Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (614 page)

‘I hope Mrs. Williams’s health is more satisfactory than when you last wrote.  With every good wish to yourself and your family, — Believe me, my dear sir, yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘
October
19
th
, 1849.

‘My dear Sir, — I am again at home; and after the first sensations consequent on returning to a place more dumb and vacant than it once was, I am beginning to feel settled.  I think the contrast with London does not make Haworth more desolate; on the contrary, I have gleaned ideas, images, pleasant feelings, such as may perhaps cheer many a long winter evening.

‘You ask my opinion of your daughters.  I wish I could give you one worth acceptance.  A single evening’s acquaintance does not suffice with me to form an
opinion
, it only leaves on my mind an
impression
.  They impressed me, then, as pleasing in manners and appearance: Ellen’s is a character to which I could soon attach myself, and Fanny and Louisa have each their separate advantages.  I can, however, read more in a face like Mrs. Williams’s than in the smooth young features of her daughters — time, trial, and exertion write a distinct hand, more legible than smile or dimple.  I was told you had once some thoughts of bringing out Fanny as a professional singer, and it was added Fanny did not like the project.  I
 
thought to myself, if she does not like it, it can never be successfully executed.  It seems to me that to achieve triumph in a career so arduous, the artist’s own bent to the course must be inborn, decided, resistless.  There should be no urging, no goading; native genius and vigorous will should lend their wings to the aspirant — nothing less can lift her to real fame, and who would rise feebly only to fall ignobly?  An inferior artist, I am sure, you would not wish your daughter to be, and if she is to stand in the foremost rank, only her own courage and resolve can place her there; so, at least, the case appears to me.  Fanny probably looks on publicity as degrading, and I believe that for a woman it is degrading if it is not glorious.  If I could not be a Lind, I would not be a singer.

‘Brief as my visit to London was, it must for me be memorable.  I sometimes fancied myself in a dream — I could scarcely credit the reality of what passed.  For instance, when I walked into the room and put my hand into Miss Martineau’s, the action of saluting her and the fact of her presence seemed visionary.  Again, when Mr. Thackeray was announced, and I saw him enter, looked up at his tall figure, heard his voice, the whole incident was truly dream-like, I was only certain it was true because I became miserably destitute of self-possession.  Amour propre suffers terribly under such circumstances: woe to him that thinks of himself in the presence of intellectual greatness!  Had I not been obliged to speak, I could have managed well, but it behoved me to answer when addressed, and the effort was torture — I spoke stupidly.

‘As to the band of critics, I cannot say they overawed me much; I enjoyed the spectacle of them greatly.  The two contrasts, Forster and Chorley, have each a certain edifying carriage and conversation good to contemplate.  I by no means dislike Mr. Forster — quite the contrary, but the distance from his loud swagger to Thackeray’s simple port is as the distance from Shakespeare’s writing to Macready’s acting.

‘Mr. Chorley tantalised me.  He is a peculiar specimen — one whom you could set yourself to examine, uncertain whether, when you had probed all the small recesses of his character,
 
the result would be utter contempt and aversion, or whether for the sake of latent good you would forgive obvious evil.  One could well pardon his unpleasant features, his strange voice, even his very foppery and grimace, if one found these disadvantages connected with living talent and any spark of genuine goodness.  If there is nothing more than acquirement, smartness, and the affectation of philanthropy, Chorley is a fine creature.

‘Remember me kindly to your wife and daughters, and — Believe me, yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘Haworth,
December
19
th
, 1849.

‘Dear Ellen, — Here I am at Haworth once more.  I feel as if I had come out of an exciting whirl.  Not that the hurry or stimulus would have seemed much to one accustomed to society and change, but to me they were very marked.  My strength and spirits too often proved quite insufficient for the demand on their exertions.  I used to bear up as well and as long as I possibly could, for, whenever I flagged, I could see Mr. Smith became disturbed; he always thought that something had been said or done to annoy me, which never once happened, for I met with perfect good breeding even from antagonists — men who had done their best or worst to write me down.  I explained to him, over and over again, that my occasional silence was only failure of the power to talk, never of the will, but still he always seemed to fear there was another cause underneath.

‘Mrs. Smith is rather stern, but she has sense and discrimination; she watched me very narrowly.  When surrounded by gentlemen she never took her eye from me.  I liked the surveillance, both when it kept guard over me amongst many, or only with her cherished one.  She soon, I am convinced, saw in what light I received all, Thackeray included.  Her “George” is a very fine specimen of a young English man of business; so I regard him, and I am proud to be one of his props.

 
‘Thackeray is a Titan of mind.  His presence and powers impress me deeply in an intellectual sense; I do not see him or know him as a man.  All the others are subordinate to these.  I have esteem for some, and, I trust, courtesy for all.  I do not, of course, know what they thought of me, but I believe most of them expected me to come out in a more marked eccentric, striking light.  I believe they desired more to admire and more to blame.  I felt sufficiently at my ease with all except Thackeray, and with him I was painfully stupid.

‘Now, dear Nell, when can you come to Haworth?  Settle, and let me know as soon as you can.  Give my best love to all. — Yours,

‘C. B.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘
January
10
th
, 1850.

‘My dear Sir, — Mrs. Ellis has made her “morning call.”  I rather relished her chat about
Shirley
and
Jane Eyre
.  She praises reluctantly and blames too often affectedly.  But whenever a reviewer betrays that he has been thoroughly influenced and stirred by the work he criticises, it is easy to forgive the rest — hate and personality excepted.

‘I have received and perused the
Edinburgh Review
— it is very brutal and savage.  I am not angry with Lewes, but I wish in future he would let me alone, and not write again what makes me feel so cold and sick as I am feeling just now.

‘Thackeray’s Christmas Book at once grieved and pleased me, as most of his writings do.  I have come to the conclusion that whenever he writes, Mephistopheles stands on his right hand and Raphael on his left; the great doubter and sneerer usually guides the pen, the Angel, noble and gentle, interlines letters of light here and there.  Alas! Thackeray, I wish your strong wings would lift you oftener above the smoke of cities into the pure region nearer heaven!

‘Good-bye for the present. — Yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

 
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘
January
25
th
, 1850.

‘Dear Ellen, — Your indisposition was, I have no doubt, in a great measure owing to the change in the weather from frost to thaw.  I had one sick-headachy day; but, for me, only a slight attack.  You must be careful of cold.  I have just written to Amelia a brief note thanking her for the cuffs, etc.  It was a burning shame I did not write sooner.  Herewith are inclosed three letters for your perusal, the first from Mary Taylor.  There is also one from Lewes and one from Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, both which peruse and return.  I have also, since you went, had a remarkable epistle from Thackeray, long, interesting, characteristic, but it unfortunately concludes with the strict injunction,
show this letter to no one
, adding that if he thought his letters were seen by others, he should either cease to write or write only what was conventional; but for this circumstance I should have sent it with the others.  I answered it at length.  Whether my reply will give satisfaction or displeasure remains yet to be ascertained.  Thackeray’s feelings are not such as can be gauged by ordinary calculation: variable weather is what I should ever expect from that quarter, yet in correspondence as in verbal intercourse, this would torment me. — Yours faithfully,

‘C. B.’

TO REV. P. BRONTË

‘76 Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park,
‘London,
Thursday Morning
.

‘Dear Papa, — I write one hasty line just to tell you that I got here quite safely at ten o’clock last night without any damage or smash in tunnels or cuttings.  Mr. and Mrs. Smith met me at the station and gave me a kind and cordial welcome.  The weather was beautiful the whole way, and warm; it is the same to-day.  I have not yet been out, but this afternoon, if all be well, I shall go to Mr. Thackeray’s lecture.  I don’t know when I shall see the Exhibition, but when I do, I shall write and tell you all about it.  I hope you are well, and will continue
 
well and cheerful.  Give my kind regards to Tabby and Martha, and — Believe me, your affectionate daughter,

‘C. Brontë.’

It cannot be said that Charlotte Brontë and Thackeray gained by personal contact.  ‘With him I was painfully stupid,’ she says.  It was the case of Heine and Goethe over again.  Heine in the presence of the king of German literature could talk only of the plums in the garden.  Charlotte Brontë in the presence of her hero Thackeray could not express herself with the vigour and intelligence which belonged to her correspondence with Mr. Williams.  Miss Brontë, again, was hyper-critical of the smaller vanities of men, and, as has been pointed out, she emphasised in
Villette
a trivial piece of not unpleasant egotism on Thackeray’s part after a lecture — his asking her if she had liked it.  This question, which nine men out of ten would be prone to ask of a woman friend, was ‘over-eagerness’ and ‘
naïveté
’ in her eyes.  Thackeray, on his side, found conversation difficult, if we may judge by a reminiscence by his daughter Mrs. Ritchie: —

‘One of the most notable persons who ever came into our bow-windowed drawing-room in Young Street is a guest never to be forgotten by me — a tiny, delicate, little person, whose small hand nevertheless grasped a mighty lever which set all the literary world of that day vibrating.  I can still see the scene quite plainly — the hot summer evening, the open windows, the carriage driving to the door as we all sat silent and expectant; my father, who rarely waited, waiting with us; our governess and my sister and I all in a row, and prepared for the great event.  We saw the carriage stop, and out of it sprang the active well-knit figure of Mr. George Smith, who was bringing Miss Brontë to see our father.  My father, who had been walking up and down the room, goes out into the hall to meet his guests, and then, after a moment’s delay, the door opens wide, and the two gentlemen come in, leading a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady, pale, with fair straight hair, and steady
 
eyes.  She may be a little over thirty; she is dressed in a little
barège
dress, with a pattern of faint green moss.  She enters in mittens, in silence, in seriousness; our hearts are beating with wild excitement.  This, then, is the authoress, the unknown power whose books have set all London talking, reading, speculating; some people even say our father wrote the books — the wonderful books.  To say that we little girls had been given
Jane Eyre
to read scarcely represents the facts of the case; to say that we had taken it without leave, read bits here and read bits there, been carried away by an undreamed-of and hitherto unimagined whirlwind into things, times, places, all utterly absorbing, and at the same time absolutely unintelligible to us, would more accurately describe our state of mind on that summer’s evening as we look at Jane Eyre — the great Jane Eyre — the tiny little lady.  The moment is so breathless that dinner comes as a relief to the solemnity of the occasion, and we all smile as my father stoops to offer his arm; for, though genius she may be, Miss Brontë can barely reach his elbow.  My own personal impressions are that she is somewhat grave and stern, especially to forward little girls who wish to chatter.  Mr. George Smith has since told me how she afterwards remarked upon my father’s wonderful forbearance and gentleness with our uncalled-for incursions into the conversation.  She sat gazing at him with kindling eyes of interest, lighting up with a sort of illumination every now and then as she answered him.  I can see her bending forward over the table, not eating, but listening to what he said as he carved the dish before him.