 Volume 2, Section 14, of the Life of Charlotte Bronte. The Life of Charlotte Bronte. When Miss Bronte wrote this, on December 8, she was suffering from a bad cold and pain in her side. Her illness increased, and on December 17 she, so patient, silent and enduring the suffering, so afraid of any unselfish taxing of others, had to call to her friend for help. I cannot at present go to see you, but I would be grateful if you could come and see me even more and only for a few days. To speak truth I have put on but a poor time of it during this month past. I kept hoping to be better, but was at last obliged to have recourse to a medical man. Sometimes I felt very weak and low, and longed much for society, but could not persuade myself to commit the selfish act of asking you merely for my own relief. The doctor speaks encouragingly, but as yet I get no better. As the illness has been coming on for a long time, it cannot, I suppose, be expected to disappear all at once. I am not confined to bed, but I am weak, have had no appetite for about three weeks, and my nights are very bad. I am well aware myself that extreme and continuous depression of spirits has had much to do with the origin of the illness, and I know a little cheerful society would do me more good than gallons of medicine. If you can come, come on Friday. Write tomorrow and say whether this be possible, and what time you will be yet keeply, that I may send the gig. I do not ask you to stay long, a few days is all I request. Of course her friend went, and a certain amount of benefit was derived from her society, always so grateful to Miss Bronte, but the evil was now too deep rooted to be more than paliated for a time by the little cheerful society for which she so touchingly besought. A relapse came on before long. She was very ill and the remedies employed took an unusual effect on her peculiar sensitiveness of constitution. Mr. Bronte was miserably anxious about the state of his only remaining child, for she was reduced to the last degree of weakness, as she had been unable to swallow food for above a week before. She rallied and derived her soul sustenance from half a tea cup of liquid, administered by tea spoonfuls, in the course of the day. Yet she kept out of bed for her father's sake and struggled in solitary patience through her worst hours. When she was recovering her spirits needed support and then she yielded to her friends in treaty that she would visit her. All the time that Miss Bronte's illness had lasted, Miss had been desirous of coming to her. But she refused to avail herself of this kindness, saying that it was enough to burden herself, that it would be misery to annoy another, and even at her worst time she tells her friend with humorous glee how coolly she had managed to capture one of Miss letters to Mr. Bronte, which she suspected was of a kind to aggravate his alarm about his daughter's state, and at once conjecturing its tenor, made its contents her own. Happily for all parties Mr. Bronte was wonderfully well this winter. Good sleep, good spirits, and an excellent steady appetite, all seemed to mark vigor, and in such a state of health Charlotte could leave him to spend a week with her friend without any great anxiety. She benefited greatly by the kind attentions and cheerful society of the family with whom she went to stay. They did not care for her in the least as curable, but had known and loved her for years as Charlotte Bronte. To them her invalid weakness was only a fresh claim upon their tender regard, from the solitary woman whom they had first known as a little motherless schoolgirl. Miss Bronte wrote to me about this time, and told me something of what she had suffered. February 6, 1852 Certainly the past winter has been to me a strange time. Had I the prospect before me of living it over again, my prayer must necessarily be, let this cup pass from me. That depression of spirits, which I thought was gone by, when I wrote last, came back again with a heavy recoil. Internal congestion ensued, and then inflammation. I had severe pain in my right side, frequent burning and aching in my chest. Sleep almost forsook me, or would never come, except a company by ghastly dreams. Appetite vanished, and slow fever was my continual companion. It was some time before I could bring myself to have recourse to medical advice. I thought my lungs were affected, and could feel no confidence in the power of medicine. When at last, however, a doctor was consulted. He declared my lungs and chest sound, and ascribed all my sufferings to derangement of the liver, on which organ it seems the inflammation had fallen. This information was a great relief to my dear father, as well as to myself, but I had subsequently rather sharp medical discipline to undergo, and was much reduced. Though not yet well, it is with deep thankfulness that I can say I am greatly better. My sleep, appetite and strength seem all returning. It was a great interest to her to be allowed an early reading of Esmond, and she expressed her thoughts on the subject in a criticizing letter to Mr. Smith, who had given her this privilege. February 14th, 1852 My dear sir, it has been a great delight to me to read Mr. Thackeray's work, and I so seldom now express my sense of kindness that, for once, you must permit me, without rebuke, to thank you for a pleasure so rare and special. Yet I am not going to praise either Mr. Thackeray or his book. I have read, enjoyed, been interested, and, after all, feel full as much ire and sorrow as gratitude and admiration. And still one can never lay down a book of his without the last two feelings having their part, be the subject or treatment what it may. In the first half of the book, what chiefly struck me was the wonderful manner in which the writer throws himself into the spirit and letters of the times whereof he treats. The illusions, the illustrations, the style, all seem to me so masterly in their exact keeping, their harmonious consistency, their nice natural truth, their pure exemption from exaggeration. No second-rate imitator can write in that way. No coarse scene painter can charm us with an illusion so delicate and perfect. But what bitter satire, what relentless dissection of disease subjects, while, and this, too, is right, or would be right, if the savage surgeon did not seem so fiercely pleased with his work. Thackeray likes to dissect an ulcer or an aneurysm. He has pleasure in putting his cruel knife or probe into quivering living flesh. Thackeray would not like all the world to be good. No great satirist would like society to be perfect. As usual, he is unjust to women, quite unjust. There is hardly any punishment he does not deserve for making Lady Castlewood peep through a keyhole, listen at a door, and be jealous of a boy and a milkmaid. Many other things I noticed, that, for my part, grieved and exasperated me as I read, but then again came passages so true, so deeply thought, so tenderly felt, one could not help forgiving and admiring. But I wish he could be told not to care much for dwelling on the political or religious intrigues of the times. Thackeray, in his heart, does not value political or religious intrigues of any age or date. He likes to show us human nature at home, as he himself daily sees it. His wonderful, observant faculty likes to be in action. In him this faculty is a sort of captain and leader, and, if ever any passage in his writings lacks interest, it is when this master faculty is for a time thrust into a subordinate position. I think such is the case in the former half of the present volume. Towards the middle, he throws off, restraint, becomes himself, and is strong to the close. Everything now depends on the second and third volumes. If in pith and interest they fall short of the first, a true success cannot ensue. If the continuation, being improvement upon the commencement, if the stream gather force as it rolls, Thackeray will triumph. Some people have been in the habit of terming him the second writer of the day. It just depends on himself whether or not these critics shall be justified in their award. He need not be the second. God made him second to no man. If I were he, I would show myself as I am, not as critics report me. At any rate, I would do my best. Mr. Thackeray is easy and indolent, and seldom cares to do his best. Thank you once more, and believe me, yours sincerely, C. Bronte. Ms. Bronte's health continued such that she could not apply herself to writing as she wished, for many weeks after the serious attack from which she had suffered. There was not very much to cheer her in the few events that touched her interest during this time. She heard in March of the death of a friend's relation in the colonies, and we see something of what was the corroding dread at her heart. The news of E's death came to me last week in a letter from M, a long letter which wrung my heart so in its simple, strong, truthful emotion, I've only ventured to read it once. It ripped up, half-scarred wounds with terrible force, the deathbed was just the same, breath failing, etc. She fears she shall now, in her dreary solitude, become a stern, harsh, selfish woman. This fear struck home, again and again have I felt it for myself, and what is my position to M's? May God help her, as God only can help. Again and again her friend urged her to leave home, nor were various invitations wanting to enable her to do this, when these constitutional excesses of low spirits preyed too much upon her in her solitude. But she would not allow herself any such indulgence, unless it became absolutely necessary from the state of her health. She dreaded the perpetual recourse to such stimulants as change of scene and society, because of the reaction that was sure to follow. As far as she could see, her life was ordained to be lonely, and she must subdue her nature, to her life and, if possible, bring the two into harmony. And she could employ herself in fiction, all was comparatively well. The characters were her companions in the quiet hours, which she spent utterly alone, unable often to stir out of doors, for many days together. The interests of the persons in her novels supplied the lack of interest in her own life, and memory and imagination, found their appropriate work, and ceased to prey upon her vitals. Too frequently, she could not write, could not see her people, nor hear them speak. A great mist of headache had blotted them out. They were nonexistent to her. This was the case all through the present spring, and anxious as her publishers were for its completion, the yet stood still. Even her letters to her friend are scarce and brief. Here and there, I find a sentence in them, which can be extracted, and which is worth preserving. M's letter is truly interesting. It shows a mind one cannot but truly admire, compared its serene trusting strength, with poor, vacillating dependence. When the letter was in her first burst of happiness, I never remember the feeling, finding vent and expressions of gratitude to God. There was always a continued claim upon your sympathy in the mistrust and doubt she felt of her own bliss. M believes her faith is grateful and at peace, yet while happy in herself how thoughtful she is for others. March 23, 1852. You say, dear E, that you often wish I would chat on paper, as you do. How can I? Where are my materials? Is my life fertile in subjects of chat? What callers do I see? What visits do I pay? No, you must chat, and I must listen, and say yes and no, and thank you, for five minutes recreation. I am amused at the interest you take in politics. Don't expect to rouse me. To me, all ministries and all oppositions seem to be pretty much alike. Disraeli was factious as leader of the opposition. Lord John Russell is going to be factious, now that he has stepped into Disraeli's shoes. Lord Derby's Christian love and spirit is worth three half-pence barthing. To W. S. Williams, Esquire, March 25, 1852. My dear sir, Mr. Smith intimated a short time since that he had some thoughts of publishing a reprint of Shirley. Having revised the work, I now enclose the errata. I have likewise sent off today, per rail, a return box of Cornhill books. I have lately read with great pleasure the two families. This work, it seems, should have reached me in January, but, owing to a mistake, it was detained at the dead-letter office, and lay there nearly two months. I liked the commencement very much. The clothes seemed to me scarcely equal to Rose Douglas. I thought the authorists committed a mistake in shifting the main interest from the two personages on whom it first rests, Viz, Ben Wilson, and Mary, to other characters of quite inferior conception. Had she made Ben and Mary her hero and heroine, and continued the development of their fortunes and characters in the same truthful, natural vein in which she commences it, an excellent, even an original book might have been the result. As for Lilia, Zann Ronald, they are mere romantic figments, with nothing of the genuine Scottish peasant about them. They do not even speak, the Caledonian dialect. They palaver, like a fine lady and a gentleman. I ought long since to have acknowledged the gratification with which I read Miss Kavanaugh's Women of Christianity. Her charity and, on the whole, her impartiality are very beautiful. She touches, indeed, with too gentle a hand the theme of Elizabeth of Hungary, and in her own mind she evidently misconstrues the fact of Protestant charities seeming to be fewer than Catholic. She forgets, or does not know, that Protestantism is a quieter creed than Romanism. As it does not clothe its priesthood in scarlet, so neither does it set up its good women for saints, canonize their names and proclaim their good works. In the records of man their almsgiving will not perhaps be found registered, but heaven has its accounts as well as earth. With kind regards to yourself and family, who I trust have all safely weathered the rough winter lately past, as well as the east winds, which are still nipping our spring in Yorkshire. I am my dear sir, yours sincerely, C. Bronte. April 3, 1852. My dear sir, the box arrived quite safely, and I very much thank you for the contents, which are most kindly selected. As you wish me to say what I thought of The School for Fathers, I hasten to read it. The book seems to be clever, interesting, very amusing, and likely to please generally. There is a merit in the choice of ground, which is not yet too hack-nine. The comparative freshness of subject, character, and epoch give the tale a certain attractiveness. There is also, I think, a graphic rendering of situations and a lively talent for describing whatever is visible and tangible. What the eye meets on the surface of things. The humor appears to me, such as would answer while on the stage. Most of the scenes seem to demand dramatic accessories to give them their full effect. But I think one cannot with justice bestow higher praise than this. To speak candidly, I felt in reading the tale a wondrous hollowness in the moral and sentiment, a strange deliton shallowness in the purpose and feeling. After all, Jack is not much better than a Tony Lumpkin. And there is no very great breath of choice between the clown he is, and the fob his father would have made him. The grossly material life of the old English foxhunter and the frivolous existence of the fine gentleman present extremes, each in its way so repugnant that one feels half inclined to smile when called upon to sentimentalize over the lot of a youth, forced to pass from one to the other. Torn from the stables to be usher perhaps into the ballroom, Jack dies mournfully indeed. And you are sorry for the poor fellow's untimely end. But you cannot forget that if he had not been thrust into the way of Colonel Penrudeck's weapon, he might possibly have broken his neck in a foxhunt. The character of Sir Thomas Warren is excellent, consistent throughout. That of Mr. Addison, not bad, but sketchy, a mere outline, wanting color and finish. The man's portrait is there and his costume and fragmentary anecdotes of his life. But where is the man's nature, soul and self? I say nothing about the female characters, not one word, only that Lydia seems to me like a pretty little actress, prettily dressed, gracefully appearing and disappearing, and reappearing in a gentile comedy, assuming the proper sentiments of her part with all do-tact and naivete, and that is all. Your description of the model man of business is true enough, I doubt not, but we will not fear that society will ever be brought quite to this standard, human nature, bad as it is, has, after all, elements that forbid it. But the very tendency to such a consummation, the marked tendency, I fear, of the day, produces no doubt cruel suffering. Yet when the evil of competition passes a certain limit, must it not in time work its own cure? I suppose it will, but then, through some convulsed crisis, shattering all around it like an earthquake. Meantime, for how many his life made a struggle, enjoyment and rest curtailed, labor terribly enhanced beyond almost what nature can bear, I often think that this world would be the most terrible of enigmas were not for the firm belief that there is a world to come, where conscientious effort and patient pain will meet their reward. Believe me, my dear sir, sincerely yours, see Bronte. A letter to her old Brussels school fellow gives a short retrospect of the dreary winter she had passed through. Hayworth, April 12th, 1852. I struggled through the winter and the early part of the spring, often with great difficulty. My friends stayed with me a few days in the early part of January. She could not be spared longer. I was better during her visit, but had a relapse soon after she left me, which reduced my strength very much. It cannot be denied that the solitude of my position fearfully aggravated its other evils. Some long stormy days and nights there were. When I felt such a craving for support and companionship as I cannot express, sleepless I lay awake night after night, weak and unable to occupy myself. I sat in my chair day after day, the saddest memories my only company. It was a time I shall never forget, but God sent it and it must have been for the best. I am better now, and very grateful do I feel for the restoration of tolerable health. But as if there was always to be some affliction, Papa who enjoyed wonderful health during the whole winter is ailing with his spring attack of bronchitis. I earnestly trust it may pass over in the comparatively ameliorated form in which it has hitherto shown itself. Let me not forget to answer your question about the cataract. Tell your Papa that my father was seventy at the time he underwent an operation. He was most reluctant to try the experiment, could not believe that at his age and with his want of robust strength it would succeed. I was obliged to be very decided in the matter and to act entirely on my own responsibility. Nearly six years have now elapsed since the cataract was extracted. He was not merely depressed. He has never once during that time regretted the step and a day seldom passes that he does not express gratitude and pleasure at the restoration of that inestimable privilege of vision, whose loss he once knew. I had given Miss Bronte in one of my letters an outline of the story on which I was then engaged and in reply she says, the sketch you give of your work respecting which I am of course dumb seems to me very noble and its purpose may be as useful and practical result as it is high and just in theoretical tendency. Such a book may restore hope and energy to many who thought they had forfeited their right to both and open a clear course for honorable effort to some who deemed that they and all honour had parted company in this world. But here my protest, why should she die? Why are we to shut up the book weeping? My heart fails me already at the thought of the paying it will have to undergo, and yet you must follow the impulses of your own inspiration. If that commands the slaying of the victim, no bystander has a right to put out his hand to stay the sacrificial knife. But I hold you a stern priestess in these matters. As the milder weather came on her health improved and her power of writing increased. She set herself with redoubled figure to the work before her and denied herself pleasure for the purpose of steady labour. Hence she writes to her friend, May 11th, Dear E, I must adhere to my resolution of neither visiting nor being visited at present. Stay you quietly at B, till you go to S, as I shall stay at Hayworth. As sincere farewell can be taken with the heart as with the lips, and perhaps less painful. I am glad the weather has changed. The return of the south-west wind suits me, but I hope you have no cause to regret the departure of your favourite east wind. What you say about does not surprise me. I have had many little notes, whereof I answer about one in three, breathing the same spirit. Self and child, the soul, all absorbing topics, on which the changes are rung, even a weariness. But I suppose one must not heed it, or think the case singular, nor am I afraid, must one expect her to improve. I read in a French book lately, a sentence to this effect, that marriage might be defined as a state of twofold selfishness. Let the single, therefore, take comfort. Thank you for Mary's letter. She does seem most happy, and I cannot tell you how much more real, lasting, and better warranted her happiness seems than ever did. I think so much of it is in herself and her own serene, pure, trusting, religious nature. Always give me the idea of a vacillating, unsteady rapture entirely dependent on circumstances with all their fluctuations. If Mary lives to be a mother, you will then see a greater difference. I wish you, dearie, all health and enjoyment in your visit, and as far as one can judge at present there seems a fair prospect of the wish being realized. Your sincerely. See Bronte. End of Chapter 10, Part 2, End of Section 14. Volume 2, Section 15 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 Clegghorn-Goskell. Volume 2, Section 15, Chapter 11. The reader will remember that Anne Bronte had been interred in the churchyard of the old church at Scarborough. Charlotte had left directions for a tombstone to be placed over her, but many a time during the solitude of the past winter her sad, anxious thoughts had revisited the scene of that last great sorrow. And she had wondered whether all decent services had been rendered to the memory of the dead. Until at last she came to a silent resolution to go and see for herself whether the stone and inscription were in a satisfactory state of preservation. Cliff House, Filey, June 6th, 1852. Dear E., I am at Filey utterly alone. Do not be angry. The step is right. I considered it and resolved on it with due deliberation. Change of error was necessary. There were reasons why I should not go to the south and why I should come here. On Friday I went to Scarborough, visited the churchyard and stone. It must be refaced and re-lettered. There are five errors. I gave the necessary directions. That duty, then, is done. Long has it lain heavy on my mind and that was a pilgrimage I felt I could only make alone. I am in our own lodgings at Mrs. Smith's. Not, however, in the same rooms, but in less expensive apartments. They seem glad to see me, remembered you and me very well and seemingly with great goodwill. The daughter who used to wait on us is just married. Filey seems to me much altered. More lodging houses, some of them very handsome, have been built. The sea has all its old grandeur. I walk on the sands a good deal and try not to feel desolate and melancholy. How sorely my heart longs for you, I need not say. I have bathed once. It seemed to do me good. I may perhaps stay here a fortnight. There are as yet scarcely any visitors. A Lady Wenlock is staying at the large house of what you used so vigilantly to observe the inmates. One day I set out with intent to trudge to Filey Bridge, but was frightened back by two cows. I mean to try again some morning. I left Papa well. I have been a good deal troubled with headache and with some pain in the side since I came here, but I feel that this has been owing to the cold wind. For very cold has it been till lately. At present I feel better. Shall I send the papers to you as usual, write again directly and tell me this and anything and everything else that comes into your mind. Believe me yours faithfully, see Bronte. Filey June 16th, 1852. Dear E, be quite easy about me. I really think I am better for my stay at Filey that I have derived more benefit from it than I dared to anticipate. I believe could I stay here two months and enjoy something like social cheerfulness as well as exercise and good air. My health would be quite renewed. This, however, cannot possibly be, but I am most thankful for this good received. I stay here another week. I return letter. I am sorry for her. I believe she suffers, but I do not much like her style of expressing herself. Grief as well as joy manifests itself in most different ways in different people and I doubt not she is sincere and in earnest when she talks of her precious, sainted father. But I could wish she used simpler language. Soon after her return from Filey she was alarmed by a very serious and sharp attack of illness with which Mr. Bronte was seized. There was some fear for a few days that his sight was permanently lost and his spirits sank painfully under this dread. This prostration of spirits writes his daughter, which accompanies anything like a relapse is almost the most difficult point to manage. Dear E, you are tenderly kind in offering your society, but rest very tranquil where you are. Be fully assured that it is not now nor under present circumstances that I feel the lack either of society or occupation. My time is pretty well filled up and my thoughts appropriated. I cannot permit myself to comment much on the cheap contents of your last. Advice is not necessary as far as I can judge, you seem hitherto unable to take these trials in a good and wise spirit. I can only pray that such combined strength and resignation may be continued to you. Submission, courage, exertion, when practicable, these seem to be the weapons with which we must fight life's long battle. I suppose that during the very time when her thoughts were thus fully occupied with anxiety for her father, she received some letter from her publishers, making inquiry as to the progress of the work which they knew she had in hand. As I find the following letter to Mr. Williams, bearing reference to some of Mr. Smith and elders proposed arrangements, to W.S. Williams Esquire, July 28th, 1852. My dear sir, is it in contemplation to publish the new edition of Shirley soon? Would it not be better to defer it for a time? In reference to a part of your letter, permit me to express this wish. And I trust in doing so I shall not be regarded as stepping out of my position as an author and encroaching on the arrangements of business. Viz, that no announcement of a new work by the author of Jane Eyre shall be made till the MS of such work is actually in my publisher's hands. Perhaps we are, none of us, justified. In speaking very decidedly where the future is concerned, but for some too much caution in such calculations can scarcely be observed. Amongst this number I must class myself, nor in doing so can I assume an apologetic tone. He does right who does his best. Last autumn I got on for a time quickly. I ventured to look forward to spring as the period of publication. My health gave way. I passed such a winter as having been once experienced will never be forgotten. The spring proved a little better than a protraction of trial. The warm weather and a visit to the sea have done me much good physically, but as yet I have recovered neither elasticity of animal spirits nor flow of the power of composition. And if it were otherwise, the difference would be of no avail. My time and thoughts are at present taken up with close attendance to my father, whose health is just now in a very critical state, the heat of the weather having produced determination of blood to the head. I am yours sincerely, see Bronte. Before the end of August, Mr. Bronte's convalescence became quite established and he was anxious to resume his duties for some time before his careful daughter would permit him. On September the 14th, the great Duke died. He had been, as we have seen, her hero from childhood. But I find no further reference to him at this time than what is given in the following extract from a letter to her friend. I do hope and believe the changes you have been having this summer will do you permanent good, notwithstanding the pain with which they have been too often mingled. Yet I feel glad that you are soon coming home. And I really must not trust myself to say how much I wish the time were come when, without lead or hindrance, I could once more welcome you to Hayworth. But oh, I don't get on. I feel fretted, incapable, sometimes very, though. However, at present, the subject must not be drawn upon. It presses me too hardly, nearly and painfully. Less than ever can I taste or no pleasure till this work is wound up. And yet I often sit up in bed at night, thinking of and wishing for you. Thank you for the times. What it said on the mighty and mournful subject was well said. All at once the whole nation seems to take a just view of that great character. There was a review, too, of an American book, which I was glad to see. Read Uncle Tom's Cabin. Probably, though, you have read it. Papa's health continues satisfactory. Thank God. As for me, my wretched liver has been disordered again of late, but I hope it is now going to be on better behavior. It hinders me in working. Depresses both power and tone of feeling. I must expect this derangement from time to time. Hayworth was in an unhealthy state, as usual, and both Miss Bronte and Tabby suffered severely from the prevailing epidemics. The former was long in shaking off the effects of this illness. In vain, she resolved against allowing herself any society or change of scene until she had accomplished her labor. She was too ill to write, and with illness came on, the old heaviness of heart, recollections of the past, and anticipations of the future. At last, Mr. Bronte expressed so strong a wish that her friend should be asked to visit her, and she felt some little refreshment, so absolutely necessary, that on October the 9th, she begged her to come to Hayworth just for a single week. I thought I would persist and deny myself till I had done my work, but I find it won't do. The matter refuses to progress, and this excessive solitude presses too heavily. So let me see your dear face, E, just for one reviving week. But she would only accept of the company of her friend for the exact time specified. She thus writes to Miss Wooler on October the 21st. E has only been my companion one little week. I would not have her any longer, for I am disgusted with myself and my delays, and consider it was a weak yielding to temptation, in me, to send for her at all. But in truth my spirits were getting low, prostrate sometimes, and she has done me inexpressible good. I wonder when I shall see you at Hayworth again. Both my father and the servants have again and again insinuated a distinct wish that you should be requested to come in the course of the summer and autumn. But I have always turned rather a deaf ear. Not yet, was my thought. I want first to be free, work first, then pleasure. Miss, visit, had done her much good, pleasant companionship during the day produced for the time, the unusual blessing of calm repose at night. And after her friend's departure she was well enough to fall to business and ride away, almost incessantly at her story of the yet, now drawing to a conclusion. The following letter to Mr. Smith seems to have accompanied the first part of the MS. October 30th, 1852. My dear sir, you must notify, honestly, what you think of the yet when you have read it. I can hardly tell you how I hunger to see some opinion besides my own and how I have sometimes desponded and almost disbared because there was no one to whom to read a line or to whom to ask a counsel. Jane Eyre was not written under such circumstances, nor were two-thirds of Shirley. I got so miserable about it, I could bear no illusion to the book. It is not finished yet, but now I hope, as to the anonymous publication. I have this to say. If the withholding of the author's name should tend materially to injure the publisher's interest, to interfere with bookseller's orders, et cetera, I would not press the point. But if no such detriment is contingent, I should be most thankful for the sheltering shadow of an incognito. I seem to drive the advertisements, the large-lettered Kerr Bell's new novel or new work by the author of Jane Eyre. These, however, I feel well enough are the transcendentalisms of a retired wretch. So you must speak frankly. I shall be glad to see Colonel Esmond. My objection to the second volume lay here. I thought it contained decidedly too much history, too little story. In another letter referring to Esmond, she uses the following words. The third volume seemed to mean to possess the most sparkle, impetus and interest. Of the first and second, my judgment was that parts of them were admirable, but there was the fault of containing too much history, too little story. I hold that a work of fiction ought to be a work of creation, that the real should be sparingly introduced in pages dedicated to the ideal. Plain household bread is a far more wholesome and necessary thing than cake, yet who would like to see the brown loaf placed on the table for dessert? In the second volume, the author gives us an ample supply of excellent brown bread. In his third, only such a portion as gives substance, like the crumbs of bread in a well-made, not too rich, plum pudding. Her letter to Mr. Smith containing the illusion to Esmond, which reminded me of the quotation just given, continues. You will see that Viet touches on, no matter of public interest. I cannot write books handling the topics of the day. It is of no use trying, nor can I write a book for its moral, nor can I take up a philanthropic scheme, though I honor philanthropy, and voluntarily and sincerely veil my face before such a mighty subject, as that handled in Mrs. Beecher Stowe's work, Uncle Tom's Cabin. To manage these great matters rightly, they must be long and practically studying. Their bearings, known intimately, and their evils felt genuinely. They must not be taken up as a business matter and a trading speculation. I doubt not, Mrs. Stowe had felt the iron of slavery and turned to her heart from childhood upwards, long before she ever thought of writing books. The feeling throughout her work is sincere, and not got up. Remember to be an honest critic of the yet, and tell Mr. Williams to be unsparing, not that I'm likely to alter anything, but I want to know his impressions and yours. To G. Smith, Esquire, November 3rd. My dear sir, I feel very grateful for your letter. It relieved me much, for I was a good deal harassed by doubts as to how Viet might appear in other's eyes than my own. I feel in some degree authorized to rely on your favorable impressions, because you are quite right where you hint to disapprobation. You have exactly hit two points at least where I was conscious of defect. The discrepancy, the want of perfect harmony between Graham's boyhood and manhood, the angular abruptness of his change of sentiment towards Miss Fanshawe. You must remember, though, that in secret, he had for some time appreciated that young lady at a somewhat depressed standard, held her a little lower than the angels, but still the reader ought to have been better made to fill this preparation towards a change of mood. As to the publishing arrangement, I'll leave them to Cornhill. There is undoubtedly a certain force in what you say about the expediency of affecting a mystery, which cannot be sustained. So you must act as you think, is for the best. I submit also to the advertisements in large letters, but under protest and with a kind of ostrich longing for concealment. Most of the third volume is given to the development of the craved professor's character. Lucy must not marry Dr. John. He's far too youthful, handsome, bright-spirited, and sweet-tempered. He is a curled darling of nature and a fortune, and must draw a prize in life's lottery. His wife must be young, rich, pretty. He must be made very happy indeed. If Lucy marries anybody, it must be the professor, a man in whom there is much to forgive, much to put up with. But I am not leniently disposed towards Miss Frost from the beginning. I never meant to appoint her lines in pleasant places. The conclusion of this third volume is still a matter of some anxiety. I can but do my best, however. It would speedily be finished, could I ward off certain obnoxious headaches, which, whenever I get into the spirit of my work, are apt to seize and prostrate me. Colonel Henri Asmann is just arrived. He looks very antique and distinguished in his Queen Anne's garb. The periwigs, sword, lace, and ruffles are very well represented by the old spectator type. In reference to a sentence towards the close of this letter, I may mention what she told me. That Mr. Bronte was anxious that her new tale should end well, as he disliked novels which left a melancholy impression upon the mind. And he requested her to make her hero and heroine, like the heroes and heroines in fairy tales, marry and live very happily ever after. But the idea of Mr. Paul Emmanuel's death at sea was stamped on her imagination, till it assumed the distinct force of reality, and she could no more alter her fictitious ending than if they had been facts which she was relating. All she could do, in compliance with her father's wish, was to veil the fate in oracular words, as to leave it to the character and discernment of her readers to interpret her meaning. To W.S. Williams Esquire, November 6th, 1852. My dear sir, I must not delay thanking you for your kind letter with its candid and able commentary on the yet. With many of your strictures, I concur. The third volume may perhaps do away with some of the objections. Others still remain in force. I do not think the interest culminates anywhere to the degree you would wish. What climax there is does not come on till near the conclusion. And even then I doubt whether the regular novel reader will consider the agony piled sufficiently high, as the Americans say, or the colors dashed onto the canvas with the proper amount of daring. Still I fear they must be satisfied with what is offered. My palette affords no brighter tints. Were I to attempt to deepen the reds or burnish the yellows? I should but botch. Unless I am mistaken, the emotion of the book will be found to be kept throughout in tolerable subjection. As to the name of the heroine, I can hardly express what subtlety of thought made me decide upon giving her a cold name. But at first I called her Lucy Snow, spelt with an E, which snow I afterwards changed to frost. Subsequently I rather regretted the change and wished it snow again. If not too late, I should like the alteration to be made now throughout the MS. A cold name she must have, partly perhaps on the Lucas, unknown Lucendo principle. Partly on that of the fitness of things, for she has about her an external coldness. You say that she may be thought morbid and weak, unless the history of her life be more fully given. I consider that she is both morbid and weak at times. Her character sets up no pretensions to unmixed strength, and anybody living her life would necessarily become morbid. It was no impetus of healthy feeling, which urged her to the confessional, for instance. It was the semi delirium of solitary grief and sickness. If, however, the book does not express all this, there must be a great fault somewhere. I might explain away a few other points, but it would be too much like drawing a picture, and then writing underneath the name of the object intended to be represented. We know what sort of a pencil that is, which needs an ally in the pen. Thanking you again for the clearness and fullness with which you have responded to my request for a statement of impressions. I am, my dear sir, yours very sincerely, C. Bronte. I trust the work will be seen in MS by no one except Mr. Smith and yourself. November 10th, 1852. My dear sir, I only wish the publication of Shirley to be delayed till the yet was nearly ready so that there can now be no objection to its being issued whenever you think fit. About putting the MS into type, I can only say that should I be able to proceed with the third volume at my average rate of composition and with no more than the average amount of interruptions, I should hope to have it ready in about three weeks. I leave it to you to decide whether it would be better to delay the printing, that space of time, or to commence it immediately. It would certainly be more satisfactory if you were to see the third volume before printing the first and the second, yet if delay is likely to prove injurious, I do not think it is indispensable. I have read the third volume of Esmond. I found it both entertaining and exciting to me. It seems to possess an impetus and excitement beyond the other two. That movement and brilliancy, its predecessors, sometimes wanted, never fails here. In certain passages I thought Thackeray used all his powers. Their grand, serious force yielded a profound satisfaction. At last he put forth his strength. I could not help saying to myself. No character in the book strikes me as more masterly than that of Beatrix. Its conception is fresh and its delineation vivid. It is peculiar, it has impressions of a new kind, new at least to me. Beatrix is not, in herself, all bad. So much does she sometimes reveal of what is good and great as to suggest this feeling. You would think she was urged by a fate. You would think that some antique doom presses on her house and that once in so many generations its brightest ornament was to become its greatest disgrace. At times what is good in her struggles against this terrible destiny, but the fate conquers. Beatrix cannot be an honest woman and a good man's wife. She tries and she cannot. Proud, beautiful and solid, she was born what she becomes, a king's mistress. I know not whether you have seen the notice in the leader. I read it just after concluding the book. Can I be wrong in deeming it a notice tame, cold and insufficient? With all its professed friendliness it produced on me a most disheartening impression. Surely another sort of justice than this will be rendered to Esmond from other quarters. One acute remark of the critic is to the effect that Blanche, Amory and Beatrix are identical, sketched from the same original. To me they are about as identical as a weasel and a royal Tigris of Bengal. Both the latter are quadrupeds, both the former women, but I must not take up either your time or my own with further remarks. Believe me yours sincerely, C. Bronte. On a Saturday, a little later in this month, Ms. Bronte completed Viet and sent it off to her publishers. I said my prayers when I had done it, whether it is well or ill done, I don't know. DV, I will now try and wait the issue quietly. The book, I think, will not be considered pretentious, nor is it out of character to excite hostility. As her labor was ended, she felt it liberty to allow herself a little change. There were several friends anxious to see her and welcome her to their homes, Miss Martino, Mrs. Smith and her own faithful E. With the last in the same letter as that in which she announced the completion of Viet, she offered to spend a week. She began also to consider whether it might not be well to avail herself of Mrs. Smith's kind invitation with the view to the convenience of being on the spot to correct the proofs. The following letter is given not merely on account of her own criticisms on Viet, but because it shows how she had learned to magnify the meaning of trifles, as all do who live a self-contained and solitary life. Mr. Smith had been unable to write by the same post as that which brought the money for Viet, and she consequently received it without a line. The friend with whom she was staying says that she immediately fancied there was some disappointment about Viet or that some word or act of hers had given offense and had not the Sunday intervened and so allowed time for Mr. Smith's letter to make its appearance, she would certainly have crossed it on her way to London. December 6, 1852. My dear sir, the receipts have reached me safely. I received the first on Saturday, enclosed in a cupboard without a line, and had made it my mind to take the train on Monday and go up to London to see what was the matter and what had struck my publisher mute. On Sunday morning your letter came and you have thus been spared the visitation of the unannounced and unsummoned apparition of Kerr Bell in Cornhill. Inexplicable delays should be avoided when possible for they are apt to urge those subjected to their harassment to sudden and impulsive steps. I must pronounce you right again in your complaint of the transfer of interest in the third volume from one set of characters to another. It is not pleasant and it will probably be found as unwelcome to the reader as it was, in a sense, compulsory upon the writer. The spirit of romance would have indicated another course, far more flowery and inviting. It would have fashioned a paramount hero, kept faithfully with him, and made him supremely worshipful. He should have been an idol and not a mute, unresponding idol either, but this would have been unlike real life, inconsistent with truth, at variance with probability. I greatly apprehend, however, that the weakest character in the book is the one I aimed at making the most beautiful. And if this be the case, the fault lies in its wanting the germ of the real, in its being purely imaginary. I felt that this character lacked substance. I fear that the reader will feel the same. Union with it resembles too much the fate of Ixion, who was mated with a cloud. The childhood of Paulina is, however, I think, pretty well imagined, but her, the remainder of this interesting sentence is torn off the letter. A brief visit to London becomes the most practical, and if your mother will kindly write, when she has time, and name a day after Christmas, which will suit her, I shall have pleasure, Poppa's help permitting, in evailing myself of her invitation. I wish I could come in time to correct some, at least, of the proofs. It would save trouble. End of section 15, volume two, section 16 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 two, section 16, chapter 12. The difficulty that presented itself most strongly to me, when I first had the honor of being requested to write this biography, was how I could show what a noble, true, and tender woman Charlotte Bronte really was, without mingling up with her life, too much of the personal history of her nearest and most intimate friends. After much consideration of this point, I came to the resolution of writing truly, if I wrote at all, of withholding nothing, though some things, from the very nature, could not be spoken of so fully as others. One of the deepest interests of her life centers naturally around her marriage, and the preceding circumstances, but more than all other events, because of more recent date, and concerning another as intimately as herself, it requires delicate handling on my part, lest I intrude too roughly on what is most sacred to memory. Yet I have two reasons which seem to me good and valid ones for giving some particulars of the course of events, which led to her few months of wedded life, that short spell of exceeding happiness. The first is my desire to call attention to the fact that Mr. Nichols was one who had seen her almost daily for years, seen her as a daughter, a sister, a mistress, and a friend. He was not a man to be attracted by any kind of literary fame. I imagine that this by itself would rather repel him when he saw it in the possession of a woman. He was a grave, reserved, conscientious man, with a deep sense of religion and of his duties as one of his ministers. In silence he had watched her and loved her long. The love of such a man, a daily spectator, of her manner of life for years, is a great testimony to her character as a woman. How deep his affection was I scarcely dare to tell, even if I could in words. She did not know, she had hardly begun to suspect, that she was the object of any peculiar regard on his part, when in this very December he came one evening to tea. After tea, she returned from the study to her own sitting room, as was her custom, leaving her father and his curate together. Presently she heard the study door open and expected to hear the succeeding clash of the front door. Instead came a tap, and like lightning, it flashed upon me what was coming. He entered, he stood before me. What his words were, you can't imagine. His manner, you can hardly realize, nor can I forget. He made me for the first time feel what it costs a man to declare affection when he doubts response. The spectacle of one, ordinarily so statue-like, thus trembling, stirred and overcome, gave me a strange shock. I could only entreat him to leave me then and promise a reply on the morrow. I asked if he had spoken to Papa. He said he dared not. I think I have fled, have put him out of the room. So deep, so fervent and so enduring was the affection Miss Bronte had inspired in the heart of this good man. It is an honor to her, and as such, I have thought it my duty to speak thus much and quote thus fully from her letter about it. And now I pass to my second reason for dwelling on a subject which may possibly be considered by some at first sight of too private a nature for publication. When Mr. Nichols had left her, Charlotte went immediately to her father and told him all. He always disapproved of marriages and constantly talked against them. But he more than disapproved at this time. He could not bear the idea of this attachment of Mr. Nichols to his daughter. Fearing the consequences of agitation to one so recently an invalid, she made haste to give her father a promise that on the morrow Mr. Nichols should have a distinct refusal. Thus quietly and modestly did she on whom such hard judgments had been passed by ignorant reviewers, received this vehement, passionate declaration of love. Thus thoughtfully for her father and unselfishly for herself, put aside all consideration of how she should reply, accepting as he wished. The immediate result of Mr. Nichols's declaration of attachment was that he sent in his resignation of the curacy of Hayworth and that Miss Bronte held herself simply passive as far as words and actions went while she suffered acute pain from the strong expressions which her father used in speaking of Mr. Nichols and from the two evident distress and failure of health on the part of the latter. Under these circumstances she, more gladly than ever, availed herself of Mrs. Smith's proposal that she should again visit them in London and that she accordingly went in the first week of the year, 1853. From thence I received the following letter. It is with a sad, proud pleasure I copy her words of friendship now. January 12th, 1853. It is with you, the ball rest. I have not heard from you since I wrote last, but I thought I knew the reason of your silence, vis application to work, and therefore I accept it, not merely with resignation, but with satisfaction. I am now in London as the date above will show, staying very quietly at my publishers and correcting proofs, et cetera. Before receiving yours I had felt and expressed to Mr. Smith reluctance to come in the way of Ruth. Not that I think she would suffer from contact with Viet. We know not, but that the damage might be the other way. But I have ever held comparisons to be odious and would feign that neither I, nor my friends should be made subjects for the same. Mr. Smith proposes accordingly to defer the publication of my book till the 24th ends. He says that will give Ruth the start in the papers daily and weekly and also will leave free to her all the February magazines. Should this delay appear to you insufficient, speak, and it shall be protracted. I dare say, arrange as we may, we shall not be able to wholly prevent comparisons. It is the nature of some critics to be invidious, but we need not care. We can set them at defiance. They shall not make us foes. They shall not mingle with our mutual feelings one taint of jealousy. There is in my hand on that. I know you will give clasp for clasp. Viet has indeed no right to push itself before Ruth. There is a goodness, a philanthropic purpose, a social use in the latter in which the former cannot for an instant pretend, nor can it claim precedence on the ground of surpassing power. I think it much quieter than Jane Eyre. I wish to see you, probably at least as much as you can wish to see me, and therefore shall consider your invitation for March as an engagement. About the close of that month then, I hope to pay you a brief visit with kindest remembrances to Mr. Goskel and all your precious circle, I am, et cetera. This visit at Mrs. Smith's was passed more quietly than any previous one and was consequently more in accordance with her own taste. She saw things rather than persons and being allowed to have her own choice of sites. She selected the real in preference to the decorative side of life. She went over two prisons, one ancient, the other modern, Newgate and Pentonville, over two hospitals, the Foundling and Betham. She was also taken at her own request to see several of the great city sites, the bank, the exchange, Rothschilds, et cetera. The power of vast yet minute organization always called out her respect and admiration. She appreciated it more fully than most women are able to do. All that she saw during this last visit to London impressed her deeply. So much so as to render her incapable of the immediate expression of her feelings or of reasoning upon her impressions while they were so vivid. If she had lived her deep heart would sooner or later have spoken out on these things. What she saw dwelt in her thoughts and lay heavy on her spirits. She received yet most kindness from her hosts and had the old, warm and grateful regard for them. But looking back with the knowledge of what was then in the future, which time has given, one cannot but imagine that there was a toning down in preparation for the final farewell to these kind friends, whom she saw for the last time on a Wednesday morning in February. She met her friend E. at Keithley on her return and the two proceeded to haywork together. The yet, which if less interesting as a mere story than Jane Eyre, displays yet more of the extraordinary genius of the author, was received with one burst of acclamation out of so small a circle of characters dwelling in so dull and monotonous an area as a pension this wonderful tale was evolved. See how she receives the good tidings of her success. February 15th, 1853. I got a budget of no less than seven papers yesterday and today the import of all the notices is such as to make my heart small with thankfulness to him, who takes note both of suffering and work and motives. Papa is pleased too. As to friends in general, I believe I can love them still without expecting them to take any large share in this sort of gratification. The longer I live, the more plainly I see that gentle must be the strain on fragile human nature. It will not bear much. I suspect that the touch of slight disappointment, perceptible in the last few lines, arose from her great susceptibility to an opinion she valued much. That of Miss Martino, who both in an article in the Yet in the Daily News and in a private letter to Miss Bronte, wounded her to the quick by expressions of censure, which she believed to be unjust and unfounded, but which, if correct and true, went deeper than any merely artistic fault. An author may bring himself to believe that he can bear blame with equanimity from whatever quarter it comes, but its force is derived altogether from the character of this. To the public, one reviewer may be the same in personal being as another, but an author has frequently a far deeper significance to attach to opinions. They are the verdicts of those whom he respects and admires, or the mere words of those for whose judgment he cares not a jot. It is this knowledge of the individual worth of the reviewer's opinion, which makes the censures of some sink so deep and pray so heavily upon an author's heart. And thus, in proportion to her true firm regard for Miss Martino, did Miss Bronte suffer under what she considered her misjudgment, not merely of writing, but of character. She had long before asked Miss Martino to tell her whether she considered that any want of womanly delicacy or propriety was betrayed in Jane Eyre. And on receiving Miss Martino's assurance that she did not, Miss Bronte entreated her to declare it frankly if she thought there was any failure of this description in any future work of Kerr Bells. The promise then given a faithful truth speaking, Miss Martino, filled when the yet appeared, Miss Bronte writhed under what she felt to be injustice. This seems a fitting place to state how utterly unconscious she was of what was by some esteemed course in her writings. One day, during that visit at the briary when I first met her, the conversation turned upon the subject of women's writing fiction and someone remarked on the fact that in certain instances, authorises had much outstepped the line which men felt to be proper in works of this kind. Miss Bronte said she wondered how far this was a natural consequence of allowing the imagination to work too constantly. Sir James and Lady K. Shuttleworth and I expressed our belief that such violations of propriety were altogether unconscious on the part of those to whom reference had been made. I remember her grave earnest way of saying, I trust God will take from me whatever power of invention or expression I may have before he lets me become blind to the sense of what is fitting or unfitting to be said. Again, she wasn't variably shocked and distressed when she heard of any disapproval of Jane Eyre on the ground above mentioned. Someone said to her in London, you know, you and I, Miss Bronte, have both written naughty books. She dwelt much on this and, as if it weighed on her mind, took an opportunity to ask Mrs. Smith as she would have asked a mother. If she had not been motherless from earliest childhood, whether indeed there was anything so wrong in Jane Eyre, I do not deny for myself the existence of coarseness here and there in her works, otherwise so entirely noble. I only ask those who read them to consider her life, which has been openly laid bare before them and to say how it could be otherwise. She saw few men and among these few were one or two with whom she had been acquainted since early childhood, who had shown her much friendliness and kindness, through whose family she had received many pleasures, for whose intellect she had a great respect, but who talked before her if not to her with as little reticence as Rochester, talked to Jane Eyre. Take this in connection with her poor brother's sad life and the outspoken people among whom she lived. Remember her strong feeling of the duty of representing life as it really is, not as it ought to be. And then do her justice for all that she was and all that she would have been had God spared her, rather than censure her because circumstances forced her to touch pitch as it were. And by it her hand was for a moment defile. It was but skin deep. Every change in her life was purifying her. It hardly could raise her. Again, I cry, if she had but lived. The misunderstanding with Miss Martino on account of the yet was the cause of bitter regret to Miss Bronte. Her woman's nature had been touched, as she thought, with insulting misconception. And she had dearly loved the person who had thus unconsciously wounded her. It was but in the January just past that she had written as follows, in reply to a friend, the tenor of whose letter we may guess, from this answer. I read attentively all you say about Miss Martino. The sincerity and constancy of your solicitude touched me very much. I should agree to neglect or oppose your advice. And yet I do not feel it would be right to give Miss Martino up entirely. There is in her nature much that is very noble. Hundreds have forsaken her, more I fear, in the apprehension that their fair names may suffer, it's seen in connection with hers. Then from any pure convictions, such as you suggest, of harm consequent on her fatal tenants. With these fair weather friends I cannot bear to rank, and for her sin, is it not one of those of which God and not man must judge? To speak the truth, my dear Miss, I believe if you were in my place and knew Miss Martino as I do, if you had shared with me the proofs of her genuine kindness, and had seen how she secretly suffers from abandonment, you would be the last to give her up. You would separate the sinner from the sin, and feel as if the right lay, rather than quietly adhering to her, in her straight. While that adherence is unfashionable and unpopular, then in turning on her, you are back when the world sets the example. I believe she is one of those whom opposition and desertion make obstinate in error. While patience and tolerance touch her deeply and keenly, and incline her to ask of her own heart, whether the course she has been pursuing may not possibly be a faulty course. Kindly and faithful words, which Miss Martino never knew of, to be repaid in words more grand and tender when Charlotte lay deaf and cold by her dead sisters. In spite of their short sorrowful misunderstanding, they were a pair of noble women and faithful friends. I turn to a pleasanter subject. While she was in London, Miss Bronte had seen Lawrence's portrait of Mr. Thackeray, and admired it extremely. Her first words after she had stood before it some time in silence were, and there came up a lion out of Judah. The likeness was by this time engraved, and Mr. Smith sent her a copy of it. To G. Smith, Esquire, Hayworth, February 26th, 1853. My dear sir, at the late hour yesterday evening, I had the honour of receiving, at Hayworth Parsonage, a distinguished guest, none other than W. M. Thackeray, Esquire. Mindful of the rites of hospitality, I hung him up in state this morning. He looks superb and is beautiful, tasteful, gilded gibbet. For companion he has the Duke of Wellington. Do you remember giving me that picture? And for contrast and foil, Richmond's portrait of an unworthy individual, who in such a society must be nameless. Thackeray looks away from the latter character, the grand scorn, edifying to witness. I wonder if the giver of these gifts will ever see them on the walls where they now hang. It pleases me to fancy that one day he may. My father stood for a quarter of an hour this morning, examining the great man's picture. The conclusion of his survey was that he thought it a puzzling head, if he had known nothing previously of the original's character. He could not have read it in his features. I wonder at this. To me, the broad brow seems to express intellect. Certain lines about the nose and cheek portray the satirist and cynic. The mouth indicates a childlike simplicity, perhaps even a degree of a resoluteness, inconsistency, weakness in short, but a weakness not uneniable. The engraving seems to me very good, a certain not-quite-Christian expression, not to put too fine a point upon it. An expression of spite, most vividly marked in the original, is here softened, and perhaps a little, a very little, of the power has escaped in this ameliorating process. Did it strike you thus? Miss Bronte was in much better health during this winter of 1852 to 1853 than she had been the year before. For my part, she wrote to me in February, I have thus far borne the cold weather well. I have taken long walks on the crackling snow and felt the frosty air bracing. This winter has for me not been like last winter. December, January, February, 51 to 2, passed like a long stormy night, cautious of one painful dream, all solitary grief and sickness. The corresponding months, in 52 to 3, have gone over my head quietly and not un-chirfully. Thank God for the change and the repose, how welcome it has been, he only knows. My father too is born the season well, and my book, and its reception thus far, have pleased and cheered him. In March, the quiet parsonage had the honor of receiving a visit from the then Bishop of Rupin. He remained one night with Mr. Bronte. In the evening, some of the neighboring clergy were invited to meet him at Team Supper. And during the latter meal, some of the curits began merrily to up-raid Miss Bronte with putting them into a book. And she, shrinking from thus having her character as authorist thrust upon her at her own table and in the presence of a stranger, pleasantly appealed to the bishop as to whether it was quite fair thus to drive her into a corner. His lordship, I've been told, was agreeably impressed with the gentle unassuming manners of his hostess and with the perfect propriety and consistency of the arrangements in the modest household. So much for the bishop's recollection of his visit. Now we will turn to hers. March 4th. The bishop has been and is gone. He is certainly a most charming bishop, the most benignant gentleman that ever put on lawn sleeves, yet stately too and quite competent to check encroachments. His visit passed capitalally well and at its close, as he was going away, he expressed himself thoroughly gratified with all he had seen. The inspector has been also in the course of the past week so that I have had a somewhat busy time of it. If you could have been at Hayworth to share the pleasures of the company without having been inconvenienced by the little bustle of the preparation, I should have been very glad. But the house was a good deal put out of its way, as you may suppose. All passed, however, orderly, quietly and well. Martha waited very nicely and I had a person to help her in the kitchen. Papa kept up too, fully as well as I expected, though I doubt whether he could have borne another day of it. My penalty came on in a strong headache as soon as the bishop was gone. How thankful I was that it had patiently waited his departure. I continue stupid today, of course. It is the reaction consequent on several days of extra exertion and excitement. It is very well to talk of receiving a bishop without trouble, but you must prepare for him. By this time, some of the reviews had begun to find fault with Viet. Miss Fontaine made her old request to W.S. Williams Esquire. My dear sir, were a review to appear inspired with trouble, their animus, pray do not withhold it from me. I like to see the satisfactory notices, especially I like to carry them to my father, but I must see such that as are unsatisfactory and hostile. These are for my own, a special edification. It isn't these I best read public feeling and opinion. To show an examination into the dangerous and disagreeable seems to me cowardly. I long always to know what really is an ammonia nerved when kept in the dark. As to the character of Lucy Snow, my intention from the first was that she should not occupy the pedestal to which Jane Eyre was raised by some injudicious admirers. She is where I meant her to be and where no charge of self-lawdation can touch her. The note you sent this morning from Lady Harriet St. Clair is precisely to the same purport as Miss Moulach's request. An application for exact and authentic information respecting the fate of Mr. Paul Immanuel. You see how much the ladies think of this little man, whom you none of you like. I had a letter the other day announcing that a lady of some note who had always determined that whenever she married her husband should be the counterpoint of Mr. Knightley in Miss Austen's Emma and now changed her mind and vowed that she would either find the duplicative Professor Immanuel or remain forever single. I sent Lady Harriet an answer so worded as to leave the matter pretty much where it was. Since the little puzzle amuses the ladies, it would be a pity to spoil their sport by giving them the key. When Easter, with its duties arising out of sermons to be preached by strange clergymen who had afterwards to be entertained at the parsonage, with mechanics institute meetings and school tea drinkings was over and gone, she came at the close of April to visit us in Manchester. We had a friend, a young lady staying with us. Miss Bronte had expected to find us alone and although our friend was gentle and sensible after Miss Bronte's own heart, yet her presence wasn't up to create a nervous tremor. I was aware that both of our guests were unusually silent and I saw a little shiver run from time to time over Miss Bronte's frame. I could account for the modest reserve of the young lady and the next day Miss Bronte told me how the unexpected sight of a strange face had affected her. It was now two or three years since I had witnessed a similar effect produced on her in anticipation of a quiet evening at Fox Howe and since then she had seen many and various people in London but the physical sensations produced by shyness were still the same and on the following day she labored under severe headache. I had several opportunities of perceiving how this nervousness was ingrained in her constitution and how acutely she suffered in striving to overcome it. One evening we had among other guests two sisters who sang Scottish ballads exquisitely. Miss Bronte had been sitting quiet and constrained till they began the Bonnie House of Airley but the effect of that and Carlisle, yet which followed was as irresistible as the plane of the Piper of Hamelin. The beautiful clear light came into her eyes. Her lips quivered with emotion. She forgot herself, rose and crossed the room to the piano where she asked eagerly for song after song. The sisters begged her to come and see them the next morning when they would sing as long as ever she liked and she promised gladly and thankfully but on reaching the house her courage failed. We walked some time up and down the street. She abrading herself all the while for folly and trying to dwell on the sweet echoes in her memory rather than on the thought of a third sister who would have to be faced if we went in. But it was of no use and dreading lest this struggle with herself might bring on one of her trying headaches. I entered at last and made the best apology I could for her non-appearance. Much of this nervous dread of encountering strangers I ascribed to the idea of her personal ugliness which had been strongly impressed upon her imagination early in life and which she exaggerated to herself in a remarkable manner. I noticed said she that after a stranger has once looked at my face he is careful not to let his eyes wander to that part of the room again. A more untrue idea never entered into anyone's head. Two gentlemen we saw during this visit without knowing at the same time who she was were singularly attracted by her appearance and this feeling of attraction towards a pleasant countenance, sweet voice and gentle timid manners was so strong in one as to conquer a dislike he had previously entertained to her works. There was another circumstance that came to my knowledge at this period which told secrets about the finely strung frame. One night I was on the point of relating some dismal ghost story just before bedtime. She shrank from hearing it and confessed that she was superstitious and prone at all times to the involuntary recurrence of any thoughts of ominous gloom which might have been suggested to her. She said that on first coming to us she had found a letter on her dressing table from a friend in Yorkshire containing a story which had impressed her vividly ever since. That it mingled with her dreams at night and made her sleep restless and unrefreshing. One day we asked two gentlemen to meet her at dinner expecting that she and they would have a mutual pleasure in making each other's acquaintance. To our disappointment she drew back with timid reserve from all their advances replying to their questions and remarks in the briefest manner possible. Till at last they gave up their efforts to draw her into conversation in despair and talk to each other and my husband on subjects of recent local interest. Among these Thackeray's lectures which had lately been delivered in Manchester were spoken of and that on fielding especially dwelt upon. One gentleman objected to it strongly as calculated to do moral harm and regretted that a man having so great an influence over the tone of thought of the day as Thackeray should not more carefully weigh his words. The other took the opposite view. He said that Thackeray described men from the inside as it were. Through his strong power of dramatic sympathy he identified himself with certain characters, felt their temptations, entered into their pleasures, et cetera. This roused Miss Bronte who threw herself warmly into the discussion. The eyes of her reserve was broken and from that time she showed her interest in all thought was said and contributed her share to any conversation that was going on in the course of the evening. What she said and which part she took in the dispute about Thackeray's lecture may be gathered from the following letter referring to the same subject. The lectures arrived safely. I have read them through twice. They must be studied to be appreciated. I thought well of them when I heard them delivered but now I see their real power and it is great. The lecture on Swift was new to me. I thought it almost matchless. Not that by any means I always agreed with Mr. Thackeray's opinions but his force, his penetration, his pithy simplicity, his eloquence, his manly sonorous eloquence, command entire admiration. Against his errors I protest. Were it treason to do so? I was present at the fielding lecture. The hour spent in listening to it was a painful hour. That Thackeray was wrong in his way of treating Fielding's character and vices. My conscience told me. After reading that lecture I trebly felt that he was wrong, dangerously wrong. Had Thackeray owned a son, grown or growing up and a son brilliant but reckless, would he have spoken in that light way of courses that lead to disgrace and the grave? He speaks of it all as if he theorized as if he had never been called on in the course of his life to witness the actual consequences of such failings. As if he had never stood by and seen the issue to find a result of it all. I believe if only once the prospect of a promising life blasted on the outside by wild ways had passed close under his eyes he never could have spoken with such a levity of what led to its pithiest destruction. Had I a brother yet living I should tremble to let him read Thackeray's lecture on Fielding. I should hide it away from him. If in spite of precaution it should fall into his hands I should earnestly pray him not to be misled by the voice of the charmer. Let him charm never so wisely. Not that for a moment I would have had Thackeray to abuse Fielding or even farziically to condemn his life but I do most deeply grieve that it never entered into his heart sadly and nearly to feel the peril of such a career that he might have dedicated some of this great strength to a potent warning against its adoption by any young man. I believe temptation often assails the finest manly natures as the pecking sparrow or destructive wasp attacks the sweetest and mellowest fruit as showing what is sour and crude. The true lover of his race ought to devote his vigor to guard and protect he should sweep away every lure with a kind of rage at its treachery. You will think this far too serious, I dare say but the subject is serious and one cannot help feeling upon it earnestly. End of section 16. Volume two, section 17 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 Clegghorn Gaskell. Volume two, section 17. Chapter 13. After her visit to Manchester she had to return to a reopening of the painful circumstances of the previous winter as the time drew near for Mr. Nichols departure from Howard. A testimonial of respect from the parishioners was presented at a public meeting to one who had faithfully served them for eight years and he left the place and she saw no chance of hearing a word about him in the future unless it was some second hand scrap of intelligence dropped out accidentally by one of the neighbouring clergymen. I had promised to pay her a visit on my return from London in June but after the day was fixed a letter came from Mr. Bronte saying that she was suffering from so severe an attack of influenza accompanied with such excruciating pain in the heads that he must request me to defer my visit until she was better. While sorry for the cause I did not regret that my going was delayed till the season when the Moors would be all glorious with the purple bloom of the heather and thus present a scene about which she had often spoken to me. So we agreed that I should not come to her before August or September. Meanwhile I received a letter from which I am tempted to take an extract as it shows both her conception of what fictitious writing ought to be and her always kindly interest in what I was doing. July 9th, 1853. Thank you for your letter. It was as pleasant as a quiet chat as welcome as spring showers as reviving as a friend's visit. In short, it was very like a page of Cranford's. A thought strikes me. Do you, who have so many friends, so large a circle of acquaintance, find it easy when you sit down to write to isolate yourself from all those ties and their sweet associations so as to be your own woman uninfluenced or swayed by the consciousness of how your work may affect other minds? What blame or what sympathy it may call forth? Does no luminous cloud ever come between you and the severe truth as you know it in your own secret and clear-seeing soul? In a word, are you never tempted to make your characters more amiable than the life by the inclination to assimilate your thoughts to the thoughts of those who always feel kindly but sometimes fail to see justly? Don't answer the question. It is not intended to be answered. Your account of Mrs. Stowe was stimulatingly interesting. I long to see you to get you to say it and many other things all over again. My father continues better. I am better too. But today I have a headache again which will hardly let me write coherently. Give my dear love to M and M, dear happy girls as they are. You cannot now transmit my messages to F and J. I prized the little wildflower. Not that I think the sender cares for me. She does not and cannot, for she does not know me, but no matter. In my reminisces she is a person of a certain distinction. I think hers a fine little nature, frank and of genuine promise. I often see her as she appeared stepping supreme from the portico towards the carriage that evening we went to see twelfth night. I believe in J's future. I like what speaks in her movements and what is written upon her face. Towards the latter end of September, I went to Howarth. At the risk of repeating something which I have previously said, I will copy out parts of a letter which I wrote at the time. It was a dull, drizzly, Indian inky day all the way on the railroad to Kiley which is a rising wool manufacturing town lying in a hollow between hills. Not a pretty hollow, but more what the Yorkshire people call a bottom or bottom. I left Kiley in a car for Howarth for miles off. For tough, steep, scrambling miles the road winding between the wave-like hills that rose and fell on every side of the horizon with a long, illimitable, sinuous look as if they were a part of the line of the Great Serpent which the Norse legend says girdles the world. The day was lead-colored. The road had stone factories alongside of it, gray, dull-collared rows of stone cottages belonging to these factories and then we came to poor, hungry-looking fields. Stone fences everywhere and trees nowhere. Howarth is a long, straggling village, one steep, narrow street, so steep that the flagstones with which it is paved are placed end-ways, that the horse's feet may have something to cling to and not slip down backwards, which if they did, they would soon reach Kiley. But if the horses had cat's feet and claws, they would do all the better. Well, we, the man, horse, car, and I clamored up this street and reached the church dedicated to Saint Altest. Who was he? Then we turned off into a lane on the left past the curates lodging at the sextons, past the schoolhouse, up to the parsonage yard door. I went round the house to the front door, looking to the church, moors everywhere beyond and above. The crowded graveyard surrounds the house and small grass enclosure for drying clothes. I don't know that I ever saw a spot more exquisitely clean, the most dainty place for that I ever saw. To be sure, the life is like clockwork. No one comes to the house, nothing disturbs the deeper pose. Hardly a voice is heard. You catch the ticking of the clock in the kitchen or the buzzing of a fly in the parlor all over the house. Miss Bronte sits alone in her parlor, breakfasting with her father in his study at nine o'clock. She helps in the housework, for one of their servants, Tabby, is nearly 90 and the other only a girl. Then I accompanied her in her walks on the sweeping moors. The heather bloom had been blighted by a thunderstorm a day or two before, and was all of a livid brown color, instead of the blaze of purple glory it ought to have been. Oh, there's high, wild, desolate moors up above the whole world and the very realms of silence. I, home to dinner, too. Mr. Bronte has his dinner sent into him. All the small table arrangements had the same dainty simplicity about them. Then we rested and talked over the clear bright fire. It is a cold country and the fires wear a pretty warm dancing light all over the house. The parlor had been evidently refurnished within the last few years, since Miss Bronte's success has enabled her to have a little more money to spend. Everything fits into and is in harmony with the idea of a country parsonage, possessed by people of very moderate means. The prevailing color of the room is crimson to make a warm setting for the cold gray landscape without. There is her likeness by Richmond's, and an engraving from Lawrence's picture of Thackeray, and two recesses on each side of the high, narrow, old-fashioned mantelpiece filled with her books, books given to her, books she has bought, and which tell of her individual pursuits and tastes, not standard books. She cannot see well and does little besides knitting. The way she weakened her eyesight was this. When she was 16 or 17, she wanted much to draw, and she copied nimenopimini copper plates engravings out of annuals. Stippling, don't the artist call it? Every little point put in to let the ends of six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to draw stories and not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing. But in so small a hand that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time. But now to return to our quiet hour of rest after dinner. I soon observed that her habits of order were such that she could not go on with the conversation if a chair was out of its place. Everything was arranged with delicate regularity. We talked over the old times of her childhoods, of her elder sisters, Maria's death, just like that of Helen Burns in Jane Eyre, of those strange, starved days at school, of the desire, almost amounting to illness, of expressing herself in some way, writing or drawing, of her weakened eyesight, which prevented her doing anything for two years from the age of 17 to 19, of her being a governess, of her going to Brussels, whereupon I said I disliked Lucy Snow, and we discussed M. Paul Emmanuel. And I told her of blanks admiration of Shirley, which pleased her. For the character of Shirley was meant for her sister Emily, about whom she is never tired of talking, nor eye of listening. Emily must have been a remnant of the Titans, great-granddaughter of the giants who used to inhabit Earth. One day Miss Bronte brought down a rough, common-looking oil painting done by her brother, of herself, a little, rather prim-looking girl of 18, and the two other sisters, girls of 16 and 14, with cropped hair and sad, but dreamy-looking eyes. Emily had a great dog, half mastiff, half bulldog, so savage, et cetera. This dog went to her funeral, walking side-by-side with her father, and then, to the day of its death, it slept at her room door, snuffing under it and whining every morning. We have generally had another walk before tea, which is at six, at half past eight, prayers, and by nine all the households are in bed, except ourselves. We sit up together till 10 or past, and after I go, I hear Miss Bronte come down and walk up and down the room for an hour or so. Copying this letter has brought the days of that pleasant visit very clear before me, very sad in their clearness. We were so happy together. We were so full of interest in each other's subjects. The day seemed only too short for what we had to say and to hear. I understand her life the better for seeing the place where it had been spent, where she had loved and suffered. Mr. Bronte was a most courteous host, and when he was with us at breakfast in his study, or at tea in Charlotte's parlour, he had a sort of grand and stately way of describing past times, which tallied well with his striking appearance. He never seemed quite to have lost the feeling that Charlotte was a child to be guided and ruled when she was present, and she submitted herself to this with a quiet docility that half amused, half astonished me. But when she had to leave the room, then all his pride in her genius and fame came out. He eagerly listened to everything I could tell him of the high admiration I had at any time expressed for her works. He would ask for certain speeches over and over again, as if he desired to impress them on his memory. I remember two or three subjects of the conversations which she and I held in the evenings besides those alluded to in my letter. I asked her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description given of its effects in viet were so exactly like what I had experienced, vivid and exaggerated presence of objects of which the outlines were indistinct, or lost and golden mist, et cetera. She replied that she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of it in any shape, but that she had followed the process she always adopted when she had to describe anything which had not fallen within her own experience. She had thought intently on it for many and many a night before falling to sleep, wondering what it was like or how it would be to let length, sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one point for weeks, she wakened up in the morning with all clear before her as if she had in reality gone through the experience and then could describe it word for word as it had happened. I cannot account for this psychologically. I am only sure that it was so because she said it. She made many inquiries as to Mrs. Stowe's personal appearance and it evidently harmonized well with some theory of hers to hear that the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin was small and slight. It was another theory of hers that no mixtures of blood produced such fine characters, mentally and morally, as the Scottish and English. I recollect, too, her saying how acutely she dreaded a charge of plagiarism when, after she had written Jane Eyre, she read the thrilling effect of the mysterious scream at midnight in Mrs. Marsh's story of the Deformed. She also said that, when she read The Neighbors, she thought everyone would fancy that she must have taken her conception of Jane Eyre's character from that of Francesca, the narrator of Miss Bremmer's story. For my own part, I cannot see the slightest resemblance between the two characters and so I told her, but she persisted in saying that Francesca was Jane Eyre, married to a good-natured bear of a Swedish surgeon. We went, not purposely, but accidentally, to see various poor people in our distant walks. From one, we had barred an umbrella. In the house of another, we had taken shelter from a rough September storm. In all these cottages, her quiet presence was known. At three miles from her home, the chair was dusted for her, with a kindly, sit ye down, Miss Bronte, and she knew what absent or ailing members of the family to inquire after. Her quiet, gentle words, few though they might be, were evidently grateful to those Yorkshire ears. They're welcome to her, though rough and curt, was sincere and hearty. We talked about the different courses through which life ran. She said, in her own composed manner, as if she had accepted the theory as a fact, that she believed somewhere appointed beforehand to sorrow and much disappointment, that it did not fall to the lot of all, as scripture told us, to have their lines fall in pleasant places, that it was well for those who had rougher paths to perceive that such was God's will concerning them, and try to moderate their expectations, leaving hope to those of a different doom, and seeking patience and resignation as the virtues they were to cultivate. I took a different view. I thought that human lots were more equal than she imagines, that to some happiness and sorrow came in strong patches of lights and shadow, so to speak, while in the lives of others they were pretty equally blended throughout. She smiled and shook her head, and said she was trying to school herself against ever anticipating any pleasure, that it was better to be brave and submit faithfully. There was some good reason, which she would know in time why sorrow and disappointment were to be the lot of some on earth. It was better to acknowledge this and face out the truth in a religious faith. In connection with this conversation she named a little abortive plan which I had not heard of till then, how in the previous July she had been tempted to join some friends, a married couple and their child, in an excursion to Scotland. They set out joyfully, she with a special gladness, for Scotland was a land which had its fruits deep down in her imaginative affections, and the glimpse of two days at Edinburgh was all she had as yet seen of it. But at the first stage after Carlisle the little yearling child was taken with a slight indisposition. The anxious parents fancied that strange diet disagreed with it and hurried back to their Yerkshire home as eagerly as two or three days before they had set their faces northward in hopes of a month's pleasant ramble. We parted with many intentions, on both sides, of renewing very frequently the pleasure we had in being together. We agreed that when she wanted bustle or when I wanted quiet we were to let each other know and exchange visits as occasion required. I was aware that she had a great anxiety on her mind at this time, and being acquainted with its nature I could not but deeply admire the patient dosility which she displayed in her conduct towards her father. Soon after I left Howarth she went on a visit to Miss Wooler, who was then staying at Hornsay. The time passed quietly and happily with his friends whose society was endeared to her by every year. To Miss Wooler, December 12th, 1853 I wonder how you are spending these long winter evenings, alone, probably, like me. The thought often crosses me as I sit by myself, how pleasant it would be if you lived within a walking distance and I could go to see you sometimes, or have you to come and spend a day and night with me. Yes, I did enjoy that week at Hornsay and I look forward to spring as the period when you will fulfill your promise of coming to visit me. I fear you must be very solitary at Hornsay. How hard to some people of the world it would seem to live your life, how utterly impossible to live it with a serene spirit and an unsour disposition. It seems wonderful to me, because you are not, like Miss Blank, phlegmatic and impenetrable, but received from nature feelings of the very finest edge. Such feelings, when they are locked up, sometimes damage the mind and temper. They don't with you. It must be partly principal, partly self-discipline, which keeps you as you are. Of course, as I draw nearer to the years so recently closed, it becomes impossible for me to write with the same fullness of details as I have hitherto not felt wrong to use. Miss Bronte passed the winter of 1853 to four in a solitary and anxious manner, but the great conqueror time was slowly achieving his victory over strong prejudice and human resolve. By degrees, Mr. Bronte became reconciled to the idea of his daughter's marriage. There is one other letter addressed to Mr. Jobel, which develops the intellectual side of her character before we lose all thought of the authorists in the timid and conscientious woman about to become a wife, and in the two shorts, almost perfect, happiness of her nine months of wedded life. Howarth, near Kiley, February 3rd, 1854. My dear sir, I can hardly tell you how glad I am to have an opportunity of explaining that taciturnity to which you allude. Your letter came at a period of danger and care when my father was very ill and I could not leave his bedside. I answered no letters at that time and yours was one of the three or four that when leisure returned to me and I came to consider their purports, it seemed to me such that the time was passed for answering them and I laid them finally aside. If you remember, you asked me to go to London. It was too late, either to go or to decline. I was sure you had left London. One circumstance you mentioned, your wife's illness, which I have thought of many a time, and wonder whether she is better. In your present note, you do not refer to her, but I trust her health has long air now been quite restored. Balder arrived safely. I looked at him before cutting his leaves with singular pleasure. Remembering well his elder brother, the potent Roman, it was natural to give a cordial welcome to a fresh scion of the same house and race. I have read him. He impressed me, thus he teams with power. I found in him a wild wealth of life, but I thought his favorite and favored child would bring his sire trouble, would make his heart ache. It seemed to me that his strength and beauty were not so much those of Joseph, the pillar of Jacob's age, as of the prodigal son who troubled his father, though he always kept his love. How is it that while the firstborn of genius often brings honor, the second, as almost often, proves a source of depression and care, I could almost prophesy that your third will atone for any anxiety inflicted by this, his immediate predecessor. There is power in that character of Balder, and to me a certain horror. Did you mean it to embody, along with force, any of the special defects of the artistic character? It seems to me that those defects were never thrown out in stronger lines. I did not and could not think you meant to offer him as your cherished ideal of the true great poet. I regarded him as a vividly colored picture of inflated self-esteem, almost frantic aspiration, of a nature that has made a moloc of intellect, offered up in pagan fires the natural affections, sacrificed the heart to the brain. Do we not all know that true greatness is simple, self-oblivious, prone to unambitious, unselfish attachments? I am certain you feel this truth in your heart of hearts. But if the critics air now, as yet I have seen none of the lukubrations, you shall one day set them right in the second part of Balder. You shall show them that you too know, better perhaps than they, that the truly great man is too sincere in his affections to grudge a sacrifice, too much absorbed in his work to talk loudly about it, to intent on finding the best way to accomplish what he undertakes, to think great things of himself, the instrument. And if God places seeming impediments in his way, if his duties sometimes seem to hamper his powers, he feels keenly, perhaps rise, under the slow torture of hindrance and delay. But if there be a true man's heart in his breast, he can bear, submit, wait patiently. Whoever speaks to me of Balder, though I live too retired a life to come often in the way of comment, shall be answered according to your suggestion and my own impression. Equity demands that you should be your own interpreter. Goodbye for the present, and believe me, faithfully and gratefully, Charlotte Bronte. Sydney DeBell, Esquire. End of section 17, recording by Katie Riley. May 2009.