| | | | | | It used to be thought the reviewers' duty and office to be | caterers for the world of readers, to be leaders of taste, to direct | public attention into certain channels, to recommend books, or | to dissuade from them, to take the trouble and responsibility | of a first perusal; and there was at least the theory that the | public was a very docile pupil, who liked guidance, and waited | for direction. But who has waited for the critic's dictum to | read the life of Charlotte Bronte? Can we hope to be beforehand | with the most remote subscriber to Mudie's or his own sluggish | country library, so as to indoctrinate him with our views, | before he has formed his own, of the | book of the season ~~ the one book that all the world has read and | talked about ~~ and, what is much more, that all readers have, | according to their capacity, thought over with some real effort to | understand its problem, and learn its lesson? And what is this book | which has awakened such general interest ~~ what is the life which | has struck the universal chord of feeling? It is the very quietest life that | ever was lived through, if we are to make variety and action | our estimate of living; and this still, uneventful, obscure existence, | was lived by a plain, diminutive woman, poor, shy, and | unattractive. | | The contrast between this outer life and the inner life which | accompanied it, constitutes the interest of this remarkable biography. | It supplies an illustration of the divine axiom that a | man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things that he | possesseth. These words, in their fullest sense, apply to a | nobler life and higher aims than are recorded here; but they | must also apply to that gift of life which God gives to all his | intelligent creatures ~~ that glorious gift of being, sensation, and | consciousness. Here is truly a life. Charlotte Bronte lived with | a reality and clearness which throw busier careers into mist and | shade; here was thought, feeling, passion, the more intense | (though not the better, or the happier) for being confined in | the narrowest range ~~ in the sphere, as it would at first sight | appear, least congenial with our intenser emotions. And we learn | what small external aids are needed to develop this gift, to expand | thought, to concentrate feeling, to intensify emotion: a narrow, | ascetic, silent home, a few wild moors, an expanse of sky | reflecting the season's changes, an occasional glimpse of the | sea, one or two friends, a few rough neighbours, the roll and | | murmur of the distant world caught through the journals which | reached her remote Yorkshire solitude. Once a sojourn in a | foreign school; now and then, at distant intervals, a journey | within the range of the one village conveyance; a short, sad, | experience of governess life; fewer adventures than fall to the | lot of most monotonous existences; fewer incidents than excite | most slaves to a mechanical employment ~~ these furnished training | enough for the acute intellect, taught the secrets of the | human heart, and fed the vivid imagination ~~ the faculty which | glorifies every great idea, stamps every congenial fact indelibly | on the brain, and gives significance to every encounter with the | outer world. | | There is indeed a solemn contrast between such a life of | external calm, so tenacious of first impressions, where each | event stands out distinct and tells upon the mind's history, | quiet in its intensity, sad in its gravity, self-consuming in its | resolute purpose, tragic in its life-long devotion to its own sense of | duty, with scarce a break or relief to the brooding, constitutional | melancholy ~~ and the whirl of gay existence in life, so called: | where no thought can be pursued in the perpetual analysis of | transient and trivial sensations; where one emotion drives out | another; where incident chases incident, and event, event; | where new loves make the old cold; where no impression lasts | long enough to mould the character and leave its own trace | behind. The most thoughtless reader must feel this contrast, | and find his interest and curiosity stimulated, and his reason | stirred, to discover the influences for good and evil in so exceptional | a career as is here presented to him. It may, at least, | make him appreciate the happy cheerfulness of ordinary life, | to learn, as we are taught here ~~ | | | | It is the impressive seriousness of this life that first strikes | us; it indeed demands our attention, and claims our respect, and | even admiration. It reveals such earnestness, such truth according | to its own standard, such conscientiousness as far as the perception | of duty extends, such habitual self-sacrifice; while side | by side with these noble qualities, are defects of equal magnitude, | and a result which upsets all previous expectation, and | overthrows half our theories. For what is the end of this | seemingly chastened will, this abiding sense of a divine presence, | this subjugation of the highest pleasures of the intellect | to homely duties, this renunciation of gay trifles which make | up the existence of so many of her sex? Not serenity, not | purity, not contentment, not hope, not a judgment skilled to | | discern between good and evil; not a progress from strength to | strength, not faith, nor joy and peace in believing ~~ but dimness | and deadness to spiritual things, and a clinging to time and | sense, and ignorance of the highest purpose of existence, and | a low standard of excellence in others, and bitterness of spirit, | narrow sympathies, and harsh judgments. Such at least are | the misgivings left on our minds after the perusal of this | biography, such the doubts and regrets; though it is not impossible | that such things may be left untold, unknown even to the biographer, | known only to the nearest and dearest, which might clear | up the gloom and throw a parting gleam over this sad, heavy, | and clouded day. | | Before, however, we enter upon the consideration of Charlotte | Bronte's character, we would impress upon our readers that | she was one of a class who have a peculiar claim for consideration | and indulgence ~~ those whose minds and bodies are not in | harmony, where there is a lasting discrepancy between the | spirit and the mortal frame in which it may truly be said to be | imprisoned. When these do not fit ~~ when | the mind is masculine, vigorous, active, keen, and daring, and the body | feeble, nervous, suffering under exertion, and sinking always towards its | fall ~~ the want of balance is apt to play strange tricks with the whole | economy. The mind, unsupported, not allowed to follow out its | suggestions and impulses by physical weakness, and thus condemned | to a forced inactivity, becomes often morbid, capricious, or | reckless in its workings; for the mind cannot think properly, | or use its functions as mere spirit. The body in its turn suffers | under the vagaries of its strong, rebellious, irresponsible tenant; | it is racked by pains or prostrated by ineffectual, powerless efforts | to obey ~~ or it throws off the yoke altogether, and refuses to act | as interpreter any longer, and sits down in the stolid imbecility of | extreme shyness and reserve, a rigid mould, out of which the fiery | tenant cannot make itself seen or felt, and so revenges itself by all | the more license in its own unthwarted sphere, or settles down into | dreams and fancies, preying upon itself. Now, we know that this | great trial, whenever it is found, is an appointed one; that there is | a way to escape from its temptations, and to turn them into a blessing; | but it is not less a duty in all who know no such anguish, who experience | no internal strife, whose system is in harmony, who know not what | this conflict of uncongenial elements means ~~ to pity those who | have all their life to bear the burden and heat of this oppressive day. | It behoves them, while thankful for their happier lot, to | be indulgent, tender, sympathising, considerate for those ~~ and | they are often the most highly gifted ~~ who are the subjects of | a severer dispensation; to make allowances to be slow to blame, | | ready to forgive, patient of seeming injustice, tolerant of eccentricity, | caprice, and we might almost say, of error ~~ not of error | in itself, but in them. | | We have spoken of the sensation caused by the present biography, | which would have had no common interest had its subject | been hitherto unknown; but this is of course indefinitely | enhanced by the startling juxtaposition in which it stands, to | ordinary readers, with the preconceived conception of what | the author of "Jane Eyre", must be. The genius and audacity | of the story; the shrinking timidity of the writer; the decorous, | uneventful simplicity of the life; the bold plunge into the whirl | of passion in the novel; the rustic ignorance of the world the | one presents; the deep knowledge of man's nature ~~ original, | rough, coarse man's nature ~~ in those scenes and interests which | remove them farthest from woman's sympathy and observation, | found in her works ~~ what every reader seeks to do, is to reconcile | this seeming contradiction, and unravel the mystery how can so | bashful a woman be so unbashful a writer? ~~ and so on. | | In the first place, the book proves that those who know least | of the world do not always know its best part. The boy at a private | tutor's, amongst his two or three companions may find as much bad | as in the five hundred boys, of a public school; perhaps he may find | more: and Charlotte Bronte's small glimpse of the world showed her | but an indifferent part of it, and her home held a monster, whom the | strong ties of an inordinate, family affection constrained her to love | and care for and find excuses for. Whatever extenuation can be found | for want of refinement for grosser outrages on propriety than this | expression indicates ~~ the home and the neighbourhood of Charlotte | Bronte certainly furnish; she wrote in ignorance of offending | public opinion. She thought men habitually talked before women in | the way she makes one of them talk; she thought men, generally were | like, in their principles, practice, and manners, the men she describes. | As her eyes were opened her standard rises, till in her last portrait, | the eccentric M. Paul, she gives us something really noble and high | principled; though in as odd a shape as these fine qualities were | ever embodied. | | For practical purposes she lived in a less refined age than | our own. Her early experience is drawn from a society a | hundred years behindhand in these matters. People talked | very differently in the days of Richardson from, what they do | now. He was then regarded as a moralist. Men would justly | hesitate to accord that praise if he wrote the same things in | our day. She did not know this; and she had a Lovelace in | the house with her, in the person of her brother Branwell. | | So that while she hated low vice for its own sake, and suffered | miserably for its consequences, she was sadly and grievously familiar | with it, and knew so much worse than she wrote, that she had no | conception of offending the delicacy of her readers. | | But this is not all; it must be confessed that her sympathies, | were more with human nature as she saw it than either with | ideal perfection or with the same human nature disciplined and | held in check by stern principle. She natural1y estimated men | by their qualities, not their principles; | and this may be traced not only to circumstances and training, | but to a certain inherent and never-remedied defect of nature | and temperament. Her character was essential1y unspiritual. | No merely natural qualities have any merit in them; an abstract | admiration of the ideal and perfect may leave the mere admirer | no better than his neighbour; but it is not the less true that a want | of this appreciation of an elevated form of goodness is an evil. | And this void is felt alike in Charlotte Bronte's religion and | imagination ~~ it influences at once her life and works. | | As far as it is shown to us in Mrs Gaskell's Memoir, her | actuating religion was natural religion. | Not that the doctrines of the Gospel were, as far as we see, ever | questioned by her. Her | external life showed a formal submission to them, which we | would be the last to under-value. She went constantly to | church ~~ there were family prayers, at which she punctually | assisted. She was conscientious, often to the sacrifice of pleasure and | convenience, in her attendance at the Sunday-school. | No duty of the clergyman's daughter was omitted. She had | an intimate acquaintance with the language of Scripture ~~ its | words were constantly on her lips, or rather her pen. But all | that teaching which connects the Christian's life with the love | of Christ, which shows us that we are one with Him, hidden | with Him, bought with a price, and therefore no longer our own; | that we are risen with Him, and must seek the things | above ~~ the second birth ~~ the indwelling of the Spirit ~~ mysteries | sacraments ~~ all these heavenly things, as far as the Biography shows us |(we are aware that there may not have been any diligent search for them, | or quick apprehension of transient leanings towards | the higher spiritual truths), are a | dead letter. We do not find that the conception of them ever fairly | took hold of her mind, though at one period nervous despondency | assumed the religious aspect it frequently does; but we meet | with no aspirations after something above human nature ~~ no lifting | up of the soul to the Infinite. A sense of divine presence we | do find ~~ of a need of God's help, and dependence on Him as | of the dread power on whom our happiness depends; because | His awful irresponsible will may at any moment dash the cup | | from our lips. Of the Deity as a fate to be feared, a Power to | be propitiated, a Master to be obeyed, we recognise the influence | everywhere in life and works; seldom surely as a Father, | and a Friend. And this feeble and low estimate of the | Divine nature may explain her very defective notions of the | evils of sin. She seems to view sin only on the side of its injury to man; | not mainly as an offence against God ~~ God who is of purer eyes | than to behold iniquity. It is only indeed, | through the revelation of the Gospel, that sin becomes exceedingly | sinful ~~ withdrawn from that searching light, it must necessarily | be hated solely for the mischief that it does, and the misery it causes. | Thus, outrages against God, such as avowed atheism, excite no sense in her | of personal wrong. She is seriously grieved when | her friend, Miss Martineau, | published her infidel book; such speculations | depressed her, and made her unhappy. | But there is no indignation ~~ she thinks the feeling out of | place, and censures it in others. She feels, on the contrary, | the general outcry an occasion for showing fidelity in friendship. | She regards Miss Martineau as under persecution, because people are | angry with her book. She has no Jealousy | for the honour of God. It may be said, | | Our novelists are not, as a class, remarkable for their spiritual views of | Christianity; we are generally content with something far short | of this. But Miss Bronte is no ordinary writer. There is nothing vague | or undefined about her ~~ all her actuating principles influenced her works. | She and her works are identical. Her talent lies in analysis, in looking deep | down into the heart; and therefore, all wants and omissions are felt to bear | fruit. In fact, a powerful mind shows its wants more than weaker ones; | the void is felt in proportion to its vigour and fulness in other directions. | | The natural affections are her true inspiration ~~ they absorbed all the | feeling of her nature: and this again, it may be said, is no unusual idolatry, | that we should lay it to the special charge of Miss Bronte. But with her, | as we see it in her life, it was no common, self-indulgent creed. Those who | knew only her works might so misunderstand her. She has been so misunderstood. | But in fact, it was a worship that demanded continual, | sacrifices and the sternest | self-denial ~~ the dedication of the whole being. What grim idol was ever | more inexorable than her cold damp dreary home, bare, | grey; and desolate with its | churchyard miasmas and cheerless bleak solitudes. And her worship of it | was much after the servile fashion of idol-worship ~~ | if it began in love it ended | in fear. She knew it was a prison ~~ she often shuddered over its memories, | but she never dreamed | | of escaping its chains, even when it held her from all that her | nature most needed for refreshment and renewal. She regarded | the call as a temptation. Her devotion to her father is beyond | all praise. We can give no ill names to even an excess of filial | virtue. Her love, duty, obedience, and sacrifice of her whole | being to him, are indeed the example of the book; and she had | the reward of making his happiness and constituting, while | she lived, the joy and pride of his old age. But her love for | her brother brought nothing but misery and disgrace; yet, the | anguish of disappointed hopes, the intolerable load of shame, | the perpetual disgust and degradation, never weaned her | affection from him ~~ at least, never so far as to suggest the thought | of ridding herself of a burden which most minds of any power | would in some way have delivered themselves from, and cast off, | as Samson his green withes. Even her sisters, with whom | there was congeniality of taste and feeling ~~ where the keen, | passionate, almost morbid affection was mutual ~~ how strange and | comfortless it sounds in the description ~~ how little did Emily, | in her pagan selfishness reward the love centred upon her. | How cautious had Charlotte to be ~~ how fearful of offending that | incomprehensible, but ha1f human, temper. How patiently she | yielded to her overbearing will; how she submitted without | irritation to her sinful folly in illness. How tenderly she held | her in memory after death, shutting her eyes to her faults, and dressing | her up in all manner of fictitious virtues and graces, in the hope of | bringing round the world to her own high estimate. How she longed for her, | and bled for her, with inward wounds that never healed. Her nature had not | in it the element of change; even the servant | who had once found a place in the | inner sanctum of her heart must hold it, and be tenderly considered and | humoured, at unheard-of sacrifices of time and convenience. On such questions | she could not reason ~~ instinct and a blind | sense of duty, with something of the | fatalist's resignation, were her guides. | | The most engrossing of all human affections was known | only to her imagination (as far, that is, as, the reader is concerned); | for her engagement and marriage occurred at the close of her history; | it formed the interest, not of her actual life, but of that part of it which | we see in her books. There she threw herself into it with characteristic | intensity. Ordinary readers were led to suspect from the daring with | which the subject is treated that her own heart | was susceptible; but we believe | that experience would have checked the audacity of her invention, | if not stopped it altogether; for, in fact, none of the relations which | absorbed and filled her heart are represented in her books. Her heroines, | those whose inner sanctuary of feeling is laid bare, are in two cases | homeless, and in all fatherless | | and sisterless: waifs and strays of society with no ties of | family or locality. It would seem as if each scene of human | feeling must be lived through, either in life or imagination. | She was indeed almost willing to confess that the love of children | was not in her; but this probably was because it was as yet | a mere abstract idea to her. It might have been awakened to | tragic power, but it was not the Divine Will that the mother's | joys or sorrows should be hers; or we cannot but believe that | it, like the rest, would have been a passion self-devoted, blind, | idolizing. Friendship stands on quite a different basis in her | mind from these natural ties. Though | very capable of a strong attachment, she had, a singular mistrust of it, | lest its blandishments should withdraw her from her just allegiance. | When intercourse with some congenial mind was absolutely needed | for health of mind and body, she would voluntarily refuse it, | from the instinctive fear that it might shake the supremacy of | home; her instincts were always afraid of it, lest this new | influence should attempt to supersede their tyranny. Still it | was an influence: between her friends | and the world at 1arge there was a mighty gulf; they were removed | from the region of abstraction and admitted to be parts of herself; and | all things not received in some way into herself were either nothing | to her or held in antipathy. Abstract ideas were a mere blank; | masses of men and their great interests were such to her. Things | and persons must have entered into her brain through her | heart, feelings, and sympathies, and been thus incorporated into | her own being, for her to have a judgment upon them, or, we | may add, a conscience about them. | | There is a perfect fitness, between the subject of the present | memoir and her biographer. Mrs. Gaskell has done her best and | spared no pains to draw a faithful and true portrait of her friend; | using no more artifices or flattering appliances than are fair in | all friendly portrait painting, and which consist in giving prominence | to the good points and casting a discreet shade over the weak | and faulty ones. In some respects, it is indeed a model of biography. | She has caught the spirit of her subject; all the accessories are in | keeping. The time and labour she has bestowed on the locality | tell with striking effect. We feel these strange sisters to be the | spirits of the wild scene, so vividly brought before us; and her | heroine's genius and virtues gain originality and dignity, and her | faults find their readiest excuse in the picturesque peculiarities | of her home and training. In spite of an evident desire to sustain | a certain romantic tone ~~ to have all in good keeping ~~ we see | no reason to question any statement of fact where she has depended | on her own judgment. But the case is altogether different where she has | | implicitly relied on the statements of others in a case where their | own wounded feelings were most deeply concerned; there the | wish to make the world realize her friend's sorrows and trials | has quite upset her sense of justice. We cannot suppose any | personal feeling has led Mrs. Gaskell into the great sin and | ruinous blunder of her book. We believe it rather to be the | fancied duty of using no reserves which could interfere with a | full revelation of her heroine's position and circumstances, which | she holds to be the cause of all that was faulty in herself or | her writings; a false principle which in one case has led her | to be as regardless of other reputations as though the persons | her story comes in contact with were mere creatures of the | brain. We must believe she has been misled by Miss Bronte's | own private account, and trusted her erroneous impression, and | published it to the world (in a case where such partial affection | as hers must necessarily warp her judgment) so rashly and | blindly, as not to take the commonest, simplest, and easiest | means to ascertain the truth of the unparalleled charges she was | bringing. Even if the strange revolting story could have been | proved in every particular, we should have felt the impropriety | of this gratuitous attack. It sounded, at the first reading, | something vindictive and revengeful; an unprecedented | outrage on feeling and custom, for which there was no sufficient | motive. When every word has been retracted on the threat of | legal proceedings, when we find that such charges could be | brought by one woman against another without due precaution | or adequate inquiry, our confidence in Miss Bronte's biographer | has received a permanent shock. She has lost ground which | she can never regain. We can no longer take anything for | granted; we must test it by our own sense of probability, and | form our own independent inferences. | | It does not commonly conduce to eminence or distinction in | life, of any sort, to have been the victim of crotchets in childhood. | Most persons of genius have had an ordinary education | according to their class; but Charlotte Bronte stands, at first | sight, a signal exception to this rule. She was brought up on | what is called a system. Her father took it into his head to | train his children on the principles of Day, Rousseau, and | those new lights. But when we analyse this system we find | its real basis to be neglect. His children | were, to a most unusual degree, left to themselves. Mr. Bronte, | on principle, fed his children exclusively on potatoes; burnt their | pretty red shoes, and cut his wife's silk gown into strips, ~~ and | therefore takes place amongst the theorists and philosophers; but | never was reputation earned at less expense of time and trouble. He | had a plan of his own for training children and weaning them | | from the frivolities of life; but having given his orders we meet | with no further interference. Their mother suffered in her | long illness alone, or in her husband's company. He dined all | his life by himself; the six children ate their potatoes by themselves, | and either sat in their "study" (they never had a nursery), | where the eldest, just seven, years old, read the newspaper and | gleaned the political intelligence, or they wandered hand-in-hand | to spend hours on the moors. Their bodies were played | tricks with, but not their minds. There was no tampering with | the intellect ~~ that was left to develop as it might, under nature's | influences. Feeble health made them precocious; each child | was a phenomenon. They had no notion of play; they never | made a noise; their amusements were intellectual speculation; | their interests those of the great outer world, wars and politics, | warriors and statesmen. It was an education, so to call it, fatal | to that just balance of powers which constitutes happiness, and | dangerous to principle; but, considering their peculiar organization, | fostering the intellect. Nourishing food, tender maternal | watchfulness, the attentions and cares of the nursery, plenty of | playthings, and the little lessons said as a task each day, would | have made happier and better women; they could afterwards | have taken their place in life without shyness or reserve: and | the brother might have grown into a man, not sunk, after a | boyhood of extraordinary promise, into a brute. But on the | mere question of genius we should have missed some of Currer | Bell's most vivid scenes; there probably would have been no | Currer Bell; nor should we have had in their infancy six little | sages rivalling their seven predecessors of Greece. We believe | in the substantial truth of the following replies, though they | may have received a little finish and point in the recording. | The incident of the mask is surely prophetic of the disguise | under which the three sisters spoke their utterances to the | world, and which, was really necessary to their powers of | expression. We extract from a letter of Mr.Bronte: ~~ | | | | | These preternaturally sagacious answers emanated from a | semi-cultivation. These girls, so quiet, thoughtful, and demure, | as we find them in early youth, were in their secret inner nature | untamed, and their cold formal stone-flagged home, where they | did housework and obeyed orders, represented their merely | bodily docility; the unenclosed, untilled heathery moors, with | their becks and hollows, figure the freedom, independence, and | wild self-culture of their minds, thinking their own thoughts, | forming their own theories, constructing their own creeds. | They were as much the offspring of this locality as the nymphs | and dryads of mythology, and the haunting fairies of a later | age, of whom they constantly remind us in the union of two | apparently opposite elements ~~ a sympathy with rude humanity, | its homely labours, coarse pleasures and passions, and an | intense clinging identification of self with the purer, more | evanescent aspects of nature, cloud and moonbeam, rainbow | and mountain; but while, from this preternatural affinity, seemingly | so powerful and free, never really rising beyond earth's | attraction, and always haunting the same spot. Charlotte had | feelings which connected her with her kind, but we can never | think of Emily in life or death as a piece of ordinary humanity; | her vehement home-sickness, the inability to exist away from | her moors, her deftness at household labours, her savage picture | of life in her book, her mastery over brute creatures, her wild | unapproachable reserve, her unwillingness to die, as though | this life were all, give all the same weird impression. The | disembodied spirit, in our fancy, lingers about the scene to which | it so passionately clung; it still sobs in the winds and shrieks | in the driving wintery rains of those dreary heights. | | But our main business is with Charlotte; and the subject of | education, plainly treated, brings us to the delicate and, much | disputed question of the Cowan Bridge School, to which she | was sent at eight years old, for a brief period, and of which she | has recorded such bitter experiences as Jane Eyre. At eight or | nine years old, her habits of observation had no doubt set in. | She could form a decided opinion, though not a just judgment, | on what she saw; and that opinion would be pretty sure to be | an unfavourable and prejudiced one. After her peculiar home-training, | we do not doubt that restraint would be irksome, | | and the presence of numbers overwhelming. Then the very | simplicity of her home diet might render her appetite fastidious | to school fare and the rough cooking with which it is often | served. There seems also no doubt that her elder sister, the | object of her warm affection and even reverence, was | unkindly treated by one of the teachers; Maria Bronte was not | in a state of health to be sent to school at all, and faults, the | consequence of bodily languor were punished with undiscerning | severity. The scenes recorded by Mrs. Gaskell of which | others were witness, would rankle in any sister's memory; | in Charlotte Bronte they would make an indelible impression and | cry for vengeance. She found herself in a scene of dreariness | and privation, her soul boiled over at what she thought her | sister's ill treatment; the child was not then in a state to | estimate Mr. Carus Wilson's really benevolent efforts, and the good | intentions, and self sacrifice, which would atone for mistakes to | lookers on. To her he was the head and front of offending; | they were his rules which | pressed so hardly on her, the teacher who | tyrannised over her sister acted under his authority. To | her he was the veritable "black marble clergyman" she | subsequently sculptured forth. Now it is certain that it needs not | only good intentions, but a great deal of kindness and practical | knowledge of chi1dren, to be able to serve them and do them | good; it is hardly fair to demand their gratitude for pursuing a | bad system towards them, however well meant; and we are | disposed to think that in the short period between the | establishment of the school, and its reconstruction after the fever, | the period with which alone Charlotte Bronte is concerned, the | system was harsh and the practical management ill conducted; | probably little allowance was made for difference of character | and all were under one stern mechanical rule. But time should | at least soften resentments, if it is too much to expect gratitude | from the sensitive, keen nature that writhed under this rule; | twenty years should not have passed only to find the rancour | more poignant, the understanding should not have gained | strength only to give force to retaliation, the imagination should | not have developed only to invent the most telling weapon | with which to inflict a blow: for no direct charge or accusation | could have produced the same effect as this irresponsible satire. | The author of Jane Eyre wrote under a feigned name, ignorant | who would read her book, how far it would reach, or if it would | ever be taken for earnest ~~ not tied down to fact, and with no | other guide or judge but her own impression, to which we fully | believe she desired to be faithful. But in this assumed freedom | she felt at liberty to interpret every | action that displeased her, to give the thoughts | that had prompted every supercilious | | word, or harsh tone; to ascribe the motives in words for every | austere direction. No-one , | not she herself, or contemporary | pupils, even heard Mr. Carus Wilson say the things attributed | to Mr. Brocklehurst; but she did not think herself unfair so | long as she gave what she believed the | true interpretation, and put thought and action into | the language which they must have assumed if reduced | to words at all. This is always her plan in writing. | Thus if Mr. Wilson even objected in her "hearing" to a | substitute being provided for an ill-cooked breakfast, her | conscience would feel justified in recording his supposed | principle in the following words, which conclude a long harangue. | | | If ever she witnessed, which we have little doubt she did, the | contrast between her schoolfellows' enforced plainness of apparel | ~~ enforced on religious grounds ~~ and the air of fashion in their | censor's own family, she would not hesitate to bring precept | and practice in rather startling, juxtaposition, as in the following | little scene, which comes at the close of a lecture against conformity | to the world, and an order for cutting short the hair of | all the girls. | | | If exposure and public denunciation was a favourite form of | punishment, one indeed most ill suited for the moral training of | girls, and terrible to a nervous temperament to endure or even | to witness, she would not hesitate to illustrate the system in that | ruthless scene, where the hapless child is set on a stool and | proclaimed a liar, or to enhance its cruelty by the exquisite | contrast of pity and sympathy, delineated in her own sister | Maria; thus exhibiting in harshest and most painful force a | | hard unfeeling system brought to bear on noble character. | Just so far, and no further, we believe this to be a correct | representation of the state of things at Cowan Bridge; that is, | we believe the faults she exposes did all exist in a modified | form; her penetration saw what some others did not see, but | what was really there. But the unfairness consists not only | in dramatic exaggeration, but in the suppression or ignoring | of all redeeming points. | | In all this, Charlotte Bronte did not feel the responsibilities | of authorship, or realize that, while relieving her own feelings | and avenging her sister's wrongs, by telling the tale her own | way, she was retaliating by the same plan of irresponsible | denunciation she had been exposing in her book. Minds so | warped by morbid family affection as hers cannot be fair in | judging between their own belongings and strangers, besides | that her sense of justice was not as much on the alert as it would | have been in making a plain statement. Mrs. Gaskell says ~~ | | | | The apology for unfairness, the excuse, as far as one can be | given, for lasting indiscriminating rancour, lies in such scenes as | these, for which Mrs; Gaskell has the authority of a fellow pupil. | | | | | It is rather a startling fact, that this poor child was almost at | the point of death before her father was informed of her illness. | The shock was great when he saw her state; he took her home | at once, where she died in a very few days. | | The Miss Temple of Jane Eyre still lives, and barely remembers | Charlotte Bronte as a bright clever little child ; the | only period of her life, her biographer thinks, in which the | epithet "bright" could be applied to her. She was taken from | the school soon after nine years old, ~~ a standing warning to | all concerned with children, to take care what they do before the | youngest and smal1est: who knows what tenacious memories, | what keen sense of injustice, what power and thirst for vengeance, | lie there in the germ, hid out of sight or thought, to start into | life some day. | | At this age, the death of her two elder sisters made her the | head of the family, and constituted her the guardian of the two | remaining girls, Emily and Anne, the Ellis and Acton Bell of | later times. An aunt, their mother's sister, taught them what she | knew herself, and the father told them the news and kept them | informed in all public events. Mr. Bronte's plans of education | were certainly singular, for while he sent four girls to school at | one time, his only son he preferred to keep at home under his | own instruction, and dependent for amusement on such | intercourse and companionship as he could make for himself in the | village; where he soon became so acceptable, that it was the | custom of the landlord of the public house to send for "Patrick", | as they called him, to entertain every new arrival. After this | we need not talk of systems of education. The result surpasses | in mischief what might have peen expected from it. But in | boyhood Branwell shared his sisters' literary tastes and aspirations. | They wrote tales, dramas, and poems together. At the age of | nineteen, he sent one of the latter to Wordsworth, with a request | for his judgment expressed in really eloquent terms, and | conveying at once a sense of his own powers, and a modest | deference to the great poet's award, whatever it might be, | which make us grieve the more for the wreck of his later years. | | The seclusion of their life, had an exactly opposite effect on the | brother and his sisters; they grew preposterously shy and bound | to home; he longed for the world he was shut out from with a | sort of mania; he actually studied the map of London, till he | knew his way through its labyrinths better than any cockney. | | One of the curiosities of the book is a fac-simile of Charlotte's | handwriting in this first period of composition, distressing to | look upon from its extreme minuteness and from the ruinous | effect it must have had on her sight, which was always weak. | There is something characteristic in this, and in her notion of | learning to draw by close imitation of line engraving. We | trace something of the same minuteness in her style, and in | the labour she bestows on the description of a passing | expression, a frown, a glance, a smile. She was feeling her way in | the dark to her own special forte. By fourteen she had written | twenty volumes in this microscopic penmanship, of a quality | which Mrs. Gaskell answers for as being of singular merit for | that age. The variety of subject implies an immense range | of thought and interest, and a considerable hero-worship. The | Duke of Wellington was her type and ideal of all that was great | and noble. Her thoughts, her stories, her fancies, all centred | round him. She was a keen politician, a Tory, and church | woman, in her way. The following passage from one of her | stories, written to account for its slow progress, must surely be | remarkable writing for the age of thirteen. | | | In the midst of this intellectual activity she was a busy 1ittle | housewife, sweeping the rooms, assisting in the cooking, and, by | turns, playfellow and monitress of her younger sisters and brother; | | such occupations being no doubt, of infinite value as a check | to mere brain work, which must have been going on, amongst | them all to a very dangerous extent. In a year or two's time | we find her with failing spirits and a tone of melancholy, very | sad in the dawn of womanhood. It is at this age that we first | have a description of her personal appearance ~~ a point of great | importance in the formation of all character, and which, greatly | influenced hers; for she was painfully and morbidly conscious | of plainness of feature, so much so, as to suppose herself an | object disagreeable to the eyes of strangers: an unfortunate | impression which, no doubt (added to the quaint, homely style | of dress it was the father's will to choose for his daughters), had | a great deal to do with her shyness. People seldom take up | such notions without some foundation; otherwise Mrs. Gaskell's | friendly description, supported by Richmond's very interesting | and intelligent portrait, would lead us to disregard it altogether. | But faces which depend upon intelligence and expression for | their good looks are never seen to advantage by their possessors. | | | | | In 1831 (she was born in 1816) she was sent again to school | at Roe Head, between Leeds and Huddersfield, under the | charge of Miss Wooler, who remained her warm friend through | life. There, too, she formed a lasting friendship with two of her | schoolfellows, and in visiting them at their homes somewhat | enlarged the sphere of her observation. The traditions of Roe | Head and these family visits furnish amongst them the plot | and many of the characters of "Shirley," where our readers will | remember, there figure many rich and original specimens of | Yorkshire life. Scarcely any of her characters are simply ideal; | she had a real model for most of them; and the family of one of | these schoolfellows seems to have been reproduced entire, as | "the Yorke Family" in "Shirley," not at all, as far as we are | led to judge, to their annoyance. In an interva1 between being | a pupil and returning as a teacher to Miss Wooler's, we find | her a young instructress of her younger sisters, spending the day | in what she calls a delightful, though somewhat monotonous | course of lessons, reading, drawing, needlework, and household | duties. Their walks always ~~ except when diverted to the | circulating library, four miles off ~~ in the same direction, upwards | towards "the purple black moors;" for their shyness kept them | aloof from the village. "They were shy," we are told, "of meeting | even familiar faces, and scrupulous about entering the house | of the poorest uninvited. They, were steady teachers in the | Sunday-school, a habit which Charlotte kept up very faithfully;" | but they never faced their kind voluntarily, and always preferred, | the solitude and freedom of the moors. | | The school friend, whose correspondence furnishes most of | Charlotte Bronte's early letters records her first visit to | Haworth, and the impression this singular family made on her. | All were very clever, original, and utterly different from any | people or family she had ever seen before. There was individuality | in the whole group, even to Tabby the servant, fidelity | towards whom cost our heroine such constant sacrifices. She | was struck with the extraordinary shyness of the sisters, and | especially Emily's extreme reserve. Mrs. Gaskell discriminates | between these two affections, saying that the one ~~ shyness ~~ | would please if it knew how, whereas reserve is indifferent | whether it pleases or not. We think, however, the quality was | the same in kind, though different in degree. Charlotte did not | | care to be agreeable to any but congenial spirits; while Emily | found no congenial spirits out of her own confined circle. | Carried to the excess which we see it in both these sisters, it is | scarcely compatible with an amiable disposition. It belonged to | a nature which could not be softened by mere social intercourse | apart from direct congeniality. Charlotte never fraternised | with general society, or felt under obligations to it, or | hesitated to make a simple business-like use of it. She could | even lampoon the guests at her father's, house, as in the notable | case of the curates who figure in "Shirley," and who are | avowedly real men, moving in her own circle of acquaintance, as | far as she had one. No open, frank, cordial nature could have | done this ~~ one that welcomes the guest because he is a | neighbour; and feels the force of that gentle tie. Mere inevitable | acquaintanceship was no tie to this at once repellant and | observant intellect, which treated men as pictures, holding them | at arm's length to study them the better. With such feelings | towards her species, no wonder she mistrusted them in return, | and looked for criticism, and feared harsh construction, and felt | timid, awkward, and constrained in their presence. It is true | that of society, such as it is understood in more civilized parts | of the world, she had small experience, and the rough manners | and tempers Mrs. Gaskell describes as indigenous to that | district may have inflicted some rude shocks on her young, sensitive | mind, and thrown it back upon itself. But all the sisters were | more or less impervious to new impressions, and in some | mysterious way the slaves of association, which we suppose is one | characteristic of reserve. Perhaps under any education their | minds would have shown remarkable tenacity to early habit, and | resistance to new inf1uences; but, fostered and strengthened by | retirement, natural peculiarity gained strength, and became a | tyrant. The contrast we have before noted, the antagonism, so | to say, between mind and body, is certain to have ministered to | their reserve or shyness: the consciousness that externals did | not do them justice, that their minds spoke through unworthy | forms. We do not mean mere want of beauty, but | circumstances were all against a gracious expansion of nature. | Their life had no spring, no sweet budding time of hope and joy. | The sap that should have blossomed in leaf and flower formed into | knots and excrescences strong and enduring, but presenting no | fair show. For this cause they were, perhaps, thrown | unwholesomely upon each other for love and sympathy. | | The subject of reserve naturally leads us to meditate on | the nature and purposes of family affection, and the ties of | blood. Every affection with which we are endowed has a use, | and tends to the general good. They are all designed for the | | common weal; the closest, most secret, and intimate domestic | relation has, we need not say, a public end. If it does not | serve some public use, it is a failure. If a husband's love | for his wife does not make him a better citizen, it does him | harm, and is a perverted gift. Now, there is a sort of family | affection that chills men's wider sympathies, and blinds them to | their affinity with the great human family. Our fathers | and mothers, our brothers and sisters, are given us to teach us a | universal sense of kindred and benevolence. Where we find | instead of this lesson, an opposite impulse is induced ~~ an impulse | of separation and exclusion ~~ then we may be sure that | family affection has been warped by some selfish and injurious | influence, and has failed in the work it was designed to do. | Now the mutual affection of the Bronte family was of this sort. | We would wish to speak indulgently, respectfully, and even | admiringly, of the rare example of sisterly love which this book | exhibits; but we cannot doubt that there was error in its | exclusiveness, which produced, as all error will, bitter fruit. Emily | seems to have embodied in herself the extreme evil of whatever | was wrong in this sentiment. In this great world of fellow-creatures, | sprung from the same source, bound to the same goal, | guided by the same hopes and fears, influenced by the same | great motives, instincts, and passions, she could endure the | companionship of scarcely half a dozen living things; all beside | were intolerable to her. So far from giving others her confidence | and sympathy, she could not bear their presence. Except | her two sisters, her father, her abominable brother, the old | household servant, and the dog, she had no voluntary intercourse | with living thing; and even with these favoured few, | though she could not exist away from them, though the sight and | sound of them was, in some way, as necessary to her being as | the air she breathed, yet she neither seems to have studied their | comfort, nor returned their confidence; this mighty craving | love ended in utter dogged rejection of even their sympathy. | Because it was perverted from its proper end it recoiled upon | itself. Of course this is a monstrous extreme; but the fault, in | a degree, is no uncommon one, and the use of extremes is to | furnish pointed lessons. | | Charlotte Bronte, however, could add friendship to this | absorbing feeling, as her letters show, though they exhibit a | strange mistrust for one so young in the stability of the tie. | Even as a girl she was without hope, and felt herself so little in | harmony with the world, its pleasures, its bustle, its splendour, | that any contact with it she expected to alienate from herself. | In truth, the distant life of stirring incident, grand spectacles, | and historical associations, had a powerful influence on her | | imagination and inte1lect, though she was afraid of it, and felt | herself cut off from it. In the midst of her shyness, we see an | unusual confidence in her own judgment as to what was worthy | of her curiosity. She had no false shame, such as rusticity often | feels ~~ she warns her friend on her first visit to London against | it. The girl of seventeen or eighteen writes: ~~ | | | | A want of the faculty of hearty surprise is a sign with her | of a weak character: in "Villette" we find it ascribed to the | selfish schoolgirl, | | When the friend returns from London, she is greeted with, | congratulations at her unshaken constancy; the letter is curious | as showing that the habit of scrutinising observation had set in. | We see what was the basis of her knowledge of human | nature; not only that unreasoning instinct which enables men | to act in society, but careful study, | which stands in the way of free personal intercourse, but without | which there can be no successful delineation of character. | | | | | At this period, by the way, we observe a propensity to the use | of long words; no bad sign in youth and inexperience, whatever | it may be afterwards. Long words are a stage which we fancy | every good style has passed through. After an interval of home | she became teacher in Miss Wooler's school; Emily Bronte | undertook a similar situation amongst strangers, and suffered | frightfully in the uncongenial labour, which, after a few months, | was discontinued. Poor Charlotte, on her side, sank into low | spirits, and became a victim to nervous terrors, under which it | was sad to see her pursuing her labour, with a morbid perseverance | which would not permit her to accept of relaxation. | She writes penitential letters to her friend about her miserable | touchiness of character; and is evidently passing through | another stage of those trials by which her intellect was forming | itself for its work, at the cost of all the light-heartedness of | youth. | | Whatever religious experiences are communicated to the | reader belong to this period of life, and are met with in her | correspondence with this schoolfellow, who, we presume, sought | to lead her mind in its distress to seek rest in religion. | Charlotte's replies are in a strain which seem to tell of some | temporary excitement with which her state of nerves had | probably to do. It stands not only apart, but at variance with the | tone of later life. We meet with no recurrence of thoughts | like these; the impression seemed to pass away and leave no | trace; and yet they are impassioned and striking words from | such a source, and awaken pity and sympathy. | | | | | And again, ~~ | | | | At this time too, she reads religious biographies, is "fascinated" | by Legh Richmond's domestic portraiture, and exhorts | her friend to read the life of Wilberforce by his sons. A little | further on we come again to the same despondency. | | | | | We would not throw any doubt on the language of true | contrition; but here, surely, it is the nerves | rather than the unexcited heart or, conscience that speak. | | It might be guessed beforehand that these sisters would | be indifferently fitted by disposition and habit for the position | of governess. Charlotte tried it with ill enough success; and | her experience is added to that of some score others, proving | the vulgar selfishness of wealth, and that dark side of | respectable human nature which, she says, only a governess can | realize. We own we do not attach much weight to her | gloomy picture of this state of existence. When she says, | writing to Emily Bronte, | We can guess all the rest. A | mutual dislike would spring up on the spot. It is the nature of reserved | (which are, as we have said exclusive) minds to take unfair | views of persons outside themselves; those whom they admit | into their inner sanctum are unduly exalted; because a certain | selfishness pleases itself in setting up the objects of | their love on an undue eminence, while those outside this paradise are, | cold, dull, stupid, vulgar, or whatever is the last form of degradation | and disparagement in their minds. We do not doubt that | Miss Bronte was repulsive to the ladies in whose house she | served. The cold, reserved, victim-1ike way in which she would | perform her duties would he irritating. The very saying, "What, | love the governess, my dear!" ~~ which will possibly pass into a | by-word of that cruelty and want of feeling of which a woman | may be guilty ~~ may admit of a different | interpretation. It may not have | expressed contempt of a dependent condition, of intellect | and cultivation condemned, to serve wealth for hire; | but simply that the good lady had not the manners to repress | her astonishment that her child should love anything so unloveable | as the governess showed herself to her. We are not saying | | that the position of governess, in many instances, is not most | trying to health, spirits, and temper, but that in Miss Bronte's | case there were faults in herself which would certainly | aggravate the evil indefinitely, and separate her case from ordinary | experience. The state of her own feelings is well described in | the following passage, which, we think, throws some light upon | the real state of things. | | | Wherever the fault lay, it is clear she never once let her | heart go out towards these people; she suffered at the time and | pondered over her wrongs, some of which at least read like | real ones, studied her oppressors and impaled them all in her | books. The "gay company" are, no doubt, that swan-like bevy | of fine ladies whose entrance is so well pictured in "Jane Eyre." | The mother of her pupils we might fancy Mrs. Reed, aggravated | in her deformity as her unloving portraits always are ~~ and | her own feelings through it all are Jane Eyre's. Under unkindness, | we can well fancy that the imagination would indemnify | itself by picturing circumstances which might, brighten up so | dreary an existence, and give the neglected governess a part to | play and interests of her own, even more bright and flattering | than those she witnessed. It was a part of her life which, | though lasting but a little while, strengthened and gave direction | to her powers. Though her heart slept amongst strangers, | her observation kindled in the new field, and her imagination | was stimulated to frame itself a home far away from the | disagreeable present, though suggested by it. While we cannot | but reflect upon this habit of making her social experiences | | minister with so little disguise to the demands of her genius, we | must not forget to admire the voluntary self-sacrifice in undertaking | such irksome employment for the purpose of relieving | the family purse and aiding in the establishment of her brother | ~~ considerations all powerful with Charlotte, and duties from | which she never shrank. Emily Bronte really tried to do the | same: having once failed to endure school existence as a pupil, | she tried it again as teacher, with the same success. | | | | It would not do. It was settled that Emily must be | the one to stay at home, where she shrank from no labour, made | all the bread for the family, and learnt German in the kitchen while it | rose. | | Coming in amidst these school and governess experiences we | have some characteristic home scenes. While all the sisters happened | to be at home, Tabby, the old servant, broke her leg. | She was at this time nearer seventy than sixty, and the prudent | aunt urged on Mr. Bronte the wisdom of removing her to her | sister's in the village, attending upon her there, and finding a | substitute more helpful and vigorous. There would have been | no hardship in this, for Tabby had saved a competency for her | rank of life. It was clearly the thing to do ~~ the best for all | parties. But the sisters in their narrow, short-sighted sense of | duty thought otherwise. | | | | Of course it was not really right, though we | respect the scruple that thought it so at the expense of a pleasure. But | it was their characteristic to drive a few duties | into extremes, which can never be done without casting | all | the rest into shade and oblivion. This Tabby in the end, became one of the | shadows of the house because she was in her wrong place. | In the village, as a humble friend to be visited, she would have | been useful. The habit of attention to her would have | loosened the terrible coil of reserve which bound and restricted | them all. In the house she was an unmitigated evil, filling an | office for which, she grew more and more unfit; troublesome, | jealous, exacting ~~ fostering their most unhappy family | peculiarities. When Charlotte Bronte found herself desolate and | alone, this old woman of ninety was a hindrance, to congenial | society. Her time was taken up in the commonest drudgery, | secretly supplying her deficiencies of service, lest she should be | made aware of the truth that her days of useful labour were | over. She had to take her out upon the moors to shout family | secrets into her ears, because she resented concealments, and | was too deaf for confidences within walls. And how was Tabby | the better for all this sacrifice of friends, comfort, cheerfulness, | time, and general usefulness in her exc1usive service? In no | one respect; we do not doubt it did her no great deal of harm. | It is the useless, fruitless, indolent, self-sacrifices of this life | which are amongst its most important lessons and warnings. | We say indolent, because they were | made in obedience to temperament and instinct, and in despite | of reason. But we shall have more to say on this head, and a more | signal example to bring forward. | | This same chapter is remarkable for two incidents generally | thought important in the life of a young lady, and characteristically | treated by Miss Bronte. In spite of her deficiency in | personal beauty, she could inspire both admiration and attachment. | While visiting at the house of her friend she received an | offer of marriage from a clergyman, which she thus comments | upon. She is now three-and-twenty: ~~ | | | | The motives which influenced her rejection are drawn out at | length in "Jane Eyre" with the truth and force which we now see | were the fruits of experience. It is often sad to see a woman's | nature checked and half its powers wasted, even in a marriage of | affection, where the tastes are uncongenial. This gentleman and | the incident of his offer suggests the St. John of "Jane Eyre." | There was probably something unimpassioned in his manner of | making the proposal which furnished food for speculation. We | see that her own heart would not interfere with the free exercise of | the intel1ect on an occasion usually so confusing and embarrassing. | The imagination was free to construct a character from this one | exhibition. She had, in fact, an ideal which no reality could | come up to, and which kept her cool. Marriage she believed | ought to bring the highest happiness. She despised everything | short of this; and the considerations which influence tenderer or | weaker characters were powerless with her. Neither sordid | temptations nor gratitude weighed with her one feather. The | next proposal finds her equally unimpressionable. It came from | one of the race of curates who began at that time to revolve | around Haworth; and was the consequence of one evening's | lively conversation; for she explains to her friend: ~~ | | She seems to have regarded the letter, expressed in ardent | language, which followed, as a piece of impertinence, which | it probably was; instead of moving her gratitude, the circumstance | probably enhanced her sense of antagonism against the | whole class. This gentleman also went down in her books; at | least the fact of his being a Irishman, and the Malone of | "Shirley," figuring in the character of suitor, seems to identify | him ~~ though it is not for the interest of courtship and matrimony | to suppose that a woman can really be so cold-blooded, | so little sensible of the homage paid to her attractions, as to | make capital (as the Americans say) of her own conquests, and | turn them into the hard coin of rich scenes and ridiculous | situations. | | Her tendency, we always observe, is to exaggerate in her | books her own first unfavourable impression. She understood | her art too well to put living persons as they stood into her | books, but some real character was the germ, and recognisable | germ, of her feigned ones; and, if her prejudices were at work, | | often suffered rudely under the process. Exaggeration is in | this case her only attempt at disguise. The feeling settles, | hardens with time, and develops out of a lively, not unindulgent | picture of peculiarities into hard satire and unsympathising | contempt. We can hardly recognise her first notice of these | worthies: ~~ "Mr. W., delivering a noble, eloquent, High Church, | apostolical discourse, in which he banged the dissenters, fearlessly | and unflinchingly:" and Mr. C., "who did not rant, who did | not cant, who did not whine, who did not sniggle, but who just | got up and spoke with the boldness of a man who was impressed | with the truth of what he was saying, whose sermon she listened | to for an hour and yet was sorry when it was done" ~~ for | the Malone, Donne, and Sweeting, who make so conspicuous, | and amusing, and ridiculous a figure in "Shirley," with whom | we are told we must identify them. Here, while she says her | conscience will not allow her to be "Hookist or Puseyite," she | admires the noble integrity which dictated a fearless opposition | to a strong antagonist ~~ in her book she represents them as | incapable of thought on any subject ~~ as spending their whole | time in an absurd round of visits to one another ~~ in disputing | on the most puerile questions of externals; weak, gossiping, | or venemous triflers, whose interests were beneath the inquiry | of a rational being. But time never softened a difference or a | prejudice in Miss Bronte; it hardened dislike into antipathy, ~~ | opposition into rancour. And she makes attack on these gentlemen | in "Shirley" quite deliberately; she even expects her opening | chapter to be objected to, but defends it as being as true as the | Bible. She never denies that her three notable curates are her | living neighbours, and so far from meeting with apology or | redress from herself or her biographer, Mrs. Gaskell contemns | these gentlemen for making a joke of their peculiar position, and | Miss Bronte thinks herself ill-used because they avenged themselves | for her gratuitous onslaught by jestingly alluding to her | attack as she entertained the Bishop and themselves at her father's | table. Of course the whole affair sounds odd to southern ears, | and betrays a state of society at variance with our ideas. | | But we are anticipating the period of authorship, which at | this time was not a fact, but an aspiration. These sisters had | early conceived the ambition of being heard and felt beyond | their own narrow circle. Cut off by constitution and circumstances | from the pleasures and distinctions natural to their age, and yet | conscious of power ~~ which cannot be felt without a longing for its | exercise ~~ to invent, to write, and to print, were inevitable ideas. | The habit of "making out," as they called it, i.e., letting the | imagination loose to devise plots and scenes, had been theirs | from childhood. They had long indulged these notions and discussed | | these fancies, at the one period of the day when, casting | aside household cares and restraints, they assumed their own | wild natures, and thought their natural thoughts. | | | Poetry is commonly the first serious literary effort of young | minds. There is something in verse which covers obvious deficiencies | and dictates a mould for thought. It is a dress for shivering, | doubting, uncertain bashful ideas. These sisters therefore | wrote poetry, and had a "modest confidence" that they had | achieved success, but feared to trust each other's partial praise. | In this mixture of confidence and misgiving, Charlotte conceived | the bold idea of writing to Southey, and asking his | opinion. Her letter is not in being, but his answer, which | came weeks after all hope for one was relinquished, is a model | of kind and good advice on the general question of female | authorship. He answers her as a writer of | tolerable verses. He could not foresee her peculiar | power in another department of literature, or he would have | applied himself rather to the right direction than to the suppression | of her gift. It is a question ~~ in women as well as men ~~ of power. | Facility many a woman has (he gives Charlotte Bronte credit for this, and | no more), and it is well to discourage an ambition prompted merely | by ease in writing and rapid flow of ordinary ideas. To such | it is well to say, "Literature cannot be the business of woman's | life, and it ought not to be; but a vivid imagination and a | forcible style ~~ be they gift of man or woman ~~ are given them | for use. They are responsibilities which are alike abused by | misuse or slothful neglect; therefore, while we commend the | letter, we excuse Miss Bronte for not eventually acting upon it. | Her first impulse was absolute acquiescence. She replied at | once in a grateful strain; gives him a little sketch of her life | and education, and concludes, ~~ | | | | Southey replies by giving her a friendly invitation, should she | ever visit the Lakes. Years after, when she did visit them, she | was an acknowledged authoress, in the society of another equally | well known and successful, her friend, and biographer; but | Southey no longer lived to compare the abstract wisdom of his | counsels with their adaptation to the particular instance in | point. To both ladies he might have offered some stringent | criticisms; to neither of them would he have shown such blindness | and disregard to genius, as to say, "Do not write at all; | your sphere of duty lies elsewhere." For a little while Charlotte | had no other thought but submission. She resigned herself | to governess life, "which she hates and abhors;" and, in the | meanwhile, feels herself in paradise "so long as she can blacklead | the stoves, make the beds, and sweep the floors at home, | which she prefers to living a fine lady anywhere else." | | These rugged household labours, uninviting as they sound, no | doubt supplied the place of relaxation to these sisters. As children, | they could not play; as women, they were alike alienated | by taste and circumstances from the amusements of society. | What are called trifles found no entrance into their minds. | Their father nipped these vanities in the bud, and with it | the cheerful power, which lies in woman's nature, of extracting and | imparting pleasure from little things ~~ exercising wit and ingenuity | on airy nothings ~~ and surrounding themselves with an | atmosphere of cheerfulness, which can be felt and enjoyed, but | not analysed. All this was out of their sphere; they could play | and sport no more now than as little girls. But no minds can | always work and "make out"; and when wearied with such efforts | any exercise for the body would be welcome. | | She presently resigns herself to the dreaded necessity, and | enters on another situation, where she realizes that, in the | most favourable circumstances, such a life is not tolerable to | her. The perpetual small occupations, the never-ending calls | on her time, the constant subjection to another's will, and, | above all, the want of leisure to pursue any train of thought, | and the consequent languishing of the imagination, made up a | life of perpetual strain and resistance to the demands of her | nature. Moreover, she knew nothing of children. She had | never been a child herself ~~ she could not sympathise with her | charges; and added to all this, was the having to "live in other | people's houses," which to her was the ascending | | the worst feature of Dante's banishment. She grew anxious, | | and with too much reason, about her youngest pet sister Anne's | health, and longed to be with her. These things, together, led | to the determination to attempt a school on their own account; | and in order to carry out this plan with success, it was resolved | that she and Emi1y should place themselves at a school in | Brussels, to perfect themselves in French. The first part of the | scheme was carried out; its purpose and object fell to the ground, | or rather changed into furnishing materials and groundwork for | her subsequent third and last novel, "Vi11ette." The sisters seem | to have made a sensation in the school by their industry and | ready talent; and Emily, while she stayed, not less by her sullen | reserve. M. Heger, husband of the lady at the head of the | establishment, and whom we suspect to be, the germ of M. Paul | Emmanuel, observing Charlotte's capacity, gave, in the course of | his systematic instruction in French composition, very valuable | lessons in the art of composition in any language, by which we | have no doubt her style profited. But the banishment from | country and home brought on unusual depression. She endured, | in the | just such nervous miseries as are described | in her novel. She was haunted by bad news from home (by | which might generally be understood the excesses of her brother | Branwell), and her father had fears of becoming blind. No | discouraging reports, however, could allay the thirst for old haunts | and familiar faces. She writes to Emily, who is at home | again: ~~ | | | Not long after this she leaves Brussels, where she latterly | acted as teacher, parting with great kindness from M. Heger. | With Madane H. she had differences, which lead us to suspect | that she also may be reproduced in "Villette;" but all was smoothed | over at the last, and her pupils expressed a regret at losing her, | which took her by surprise, but did not, it seems, alter the deliberate | | opinion she had formed of foreign girlhood so far as to | withhold another portrait of Belgic character more candid than | flattering. | | She returns home, again, but the scheme for keeping school | falls through; for one main reason, that Branwell's home, whenever | he chose to return to it, was no fit place for girls. For a | long time the sisters seem to have shut their eyes to his failings, | or sought the consolation so fatal to elevation and refinement | of character, of involving all men in the same sins; it was to | the interest of their blind affection to believe that he was only | like other men of "any strength of character;" they fell, Mrs. | Gaskell says, into the usual error of confounding strong passions | with strong character ~~ a notion at the bottom of what is | blameable in all their books. | | We have already questioned the nature and quality of their | intense exclusive family affection; whether it was possible to be | devoted to Branwell to the very last, we do not know, but it is | clear he was their hope and pride long after he should have | been their shame, and that they tolerated his society, and | sacrificed every consideration to him, when intercourse was | contamination. He was idle; he drank; he degraded himself | with vice; he insulted their ears by infamous confessions, and | made them familiar with the foulest blasphemies; he stupefied | himself with opium; they lived in terror of their lives, from | his threatened violence; their home was miserable, their nerves | and health shaken; and yet they endured his presence, not in hope | of reclaiming him, but in simple endurance, without, it seems, | a wish or thought of emancipation. We know not where the | fault lay, or who was chiefly answerable for this state of things; | but we wish to say that such endurance was | a fault and not a merit. It is, we know, a difficult question (for he | bore their name and was of their blood), and self-sacrifice is not too | common and easy a virtue that we should disparage it, or treat | slightingly its manifestations. But, in the first place, there was the | indulgence of a weak affection to counterbalance the suffering; and | next, it is certain that a servile, heavy, dead, unreflecting self-denial | ~~ the acquiescence in pain or degradation as if they were our | fate ~~ never can be a virtue. | | For after all, people have to choose between one form of | self-devotion and another; we cannot nourish and cherish a | brother Branwell and do our duty to society at large. This | monster took all, consumed their means which they could have | applied usefully, their time which might have benefitted others, | their friendship which could have cheered better natures; | all happiness, credit, love, friendship, purity of mind, innocence of | evil, were laid upon this altar. | | Unhappiness is by no means necessarily beneficial; we ought | | not to acquiesce in it for ourselves, if a way of escape or relief | offers itself, without very clearly satisfying ourselves that it is | right to endure. Misery and disgrace, borne stolidly, do not | point the mind heavenwards, it needs some spring and cheerfulness | to lift the mind so high. Self love is a divine instinct | under proper bounds, and so is self respect. There are sufferings | in their nature elevating; pain, poverty, bereavement, | all may be turned to noblest uses, but not constant forced | intercourse for years with shameless vice. If we are to judge of | the worth of the sacrifice by its fruits, we can be at no pains to | decide. All the sisters, in some degree, suffered in moral tone from | this familiarity with evil; "like the dyers' hand" their own minds | became tinged with habitual soil. In the two younger, Emily | and Anne, the result, to judge by their books, was frightful; | all the wickedness of the world seems to be at their fingers' | ends, and they have no perception that society at large has not | been subject to the same contamination with themselves. Not | that they manifest any love for vice, which | is the reason most people write about it; the tone towards it is cold, moral, | and misanthropical ~~ but there it is unblushing and rampant, because | as such they saw it in the only man (except their father) with | whom they were brought into close contact ~~ whose mind they | could read. We have no means of judging who was the main | cause of this incubus not being removed, but even if it was | the father's wish, the daughters' submission was ill timed; they | would have done well to remonstrate and urge their claim to | consideration. But probably the question was never mooted, | and never occurred to any of them as a question; for the Brontes had | the most extraordinary way of enduring the evils that | might have been remedied. There is a notable unanimity in this | respect. To begin with Mr. Bronte: he sends four daughter to one | school; two of them die from causes connected with the climate | and diet of the school: he goes on sending the other two ~~ it does | not occur to him to change his plan: the authorities of the | school have to decline the charge. His house and its situation prove | unhealthy, there is no thought of a change; his servant becomes | incapable, but she is never replaced. He begins to dine alone, | and dines alone to the end of his days, until, poor man, there is | no-one | to share his meals. Branwell embitters their existence, | destroys the health of body and mind of his sisters ~~ they bear | with him; no-one | thinks of placing him under salutary restraint | and privation elsewhere. Finally his daughters die one by one, | in consequence, as it really seems of this system of blind acquiescence | ~~ one at least rejecting every attempt to avert the danger, | clinging to the routine of existence to the last moment. | The remaining daughter struggles on in loneliness and depression, | her instinct is to reject alleviation; | | she feels herself under a fate; finally comes a lover offering to | cheer her existence, and the father violently opposes himself, for no | other reason than that it is a threatened change ~~ as if the resolute | pursuit of one unvarying course had answered. In fact | they were a sort of zoophyte, at once rooted and sensitive; their habits | were scarcely under the influence of reason, but of a blind necessity ~~ | and the result, a singular mixture of apathy and self-will, conspicuous | in all, but modified in our heroine by some practical common sense and | much real resignation, and reasonable, not simply blind and stolid patience | and submission. Here is a sad picture of dejection caused by | this brother. About this time, when they were giving up hope, | she had been visiting her friend Mary, and writes: ~~ | | Mary, who was then going to Australia, says ~~ | | And in a few weeks after, Charlotte writes: ~~ | | | | | To return to the influence of Branwell on her general estimate | of human nature and manners. In spite of the familiarity | with evil, which we are led to suppose the unrestrained tone of | conversation amongst the few men of her acquaintance brought | upon her, it is satisfactory to find an honest repugnance to its | open professors. In speaking of a bad man ~~ a curate ~~ whose | wife brought complaints of him to her father, she says: ~~ | | | These feelings she never lost in contact with actual mischief-working, | misery-causing evil; she was severe on the great satirist | whom she so intensely reverenced and admired, because she | thought him too lenient to Fielding's course of life; she shuddered | because she remembered Branwell; but something warped her | judgment, where sin is seen in a more subtle shape; mere | speculative deviations from the moral law do not outrage her in | the same manner. It is the way a man | has erred that revolts her more than the sin itself; | thus George Sand's novels do not offend her as they ought, | though of course she does make some protest; but the | situations are too ideal to reach her resentments. | And where she sees a sort of apology for Mr. | Rochester in his unhappy marriage, her principles are not | shocked, or in her sense of (we must say) decency outraged, by | the extraordinary confidences he imparts to Jane Eyre. Mrs. | Gaskell says that in girlhood she had been used to hear that | sort of language herself; female ears did not enjoy the immunity | they do now in all but the most unprincipled society; and | Branwell had confidences and pretended confidences which | | would throw Mr Rochester's into the shade. The long habit | of finding excuses for him before he reached his latest degradation | had lowered her standard; she did not want to believe | in perfection. It is a noticeable fact that "Jane Eyre" was | composed in the midst of the most poignant distresses caused | by Branwell, and while she was, by her contact with him, most | hardened in the free discussion of immorality ~~ suffering from it | ~~ bitter against it, but with the subject necessarily always uppermost. | | For now the notion of composition, with the ultimate end of | publishing, was assuming a settled form in the sisters' minds. | The discovery of a MS. volume of Emily's verses led to a critical | inspection of their joint stores, and then followed a determination | to print at their own risk. Charlotte was right, we think | in giving the first place to Emily; some of her poems convey | an impression of remarkable force and vigour. The whole | volume, indeed, exhibits thought, fancy, and power of versification | of no common order. We wonder it made so little impression | on the public mind; but the crudities and prolixities of young | authors are drawbacks to account for any neglect of what is | so little likely to excite attention as a volume of poetry with | unknown signatures (for here they first assumed the names of | Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, at once preserving their initials | and concealing their sex); and the subjects, in many cases harsh | in themselves or in their mode of treatment, would awake | little sympathy. However, the volume was printed and scrupulously | paid for, and the sisters then began to feel their way in | prose; all writing at the same time, and under the same impulse, | but with very different ultimate success, though Charlotte's first | great experiment could little prepare her for her future triumph. | Her novel, "The Professor," was offered to all the world of | publishers in vain. The public is promised the opportunity of | judging how far this universal rejection was merited, for "The | Professor" is now in the press. "Wuthering Heights" and | "Agnes Grey," by Emily and Anne, found a publisher. In | contrast with Emily's strange story, we approach "Jane Eyre" | with respect. There we see the purifying influence of genius, | which can discriminate between power and brutality ~~ which | knows what to choose and what to reject ~~ which, under every | disparagement and hindrance, has an intuitive sense of beauty, | grace, and fitness ~~ which can clothe intensity of feeling in | reasonable language ~~ which can shake even a rude heart to its | foundations, and reveal its human passion, not its veriest dregs. | After tasting her sister's "fierce ragouts," we do not wonder that | she could not understand what people meant by charging her | story with coarseness. With such specimens in her own family | | of utter unscrupulousness of diction on paper, or | she | must have been rather conscious in herself of a guarded scrupulosity | of decorum. Our readers must not suspect us of approving | of Mr. Rochester, either in his conduct or tone of conversation, | but these strange revelations extenuate some points. The woman | who drew such a character had not to go out of the way for his | worst features. She thought real men were all that sort of | thing, ~~ selfish, somewhat grovelling, with no guiding principle, | but redeemable through their purer affections. She gives her | heroine these sentiments. Resolute and unyielding in her own | sense of duty, such as it is, her heart is not repelled by the act | of treachery her lover all but carried out against her. His | affection was an extenuation at the time when she fulfilled the | "intolerable duty" of leaving him; it was a | claim, not for a moment to be disputed, when the barrier | against their union was removed. | "Jane Eyre" was begun under the additional enxiety of her | father's threatened blindness. She had accompanied him to | Manchester, where the operation for cataract was successfully | performed; and here, in spite of the discouragement of her first story | being returned upon her hands, she set about proving the view | she had recently laid down to her sisters, that it was a mistake | to make a heroine always handsome. | When once in the train of the story she wrote | continuously; we are not surprised that by the time she | had effected her heroine's escape from Thornfield | she had wrought herself into a fever. Certainly | it was a dazzling power to find herself possessed of. What | masculine force of style ~~ what vivid life in the scenes ~~ what | daring originality in the situations ~~ what a grasp of detail! | The whole course of that abortive wedding-day is a masterpiece | of bold and powerful writing. This time she had no repulse to | complain of. She sent her book to Messrs. Smith and Elder. | The firm seem successively to have sat up all night reading the | MS.; ~~ it was accepted, and published within two months, and | "Currer Bell" was famous. But who was "Currer Bell?" The | name and the style were masculine, and yet, looking at it now, | we cannot but wonder how there could be a moment's doubt as | to the sex of the writer. The scenes are all seen through | woman's eyes; there is an identification of the author with the | heroine which could not be assumed. These considerations, as | we look at them now, outweigh the difficulties presented by | either vigour of style or unscrupulousness of expression and | execution. But then the publishers were as much in the dark as | the world at large. Difficulties began to beset the sisters, who | | were charged with being one and the same; a more stupid mistake | "the public," or any portion of it, never fell into; and Mrs. Gaskell | makes a very pretty romance out of the two sisters' ~~ Charlotte | and Anne's ~~ sudden journey to London to prove that they were | two. Their arrival at the Chapter Coffee-house, ~~ their short | walk to the publishers, prolonged to an hour's length by their | fear of the crossings. Mr. Smith's astonishment ~~ | | | Their shy rejection of his hospitable invitations and determination | to remain unknown, which also influenced their refusal to | meet well-known names ~~ the visit to the Opera in their | country-shaped dresses ~~ the frightful headache, the consequence | of so much excitement ~~ the return home, "grey, and very old," | as she describes herself ~~ all this would have answered to | nobody's ideas of the author of "Jane Eyre;" as little would the | patient return to her dreary home after this brilliant episode: ~~ | | | Two months later, after three years of outrageous conduct, | during which all respects seem to have been thrown aside, he | died. She records that ~~ | | This too ill-founded consolation is derived, not from temporary | feeling, but from a persuasion early established amongst these | sisters against the doctrine of eternal punishment. We meet | with it in "Jane Eyre", where Helen Burns (her sister Maria) | enunciates it. And also in Anne's novel. | | Within a few months in the same year a far heavier blow fell | on Charlotte ~~ Emily's health failed, and she sank rapidly before | their eyes, her extraordinary temper showing itself in its utmost | exaggeration as bodily disease gained upon her. She rejected | their sympathy and all medical assistance; the sisters dared | not notice her failing limbs and panting breath; she would | receive help from none. The day of her death ~~ | | | | Months after Charlotte writes: ~ | What a powerful and terrible picture | of a death, as far as we are told, without a thought beyond! There | are some lines by Ellis Bell (Emily Bronte) which sadly bear out | the same impression. A girl addresses her dying lover, and implores | him not to cross the Eternal Sea: ~~ | | Emily Bronte is altogether an enigma. We perceive a power | about her which could not find reasonable vent or utterance, so | shut in was it by her repulsive and unsocial qualities. The | intense love of life is as strange a feature as any. Why should | she care for life, who would not endure intercourse with her | fellow-creatures ~~ who would receive no influence or impressions, | even from her sisters? Her leanings and affinities were all of | a weird character; the wild hold of her affections on the locality | of her home, ~~ the strange sympathy with the brute creation, so | that one who knew her said, | the | | knowledge of their nature, which gave a magic power over them, | as we are to judge by her management of her bull-dog "Keeper," | whom we regard as her familiar. It is thus reported: ~~ | | | But strange as everything is about Emily Bronte, the | strangest thing by far is her book, over which such passages as | these throw a certain light. We cannot read many pages of | "Wuthering Heights" without being driven to construct a | theory. Without such a refuge it would be impossible to proceed | beyond the first chapter. But philosophers are never revolted | or disgusted; what shocks plain incurious natures stimulates | the analyser of causes and motives. And here her sympathy | with animals, and utter want of | sympathy with human nature, | together with certain animal qualities in herself, as, for instance, | a dogged temper, supply a solution | to what would otherwise be | an impenetrable mystery ~~ how a quiet, reserved, as far as we | are informed, steady and well-conducted young woman, a clergyman's | daughter, living all her life in a remote parsonage, and | | seeing nobody, could have conceived such scenes, or couched | her conceptions in such language. With this fresh scent, as it | were, we can pursue the story to the end, not without amusement, | for the language is vigorous, and the scenes energetic. | | If the respectable bull-dog Keeper could have been endowed | with the ambition and the power to describe graphically the | passions of his race ~~ if you could put a pen in his hand and tell | him to delineate the springs and impulses which prompt the | displays of dog nature, with the outer workings of which we | are alone familiar ~~ if he could tell us the secret causes of every | yelp, bark, and snarl, and spring, and bite, which we know now | only in their effects ~~ he would write precisely such a book as | "Wuthering Heights;" and as "Life in the Kennel," it would | be a very striking and clever performance. Just such instinctive, | soulless, savage creatures as compose a pack of hounds, form the | dramatis personae of this unique | story. A vicious dog, if he | were endowed with human organs, would no doubt swear as | well as growl, and shoot and stab as well as bite, if he understood | the use of weapons. And because they are called men | and women, and are invested with human attributes, these | accomplishments are added in the story to their canine powers of | offence and annoyance. But the disguise of humanity is, after | all, but feebly assumed, and constantly disappears altogether; | the whole company drop on all fours as the authoresss warms | with her wubject. Her heroines scratch, | and tear, and bite, | and slap; their likings are | merely instinctive, without a thought of reason or moral feeling; | their mutual rivalries and triumphs, antipathies and hatreds, | are brutal (we use the word in its merely literal sense) | in the extreme degree; that is, they are impossible in | human nature, and natural to brutes. The men are even more | furious and inhuman in their dog-nature. We see that | it is in them all; the idea of change | or reform is out of the question; they roll, and grapple, and | struggle, and throttle, and clutch, and tear, and trample, not | metaphorically, but with hands, and feet, and teeth. The thought | of murder is habitual to them, the idea of conscience never | interferes with their revenges. Their love is as vicious and | cruel as their hate, they will strike the | objects of their affection, and the spaniels do not resent it, and | curse them in life and in death, and are savage in their grief. | Their terrors and fears are animal shudderings; they say of | themselves that they have no pity; the one solitary deed of kindness | in the book is the cutting down a dog that is being hanged; they liken | one another to dogs; they act "the dog in the manger;" they turn tail. | We meet with such phrases as "his mouth watered to tear him with | his teeth" ~~ "she ground her teeth into splinters" ~~ not here and | | there, but in every chapter. Finally, their meals are dog-meals; | if they begin with the thin disguise of tea and cake, they | degenerate quickly into porridge and bones. They spill, and scatter, | and "slobber," and snarl over their food, and grudge if they be | not satisfied. | | Our reader will think this a strong picture; let him read | for himself if he will, and judge if we have not furnished the | key to this phenomenon. Inasmuch as our interpretation | throws the bad language into the background, the oaths and | execrations, we have given only too favourable a report, and | misjudged the animal creation, in representing the soul of a | dog as possessing this turbid and sullen human nature, and | using its gifts to his own purposes. Glancing over Emily's | poems after the perusal of this monstrous performance, we the | more regret that this phase of her nature should ever have | found expression. Verse was her real utterance; here we find | her "clothed and in her right mind." If she were our main | subject, we would give our readers the opportunity of judging | of what we cannot but think their unusual merit. Daring and | quesionable thoughts there are, but alleviated by tender human | feeling, and set off by clear vivid imagery, in flowing | harmonious numbers. | | This singular young woman, the object of her sister's devoted | and somewhat unaccountable attachment, had no sooner passed | away, than the youngest, Anne, began to show symptoms of | disease, which rapidly developed into consumption. Here, | however, there was the comfort of nursing and tender attention. | Anne was not unnatural; the whole history of her illnes is | interesting, and impresses us most favourably. Charlotte | divided her cares between her father and the sinking invalid, | and showed the highest qualities of her nature ~~ all its love, | intensity, and scrupulous sacrifice of inclination to duty ~~ in | those few months of anguish which preceded the laying her last | sister in the grave, not beside Emily, but at Scarborough, where | she went actually dying, without | either Charlotte or herself | being aware how near the end was. It was illuminated by the | Christian's peace and hope; a remarkable calm pervaded her | last hours; she would have nothing go on differently because | she was dying. She urged upon her kind attendants that they | should attend divine service as usual. She wished, if it had | been possible, to go herself. She placed her full, deliberate | trust in her Redeemer's merits, and bade her weeping sister | "take courage," and commended her to the kind offices of her | faithful friend. | | | | It is quite fitting that we should dwell on details like these, | and find comfort in them, and contemplate them in justaposition | with the eccentricities of her authorship, | which would be very astounding indeed, if Emily's was not more so. | Not that the "Tenant of Windfell Hall" suggests the same ideas as | her sister's; we are amongst men and women, such as they are ~~ | but such a set! Anne set it before her as a conscientious duty, to | represent the progress from bad to worse of vice. Nothing should | deter her from this mission, which she seemed to think her own | circumstances impossed upon her. The book is not so clever as | "Wuthering Heights;" there is not the same force or swing; | but, instead, a deliberate, careful, step by step delineation of | what only a very morbid conscience could think it to the | interests of society to delineate. We are led by Mrs. Gaskell, | who has something to do to reconcile these rough, coarse details | of her subject with the refined tone ~~ the shadow of interesting | melancholy ~~ she would willingly throw over her picture, to | understand that this book does really represent Anne's | experience of life, particularly of life seen in her brother Branwell's. | And such a record of ruffianism surely no woman ever | undertook to chronicle. The coarseness of manners and | unfathomable vulgarity of tone, the brutality of the men and general | offensiveness of the women, the atmosphere of low society that | pervades every scene, make the story unique as a | moral one. On this point it forms a marked distinction | from Emily's, who sets no such task before her: but here there is a | very serious and moral strain maintained throughout. All the villanies | are recorded with the good intention of disgusting us with vice, | and showing sin in its native deformity. If we wanted an | argument against the facied duty of keeping such a fellow as | Branwell in free intercourse with his unhappy sisters, we | should find it in the evidence of stain and contamination this | book furnishes. Anne Bronte grew used to the idea of men, | as such, being vain and unfeeling in | their manner, and insolent and unblushing in their vices. We presume | she means her reader to feel interest in the two principal | personages of her | | story ~~ we will not call them hero and heroine ~~ the latter of | whom, by her imprudent marriage, furnishes the lesson of the | book. This young woman is positively represented as listening | before marriage to her brutal lover's stories of his past | dissipation, told not in sorrow, but in triumph, and with an | accumulation of aggravating circumstances which it is a wonder | a woman could become acquainted with. The author has | apparently no taste ~~ at any rate no conception of a man of | decent behaviour and principles ~~ for the young farmer who | succeeds to this monster in the lady's affections is hardly more | to our taste than himself. Violent in his temper, rude in his | impulses, fickle in his attachments, ungrateful, sullen, vain, and | loutish ~~ this picture of what she thinks attractive gives us a | more dreary picture of the destitution of all things lovely and | of good report in which she lived, than even the more glowing | attrocities to which these qualities formed a contrast. She clearly | thinks it an interesting trait, an example of noble, vigorous nature, | that in a fit of unreasonable and impertinent jealousy he should | strike his friend with the butt end of his whip, and leave him | for dead on the road, and not even be moved or softened by the | sight of the mischief he had done; while the way he treats a | poor girl whom he had flirted into a liking of himself, would | constitute him the villain of any | well-trained young lady's novel. Her gentle imagination could | hardly have conceived anything so bad as Anne Bronte's best. | Not that anything will make us believe that any state of | English society is represented by such unmixed repulsiveness. | But it needs imagination, which Anne had not, to reproduce the | world a writer lives in. A mere matter of fact transcript of | certain errors and crimes and a certain false tone of morals, is | sure to make things worse than they are, for all the redeeming | points are forgotten, and the deformities stand out as they can | hardly do in real life. But these sisters seem to have had an | eye for defects. Great sins had a sort of fascination for them, | not from the smallest desire to participate, but because activity | and vigour in wrong doing offered an exciting contrast to their | own existence. It cannot but be wished that they had sometimes | seen a gentleman (we speak more especially of Emily and Anne), | though how far they would have been accessible to his refining | influence, or appreciated his refinement, we cannot guess. They | never seem to have been sensible of a want in this respect. There | are no elegant disguises in their novels; they speak of life | exactly as they see it. The kitchen is the scene of half the | events. Very comfortable its homely cheerfulness feels in | "Shirley;" we do not at all object to it there; but somehow | Anne's and Emily's kitchens are low, | and tell a tale. It is no wonder to find afterwards that | Charlotte felt the task of revising these tales for | | another edition "exqisitely painful and depressing," and that | there is a hint of regret, in vague language ~~ all, no doubt, that | she dare express even then ~~ that nothing would make Emily | conscious that every page was "surcharged with a sort of | moral electricity." But we ought to apologise for having dwelt | so long on what only indirectly concerns our main subject. | | After her sisters' deaths, Charlotte's life assumes a new aspect; | it becomes a literary, and as such, a public one. That is, her | interests are mainly with her books, and, following on their | progress and success, with the friendships into which this publicity | led her. Not that her own nature or habits changed. | She lived with her father, haunted by fears of his health and | her own, in a solitude which sometimes became frightful to her, | but which she could seldom be prevailed on to leave. It was | some relief to tell these feelings to her friend, it made them | more endurable. She thus pathetically describes her first | return to her desolate home. It is sad to find that vigorous | pen expressing as forcibly her own keen anguish as the scenes | of her imagination. | | And, soon after, she writes: ~~ | | | | | In the midst of gloom like this she began "Shirley," ~~ which in | parts expresses the sadness of the period; and found the employment | the only alleviation to mental distress. It was one feature | of her literary character to desire to know every | thing that was said of her books. She lived in two spheres, that of | the woman, and the author; as the one narrowed the other expanded ~~ | and in the author's world, criticism and the opinions of the press were | her society. She could never bring herself to talk freely with | strangers, however interesting to her by reputation and character, | so that it is no wonder that such contact as she could have ~~ the | world's judgment, sympathy, and even censure ~~ any comment | that could reach her without invading her reserve ~~ would have | a peculiar interest and weight, not known to writers who can | take their part in the stir and bustle of life. The first criticism | of which we read as affecting her, is a sharp attack on "Jane Eyre," | in the "Quarterly," of which she write: ~~ | | It is curious to contrast with the public triumphs and | reverses of this time, her home employments and interests, | which were attendance on Tabby and Tabby's assistant, during | the illness of both; and performing the household work | herself ~~ a state of things which would not a little have surprised | the Reviewer, who had probably anything but a domestic | notion of his victim. | | Her future friendships were formed on purely literary grounds. | | A friendly criticism, a warm discriminating letter of commendation, | opened her heart. The principles of her correspondents, | the part they took in controversy, the line in religion or | irreligion, would not come in question, and would enter little into | her consideration, even when the bare knowledge of their | opinions reached her. The sympathy she received was from | the ultra-liberal party, and therefore from that time she fraternised | with them, and with Miss Martineau at their head, without any | real agreement with abstract scepticism. The tone of "Shirley" | is not at all like this. There is a refreshing flavour of the old | church and king school in Helstone; and her spirited account | of a Sunday-school fete, the processions meeting in the narrow | lane, and the victory over the dissenters, would wake no echo in | her new allies. But something in "Jane Eyre" did; not only | its remarkable genius, but a certain laxity in viewing moral | questions, a defiance of restraints to the free exercise of the | imagination, showed an affinity with their party which in act she | could never have carried out. | | She was very sensitive of criticism on moral points, and | indeed showed a general soreness and susceptibility for which | we respect her, though we think it inconsistent with her own | method of impaling living persons, obnoxious to her feelings or | taste, in her own works. How she could have the face to resent | anything, after her behaviour to so many of her own neighbours | and acquaintance, we do not see. It proceeds from the same | short-sightedness which allowed her to be sensitively nervous in | concealing her authorship, while she betrayed herself in every | chapter by her portraits from the life. It was this custom of | hers of writing from life ~~ a practice evident from the style | (though the circumstances and persons were all, we are assured, | unknown, down to the author herself) ~~ which, we believe, | led the writer of an article on "Villette," which appeared in this | Review, to use the offensive word "alien" as applied to her. | | No person, living on friendly, cordial terms with those about her, | could, it was assumed, have adopted such a style of writing. | And reserve did alienate her. No person living | out of her exceedingly narrow circle had the | slightest hold on her tenderness or sympathy; it is the tendency of all | reserve. But the word alien might have another | meaning, and as such, she complains of it in the following pathetic letter, | which we are sure will interest our readers. | Anyone taking the trouble to | refer to the article in question, will see that no such interpretation as | she says some persons (not herself) drew from the words, could | fairly be given, but that it was so understood by any, and thus | caused her undesigned pain, is subject of regret: ~~ | | | | Though criticism was never more needed than in the case | of Currer Bell, yet this is inevitably a sad book for critics. | | We do not blame ourselves for what has been said in our pages | of the author of "Jane Eyre." We could not do otherwise | than censure what was censurable. Where would books | get their deserts, how could judgment be given, if private | considerations had weight to restrain the independent public opinion? | Critics would then be no better than partial friends. But such | revelations as this book gives us are a lesson to weigh words. | We should never forget that the unknown author has a known | side; that he is not an abstraction. And here we are taught | that the private side of a character may be in strong contrast | to its public manifestation; that it needs a rare discernment to | form a true estimate of a writer from his works; and that the | boldest, most fearless style, may emanate from a nature which | has its sensitive, shrinking, timid side. We believe that all the | critics thought they had a tolerably tough nature to deal with, | that there was no need to sugar the bitter draught in this | instance; and when a woman assumed a masculine tone, wrote | as well or better than any man amongst them, and showed herself | afraid of nothing, that gallantry and patronising tenderness | which is commonly bestowed upon women was changed to | gall. And now the administrators of the potion have to reflect | on the private most feminine sorrows of this Amazon; of a | patient life of monotonous duty; of the passionate hold the | purest domestic affections had on her character; and which | amongst them, if he could rewrite his criticism, would not now | and then erase an epithet, spare a sarcasm, modify a sweeping | condemnation? We own it wounds our tenderest feelings to | know her sensitiveness to such attacks; and when she sheds tears | over the Times critique ~~ of all things in | the world to weep over ~~ our heart bleeds indeed. | | But besides the judgment of the press, she had friendly | criticism more to her taste to reply to. Mr. Lewes had | commended Miss Austen to her as a model and she answers | ~~ | | | | We do not wonder that Charlotte Bronte could not enter | into Miss Austen. With certain powers in common, their | education, training, and experience of life were so absolutely | different that no chord in harmony could be struck between | them. Miss Austen described life as she saw it, genteel, decorous, | every-day domestic life. Her disciplined mind and easy temper | saw in this aspect of existence all that satisfied the wants of | her nature. She could take her part in it well. Herself fortunate | in a pleasing person, agreeable address, and friends in the | sphere of society she depicts, what she drew she shared in. She | knew perfectly how people acted in the intercourse of every day; | she had insight into deeper currents of feeling, as experienced by | the society to the delineation of which she devotes her powers. | For, we must assure Mr. Lewes and Miss Bronte, Miss Austen | was a poet. It would be just as | reasonable to deny the title to Gray, because he was precise | in his dress, and careful not to soil his shoes in his search | of the picturesque and sublime, as to | refuse it to the author of "Persuasion," because her characters | are all well-behaved gentlemen and ladies. Her imagination | knew how to work in such decorous, veiled excitement as | "society" gives room for. The happy stir of domestic love, the | thrill of a reciprocal passion, the trials of unrequited tenderness | in a chastened, well-regulated nature ~~ all this, as disciplined by | the will or by the conventionalities of society, she drew | as no-one | else can do. She wrote of human nature precisely as she heard | and saw it. She never attempted what she had no pattern for, | and Miss Bronte's rough and ready specimens never came in | her way. She would not have taken to them as Miss Bronte | did if they had presented themselves. | | Now, into society, technically so called, Miss Bronte had no | insight, because she never saw it, never was in it, and knew | nothing about it. Men and women never were viewed by her as | united by one social bond, as acting upon one another in a certain | acknowledged and received relation. The persons we come | in contact with under her guidance are in no such connexion; | they are independent of any social code. They expatiate in a | freedom which persons once feeling themselves members of a | body cannot attain to. Moreover of these she saw but little, and | conversed with them still less. There was little active companionship; | they were studies rather than acquaintance. Shyness and | self-consciousness kept her apart from her fellows. Again we cannot | doubt that curiosity (such as she attributes to that clever boy | | Martin Yorke, in "Shirley") influenced her intercourse with | others rather than good fellowship. She was so much an artist, | that her lliking was for whatever would make a good picture and | tell. She was lenient therefore to | picturesque vices; they were so many books given her to study. | She mused over them, she pondered, she looked anatomically into | their construction. She entered into their mootives; and what we | can sympathise with and enter into, we are lenient with. All this | in contrast to her rival, if we may call her so. But to go on: her | life was a silent one, an ascetic and recluse one. She did not see enough | of life, so called, or hear its speech, to know how it talked in its | careless, common-place moods. Her study of the heart, her | interest in its deeper emotions, made her know how it would | act when stirred; she put the excitement into words, and the | reader, recognising as true the feeling | in that utterance, does not trouble himself to consider whether | it is true as spoken. When she says | Miss Austen is more real than | true, she expresses this difference | between them; the one tells us what people | say on any given occasion, the other what they | think. The distinction is carefully | noted and acted upon by Miss Austen, and totally disregarded | by Miss Bronte. Hear Mr. Knightly, in "Emma," on this point: ~~ | | | This most true distinction never seems to have entered Miss | Bronte's mind. The things, for example, that people say to | one another in "Shirley" are perfectly out of the question from | one human being to another, though so precisely what they | would think, that the reader is hardly | aware of the impossibility. They are the mute | responses, the solitary revenges the mind | indulges in: bitter musings, unspoken reflections of a spiteful, an | angry, or an eloquent heart. As soliloquies on the one hand, | and the answers of the heart to provocation on the other, they | could not be better; but no living being could really dream of | giving either utterance in words. There are occasions, rare in | each man's life, when all the barriers of custom break down; | then the heart speaks out regardless of the chains of habit. | These occasions are Miss Bronte's opportunity. There is | hardly any analogy between ordinary life and such moments. | Experience of the measured movements of society may even | hamper the imagination, from penetrating, as it otherwise would, | into the eccentricities, the grotesqueness, the rude power of a nature | | standing free from every restraint, and speaking out from wounded | feeling, injured pride or awakened passion. This certainly is | not Miss Austen's sphere. The argument carries us further. | Without being misunderstood, may we say that there are | things that may be thought of which | should not be written or talked about? The mind flies on to consequences. | There are subjects which, in the nature of things, pass through the mind, | which it is not fitting should pass the lips, except on rare and | compulsory occasions. It is the peculiarity of Miss Bronte, | that she never knew, owing to her share in the almost insane | family reserve which shut them out from all general conversation, | the boundary-line which separates thought ~~ the musings | and reasonings of the heart ~~ from what passes the lips. Moreover, | the exceeding curiosity we have noticed to look into the | human heart may not be compatible with scrupulous feminine | delicacy. Women generally portray best what they hear ~~ | either society as it is , or as they think it ought to be, if men | were influenced by higher motives and a larger and more | spiritual view of life. But Miss Bronte liked men best as she | knew them; she liked their roughness, and to look into their | hearts, and divine what their undisciplined natures would lead | them to under trial and temptations. She disclaims any attempt | at a perfection. She recoils from a perfect character as we do | from a ghost, and for the same reason, the predominance of the | spiritual element. Humanity, even in its most vulgar temptations | ~~ even to its love of money ~~ she can allow for; she sees | in fact they are inseparable from the men she knows of: she | likes what she is used to, whatever it is, better than any | unfamiliar amendment. She likes breezes, and storms, and rough | scenes, or whatever shows nature's strength; and because Miss | Austen is not at home in them she will not care for her works. | | We are not surprised to find that Miss Bronte was a deliberate | writer; whatever fault may be found with the matter, | the manner deserves unalloyed praise. She was conscientious in | always doing her best; even with applause sounding in her | ears and every motive stimulating to authorship, she would | always bide her time. She knew her own strength and weakness; | she felt that she had not a very large experience to draw upon, | and she would not exhaust herself with rapidity. Her writings | are from imagination, not cleverness, which is a perennial spring, | and will bear a greater drain than any but the most prolific | genius. Mrs Gaskell draws the attention of the reader to her | excellent choice of words. Few women have attained to such | precision and force of style; few so absolutely express what | they mean. It is interesting, then to know how she attained | to this excellence; and we find what we suspect is the case | with all clear, exact, luminous styles, that she took her time ~~ | | she waited for the right thing to say ~~ she waited for the right | word to say it in. | | | When publishers urge haste, and desire to press forward her | labours, she anwwers: ~~ | | | She felt herself almost superstitiously under the influences | of her genius. To Mrs. Gaskell ~~ | | | | | We doubt this "possession" in the distinct marked way in | which she puts it. Beyond the bare fact that she was some | days in better cue for composition than others, we think the | notion superstitious. Such an impression always gives a writer | an underconfidence in the efforts of his brain ~~ as though he | himself were not responsible under the divine | aflatus ~~ which approaches to a belief in his own | inspiration. Our perceptions, at least of right and wrong, | truth and error, do not depend on times and seasons, and | happy moments; and yet it sometime seems if she made them do | so, and justifies herself under misconstruction by the | feeling of having obeyed an impulse which her conscience | dared not resist. But she was too real and strong a character | for conceit. There is no vanity of successful authorship. She | never for a moment loses her head. Old associations, and | affections, and friendships, lose nothing of their sway. When | fame comes, and she is sought out and pointed at and courted, | her home and her father are still the most potent influences. | After being made a lion in London, and made of note and | distinction, in their several ways, pressing their acquaintance | upon her; after, as far as her shy timid nature and weak | health allowed, she tasted the charm of literary intercourse | and brilliant society; after having conversed with her hero | ~~ her Titan ~~ Thackeray, and breakfasted with Rogers; | after scientific men had shown her the Crystal Palace, and | artists had shown her pictures, and fellow authoresses had | sought her intimacy, here is still the pciture of her | oppressively quiet home life. We give some sentences | from Mrs. Gaskell's report of her visit to Haworth: ~~ | | | | | This was the aspect of her home when cheered by the | presence of a congenial friend; but that was not often; and we | read admissions "of solitude fearfully aggravating other evils;" | of a craving for support and companionship, such as could not | be expressed; "of sitting day after day in her chair, saddest | memories her only company;" allowing her mind to range over | an immoral or sceptical literature as a change for her own | thoughts; and yet resolved to stay, refusing every kind | solicitation of friendship; restricting herself even in the pleasures | of correspondence, lest letters should interfere with the | exclusive claims of home, from a mingled sense of duty and | fatalism. We cannot judge depression and lowness of spirits, | otherwise we should say that what she now wanted was an | object of faith out of herself; her rigid, restricted, partial notion | of duty was a sort of heathen god to her and held her down. | Her mind needed to be taken upwards, away and far above | perpetual self-questioning. Temptations came with solitude, in | the shape of gloomy earth-born musings, standing alike in the | light of human and divine comfort. How true is it that | extraordinary gifts are a gift to the world and not to their | possessor; and that those who amuse, rouse, and divert others | often sink for the want of their own stimulants! So poor | Charlotte Bronte sat at home, alone, late, late into the | night, conversing with the spirits of the dead, and longing | for them, till their voices seemed to reach her ears in the | wild storms of wind that raged around. She had such fancies: | when someone | objected to the supernatural summons in "Jane Eyre," | where Rochester calls her miles away, she replied in a low | voice, and drawing her breath, "But it is a true thing; it | really happened." All her life she had shuddered at death. | She thought of it only as | | "cold obstruction." though living in a churchyard, she could | not, as a girl, walk over a grave unawares without turning | faint. The loss of an acquaintance made a ghastly void which | she feared to think of. Her realizing power was her tyrant ~~ | for such a nature and temperament as hers solitude was | terrible. | | But now came a real legitimate diversion from lonelines | and gloom ~~ not in fame and success, which only brought a | transient and fitful relief, but in a straightforward proposal of | marriage, made, not in admiration of her genius, but herself. | In her heart she did not care for being thought | clever ~~ she thought the term meant "a shrewd, very | ugly, medling, talking woman;" but here was one who loved her | for herself, at an age when women value and are more grageful for | attachment than in youth. However, Mr. Bronte liked things to go | on as they had done. He objected to his curate's marrying | his daughter; and the exemplary daughter of thirty-seven submitted | to his decision, and dismissed her lover. She could not | vex him by her opposition to whom | she had shown implicit obedience her whole life. We are told how, | after some months, the subject was revived, and the father's | consent obtained, not for his daughter to leave him, but | for her husband to share her charge ~~ a charge which he | felt so binding, that when subsequently he was offered a | living he declined it, as feeling bound to Haworth while | Mr. Bronte lived. In brief terms we are told of Charlotte | Bronte's wedding-day, the only witnesses her two oldest | friends, Miss Wooler and E., of whom we have heard so much. | the father had a consistent return of reluctance at the | last moment, which made him, we have no doubt characteristically | enough, refuse to be present. So Miss Wooler, in the emergency, | had to give her faithful friend and pupil away. It is one | of Charlotte's best traits, her keeping up a lasting steady | friendship with this good lady. She was married June 29, 1854. | The follow the simple mention of months of great happiness | and remarkable contrast to a life of trial and depression, | too soon brought to an end by some imprudence of over-exertion. | | | | | Two last letters are given to her friend E and a Brussels | schoolfellow. In the last she speaks of her father ~~ "of course | I could not leave him" ~~ and her husband, | "No better, fonder husband than mine, it seems to me there can be | in the world" ~~ "I do not want now for companionship in health and the | tenderest nursing in sickness;" and the in a very few weeks the end came. | | | Who can sum up such a character? Who can reconcile its | contradictions, account for its eccentricities, nicely discriminate | and mark out its good and evil, bring the whole nature into | harmony? We have not attempted the task, a strong original | character vividly portrayed has its lesson, whether we fully | understand and master it or not. If to some we have seemed | over-lenient to certain grave errors it discloses, to them we | would protest that our tenderness has not been won by | mere admiration for strength of intellect; but we cannot | realize the contrast, and almost antagonism between mind and | temperament, without perceiving a force of temptation and trial | to which few are exposed, and respecting, and even reverencing | accordingly, that sense of duty, dim and narrow as it often was, | which directed her daily steps and influenced her whole | existence. How can we do otherwise than pity that life of | "labour and pain," where duty was a harsh master, and gave so | few rewards; and trust that in the period of late happiness | which precede her end, she may have been guided to the easy | yoke and light burden which should have been her service in | the heat of her dreary day. | | We have already commented on the one great blot and | failure on Mrs. Gaskell's part. As a work of art, this | biography cannot be too highly commended. When we | consider how her task must have appeared to herself at its | | commencement, what small store of incident lay before her out | of which to frame a narrative, how uneventful and externally | insignificant was the life given her to portray, we own we | wonder at her courage and success. When some local worthy | passes from the scene, prominent, almost necessary, in his own | sphere, and his friends contemplate the gap and loss, it is a | universal impulse to write his life. One so important, so loved, | so missed, should not be forgotten. The world must certainly | be told of his excellences, and learn to know him. So Mr. | So-and-so is deputed to write a biography. If this gentleman | is a dull man, he probably accomplishes his task, and does not | know that he has failed. Our readers may guess how Miss | Bronte would fare under his hands. If he has taste, experience, | and discernment, he presently becomes aware that this | life, so impressive in its sphere, presents, under his handling, | no points sufficiently distinguishing to awake new interest. | Peculiar traits so pleasing to friends cannot be conveyed to | strangers. The good deeds are common-place where the face, | and form, and voice that set them off, are away. He feels that | so far from doing honour to the dead, he would be committing | the injustice of exposing him to an unfair ordeal, of parading him | where he was not understood or cared for. And after weighing | and deliberating for a sufficient length of time, he comes to the | conclusion that most men's lives are to be witnessed, not | recorded; that their example is for their own generation, not a | future one. Mrs. Gaskell understood her work better, and | realized from the first what she had to do ~~ not the comparatively | easy task of recording events, but delineating a character | without the aids which incidents and adventure always furnish. | Impressed by her subject, she was roused rather than repelled | by its difficulties. Her fellow-feeling as an authoress, her | tenderness as a friend, sympathy and admiration, pity, resentment, | all stimulated her to the effort ~~ for an effort it must | have been ~~ of presenting this various, contradictory, yet strong, | interesting and remarkable woman to the world. The wants | and voids of that mind she could not feel as we must feel | them. Therefore she is sustained throughout by undoubted | reliance on the intrinsic excellence as well as genius of her | subject, and rejoices to bring her own powers to her task. | And admirably suited they are to the purpose. Her pathos, her | romance, her graphic descriptions, her skill in drawing character, | her singular felicity of arrangement and combination, | all join to produce a picture, harmonious, thrilling, impressive; | which, if it rouses criticism demands attention, and compels | interest, and forms, as every forcible history of an original | mind must do, a valuable addition to the world's experience.