Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle Part 20

'C. BRONTE.'

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

'_March_ 2_nd_, 1849.

'MY DEAR SIR,--My sister still continues better: she has less languor and weakness; her spirits are improved. This change gives cause, I think, both for grat.i.tude and hope.

'I am glad that you and Mr. Smith like the commencement of my present work. I wish it were _more than a commencement_; for how it will be reunited after the long break, or how it can gather force of flow when the current has been checked or rather drawn off so long, I know not.

'I sincerely thank you both for the candid expression of your objections. What you say with reference to the first chapter shall be duly weighed. At present I feel reluctant to withdraw it, because, as I formerly said of the Lowood part of _Jane Eyre_, _it is true_. The curates and their ongoings are merely photographed from the life. I should like you to explain to me more fully the ground of your objections. Is it because you think this chapter will render the work liable to severe handling by the press? Is it because knowing as you now do the ident.i.ty of "Currer Bell," this scene strikes you as unfeminine? Is it because it is intrinsically defective and inferior? I am afraid the two first reasons would not weigh with me--the last would.

'Anne and I thought it very kind in you to preserve all the notices of the Poems so carefully for us. Some of them, as you said, were well worth reading. We were glad to find that our old friend the _Critic_ has again a kind word for us. I was struck with one curious fact, viz., that four of the notices are fac-similes of each other.

How does this happen? I suppose they copy.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_March_ 8_th_, 1849.

'DEAR ELLEN,--Anne's state has apparently varied very little during the last fortnight or three weeks. I wish I could say she gains either flesh, strength, or appet.i.te; but there is no progress on these points, nor I hope, as far as regards the two last at least, any falling off; she is piteously thin. Her cough, and the pain in her side continue the same.

'I write these few lines that you may not think my continued silence strange; anything like frequent correspondence I cannot keep up, and you must excuse me. I trust you and all at Brookroyd are happy and well. Give my love to your mother and all the rest, and--Believe me, yours sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

'_March_ 11_th_, 1849.

'MY DEAR SIR,--My sister has been something worse since I wrote last.

We have had nearly a week of frost, and the change has tried her, as I feared it would do, though not so severely as former experience had led me to apprehend. I am thankful to say she is now again a little better. Her state of mind is usually placid, and her chief sufferings consist in the hara.s.sing cough and a sense of languor.

'I ought to have acknowledged the safe arrival of the parcel before now, but I put it off from day to day, fearing I should write a sorrowful letter. A similar apprehension induces me to abridge this note.

'Believe me, whether in happiness or the contrary, yours sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS LAEt.i.tIA WHEELWRIGHT

'HAWORTH, _March_ 15_th_, 1849.

'DEAR LAEt.i.tIA,--I have not quite forgotten you through the winter, but I have remembered you only like some pleasant waking idea struggling through a dreadful dream. You say my last letter was dated September 14th. You ask how I have pa.s.sed the time since.

What has happened to me? Why have I been silent?

'It is soon told.

'On the 24th of September my only brother, after being long in weak health, and latterly consumptive--though we were far from apprehending immediate danger--died, quite suddenly as it seemed to us. He had been out two days before. The shock was great. Ere he could be interred I fell ill. A low nervous fever left me very weak.

As I was slowly recovering, my sister Emily, whom you knew, was seized with inflammation of the lungs; suppuration took place; two agonising months of hopes and fears followed, and on the 19th of December _she died_.

'She was scarcely cold in her grave when Anne, my youngest and last sister, who has been delicate all her life, exhibited symptoms that struck us with acute alarm. We sent for the first advice that could be procured. She was examined with the stethoscope, and the dreadful fact was announced that her lungs too were affected, and that tubercular consumption had already made considerable progress. A system of treatment was prescribed, which has since been ratified by the opinion of Dr. Forbes, whom your papa will, I dare say, know. I hope it has somewhat delayed disease. She is now a patient invalid, and I am her nurse. G.o.d has. .h.i.therto supported me in some sort through all these bitter calamities, and my father, I am thankful to say, has been wonderfully sustained; but there have been hours, days, weeks of inexpressible anguish to undergo, and the cloud of impending distress still lowers dark and sullen above us. I cannot write much.

I can only pray Providence to preserve you and yours from such affliction as He has seen good to acc.u.mulate on me and mine.

'With best regards to your dear mamma and all your circle,--Believe me, yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS WOOLER

'HAWORTH, _March_ 24_th_, 1849.

'MY DEAR MISS WOOLER,--I have delayed answering your letter in the faint hope that I might be able to reply favourably to your inquiries after my sister's health. This, however, is not permitted me to do.

Her decline is gradual and fluctuating, but its nature is not doubtful. The symptoms of cough, pain in the side and chest, wasting of flesh, strength, and appet.i.te, after the sad experience we have had, cannot but be regarded by us as equivocal.

'In spirit she is resigned; at heart she is, I believe, a true Christian. She looks beyond this life, and regards her home and rest as elsewhere than on earth. May G.o.d support her and all of us through the trial of lingering sickness, and aid her in the last hour when the struggle which separates soul from body must be gone through!

'We saw Emily torn from the midst of us when our hearts clung to her with intense attachment, and when, loving each other as we did--well, it seemed as if (might we but have been spared to each other) we could have found complete happiness in our mutual society and affection. She was scarcely buried when Anne's health failed, and we were warned that consumption had found another victim in her, and that it would be vain to reckon on her life.

'These things would be too much if Reason, unsupported by Religion, were condemned to bear them alone. I have cause to be most thankful for the strength which has. .h.i.therto been vouchsafed both to my father and myself. G.o.d, I think, is specially merciful to old age; and for my own part, trials which in prospective would have seemed to me quite intolerable, when they actually came, I endured without prostration. Yet, I must confess, that in the time which has elapsed since Emily's death, there have been moments of solitary, deep, inert affliction, far harder to bear than those which immediately followed our loss. The crisis of bereavement has an acute pang which goads to exertion, the desolate after-feeling sometimes paralyses.

'I have learned that we are not to find solace in our own strength: we must seek it in G.o.d's omnipotence. Fort.i.tude is good, but fort.i.tude itself must be shaken under us to teach us how weak we are.

'With best wishes to yourself and all dear to you, and sincere thanks for the interest you so kindly continue to take in me and my sister,--Believe me, my dear Miss Wooler, yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

'_April_ 16_th_, 1849.

'MY DEAR SIR,--Your kind advice on the subject of h.o.m.oeopathy deserves and has our best thanks. We find ourselves, however, urged from more than one quarter to try different systems and medicines, and I fear we have already given offence by not listening to all.

The fact is, were we in every instance compliant, my dear sister would be hara.s.sed by continual changes. Cod-liver oil and carbonate of iron were first strongly recommended. Anne took them as long as she could, but at last she was obliged to give them up: the oil yielded her no nutriment, it did not arrest the progress of emaciation, and as it kept her always sick, she was prevented from taking food of any sort. Hydropathy was then strongly advised. She is now trying Gobold's Vegetable Balsam; she thinks it does her some good; and as it is the first medicine which has had that effect, she would wish to persevere with it for a time. She is also looking hopefully forward to deriving benefit from change of air. We have obtained Mr. Teale's permission to go to the seaside in the course of six or eight weeks. At first I felt torn between two duties--that of staying with papa and going with Anne; but as it is papa's own most kindly expressed wish that I should adopt the latter plan, and as, besides, he is now, thank G.o.d! in tolerable health, I hope to be spared the pain of resigning the care of my sister to other hands, however friendly. We wish to keep together as long as we can. I hope, too, to derive from the change some renewal of physical strength and mental composure (in neither of which points am I what I ought or wish to be) to make me a better and more cheery nurse.

'I fear I must have seemed to you hard in my observations about _The Emigrant Family_. The fact was, I compared Alexander Harris with himself only. It is not equal to the _Testimony to the Truth_, but, tried by the standard of other and very popular books too, it is very clever and original. Both subject and the manner of treating it are unhackneyed: he gives new views of new scenes and furnishes interesting information on interesting topics. Considering the increasing necessity for and tendency to emigration, I should think it has a fair chance of securing the success it merits.

'I took up Leigh Hunt's book _The Town_ with the impression that it would be interesting only to Londoners, and I was surprised, ere I had read many pages, to find myself enchained by his pleasant, graceful, easy style, varied knowledge, just views, and kindly spirit. There is something peculiarly anti-melancholic in Leigh Hunt's writings, and yet they are never boisterous. They resemble sunshine, being at once bright and tranquil.

'I like Carlyle better and better. His style I do not like, nor do I always concur in his opinions, nor quite fall in with his hero worship; but there is a manly love of truth, an honest recognition and fearless vindication of intrinsic greatness, of intellectual and moral worth, considered apart from birth, rank, or wealth, which commands my sincere admiration. Carlyle would never do for a contributor to the _Quarterly_. I have not read his _French Revolution_.

'I congratulate you on the approaching publication of Mr. Ruskin's new work. If the _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ resemble their predecessor, _Modern Painters_, they will be no lamps at all, but a new constellation--seven bright stars, for whose rising the reading world ought to be anxiously agaze.

'Do not ask me to mention what books I should like to read. Half the pleasure of receiving a parcel from Cornhill consists in having its contents chosen for us. We like to discover, too, by the leaves cut here and there, that the ground has been travelled before us. I may however say, with reference to works of fiction, that I should much like to see one of G.o.dwin's works, never having hitherto had that pleasure--_Caleb Williams_ or _Fleetwood_, or which you thought best worth reading.

'But it is yet much too soon to talk of sending more books; our present stock is scarcely half exhausted. You will perhaps think I am a slow reader, but remember, Currer Bell is a country housewife, and has sundry little matters connected with the needle and kitchen to attend to which take up half his day, especially now when, alas!

there is but one pair of hands where once there were three. I did not mean to touch that chord, its sound is too sad.

'I try to write now and then. The effort was a hard one at first.

It renewed the terrible loss of last December strangely. Worse than useless did it seem to attempt to write what there no longer lived an "Ellis Bell" to read; the whole book, with every hope founded on it, faded to vanity and vexation of spirit.

'One inducement to persevere and do my best I still have, however, and I am thankful for it: I should like to please my kind friends at Cornhill. To that end I wish my powers would come back; and if it would please Providence to restore my remaining sister, I think they would.