Life, The Roman, Alton Locke, these were all wished for and welcome. You say I keep no books. Pardon me, I am ashamed of my own rapaciousness. I have kept Macaulay's history and Wordsworth's prelude and Taylor's Philip von Artevelt. I soothe my conscience by saying that the two last, being poetry, do not count. This is a convenient doctrine for me. I meditate acting upon it with reference to the Roman, so I trust nobody in Cornhill will dispute its validity or affirm that poetry has a value, except for trunkmakers. I have already had Macaulay's essays, Sidney Smith's Lectures on Moral Philosophy, and Nox on Race. Pickering's work on the same subject I have not seen, nor all the volumes of Lee Hunt's autobiography. However, I am now abundantly supplied for a long time to come. I liked Haslitt's essays much. The autumn, as you say, has been very fine. I, in solitude and memory, have often profited by its sunshine on the moors. I have felt some disappointment at the non-arrival of the proof sheets of weathering heights. A feverish impatience to complete the revision is apt to beset me. The work of looking over papers, et cetera, could not be gone through with impunity and with unaltered spirits. Associations too tender, regrets too bitter, sprang out of it. Meantime, the Cornhill books now, as here to for, are my best medicine, affording a solace which could not be yielded by the very same books procured from a common library. Already, I have read the greatest part of the Roman. Passages in it possess a kindling virtue, such as true poetry alone can boast. There are images of genuine grandeur. There are lines that at once stamp themselves on the memory. Can it be true that a new planet has risen on the heaven whence all stars seemed fast-fading? I believe it is, for this Sidney or Debel speaks with a voice of his own unborrowed, unmimicked. You hear Tennyson indeed sometimes, and Byron sometimes, and some passages of the Roman. But then again you have a new note, nowhere clearer than in a certain brief lyric, sang in a meeting of minstrels, a sort of dirge over a dead brother. That not only charmed the ear and brain, it soothed the heart. The following extract will be read with interest as conveying her thoughts after the perusal of Dr. Arnold's life. November 6th. I have just finished reading the life of Dr. Arnold, but now when I wish, according to your request, to express what I think of it, I do not find the task very easy. Proper terms seem wanting. This is not a character to be dismissed with a few laudatory words. It is not a one-sided character. Pure pangyric would be inappropriate. Dr. Arnold, it seems to me, was not quite saintly. His greatness was cast in a mortal mold. He was a little severe, almost a little hard. He was vehement and somewhat appugnant. Himself the most indefatigable of workers, I know not whether he could have understood or made allowance for a temperament that required more rest, yet not to one man in 20,000 has given his giant faculty of labor. By virtue of it, he seems to me the greatest of working men. Exacting he might have been then on this point and granting that he were so, and a little hasty, stern and positive, those were his sole faults, if indeed that can be called a fault which in no shape degrades the individual's own character, but is only apt to oppress and overstrain the weaker nature of his neighbors. Afterwards come his good qualities. About these, there is nothing dubious. Where can we find justice, firmness, independence, earnestness, sincerity, fuller and purer than in him? But this is not all, and I am glad of it. Besides high intellect and stainless rectitude, his letters and his life attest his possession of the most true-hearted affection. Without this, however one might admire, we could not love him. But with it I think we love him much. A hundred such men, 50, nay, 10 or five such righteous men might save any country, might victoriously champion any cause. I was struck too by the almost unbroken happiness of his life, a happiness resulting chiefly, no doubt, from the right use to which he put that health and strength which God had given him, but also owing partly to a singular exemption from those deep and bitter griefs which most human beings are called on to endure. His wife was what he wished, his children were healthy and promising, his own health was excellent, his undertakings were crowned with success, even death was kind, for, however sharp the pains of his last hour, they were but brief. God's blessing seems to have accompanied him from the cradle to the grave. One feels thankful to know that it has been permitted to any man to live such a life. When I was in Westmoreland last August, I spent an evening at Fox Howe, where Mrs. Arnold and her daughters still reside. It was twilight as I drove to the place, and almost dark ere I reached it. Still I could perceive that the situation was lovely. The house looked like a nest half buried in flowers and creepers, and dusk as it was, I could feel that the valley and the hills round were beautiful as imagination could dream. If I say again what I have said already before, it is only to impress and re-impress upon my readers the dreary monotony of her life at this time. The dark, bleak season of the year brought back the long evenings which tried her severely, all the more so because her weak eyesight rendered her incapable of following any occupation but knitting by candlelight. For her father's sake, as well as for her own, she found it necessary to make some exertion to ward off settled depression of spirits. She accordingly accepted an invitation to spend a week or 10 days with Miss Martino at Ambleside. She also proposed to come to Manchester and see me on her way to Westmoreland, but, unfortunately, I was from home and unable to receive her. The friends with whom I was staying in the south of England, hearing me express my regret that I could not accept her friendly proposal and aware of the sad state of health and spirits which made some change necessary for her, wrote to desire that she would come and spend a week or two with me at their house. She acknowledged this invitation and a letter to me dated December 13th, 1850. My dear Mrs. Gaskell, Miss F***'s kindness and yours is such that I am placed in the dilemma of not knowing how adequately to express my sense of it. This I know, however, very well, that if I could go and be with you for a week or two in such a quiet South Country house and with such kind people as you describe, I should like it much. I find the proposal marvelously to my taste. It is the pleasantest, gentlest, sweetest temptation possible, but delectable as it is, its solicitations are by no means to be yielded to without the sanction of reason, and therefore I desire for the present to be silent and to stand back till I have been to Miss Martino's and returned home and considered well whether it is a scheme as right as agreeable. Meantime, the mere thought does me good. On the 10th of December, the second edition of Weathering Heights was published. She sent a copy of it to Mr. Dobel with the following letter. To Mr. Dobel. Haworth, near Keeley, Yorkshire, December 8th, 1850. I offer this little book to my critic in the Palladium and he must believe it accompanied by a tribute of the sincerest gratitude, not so much for anything he has said of myself as for the noble justice he has rendered to one dear to me as myself, perhaps dearer, and perhaps one kind word spoken for her awakens a deeper, tenderer sentiment of thankfulness than eulogies heaped on my own head. As you will see when you have read the biographical notice, my sister cannot thank you herself. She's gone out of your sphere in mine and human blame and praise are nothing to her now. But to me, for her sake, they are something still. It revived me for many a day to find that, dead as she was, the work of her genius had at last met with worthy appreciation. Tell me when you have read the introduction whether any doubts still linger in your mind respecting the authorship of Weathering Heights, Wildfell Hall, et cetera. Your mistrust did me some injustice. It proved a general conception of character such as I should be sorry to call mine. But these false ideas will naturally arise when we only judge an author from his works. In fairness, I must also disclaim the flattering side of the portrait. I am no young Panthasalia Midees in Milibus, but a plain country parson's daughter. Once more, I thank you and that with a full heart. C. Bronte. End of section 11, recording by Nick Number. Volume 2, section 12 of The Life of Charlotte Bronte. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Claycorn-Gaskell. Volume 2, section 12, chapter nine. Immediately after the publication of her sister's book, she went to Miss Martinos. I can write to you now, dear E, for I am away from home, and will leave temporarily, at least, by change of air and scene from the heavy burden of depression, which I confess has for nearly three months been sinking me to the earth. I never shall forget last autumn. Some days and nights have been cruel, but now, having once told you this, I need say no more on the subject. My loathing of solitude grew extreme. My recollection of my sister's intolerably poignant. I am better now. I am at Miss Martinos for a week. Her house is very pleasant, both within and without, arranged at all points, with admirable neatness and comfort. Her visitors enjoy the most perfect liberty. What she claims for herself, she allows them. I rise at my own hour, breakfast alone. She is up at five, takes a cold bath, and a walk by starlight, and has finished breakfast and got to work by seven o'clock. I pass the morning in the drawing room. She and her study. At two o'clock, we meet, work, talk, and walk together till five. Her dinner hour. Spend the evening together. When she converses fluently and abundantly and with the most complete frankness. I go to my own room soon after 10. She sits up writing letters till 12. She appears exhaustless in strength and spirits and indifatigable in the faculty of labor. She's a great and a good woman. Of course, not without peculiarities, but I have seen none as yet that annoy me. She's both hard and warm-hearted, abrupt and affectionate, liberal and despotic. I believe she is not at all conscious of her own absolutism. When I tell her of it, she denies the charge warmly. Then I laugh at her. I believe she almost rules ambleside. Some of the gentry dislike her, but the lower orders have a great regard for her. I thought I should like to spend two or three days with you before going home. So if it is not inconvenient to you, I will, DV. Come on Monday and stay till Thursday. I have truly enjoyed my visit here. I have seen a good many people and all have been so marvelously kind. Not the least so the family of Dr. Arnold. Miss Martinot, I relish inexpressibly. Miss Bronte paid the visit she here proposes to her friend, but only remained two or three days. She then returned home and immediately began to suffer from her old enemy, sickly and depressing headache. This was all the more trying to bear as she was obliged to take an active share in the household work. One servant being ill in bed and the other tabby, aged upwards of 80. This visit to Ambleside did Miss Bronte much good and gave her a stock of pleasant recollections and fresh interests to dwell upon in her solitary life. There are many references in her letters to Miss Martinot's character and kindness. She is certainly a woman of wonderful endowments, both intellectual and physical. And though I share a few of her opinions and regard her as fallible on certain points of judgment, I must still award her my sincerest esteem. The manner in which she combines the highest mental culture with the nicest discharge of feminine duties filled me with admiration. While her affectionate kindness earned my gratitude. I think her good and noble qualities far outweigh her defects. It is my habit to consider the individual apart from his or her reputation. Practice independent of theory, natural disposition isolated from acquired opinions. Harriet Martinot's person, practice and character inspire me with the truest affection and respect. You ask me whether Miss Martinot made me a convert to mesmerism. Scarcely, yet I heard miracles of its efficacy and could hardly discredit the whole of what was told me. I even underwent a personal experiment. And though the result was not absolutely clear, it was inferred that in time I should prove an excellent subject. The question of mesmerism will be discussed with little reserve, I believe, in a forthcoming work of Miss Martinot's. And I have some painful anticipations of the manner in which other subjects offering less legitimate ground for speculation will be handled. Your last letter evinced such a sincere and discriminating admiration for Dr. Arnold that perhaps you will not be wholly uninterested in hearing that during my late visit to Miss Martinot. I saw much more of Fox Howe and its inmates and daily admired in the widow and children of one of the greatest and best men of his time, the possession of qualities, the most esteemable and endearing. Of my kind hostess herself, I cannot speak in terms too high without being able to share all her opinions, philosophical, political or religious, without adopting her theories. I yet find a worth and greatness in herself and a consistency, benevolence, perseverance in her practice such as wins the sincerest esteem and affection. She is not a person to be judged by her writings alone but rather by her own deeds and life than which nothing can be more exemplary or nobler. She seems to me the benefactress of ambleside, yet takes no sort of credit to herself for her active and indefatigable philanthropy. The government of her household is admirably administered. All she does is well done, from the writing of the history down to the quietest female occupation. No sort of carelessness or neglect is allowed under her rule and yet she's not overstrict nor too rigidly exacting. Her servants and her poor neighbors love as well as respect her. I must not, however, fall into the air of talking too much about her merely because my own mind is just now deeply impressed with what I have seen of her intellectual power and moral worth, faults she has. But to me, they appear very trivial weighed in the balance against her excellencies. Your account of Mr. A tallies exactly with Ms. M's. She too said that placidity and mildness rather than originality and power were his external characteristics. She described him as a combination of the antique Greek sage with the European modern man of science. Perhaps it was mere perversity in me to get the notion that torpid veins and a cold, slow beating heart land or his marble outside. But he is a materialist. He certainly denies us our hope of immortality and quietly blots from man's future, heaven and the life to come. That is why a savor of bitterness sees and my feeling towards him. All you say, Mr. Thakri, is most graphic and characteristic. He stirs in me both sorrow and anger. Why should he lead so harassing the life? Why should his mocking tongue so perversely deny the better feelings of his better moods? For some time, whenever she was well enough in health and spirits, she had been employing herself upon the yet, but she was frequently unable to write and was both greed and angry with herself for her inability. In February, she writes as follows to Mr. Smith, something you say about going to London, but the words are dreamy and fortunately I am not obliged to hear or answer them. London and summer are many months away. Our moors are all white with snow just now and little red breasts come every morning to the window for crumbs. One can lay no plans three or four months beforehand. Besides, I don't deserve to go to London. Nobody merits a change or a treat less. I secretly think, on the contrary, I ought to be put in prison and kept on bread and water in solitary confinement without even a letter from Cornhill till I had written a book. One of two things would certainly result from such a mode of treatment pursued for 12 months. Either I should come out at the end of that time with a three-volume MS in my hand or else with a condition of intellect that would exempt me, ever after, from literary efforts and expectations. Meanwhile, she was disturbed and distressed by the publication of Miss Martino's letters, et cetera. They came down with a peculiar force and heaviness upon a heart that looked with fond and earnest faith to a future life as to the meeting place with those who were loved and lost awhile. February 11th, 1851. My dear sir, have you yet read Miss Martino's and Mr. Atkinson's new work, Letters on the Nature and Development of Man? If you have not, it would be worth your while to do so. Of the impression this book has made on me, I will not now say much. It is the first exposition of avowed atheism and materialism I have ever read. The first unequivocal declaration of disbelief in the existence of a God or a future life I have ever seen. In judging of such exposition and declaration, one would wish entirely to put aside the sort of instinctive horror they awaken and to consider them in an impartial spirit and collected mood. This I find it difficult to do. The strangest thing is that we are called on to rejoice over this hopeless, blank, to receive this bitter bereavement as great gain, to welcome this unutterable desolation as a state of pleasant freedom. Who could do this if he would? Who would do it if he could? Sincerely, for my own part, do I wish to find and know the truth. But if this be the truth, well, may she guard herself with mysteries and cover herself with a veil. If this be truth, man or woman who beholds her can but curse the day he or she was born. I said, however, I would not dwell on what I thought. I wish to hear, rather, what some other person thinks. Someone whose feelings are unapped to bias his judgment. If you read the book, then, in an unprecedented spirit, and candidly, say what you think of it. I mean, of course, if you have time, not otherwise. And yet she could not bear the contemptuous tone in which this work was spoken of by many critics. It made her more indignant than almost any other circumstance during my acquaintance with her. Much as she regretted the publication of the book, she could not see that it had given anyone a right to sneer at an action, certainly prompted by no worldly motive, and which was but one error, the gravity of which she admitted, in the conduct of a person who had, all her lifelong, been striving, by deep thought and noble words, to serve her kind. Your remarks on Miss Martino in her book pleased me greatly from their tone and spirit. I have even taken liberty of transcribing for her benefit one or two phrases, because I know they will cheer her. She likes sympathy and appreciation, as all people do who deserve them. And most fully do I agree with you in the dislike you express of that hard, contemptuous tone in which her work is spoken of by many critics. Before I return from the literary opinions of the author to the domestic interest of the woman, I must copy out what she felt and thought about the Stones of Venice. The Stones of Venice seem nobly laid in chiseled. How grandly the quarry of vast marbles is disclosed. Mr. Ruskin seems to me one of the few genuine writers as distinguished from bookmakers of this age. His earnestness even amuses me in certain passages, for I cannot help laughing to think how utilitarians will fume and fret over his deep, serious, and, as they will think, fanatical reverence for art. That pure and severe mind you ascribe to him speaks in every line. He writes like a consecrated priest of the abstract and ideal. I shall bring with me the Stones of Venice, all the foundations of marble and of granite, together with the mighty quarry of which they were hewn. And into the bargain, a small assortment of crochets and dicta, the private property of one John Ruskin, a squire. As spring drew on, the depression of spirits to which she was subject began to grasp her again and to crush her with a day and nightmare. She became afraid of sinking as low as she had done in the autumn, and to avoid this she prevailed on her old friend and school fellow to come and stay with her for a few weeks in March. She found great benefit from this companionship, both from the congenial society in itself and from the self-restraint of thought imposed by the necessity of entertaining her and looking after her comfort. On this occasion, Miss Bronte said, it will not do to get into the habit off from home and thus temporarily evading and running away oppression instead of facing, wrestling with and conquering it or being conquered by it. I shall now make an extract from one of her letters, which is purposely displaced as to time. I quote it because it relates to a third offer of marriage, which she had, and because I find that some are apt to imagine from the extraordinary power with which she represented the passion of loving her novels, that she herself was easily susceptible of it. Could I ever feel enough for to accept of him as a husband? Friendship, gratitude, esteem I have, but each moment he came near me and that I could see his eyes fastened on me, my veins ran ice. Now that he's away, I feel far more gently towards him. It is only close by that I grow rigid, stiffening with a strange mixture of apprehension and anger, which nothing softens but his retreat and a perfect subduing of his manner. I did not want to be proud nor intend to be proud, but I was forced to be so. Most true it is 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 have now named all the offers of marriage she ever received and tell that was made which she finally accepted. The gentleman referred to in this letter, retained so much regard for her as to be her friend to the end of her life, a circumstance to his credit and to hers. Before her friend E took her departure, Mr. Bonte caught cold and continued for some weeks much out of health with an attack of bronchitis. His spirits too became much depressed and all his daughter's efforts were directed towards cheering him. When he grew better and had regained his previous strength, she resolved to avail herself of an imitation which she had received some time before to pay a visit in London. This year, 1851, was, as everyone remembers, the time of the Great Exhibition. But even with that attraction and prospect, she did not intend to stay there long. And as usual, she made an agreement with her friends before finally accepting their offered hospitality that her sojourn at their house was to be as quiet as ever, since any other way of proceeding disagreed with her both mentally and physically. She never looked excited except for a moment when something in conversation called her out. But she often felt so, even about comparative trifles and the exhaustion of reaction was sure to follow. Under such circumstances, she always became extremely thin and haggard. Yet she avarred that the change invariably did her good afterwards. Her preparations in the way of dress for this visit, in the gay time of that gay season, were singularly in accordance with her feminine taste. Quietly anxious to satisfy her love for modest, dainty, need attire, and not regardless of the becoming, yet remembering consistency, both with her general appearance and with her means in every selection she made. By the by I meant to ask you when you went to Leeds to do a small errand for me, but fear your hands will be too full of business. It was merely this, in case you chance to be in any shop where the lace cloaks, both black and white, of which I spoke, were sold to ask their price. I suppose they would hardly like to send a few to Hayworth to be looked at. Indeed, if they cost very much it would be useless, but if they are reasonable and they would send them, I should like to see them. And also some Kimmy sets of small size, the full woman's size don't fit me, both of simple style for every day and good quality for best. It appears I could not rest satisfied when I was well off. I told you I had taken one of the black lace mantles, but when I came to try it with the black satin dress with which I should chiefly want to wear it, I found the effect was far from good. The beauty of the lace was lost and it looked somewhat brown and rusty. I wrote to Mr. requesting him to change it for a white mantle of the same price. He was extremely courteous and sent to London for one, which I have got this morning. The price is less, being but one pound, 14 shillings. It is pretty, neat and light, looks well on black, and upon reasoning the matter over, I came to the philosophic conclusion that it would be no shame for a person of my means to wear a cheaper thing. So I think I shall take it. And if you ever see it and call it Trumpery, so much the worse. Do you know that I was in Leeds on the very same day with you last Wednesday? I had thought of telling you where I was going and having your help and company and buying a bonnet, et cetera. But then I reflected this would merely be making a selfish use of you. So I determined to manage or mismanage the matter alone. I went to Hearst and Halls for the bonnet and got one which seemed grave and quiet there amongst all the splendors. But now it looks infinitely too gay with its pink lining. I saw some beautiful silks of pale, sweet colors, but had not the spirit nor the means to launch out at the rate of five shillings per yard. I went and bought a black silk at three shillings after all. I rather regret this because Papa says he would have lent me a sovereign if he had known. I believe if you had been there you would have forced me to get into debt. I really can no more come to be before I go to London, then I can fly. I have quantities of sewing to do as well as household matters to arrange before I leave as they will clean, et cetera, in my absence. Besides, I am grievously afflicted with headache which I trust to change of air for relieving. But meantime, as it proceeds from the stomach it makes me very thin and gray. Neither you nor anybody else would fatten me up or put me into good condition for the visit. It is faded otherwise. No matter. Calm your passion, yet I am glad to see it. Such spirit seems to prove health. Goodbye, in haste. Your poor mother is like Tabby, Martha, and Papa. All these fancy, I am somehow by some mysterious process to be married in London or to engage myself to matrimony. How I smile internally, how groundless and improbable is the idea. Papa seriously told me yesterday that if I married and left him he should give up housekeeping and go into lodgings. I copy the following for the sake of a few words describing the appearance of the Heathering Moors in late summer. To Sydney Dobel, Esquire, May 24th, 1851. My dear sir, I hasten to send Mrs. Dobel, the autograph. It was the word album that frightened me. I thought she wished me to write a song and on purpose for it, which I could not do. Your proposal respecting a journey to Switzerland is deeply kind. It draws me with the force of a mighty temptation. But the stern impossible holds me back. No, I cannot go to Switzerland this summer. Why did the editor of the Eclectic erase that most powerful and pictorial passage? He could not be insensible to its beauty. Perhaps he thought it profane, poor man. I know nothing of such an orchard country as you describe. I have never seen such a region. Our hills only confess the coming of summer by growing green with young fern and moss. In secret little hollows, their bloom is reserved for autumn. Then they burn with a kind of dark glow, different, doubtless, from the blush of garden blossoms. About the close of next month, I expect to go to London to pay a brief and quiet visit. I fear chance will not be so propitious as to bring you to town while I am there. Otherwise, how glad I should be if you would call. With kind regards to Mrs. Doble, believe me, since you're the yours, C. Bronte. Her next letter is dated from London, June 2nd. I came here on Wednesday, being summoned a day sooner than I expected in order to be in time for Thackery's second lecture, which was delivered on Thursday afternoon. This, as you may suppose, was a genuine treat to me, and I was glad not to miss it. It was given in Willis's rooms, where the all-max balls are held. A great painted and gilded saloon with long sofas for benches. The audience was said to be the cream of London society, and it looked so. I did not at all expect the great lecturer would know me or notice me under these circumstances, with admiring duchesses and countesses seated in rows before him. But he met me as I entered. Sheurcans took me to his mother, whom I had not before seen, and introduced me. She is a fine, handsome, young-looking old lady, was very gracious, and called with one of her granddaughters next day. Thackery called too, separately. I had a long talk with him, and I think he knows me now a little better than he did. But of this I cannot yet be sure. He is a great and strange man. There is quite a furor for his lectures. They are sort of essays, characterized by his own peculiar originality and power, and delivered with a finished taste and ease, which is felt but cannot be described. Just before the lecture began, somebody came behind me, leaned over and said, permit me, as a Yorkshire man, to introduce myself. I turned round, saw a strange, not handsome face, which puzzled me for half a minute. And then I said, you are Lord Carlisle. He nodded and smiled. He talked a few minutes very pleasantly and courteously. Afterwards came another man with the same plea that he was a Yorkshire man, and this turned out to be Mr. Mockden Milnes. Then came Dr. Forbes, whom I was sincerely glad to see. On Friday I went to the Crystal Palace. It is a marvelous, stirring bewildering sight, a mixture of a genie palace and a mighty bazaar, but it is not much in my way. I like the lecture better. On Saturday I saw the exhibition at Somerset House, about half a dozen of the pictures are good and interesting, the rest of Little Worth. Sunday yesterday was a day to be marked with a white stone. Through most of the day I was very happy without being tired or overexcited. In the afternoon I went to hear Dior Browne, the great Protestant French preacher. It was pleasant, half sweet, half sad, and strangely suggestive to hear the French language once more. For health I have so far gone on very fairly, considering that I came here far from well. The lady who accompanied Ms. Bronte to the lecture at Thackeries, alluded to, says that soon after they had taken their places she was aware that he was pointing out her companion to several of his friends, but she hoped that Ms. Bronte herself would not perceive it. After some time, however, during which many heads had been turned around and many glasses put up, in order to look at the author of Jane Eyre, Ms. Bronte said, I'm afraid Mr. Thackeries has been playing me a trick. But she soon became too much absorbed in the lecture to notice the attention which was being paid to her, except when it was directly offered, as in the case of Lord Carlisle and Mr. Mockinon Milnes. When the lecture was ended, Mr. Thackeries came down from the platform and making his way towards her, asked her for her opinion. This she mentioned, to me not many days afterwards, adding remarks almost identical with those which I subsequently read in Viet, where similar action on the part of Ms. Sherpaul Emmanuel is related. As our party left the hall, he stood at the entrance, he saw on Yumi and lifted his hat. He offered his hand in passing and uttered the words, Granded Rue, question eminently characteristic and reminding me, even in this, his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive restlessness, that absence of what I consider desirable self-control, which were amongst his faults. He should not have cared just then to ask what I thought or what anybody thought, but he did care and he was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress his wish. Well, if I blamed his overeagerness, I liked his naivety. I would have praised him, I had plenty of praise in my heart, but alas, I know words on my lips. Who has words at the right moment? I stammered some lame expressions, but was truly glad when other people coming up with profuse congratulations, covered my deficiency by their redundancy. As they were preparing to leave the room, her companions saw with dismay that many of the audience were forming themselves into two lines on each side of the aisle, down which they had to pass before reaching the door. Aware that any delay would only make the ordeal more trying, her friend took Miss Bronte's arm in hers and they went along the avenue of eager and admiring faces. During this passage through the cream of society, Miss Bronte's hand trembled to such a degree that her companion feared lest she should turn faint and be able to proceed. And she dare not express her sympathy to try to give her strength by any touch or word, lest it might bring on the crisis she dreaded. Surely such thoughtless manifestation of curiosity is a blot on the scumption of true politeness. The rest of the account of this, her longest visit to London shall be told in her own words. I sit down to write to you this morning in an expressively flat state, having spent the whole of yesterday and the day before in a gradually increasing headache, which grew at last rampant and violent, ended with excessive sickness, and this morning I am quite weak and washy. I hope to leave my headaches behind me at Hayworth, but it seems I brought them carefully packed in my trunk and very much have they been in my way since I came. Since I wrote last, I have seen various things worth describing. Rachelle, the great French actress amongst the number, but today I really have no pith for the task. I can only wish you good-bye with all my heart. I cannot boast that London has agreed with me well this time. The oppression of frequent headache, sickness, and a low tone of spirits has poisoned many moments which might otherwise have been pleasant. Sometimes I felt this hard and been tempted to murmur at fate, which compels me to compare to silence and solitude for 11 months in the year, and in the 12th, while offering social enjoyment, takes away the vigor and cheerfulness which should turn it to account. But circumstances are ordered for us and we must submit. Your letter would have been answered yesterday, but I was already gone out before post-time, and was out all day. People are very kind and perhaps I shall be glad of what I have seen afterwards, but it is often a little trying at the time. On Thursday, the Marquis of Westminster asked me to a great party to which I was to go with Mrs. D., a beautiful and, I think, a kind woman too. But this I resolutely declined. On Friday, I dined at D., and met Mrs. D., and Mr. Mockden-Millness. On Saturday I went to hear and see Raquel, a wonderful sight, terrible as if in the earth had cracked deep at your feet, and revealed a glimpse of hell. I shall never forget it. She made me shudder to the marrow of my bones. In her some fiend is certainly taken up an incarnate home. She is not a woman, she is a snake. She is the... On Sunday I went to the Spanish Ambassador's Chapel where Cardinal Wiseman, in his archi-opiscopal robes and miter, held a confirmation. The whole scene was impiously theatrical. Yesterday, Monday, I was sent for, at ten to breakfast with Mr. Rogers. The patriarch poet, Mrs. D. and Lord Glenelgue were there. No one else, this certainly proved a most calm, refined, and intellectual treat. After breakfast, Sir David Pruster came to take us to the Crystal Palace. I had rather dreaded this, for Sir David is a man of profoundest science, and I feared it would be impossible to understand his explanations of the mechanism, et cetera. Indeed, I hardly knew how to ask him questions. I was spared all trouble. Without being questioned, he gave information in the kindest and simplest manner. After two hours spent at the exhibition, and where, as you may suppose, I was very tired, we had to go to Lord Westminster's and spend two hours more in looking at the collection of pictures in his splendid gallery. To another friend, she writes, may have told you that I 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'oeuvre is striking and bewildering enough, but I never was able to get any raptures on the subject. And each renewed visit was made under coercion rather than my own free will. It is an excessively bustling place, and after all, it's wonder's appeal too exclusively to the eye and rarely touched 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 Rooster and perceived that he looked on objects with other eyes than mine. Miss Bronte returned from London by Manchester and paid us a visit of a couple of days at the end of June. The weather was so intensely hot and she herself so much fatigued with her London sight scene that we did little but sit indoors with open windows and talk. The only thing she made a point of exerting herself to procure was a present for Tabby. It was to be a shawl or rather a large handkerchief such as she could pin across her neck and shoulders in the old fashioned country manner. Miss Bronte took great pains in seeking out one which she thought would please the old woman. On her arrival at home, she addressed the following letter to the friend with whom she had been staying in London. Hayworth, July 1st, 1851 My dear Mrs. Smith, once more I am at home where I am thankful to say I found my father very well. The journey to Manchester was a little hot and dusty but otherwise pleasant enough. The two stout gentlemen who filled a portion of the carriage when I got in, quitted it at rugby and two other ladies and myself had it to ourselves the rest of the way. The visit to Mrs. Gaskell formed a cheering break in the journey. Hayworth Parsonage is rather a contrast yet even Hayworth Parsonage does not look gloomy in this bright summer weather. It is somewhat still but with the windows open I can hear a bird or two singing on certain thorn trees in the garden. My father and the servants think me looking better than when I left home. And I certainly feel better myself for the change. You are too much like your son to render it advisable. I should say so much about your kindness during my visit. However, one cannot help like Captain Cuddle making a note of these matters. Papa says I am to thank you in his name and offer you his respects which I do accordingly. With truest regards to all your circle believe me very sincerely yours C. Bronte. July 8th, 1851. My dear sir, Thackeray's last lecture must I think have been his best. What he says about stern is true. His observations on literary men and their social obligations and individual duties seem to me also true and full of mental and moral vigor. The international copyright meaning seems to have had but a barren result judging from the report in the literary Gazette. I cannot see that Sir E. Buller and the rest did anything nor can I well see what it is in their power to do. The argument brought forward about the damage accruing to American national literature from the present piratical system is a good and sound argument but I'm afraid the publishers, honest men are not yet mentally prepared to give such reasoning due weight. I should think that which refers to the injury inflicted upon themselves by an oppressive competition and piracy would influence them more but I suppose all established matters be they good or evil are difficult to change. About the phrenological character I must not say a word. Of your own accord you have found the safest point from which to view it. I will not say look higher. I think you see the matter as it is desirable we should all see what relates to ourselves. If I had a right to whisper a word of counsel it should be merely this. Whatever your present self may be resolve with all your strength of resolution never too degenerate thence. Be jealous of a shadow of falling off. Determine rather to look above that standard and to strive beyond it. Everybody appreciates certain social properties and likes his neighbor for possessing them but perhaps you dwell upon a friend's capacity for the intellectual or care. How this might expand if there were but facilities allowed for cultivation and space given for growth. It seems to me that even should such space and facilities be denied by stringent circumstances and a rigid fate still it should do you good fully to know and tenaciously to remember that you have such a capacity when other people overwhelm you with acquired knowledge such as you have not had opportunity perhaps not application to gain derive not pride but support from the thought. If no new books had ever been written some of these minds with themselves have remained blank pages. They only take an impression. They were not born with a record of thought on the brain or an instinct of sensation on the heart. If I had never seen a printed volume nature would have offered my perceptions a varying picture of a continuous narrative which without any other teacher than herself would have schooled me to knowledge unsophisticated but genuine. Before I received your last I had made up my mind to tell you that I should expect no letter for three months to come intending afterwards to extend this abstinence to six months for I am jealous of becoming dependent on this indulgence. You doubt this cannot see why because you do not live my life. Nor shall I now expect a letter but since you say that you would like to write now and then I cannot say never write without imposing on my real wishes a falsehood which they reject and doing to them a violence to which they entirely refuse to submit. I can only observe that when it pleases you to write whether seriously or for a little amusement your notes if they come to me will come where they are welcome. Tell I will try to cultivate good spirits as assiduously as she cultivates her geraniums. End of section 12. Volume 2, section 13 of the Life of Charlotte Bronte. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Claycorn-Goskell. Volume 2, section 13. Chapter 10, Part 1. Soon after she returned home her friend paid her a visit. While she stayed at Hayworth Miss Bronte wrote the letter from which the following extract is taken. The strong sense and right feeling displayed in it on the subject of friendship sufficiently account for the constancy of affection which Miss Bronte earned from all those who once became her friends. To W.S. Williams Esquire, July 21st, 1851. I could not help wondering whether Cornhill will ever change for me as Oxford has changed for you. I have some pleasant associations connected with it now. Will these alter their character someday? Perhaps they may, though I have faith to the contrary. Because I think I do not exaggerate my partialities. I think I take faults along with excellencies. Blemishes together with beauties. And besides, in the matter of friendship I have observed that disappointment here arises chiefly not from liking our friends too well or thinking of them too highly but rather from an overestimate of their liking for an opinion of us. And that if we guard ourselves with sufficient scrupulousness, upcare from error in this direction and can be content and even happy to give more affection than we receive can make just comparison of circumstances and be severely accurate in drawing inferences thence and never let self-love blind our eyes. I think we may manage to get through life with consistency and constancy unemittered by that misanthropy which springs from revulsions of feeling. All this sounds a little metaphysical but it is good sense if you consider it. The moral of it is that if we would build on a sure foundation in friendship we must love our friends for their sakes rather than for our own. We must look at their truth to themselves full as much as their truth to us. In the latter case, every wound to self-love would be a cause of coldness. In the former, only some painful change in the friend's character and disposition, some fearful breach in his allegiance to his better self could alienate the heart. How interesting your old mating cousins gossip about your parents must have been to you and how gratifying to find that the reminiscence turned on none but pleasant facts and characteristics. Life must indeed be slow in that little decaying hamlet amongst the chalk hills. After all, depend upon it, it is better to be worn out with work in a thronged community than to perish in action in a stagnant solitude. Take this truth into consideration whenever you get tired of work and bustle. I received a letter from her a little later than this and though there is reference throughout to what I must have said in writing to her, all that it called forth in reply is so peculiarly characteristic that I cannot prevail upon myself to pass it over without a few extracts. Heyworth, August 6th, 1851. My dear Mrs. Gaskell, I was too much pleased with your letter when I got it at last to feel disposed to murmur now about the delay. About a fortnight ago, I received a letter from Miss Martino, also a long letter in treating precisely the same subjects on which yours dwelt, be the exhibition and Thackeray's last lecture. It was interesting mentally to place the two documents side by side to study the two aspects of mind, to view alternately the same scene through two mediums. Full striking was the difference and the more striking because it was not the rough contrast of good and evil, but the more subtle opposition, the more delicate diversity of different kinds of good. The excellences of one nature resemble, I thought, that of some sovereign medicine, harsh perhaps to the taste, but potent to invigorate. The good of the other assumed more akin to the nourishing efficacy of our daily bread. It is not bitter, it is not lusciously sweet, it pleases without flattering the palate, it sustains without forcing the strength. I very much agree with you in all you say. For the sake of variety, I could almost wish that the concord of opinion were less complete. To begin with Trafalgar Square, my taste goes with yours and metas completely on this point. I have always thought it a fine sight and sight also. The view from the summit of those steps has ever struck me as grand and imposing, Nelson Column included, the fountains I could dispense with. With respect also to the Crystal Palace, my thoughts are precisely yours. Then I feel sure you speak justly of Thackeray's lecture. You do well to set aside Odie's comparisons to wax impatient of that trite twaddle about nothing newness, a jargon which simply proves in those who habitually use it, a course in feeble faculty of appreciation, an inability to discern the relative value of originality and novelty, a lack of that refined perception which dispensing with the stimulus of an ever new subject can derive sufficiency of pleasure from freshness of treatment. To such critics, the prime of the summer morning would bring no delight, wholly occupied with railing at their cook for not having provided a novel and pecan breakfastish, they would remain insensible to such influences as lion sunrise, dew and breeze. Therein would be nothing new. Is it Mr. Family Experience which has influenced your feelings about the Catholics? I own, I cannot be sorry for this commencing change. Good people, very good people, I doubt not. There are amongst the Romanists, but the system is not one which would have such sympathy as yours. Look at Popory, taking off the mask in Naples. I've read the saints tragedy. As a work of art, it seems to me far superior to either Alton Locke or Yeast. Faulty it may be, crude and unequal, yet there are portions where some of the deep cores of human nature are swept with a hand which is strong, even while it falters. We see throughout, I think, that Elizabeth has not and never had a mind perfectly sane. From the time that she was, what she herself, in the exaggeration of her humility, calls an idiot girl, to the hour when she lay moaning in visions on her dying bed, a slight craze runs through her whole existence. This is good, this is true. A sound mind, a healthy intellect, would have dashed the priest power to the wall, would have defended her natural affections from his grasp, as a lioness defends her young. Would have been as true to husband and children as your little hearted little Maggie was to her frank. Only a mind weak with some fatal flaw could have been influenced as was this poor saint's. But what anguish, what struggles? Selden do I cry over books, but here my eyes reigned as I ran. When Elizabeth turns her face to the wall, I stopped there, needed no more. Deep truths are touched on in this tragedy, touched on, not fully elicited. Truths that stir up a peculiar pity, a compassion hot with wrath and bitter with pain. This is no poet's dream. We know that such things have been done that minds have been thus subjugated and lives thus laid waste. Remember me kindly and respectfully to Mr. Gaskell, and though I have not seen Marianne, I must beg to include her in the love I send the others. Could you manage to convey a small kiss to that dear, but dangerous little person, Julia? She, surreptitiously possessed herself of a minute fraction of my heart, which has been missing ever since I saw her. Believe me sincerely and affectionately yours, C. Bronte. The reference which she makes at the end of this letter is to my youngest little girl, between whom and her a strong mutual attraction existed. The child would still her little hand into Miss Bronte's, scarcely larger one and each took pleasure in this apparently unobserved caress. Yet once when I told Julia to take and show her the way to some room in the house, Miss Bronte shrunk back. Do not bid her do anything for me, she said. It has been so sweet hitherto to have her rendering her little kindnesses spontaneously as illustrating. Her feelings with regard to children, I may give what she says ill another of her letters to me. Whenever I see Florence and Julia again, I shall feel like a fond but bashful suitor who views at a distance the fair personage to whom in his clownish awe, he dare not risk a near approach. Such is the clearest idea I can give you of my feelings towards children I like, but to whom I am a stranger. And to what children am I not a stranger? They seem to me little wonders, their talk, their ways are all a matter of half admiring, half puzzled speculation. The following is part of a long letter which I received from her dated September 20th, 1851. Beautiful are those sentences out of James Martinot's sermons, some of them gems most pure and genuine, ideas deeply conceived, finely expressed. I should like much to see his review of his sister's book. Of all the articles respecting which you question me, I have seen none except that notable one in the Westminster on the emancipation of women. But why are you and I to think, perhaps I should rather say to feel, so exactly alike on some points that there can be no discussion between us? Your words on this paper express my thoughts. Well argued it is, clear, logical, but vast is the hiatus of omission. Harsh, the consequent jar on every finer chord of the soul. What is this hiatus? I think I know, and knowing, I will venture to say. I think the writer forgets there is such a thing as self-sacrificing love and disinterested devotion. When I first read the paper, I thought it was the work of a powerful minded, clear-headed woman who had a hard, jealous heart, muscles of iron and nerves of bend leather, of a woman who longed for power and had never felt affection. Readers note, bend in Yorkshire is strong ox leather. To many women, affection is sweet and power conquered indifferent, though we all like influence one. I believe J.S. Mill would make a hard, dry, dismal world of it, and yet he speaks admirable sense through a great portion of his article, especially when he says that if there be a natural and fitness in women for men's employment, there is no need to make laws on the subject. Leave all careers open, let them try. Those who ought to succeed will succeed or at least will have a fair chance. The incapable will fall back into their right place. He likewise disposes of the maternity question very neatly. In short, J.S. Mill's head is, I dare say, very good, but I feel disposed to score in his heart. You are right when you say that there is a large margin in human nature over which the logicians have no dominion. Glad am I that it is so. I send by this post Ruskin's Stones of Venice and I hope you in meta will find passages in it that will please you. Some parts would be dry and technical where it not for their character, the marked individuality, which pervades every page. I wish Marion had come to speak to me at the lecture. It would have given me such pleasure. What you say of that small sprite, Julia, amuses me much. I believe you don't know that she has a great deal of her mama's nature modified in her. Yet I think you will find she has as she grows up. Will it not be a great mistake if Mr. Thackeray should deliver his lectures at Manchester under such circumstances and conditions as will exclude people like you and Mr. Gaskill from the number of his audience? I thought his London plan too narrow. Charles Dickens would not thus limit his sphere of action. You charge me to write about myself. What can I say on that precious topic? My health is pretty good. My spirits are not always alike. Nothing happens to me. I hope and expect little in this world and I'm thankful that I do not despond and suffer more. Thank you for inquiring after our old servant. She is pretty well. The little shawl, et cetera, pleased her much. Papa likewise I'm glad to say is pretty well. With his and my kindness regards to you and Mr. Gaskill. Believe me sincerely and affectionately yours. C. Bronte. Before the autumn was far advanced, the usual effects of her solitary life and of the unhealthy situation of Hayworth Parsonage began to appear in the form of sick headaches and miserable, starting, wakeful nights. She does not dwell on this in her letters, but there is an absence of all cheerfulness of tone and an occasional sentence forced out of her, which imply far more than many words could say. There was illness all through the Parsonage household, taking its accustomed forms of lingering influenza and low fever. She herself was outwardly the strongest of the family and all domestic exertion fell for a time upon her shoulders. To W. S. Williams, Esquire, September 26th. As I laid down your letter after reading with interest, the graphic account it gives of a very striking scene. I could not help feeling with renewed force a truth, tried enough, yet ever impressive, vis that it is good to be attracted out of ourselves, to be forced to take a near view of the sufferings, the privations, the efforts, the difficulties of others. If we ourselves live in fullness of content, it is well to be reminded that thousands of our fellow creatures undergo a different lot. It is well to have a sleepy sympathies excited and lethargic selfishness shaken up. If on the other hand we be contending with the special grief, the intimate trial, the peculiar bitterness with which God has seen fit to mingle our own cup of existence, it is very good to know that our overcast lot is not singular. It stills the repining word and thought. It rouses the flagging strength to have it vividly set before us that there are countless afflictions in the world, each perhaps rivaling, some surpassing, the private pain over which we are too prone exclusively to sorrow. All those crowded immigrants had their troubles, their untoward causes of banishment. You, the looker on, had your wishes and regrets, your anxieties, alloying your home happiness and domestic bliss, and a parallel might be pursued further and still it would be true, still the same, a thorn in the flesh for each, some burden, some conflict for all. How far the state of things is susceptible of amelioration from changes in public institutions, alterations in national habits may or not to be earnestly considered. But this is a problem not easily solved. The evils, as you point them out, are great, real, and most obvious. Their remedy is obscure and vague. Yet for such difficulties as spring from over competition, immigration must be good. The new life in a new country must give a new lease of hope. The wider field, less thickly peopled, must open a new path for endeavor. But I always think great physical powers of exertion and endurance ought to accompany such a step. I am truly glad to hear that an original writer has fallen in your way. Originality is the pearl of great price in literature, the rarest, the most precious claim by which an author can be recommended. Are not your publishing prospects for the coming season tall, ugly, rich, and satisfactory? You inquire after Kerr or Bell. It seems to me that the absence of his name from your list of announcements will leave no blank, and that he may at least spare himself the disquietude of thinking he is wanted when it is certainly not his lot to appear. Perhaps Kerr or Bell has a secret moan about these matters, but if so, he will keep it to himself. It is an affair about which no words need be wasted, for no words can make a change. It is between him and his position, his faculties and his fate. My husband and I were anxious that she should pay us a visit before the winter had set completely in, and she thus wrote, declining our invitation. November 6th, if anybody would tempt me from home, you would, but just now from home I must not, will not go. I feel greatly better at present than I did three weeks ago. For a month or six weeks about the equinox, a tunnel or vernal, is a period of the year which I have noticed strangely tries me. Sometimes a strain falls on the mental, sometimes on the physical part of me. I'm ill with neurologic headache, and I am ground to the dust with deep dejection of spirits. Not however such dejection, but I can keep it to myself. That weary time has, I think and trust, got over for this year. It was the anniversary of my poor brother's death and of my sister's failing health. I need say no more. As to running away from home every time I have a battle of this sort to fight, it would not do besides. The weird would follow. As to shaking it off, that cannot be. I have declined to go to Mrs., to Miss Martino, and now I decline to go to you. But listen, do not think that I throw your kindness away or that it fails of doing the good you desire. On the contrary, the feeling expressed in your letter, proved by your invitation, goes right home where you would have to go and heals as you would have it to heal. Your description of Frederica Bremer fatalities exactly with one I read somewhere in I Know Not Webbook. I laughed out when I got to the mention of Frederica's special accomplishment, given by you with a distinct simplicity that, to my taste, is what the French would call impayable. Where do you find the foreigner who is without some little drawback of this description? It is a pity. A visit from Miss Wooler at this period did Miss Bronte much good for the time. She speaks of her guest company as being very pleasant, like good wine, both to her father and to herself. But Miss Wooler could not remain with her long and then again the monotony of her life returned upon her in all its force. The only events of her days and weeks consisting in the small changes which occasionally letters brought. It must be remembered that her health was often such as to prevent her stirring out of the house in inclement or wintry weather. She was liable to sore throat and depressing pain at the chest and difficulty of breathing on the least exposure to cold. A letter from her late visitor touched and gratified her much. It was simply expressive of gratitude for attention and kindness shown to her, but it wound up by saying that she had not, for many years, experienced so much enjoyment as during the 10 days passed at Hayworth. This little sentence called out a wholesome sensation of modest pleasure in Miss Bronte's mind and she says, it did me good. I find in a letter to a distant friend written about this time a retrospect of her visit to London. It is too ample to be considered as a mere repetition of what she had said before. And besides, it shows that her first impressions of what she saw and heard were not crude and transitory but stood the test of time and afterthought. I spent a few weeks in town last summer as you have heard and was much interested by many things. I heard and saw there what now chiefly dwells in my memory are Mr. Thackeray's lectures, Mamazelle Raquel's acting, Diabuñez, Melville's and Maurice's preaching and The Crystal Palace. Mr. Thackeray's lectures you will have seen mentioned and commented on in the papers. They were very interesting. I could not always coincide with the sentiments expressed or the opinions broached, but I admired the gentlemen like ease, the quiet humor, the taste, the talent, the simplicity and the originality of the lecturer. Raquel's acting transfixed me with wonder, enchained me with interest and thrilled me with horror. The tremendous force with which she expresses the very worst passions in their strongest essence forms an exhibition as exciting as the bullfights of Spain and the gladiatorial combats of old Rome. And it seemed to me not one went more moral than these poison stimulants to popular ferocity. It is scarce a human nature that she shows you. It is something wilder and worse. The feelings and fury of a fiend, the great gift of genius she undoubtedly has, but I fear she rather abuses it than turns it to good account. With all the three preachers, I was greatly pleased. Melville seemed to me the most eloquent. Maurice, the most in earnest, had I the choice, it is Maurice whose ministry I should frequent. On the crystal palace I need not comment. You must already have heard too much of it. It struck me at the first with only a vague sort of wonder and admiration, but having one day the privilege of going over it in company with an imminent countrymen of yours, Sir David Brewster. And hearing in his friendly scotch accent, his lucid explanation of many things that had been to me before a sealed book, I began a little better to comprehend it, or at least a small part of it. Whether it's fun or results will equal expectation, I know not. Her increasing indisposition subdued her at last in spite of all her efforts of reason and will. She tried to forget oppressive recollections in writing. Her publishers were important for a new book from her. The yet was begun, but she lacked power to continue it. It is not at all likely, she says, that my book will be ready at the time you mention. If my health is spared, I shall get on with it as fast as is consistent with its being done. If not well, yet as well as I can do it. Not one whit faster. When the moon leaves me, it has left me now without vouchsafing so much as a word or a message when it will return. I put by the MS and wait till it comes back again. God knows I sometimes have to wait long, very long, it seems to me. Meantime, if I might make a request to you, it would be this. Pleased to say nothing about my book till it is written and in your hands. You may not like it, I am not myself elated with it as far as it is gone. And authors, you need not be told, are always tenderly indulgent, even blindly partial to their own. Even if it shouldn't turn out reasonably well, still I regarded as ruined to the prosperity of an ephemeral book like a novel to be much talked of beforehand, as if it were something great. People are up to conceive or at least to profess exaggerated expectation such as no performance can realize. Then ensue disappointment and the due revenge, detraction and failure. If when I write I were to think of the critics who I know are waiting for Ker Bell, ready to break all his bones or ever he comes to the bottom of the den. My hand would fall paralyzed on my desk. However, I can do my best and then muffle my head in the mantle of patience and sit down at her feet and wait. The mood here spoken of did not go off, it had a physical origin, indigestion, nausea, headache, sleeplessness, all combined to produce miserable depression of spirits. A little event which occurred about this time did not tend to cheer her. It was the death of poor old faithful keeper, Emily's dog. He had come to the parsonage in the fierce strength of his youth. Solon and ferocious, he had met with his master in the indomitable Emily. Like most dogs of his kind, he feared, respected and deeply loved her, who subdued him. He had mourned her with the pathetic fidelity of his nature, falling into old age after her death. And now her surviving sister wrote, poor old keeper died last Monday morning after being ill one night. He went gently to sleep. We laid his old faithful head in the garden. Flossy, the fat curly-haired dog, is dull and misses him. There was something very sad in losing the old dog, yet I am glad he met a natural fate. People kept thinking he ought to be put away, which neither papa nor I like to think of. End of chapter 10, part one, end of section 13.