Emily at home during Charlotte’s second sojourn in Brussels.
Emily was alone in the gray house, save for her secluded father and old Tabby now over seventy. She was not unhappy. No life could be freer than her own; it was she that disposed, she too that performed most of the household work. She always got up first in the morning, and did the roughest part of the day’s labor before frail old Tabby came down; since kindness and thought for others were part of the nature of this unsocial, rugged woman. She did the household ironing and most of the cookery. She made the bread; and her bread was famous in Haworth for its lightness and excellence. As she kneaded the dough, she would glance now and then at an open book propped up before her. It was her German lesson. But not always did she study out of books; those who worked with her in that kitchen, young girls called in to help in stress of business, remember how she would keep a scrap of paper, a pencil, at her side, and how, when the moment came that she could pausein her cooking or her ironing, she would jot down some impatient thought and then resume her work. With these girls she was always friendly and hearty—“pleasant, sometimes quite jovial, like a boy,” “so genial and kind, a little masculine,” say my informants; but of strangers she was exceedingly timid, and if the butcher’s boy or the baker’s man came to the kitchen door, she would be off like a bird into the hall or the parlor till she heard their hob-nails clumping down the path. Not easy getting sight of that rare bird. Therefore, it may be, the Haworth people thought more of her powers than of those of Anne or Charlotte, who might be seen at school any Sunday. They say: “A deal of folk thout her th’ clever’st o’ them a’, hasumiver shoo wur so timid, shoo cudn’t frame to let it aat.”
A. Mary F. Robinson: ‘Emily Brontë.’
Origin of the three-fold book of Poems.
Pseudonyms.
One day in the autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse, in my sister Emily’s handwriting. Of course, I was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me—a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music, wild, melancholy, and elevating. My sister Emily was not a person of a demonstrative character, nor one, on the recesses of whose mind and feelings, even those nearest and dearest to her, could, with impunity, intrude unlicensed: it took hours to reconcile her to the discoveryI had made, and days to persuade her that such poems merited publication.... Meantime, my younger sister quietly produced some of her own compositions, intimating that since Emily’s had given me pleasure, I might like to look at hers. I could not but be a partial judge, yet I thought that these verses too had a sweet sincere pathos of their own.... We agreed to arrange a small selection of our poems, and, if possible, get them printed. Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of ‘Currer,’ ‘Ellis,’ and ‘Acton Bell’; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because,——without at the time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called “feminine,”—we had a vague impression that authoresses are likely to be looked on with prejudice.
Charlotte Brontë:Biographical Preface to‘Wuthering Heights.’ London, 1850.
Evenings at Haworth novel-writing.
The sisters retained the old habit, which was begun in their aunt’s life-time, of putting away their work at nine o’clock, and beginning their study, pacing up and down their sitting-room. At this time, they talked over the stories they were engaged upon, and described their plots. Once or twice a week, each read to the other what she had written, and heard what they had to say about it. Charlotte told me, that the remarks made had seldom any effect in inducing her to alter her work, so possessed was she with the feeling that she had describedreality; but the readings were of great and stirring interest to all, taking them out of the gnawing pressure of daily-recurring cares, and setting them in a free place. It was on one of these occasions that Charlotte determined to make her heroine plain, small, and unattractive, in defiance of the accepted canon.
Charlotte’s firmness.
The three tales, ‘Wuthering Heights,’ ‘Agnes Grey,’ and ‘The Professor,’ had tried their fate in vain together; at length they were sent forth separately, and for many months with still-continued ill success. I have mentioned this here, because, among the dispiriting circumstances connected with her anxious visit to Manchester, Charlotte told me that her tale came back upon her hands, curtly rejected by some publisher, on the very day when her father was to submit to his operation [for cataract]. But she had the heart of Robert Bruce within her, and failure upon failure daunted her no more than him. Not only did ‘The Professor’ return again to try his chance among the London publishers, but she began, in this time of care and depressing inquietude—in those gray, weary, uniform streets where all faces, save those of her kind doctor, were strange and untouched with sunlight to her—there and then, did the brave genius begin ‘Jane Eyre.’
Mrs. Gaskell: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
Immediate success of ‘Jane Eyre.’
Those who remember that winter [of 1847] know how something like a ‘Jane Eyre’ fever raged among us. The story which had suddenly discovered a glory in uncomeliness, a grandeur in overmastering passion, moulded the fashion of the hour, and “Rochester airs” and “JaneEyre graces” became the rage. The book, and its fame and influence, travelled beyond the seas with a speed which in those days was marvellous. In sedate New England homes the history of the English governess was read with an avidity which was not surpassed in London itself, and within a few months of the publication of the novel it was famous throughout two continents. No such triumph has been achieved in our time by any other English author; nor can it be said, upon the whole, that many triumphs have been better merited. It happened that this anonymous story, bearing the unmistakable marks of an unpractised hand, was put before the world at the very moment when another great masterpiece of fiction was just beginning to gain the ear of the English public. But at the moment of publication ‘Jane Eyre’ swept past ‘Vanity Fair’ with a marvellous and impetuous speed which left Thackeray’s work in the distant background; and its unknown author in a few weeks gained a wider reputation than that which one of the master minds of the century had been engaged for long years in building up. The reaction from this exaggerated fame of course set in, and it was sharp and severe.
T. Wemyss Reid: ‘Charlotte Brontë, a Monograph.’
Mr. Brontë informed about ‘Jane Eyre.’
The sisters had kept the knowledge of their literary ventures from their father, fearing to increase their own anxieties and disappointment by witnessing his.... Once, Charlotte told me, they overheard the postman, meeting Mr. Brontë, as the latter was leaving the house, andinquiring from the parson where one Currer Bell could be living, to which Mr. Brontë replied that there was no such person in the parish.... Now, however, when the demand for the work had assured success to ‘Jane Eyre,’ her sisters urged Charlotte to tell their father of its publication. She accordingly went into his study one afternoon after his early dinner, carrying with her a copy of the book, and one or two reviews, taking care to include a notice adverse to it. She informed me that something like the following conversation took place:
“Papa, I’ve been writing a book.”
“Have you, my dear?”
“Yes, and I want you to read it.”
“I am afraid it will try my eyes too much.”
“But it is not in manuscript: it is printed.”
“My dear! you’ve never thought of the expense it will be! It will be almost sure to be a loss, for how can you get a book sold? No one knows you or your name.”
“But, papa, I don’t think it will be a loss; no more will you, if you will let me read you a review or two, and tell you more about it.”
So she sat down and read some of the reviews to her father; and then, giving him the copy of ‘Jane Eyre’ that she intended for him, she left him to read it. When he came in to tea, he said, “Girls, do you know Charlotte has been writing a book, and it is much better than likely?”
Mrs. Gaskell: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
Charlotte’s subsequent portrait of Emily.
Shirley [is] a fancy likeness of Emily Brontë. EmilyBrontë, but under very different conditions. No longer poor, no longer thwarted, no longer acquainted with misery and menaced by untimely death; not thus, but as a loving sister would fain have seen her, beautiful, triumphant, the spoiled child of happy fortune. Yet in these altered circumstances Shirley keeps her likeness to Charlotte’s hard-working sister. Under the pathetic finery so lovingly bestowed, under the borrowed splendors of a thousand a year, a lovely face, an ancestral manor-house, we recognize our hardy and headstrong heroine, and smile a little sadly at the inefficacy of this masquerade of grandeur, so indifferent and unnecessary to her. Through these years we discern the brilliant heiress to be a person of infinitely inferior importance to the ill-dressed and over-worked vicar’s daughter.... Shirley is indeed the exterior Emily, the Emily that was to be met and known thirty-five years ago, only a little polished, with the angles a little smoothed, by a sister’s anxious care. The nobler Emily, deeply suffering, brooding, pitying, creating, is only to be found in a stray word here and there, a chance memory, a happy answer, gathered from the pages of her work, and the loving remembrance of her friends. But to know how Emily Brontë looked, moved, sat and spoke, we still return to Shirley. A host of corroborating memories start up in turning the pages. Who but Emily was always accompanied by a “rather large, strong, and fierce-looking dog, very ugly, being of a breed between a mastiff and a bull-dog”? It is familiar to us as Una’s lion.
Certainly “Captain Keeldar,” with her cavalier airs, her ready disdain, her love of independence, does bringback with vivid brilliance the memory of our old acquaintance, “the Major,”[9]... We know her, too, by her kindness to her inferiors. A hundred little stories throng our minds. Unforgotten delicacies made with her own hands for her servant’s friend, yet remembered visits of Martha’s little cousin to the kitchen, where Miss Emily would bring in her own chair for the ailing girl; anecdotes of her early rising through many years to do the hardest work, because the first servant was too old, and the second too young to get up so soon; and she, Emily, was so strong. A hundred little sacrifices, dearer to remember than Shirley’s open purse, awaken in our hearts and remind us that, after all, Emily was the nobler and more lovable heroine of the twain.... And Shirley’s love of picturesque and splendid raiment is not without an echo in our memories. It was Emily who, shopping in Bradford with Charlotte and her friend, chose a white stuff patterned with lilac thunder and lightning, to the scarcely concealed horror of her more sober companions.... She, too, had Shirley’s taste for the management of business.
A. Mary F. Robinson: ‘Emily Brontë.’
“Keeper.”
The same tawny bull-dog, called “Tartar” in ‘Shirley,’ was “Keeper” in Haworth parsonage; a gift to Emily. With the gift came a warning. Keeper was faithful to the depths of his nature as long as he was with friends; but he who struck him with a stick or whip, roused the relentless nature of the brute, who flew at his throat forthwith, and held him there till one or the other was at thepoint of death. Now Keeper’s household fault was this: He loved to steal up-stairs, and stretch his square, tawny limbs on the comfortable beds, covered over with delicate white counterpanes. But the cleanliness of the parsonage arrangements was perfect; and this habit of Keeper’s was so objectionable, that Emily in reply to Tabby’s remonstrances, declared that, if he was found again transgressing, she herself, in defiance of warning and his well-known ferocity of nature, would beat him so severely that he would never offend again. In the gathering dusk of an autumn evening, Tabby came, half triumphantly, half tremblingly, but in great wrath, to tell Emily that Keeper was lying on the best bed, in drowsy voluptuousness. Charlotte saw Emily’s whitening face, and set mouth, but dared not speak to interfere: no one dared when Emily’s eyes glowed in that manner out of the paleness of her face, and when her lips were so compressed into stone. She went up-stairs, and Tabby and Charlotte stood in the gloomy passage below, full of the dark shadows of coming night. Down the stairs came Emily, dragging after her the unwilling Keeper, his hind legs set in a heavy attitude of resistance, held by the “scaft of his neck,” but growling low and savagely all the time. The watchers would fain have spoken, but durst not, for fear of taking off Emily’s attention, and causing her to avert her head for a moment from the enraged brute. She let him go, planted in a dark corner at the bottom of the stairs; no time was there to fetch stick or rod, for fear of the strangling clutch at her throat—her bare clenched fist struck against his red fierce eyes, before he had time to make his spring, and in the language of the turf, she “punished him” till his eyeswere swelled up, and the half-blind, stupefied beast was led to his accustomed lair, to have his swelled head fomented and cared for by the very Emily herself. The generous dog owed her no grudge; he loved her dearly ever after; he walked first among the mourners at her funeral; he slept moaning for nights at the door of her empty room, and never, so to speak, rejoiced, dog fashion, after her death.
Mrs. Gaskell: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
Emily saves Branwell’s life.
At last [Branwell] grew ill, and would be content to go to bed early, and lie there half-stupefied with opium and drink. One such night, their father and Branwell being in bed, the sisters came up-stairs to sleep. Emily had gone on first into the little passage room where she still slept, when Charlotte, passing Branwell’s partly-opened door, saw a strange bright flare inside. “Oh, Emily!” she cried, “the house is on fire!”
Emily came out, her fingers at her lips. She had remembered her father’s great horror of fire; it was the one dread of a brave man; he would have no muslin curtains, no light dresses in his house. She came out silently and saw the flame; then, very white and determined, dashed from her room down stairs into the passage, where every night full pails of water stood. One in each hand she came up-stairs. Anne, Charlotte, the young servant, shrinking against the wall, huddled together in amazed horror—Emily went straight on and entered the blazing room. In a short while the bright light ceased to flare. Fortunately the flame had not reached the woodwork; drunken Branwell, turning in his bed, must have upset the light on to hissheets, for they and the bed were all on fire, and he unconscious in the midst, when Emily went in, even as Jane Eyre found Mr. Rochester. But it was no reasonable, thankful human creature with whom Emily had to deal. After a few long moments, those still standing in the passage saw her stagger out, white, with singed clothes, half-carrying in her arms, half-dragging, her besotted brother. She placed him in her bed, and took away the light; then assuring the hysterical girls that there could be no further danger, bade them go and rest—but where she slept herself that night no one remembers now.
A. M. F. Robinson: ‘Emily Brontë.’
Emily’s personal resemblance to G. H. Lewes.
I have seen Lewes.... I could not feel otherwise to him than half-sadly, half-tenderly—a queer word that last, but I use it because the aspect of Lewes’s face almost moves me to tears; it is so wonderfully like Emily—her eyes, her features, the very nose, the somewhat prominent mouth, the forehead—even, at moments, the expression.
Charlotte Brontë:Letter, 1850, quoted by Mrs. Gaskell.
Death of Emily Brontë.
The days drew on towards Christmas; it was already the middle of December, and still Emily was about the house, able to wait upon herself, to sew for the others, to take an active share in the duties of the day. She always fed the dogs herself. One Monday evening, it must have been about the 14th of December, she rose as usual to give the creatures their supper. She got up,walking slowly, holding out in her thin hands an apronful of broken meat and bread. But when she reached the flagged passage the cold took her; she staggered on the uneven pavement and fell against the wall. Her sisters, who had been sadly following her, unseen, came forward much alarmed and begged her to desist; but, smiling wanly, she went on and gave Floss and Keeper their last supper from her hands.
The next morning she was worse. Before her waking, her watching sisters heard the low, unconscious moaning that tells of suffering continued even in sleep; and they feared for what the coming year might hold in store. Of the nearness of the end they did not dream. Charlotte had been out to the moors, searching every glen and hollow for a sprig of heather, however pale and dry, to take to the moor-loving sister. But Emily looked on the flower laid on her pillow with indifferent eyes. She was already estranged and alienated from life.
Nevertheless she persisted in rising, dressing herself alone, and doing everything for herself. A fire had been lit in the room, and Emily sat on the hearth to comb her hair. She was thinner than ever now—the tall, loose-jointed, “slinky” girl—her hair in its plenteous dark abundance was all of her that was not marked by the branding finger of death. She sat on the hearth combing her long brown hair. But soon the comb slipped from her feeble grasp into the cinders. She, the intrepid, active Emily, watched it burn and smoulder, too weak to lift it.... At last the servant came in: “Martha,” she said, “my comb’s down there; I was too weak to stoop and pick it up.”
She finished her dressing, and came very slowly, with dizzy head and tottering steps, down stairs into the little, bare parlor where Anne was working and Charlotte writing a letter. Emily took up some work and tried to sew. Her catching breath, her drawn and altered face, were ominous of the end. But still a little hope flickered in those sisterly hearts. “She grows daily weaker,” wrote Charlotte, on that memorable Tuesday morning; seeing surely no portent that this—this! was to be the last of the days and the hours of her weakness.
The morning grew on to noon, and Emily grew worse. She could no longer speak, but—gasping in a husky whisper—she said: “If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now!” Alas, it was too late. The shortness of breath and rending pain increased; even Emily could no longer conceal them. Towards two o’clock her sisters begged her, in an agony, to let them put her to bed. “No, no,” she cried, tormented with the feverish restlessness that comes before the last, most quiet peace. She tried to rise, leaning with one hand upon the sofa. And thus the chord of life snapped. She was dead.
She was twenty-nine years old.
They buried her, a few days after, under the church pavement; under the slab of stone where the mother lay, and Maria and Elizabeth and Branwell.... And though no wind ever rustles over the grave on which no scented heather springs, nor any bilberry bears its sprigs of greenest leaves and purple fruit, she will not miss them now; she who wondered how any could imagine unquiet slumbers for them that sleep in the quiet earth.
A. M. F. Robinson: ‘Emily Brontë.’
Charlotte alone on the moors.
“I am free to walk on the moors; but when I go out there alone, everything reminds me of the times when others were with me, and then the moors seem a wilderness, featureless, solitary, saddening. My sister Emily had a particular love for them, and there is not a knoll of heath, not a branch of fern, not a young bilberry-leaf, not a fluttering lark or linnet, but reminds me of her. The distant prospects were Anne’s delight, and when I look round, she is in the blue tints, the pale mists, the waves and shadows of the horizon. In the hill-country silence, their poetry comes by lines and stanzas into my mind: once I loved it; now I dare not read it.”
Charlotte Brontë:Letter, quoted by Mrs. Gaskell.
Wearied out by the vividness of her sorrowful recollections, she sought relief in long walks on the moors. A friend of hers gives an anecdote which may well come in here.
Anecdote of the old woman’s “cofe.”
“They are mistaken in saying that she was too weak to roam the hills for the benefit of the air. I do not think any one, certainly not any woman in this locality, went so much on the moors as she did, when the weather permitted. Indeed, she was so much in the habit of doing so, that people, who live quite away on the edge of the common, knew her perfectly well. I remember on one occasion an old woman saw her at a little distance, and she called out ‘How! Miss Brontë! Hey yah (have you) seen aught o’ my cofe (calf)?’ Miss Brontë told her she could not say, for she did not know it. ‘Well!’ she said, ‘Yah know, it’s gettingup like nah (now), between a cah (cow) and a cofe—what we call a stirk, yah know, Miss Brontë; will yah turn it this way if yah happen to see’t, as yah’re going back, Miss Brontë; nahdo, Miss Brontë.’”
Mrs. Gaskell: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
Mrs. Gaskell’s first impression.
A little lady in a black silk gown, whom I could not see at first for the dazzle in the room; she came up and shook hands with me at once.... She is (as she calls herself)undeveloped, thin, and more than half a head shorter than I am; soft brown hair, not very dark; eyes (very good and expressive, looking straight and open at you), of the same color as her hair; a large mouth; the forehead square, broad, and rather overhanging. She has a very sweet voice; rather hesitates in choosing her expressions, but when chosen they seem without an effort admirable, and just befitting the occasion; there is nothing overstrained, but perfectly simple.
Mrs. Gaskell:Letter, published in ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
Charlotte at home.
Miss Brontë put me in mind of her own ‘Jane Eyre.’ She looked smaller than ever, and moved about so quietly and noiselessly, just like a little bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds are joyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it was first built.... There is something touching in the sight of that little creature entombed in such a place, and moving about herself like a spirit, especially when you think that the slightstill frame encloses a force of strong fiery life, which nothing has been able to freeze or extinguish.
Letter from a Visitor: Quoted by Mrs. Gaskell.
The Rev. Patrick Brontë.
Charlotte’s appearance and manner.
Her eyes.
I knocked at the door, and presently a tall, not uncourtly, but ancient and venerable man, with a gray head, and the most notable Milesian features, opened it, and smiling kindly upon me as I told my name, invited me in; and asking pardon for leaving me alone, vanished into a room on the right hand of the door, telling me he would ring for his daughter. The bell had hardly sounded before the door opened, and Miss Brontë stood before me. I was agreeably disappointed at her appearance. I had always heard that she was very plain and unprepossessing, with bashful manners. Instead of this, I found her exceedingly agreeable, from the first moment of her entrance to the last of the interview, and, instead of being plain, I thought her uncommonly attractive. She had the slightest, fairy-like figure, and very small hands and feet. Her head was superb, and her forehead broad and deep and square, appearing so more especially in her profile. Her eyes had, for me, a strange fascination, so weird, mystical, unfathomable they seemed; and this expression was deepened by a slight obliquity in them. She had over-worked herself, she said, and was tired, and her eyes were very weary and painful; all which was evident in her appearance; and I saw that the light was painful to her, although the room was darkened by the drawn blinds. She was dressed very simply, but neatly, and with taste.
George S. Phillips: ‘Visit to Charlotte Brontë.’ ‘The Ladies’ Repository,’ September, 1872.
A parcel arrived for me, enclosing a book, and a note which was examined as few notes ever are. The book was ‘Shirley’; and the note was from ‘Currer Bell.’ Here it is:
Charlotte’s first meeting with Harriet Martineau.
“Currer Bell offers a copy of ‘Shirley’ to Miss Martineau’s acceptance, in acknowledgment of the pleasure and profit he [she] has derived from her work. When C. B. first read ‘Deerbrook,’ he tasted a new and keen pleasure, and experienced a genuine benefit. In his mind, ‘Deerbrook’ ranks with the writings that have really done him good, added to his stock of ideas, and rectified his views of life.”
“November 7th, 1849.”
We examined this note to make out whether it was written by a man or a woman. The hand was a cramped and nervous one, which might belong to anybody who had written too much, or was in bad health, or who had been badly taught. The erased “she” seemed at first to settle the matter; but somebody suggested that the “she” might refer to me under a form of sentence which might easily have been changed in the penning. I had made up my mind, as I had repeatedly said, that a certain passage in ‘Jane Eyre,’ about sewing on brass rings, could have been written only by a woman or an upholsterer. I now addressed my reply externally to ‘Currer Bell, Esq.’ and began it “Madam.” [A second note from Currer Bell, expressing a wish to meet Miss Martineau, was answered by an invitation to tea.]
The footman would certainly announce this mysterious personage by his or her right name; and, as Icould not hear the announcement, I charged my cousins to take care that I was duly informed of it. Precisely as the time-piece struck six, a carriage stopped at the door; and after a minute of suspense, the footman announced “Miss Brogden”; whereupon my cousin informed me that it was Miss Brontë; for we had heard the name before, among others, in the way of conjecture. I thought her the smallest creature I had ever seen (except at a fair) and her eyes blazed, as it seemed to me. She glanced quickly round; and my trumpet pointing me out, she held out her hand frankly and pleasantly. I introduced her, of course, to the family, and then came a moment which I had not anticipated. When she was seated by me on the sofa, she cast up at me such a look,—so loving, so appealing,—that, in connection with her deep mourning dress, and the knowledge that she was the sole survivor of her family, I could with utmost difficulty return her smile, or keep my composure. I should have been heartily glad to cry. We soon got on very well; and she appeared more at ease that evening than I ever saw her afterwards, except when we were alone.
Harriet Martineau: ‘Autobiography.’ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1877.
Mr. Lewes’ account of Charlotte.
Lewes was describing Currer Bell to me yesterday as a little, plain, provincial, sickly-looking old maid. Yet what passion, what fire in her! Quite as much as in George Sand, only the clothing is less voluptuous.
George Eliot:Letterto Sara Hennell, 1853. ‘George Eliot’s Life as related in her Letters andJournals,’ arranged and edited by J. W. Cross. New York: Harper & Bros., 1885.
Thackeray’s recollection.
I remember the trembling little frame, the little hand, the great honest eyes. An impetuous honesty seemed to me to characterize the woman. Twice I recollect she took me to task for what she held to be errors in doctrine. Once about Fielding we had a disputation. She spoke her mind out. She jumped too rapidly to conclusions.... She formed conclusions that might be wrong, and built up whole theories of character upon them. New to the London world, she entered it with an independent, indomitable spirit of her own; and judged of contemporaries, and especially spied out arrogance or affectation with extraordinary keenness of vision. She was angry with her favorites if their conduct or conversation fell below her ideal. Often she seemed to me to be judging the London folk prematurely; but perhaps the city is rather angry at being judged. I fancied an austere little Joan of Arc marching in upon us, and rebuking our easy lives, our easy morals. She gave me the impression of being a very pure and lofty and high-minded person. A great and holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be with her always. Such, in our brief interview, she appeared to me....
Wm. M. Thackeray: ‘Roundabout Papers.’ London: Smith & Elder, 1863.
Mrs. Gaskell’s elaborate description.
She was ... very small in figure—“stunted” was the word she applied to herself—but as her limbsand head were in just proportion to the slight, fragile body, no word in ever so slight a degree suggestive of deformity could properly be applied to her. With soft, thick, brown hair, and peculiar eyes, of which I find it difficult to give a description as they appeared to me in her later life. They were large and well shaped; their color a reddish-brown; but if the iris was closely examined, it appeared to be composed of a great variety of tints. The usual expression was of quiet, listening intelligence; but now and then, on some just occasion for vivid interest or wholesome indignation, a light would shine out, as if some spiritual lamp had been kindled which glowed behind those expressive orbs. I never saw the like in any human creature. As for the rest of her features, they were plain, large, and ill set; but, unless you began to catalogue them, you were hardly aware of the fact, for the eyes and power of the countenance overbalanced every physical defect; the crooked mouth and the large nose were forgotten, and the whole face arrested the attention, and presently attracted all those whom she herself would have cared to attract. Her hands and feet were the smallest I ever saw; when one of the former was placed in mine, it was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my palm. The delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensation, which was one reason why all her handiwork of whatever kind—writing, sewing, knitting—was so clear in its minuteness. She was remarkably neat in her whole personal attire; but she was dainty as to the fit of her shoes and gloves.
Mrs. Gaskell: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
A caricature.
Redeeming features.
There is a little caricature sketched by herself lying before me as I write. In it all the more awkward of her physical points are ingeniously exaggerated. The prominent forehead bulges out in an aggressive manner, suggestive of hydrocephalus, the nose, “tip-tilted like the petal of a flower,” and the mouth are made unnecessarily large, while the little figure is clumsy and ungainly. But though she could never pretend to beauty, she had redeeming features, her eyes, hair, and massive forehead all being attractive points.
T. Wemyss Reid: ‘Charlotte Brontë, a Monograph.’
Charlotte’s well-known portrait.
The engraving.
Mr. Nicholls asked me to step into the parlor and look at Charlotte’s portrait. It is the one from which the engraving in the ‘Life’ (Mrs. Gaskell’s) is made; but the latter does no justice to the picture, which Mr. Nicholls said was a perfect likeness of the original. I remarked that the engraving gives to the face, and especially to the eyes, a weird, sinister and unpleasant expression which did not appear in the portrait. He said he had observed it, and that nothing could be more unjust, for Charlotte’s eyes were as soft and affectionate in their expression as could possibly be conceived.
Account of an Interview with Mr. Brontë and Mr. Nicholls, quoted byT. W. Reid.
Personal traits: Miss Martineau’s notes.
Slightly morbid.
Between the appearance of ‘Shirley’ and that of ‘Villette’ she came to me;—in December, 1850. Our intercourse then confirmed my deep impression of herintegrity, her noble conscientiousness about her vocation, and her consequent self-reliance in the moral conduct of her life. I saw at the same time tokens of a morbid condition of mind, in one or two directions;—much less than might have been expected, or than would have been seen in almost any one else under circumstances so unfavorable to health of body and mind as those in which she lived.
Unspoilable.
She was not only unspoiled by her sudden and prodigious fame, but obviously unspoilable. She was somewhat amazed by her fame, but oftener annoyed; at least when obliged to come out into the world to meet it, instead of its reaching her in her secluded home in the wilds of Yorkshire.
Passionate love of truth.
“I know,” she wrote, “that you will give me your thoughts upon my book, [‘Villette’] as frankly as if you spoke to some near relative whose good you preferred to her gratification. I wince under the pain of condemnation—like any other weak structure of flesh and blood; but I love, I honor, I kneel to Truth. Let her smite me on one cheek—good! the tears may spring to the eyes; but courage! There is the other side—hit again—hit sharply!” This was the genuine spirit of the woman. She might be weak for once; but her permanent temper was one of humility, candor, integrity and conscientiousness.
Harriet Martineau: ‘Autobiography.’
Mrs. Gaskell’s record: Charlotte’s dread of a strange face.
I had several opportunities of perceiving how this nervousness was ingrained in her constitution, and how acutely she suffered in striving to overcome it.One evening we had, among other guests, two sisters who sang Scottish ballads exquisitely. Miss Brontë had been sitting quiet and constrained till they began “The Bonnie House of Airlie,” but the effect of that and “Carlisle Yetts,” which followed, was as irresistible as the playing of the Piper of Hamelin. The beautiful clear light came into her eyes; her lips quivered with emotion; she forgot herself, rose, and crossed the room to the piano, where she asked eagerly for song after song. The sisters begged her to come and see them the next morning, when they would sing as long as ever she liked; and she promised gladly and thankfully. But on reaching the house her courage failed. We walked some time up and down the street; she upbraiding herself all the while for folly, and trying to dwell on the sweet echoes in her memory, rather than on the thoughts of a third sister who would have to be faced if we went in. But it was of no use; and dreading lest this struggle with herself might bring on one of her trying headaches, I entered at last and made the best apology I could for her non-appearance.
Superstitiousness.
There was another circumstance that came to my knowledge at this period which told secrets about the finely-strung frame. One night I was on the point of relating some dismal ghost story, just before bed-time. She shrank from hearing it, and confessed that she was superstitious, and prone at all times to the involuntary recurrence of any thoughts of ominous gloom which might have been suggested to her. She said that on first coming to us she had found a letter on her dressing-table from afriend in Yorkshire, containing a story which had impressed her vividly ever since;—that it mingled with her dreams at night, and made her sleep restless and unrefreshing.
The Brontës not fond of children.
Neither Charlotte nor her sisters were naturally fond of children. The hieroglyphics of childhood were an unknown language to them, for they had never been much with those younger than themselves. I am inclined to think, too, that they had not the happy knack of imparting information, which seems to be a separate gift from the faculty of acquiring it.... The little Brontës had been brought up motherless; and from knowing nothing of the gaiety and sportiveness of childhood—from never having experienced caresses or fond attentions themselves—they were ignorant of the very nature of infancy, or how to call out its engaging qualities. Children were to them the troublesome necessities of humanity; they had never been drawn into contact with them in any other way. Years afterward, when Miss Brontë came to stay with us, she watched our little girls perpetually; and I could not persuade her that they were only average specimens of well brought up children. She was surprised and touched by any sign of thoughtfulness for others, of kindness to animals, or of unselfishness on their part; and constantly maintained that she was in the right, and I in the wrong, when we differed on the point of their unusual excellence.
My youngest little girl ... would steal her little hand into Miss Brontë’s scarcely larger one, and each took pleasure in this apparently unobserved caress. Yet once when I told Julia to take and showher the way to some room in the house, Miss Brontë shrank back: “Do notbidher do anything for me,” she said; “it has been so sweet hitherto to have her rendering her little attentionsspontaneously.”
As illustrating her feelings with regard to children, I may give what she says in [one] of her letters to me:
“Whenever I see Florence and Julia again, I shall feel like a fond but bashful suitor, who views at a distance the fair personage to whom, in his clownish awe, he dare not risk a near approach. Such is the clearest idea I can give you of my feeling towards children I like, but to whom I am a stranger—and to what children am I not a stranger? They seem to me little wonders; their talk, their ways, are all matter of half-admiring, half-puzzled speculation.”
Mrs. Gaskell: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
Manner of composing.
I remember many little particulars which Miss Brontë gave me, in answer to my inquiries respecting her mode of composition. She said, that it was not every day that she could write. Sometimes weeks or even months elapsed before she felt that she had anything to add to that portion of her story which was already written. Then, some morning, she would waken up, and the progress of her tale lay clear and bright before her, in distinct vision. When this was the case, all her care was to discharge her household and filial duties, so as to obtain leisure to sit down and write out the incidents and consequent thoughts, which were, in fact, more present to her mind at such times than her actual life itself. Notwithstanding this “possession,” ... those who survive, of her daily and household companions, are clear in theirtestimony, that never was the claim of any duty, never was the call of another for help, neglected for an instant. It had been necessary to give Tabby—now nearly eighty years of age—the assistance of a girl. Tabby relinquished any of her work with jealous reluctance, and could not bear to be reminded, though ever so delicately, that the acuteness of her senses was dulled by age. Among other things, she reserved to herself the right of peeling the potatoes for dinner; but as she was growing blind, she often left in those black specks, which we in the North call the “eyes” of the potato. Miss Brontë was too dainty a housekeeper to put up with this; yet she could not bear to hurt the faithful old servant, by bidding the younger maiden go over the potatoes again, and so reminding Tabby that her work was less effectual than formerly. Accordingly, she would steal into the kitchen, and quietly carry off the bowl of vegetables, without Tabby’s being aware, and breaking off in the full flow of interest and inspiration, in her writing, carefully cut out the specks in the potatoes, and noiselessly carry them back to their place. This little proceeding may show how orderly and fully she accomplished her duties, even at those times when the possession was upon her.
Mrs. Gaskell: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
Handwriting, etc.
Miss Brontë’s handwriting was exceedingly small, nervous, and poor, but quite legible. Her first manuscript was a very small square book, or folding of paper, from which she copied, with extreme care. She was as much surprised to find that I never copy at all, as I was at her imposing on herself so much toil which seems to me unnecessary.
Harriet Martineau: ‘Autobiography.’