Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle Part 51

'C. BRONTE.'

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 f.a.n.n.y 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 f.a.n.n.y as a professional singer, and it was added f.a.n.n.y 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 ign.o.bly? 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. f.a.n.n.y 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 pa.s.sed. 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 dest.i.tute of self-possession. Amour propre suffers terribly under such circ.u.mstances: 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. BRONTE.'

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 t.i.tan 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, n.o.ble 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. BRONTE.'

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 circ.u.mstance 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. BRONTE

'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. BRONTE.'

It cannot be said that Charlotte Bronte 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 Bronte 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 Bronte, 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 p.r.o.ne to ask of a woman friend, was 'over-eagerness' and '_naivete_' 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 Bronte 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 _barege_ 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 auth.o.r.ess, 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 Bronte 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.

'I think it must have been on this very occasion that my father invited some of his friends in the evening to meet Miss Bronte--for everybody was interested and anxious to see her. Mrs. Crowe, the reciter of ghost-stories, was there. Mrs. Brookfield, Mrs. Carlyle, Mr. Carlyle himself was present, so I am told, railing at the appearance of c.o.c.kneys upon Scotch mountain sides; there were also too many Americans for his taste, "but the Americans were as G.o.ds compared to the c.o.c.kneys," says the philosopher. Besides the Carlyles, there were Mrs. Elliott and Miss Perry, Mrs. Procter and her daughter, most of my father's habitual friends and companions.

In the recent life of Lord Houghton I was amused to see a note quoted in which Lord Houghton also was convened. Would that he had been present--perhaps the party would have gone off better. It was a gloomy and a silent evening. Every one waited for the brilliant conversation which never began at all. Miss Bronte retired to the sofa in the study, and murmured a low word now and then to our kind governess, Miss Truelock. The room looked very dark, the lamp began to smoke a little, the conversation grew dimmer and more dim, the ladies sat round still expectant, my father was too much perturbed by the gloom and the silence to be able to cope with it at all. Mrs.

Brookfield, who was in the doorway by the study, near the corner in which Miss Bronte was sitting, leant forward with a little commonplace, since brilliance was not to be the order of the evening.

"Do you like London, Miss Bronte?" she said; another silence, a pause, then Miss Bronte answers, "Yes and No," very gravely. Mrs.

Brookfield has herself reported the conversation. My sister and I were much too young to be bored in those days; alarmed, impressed we might be, but not yet bored. A party was a party, a lioness was a lioness; and--shall I confess it?--at that time an extra dish of biscuits was enough to mark the evening. We felt all the importance of the occasion: tea spread in the dining-room, ladies in the drawing-room. We roamed about inconveniently, no doubt, and excitedly, and in one of my incursions crossing the hall, after Miss Bronte had left, I was surprised to see my father opening the front door with his hat on. He put his fingers to his lips, walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind him. When I went back to the drawing-room again, the ladies asked me where he was. I vaguely answered that I thought he was coming back. I was puzzled at the time, nor was it all made clear to me till long years afterwards, when one day Mrs. Procter asked me if I knew what had happened once when my father had invited a party to meet Jane Eyre at his house.

It was one of the dullest evenings she had ever spent in her life, she said. And then with a good deal of humour she described the situation--the ladies who had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, and the gloom and the constraint, and how, finally, overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and gone off to his club. The ladies waited, wondered, and finally departed also; and as we were going up to bed with our candles after everybody was gone, I remember two pretty Miss L---s, in shiny silk dresses, arriving, full of expectation. . . . We still said we thought our father would soon be back, but the Miss L---s declined to wait upon the chance, laughed, and drove away again almost immediately.' {423}

TO REV. P. BRONTE

'_May_ 28_th_, 1851.

'DEAR PAPA,--I must write another line to you to tell you how I am getting on. I have seen a great many things since I left home about which I hope to talk to you at future tea-times at home. I have been to the theatre and seen Macready in Macbeth. I have seen the pictures in the National Gallery. I have seen a beautiful exhibition of Turner's paintings, and yesterday I saw Mr. Thackeray. He dined here with some other gentlemen. He is a very tall man--above six feet high, with a peculiar face--not handsome, very ugly indeed, generally somewhat stern and satirical in expression, but capable also of a kind look. He was not told who I was, he was not introduced to me, but I soon saw him looking at me through his spectacles; and when we all rose to go down to dinner he just stepped quietly up and said, "Shake hands"; so I shook hands. He spoke very few words to me, but when he went away he shook hands again in a very kind way. It is better, I should think, to have him for a friend than an enemy, for he is a most formidable-looking personage. I listened to him as he conversed with the other gentlemen. All he says is most simple, but often cynical, harsh, and contradictory. I get on quietly. Most people know me I think, but they are far too well bred to show that they know me, so that there is none of that bustle or that sense of publicity I dislike.

'I hope you continue pretty well; be sure to take care of yourself.

The weather here is exceedingly changeful, and often damp and misty, so that it is necessary to guard against taking cold. I do not mean to stay in London above a week longer, but I shall write again two or three days before I return. You need not give yourself the trouble of answering this letter unless you have something particular to say.

Remember me to Tabby and Martha.--I remain, dear papa, your affectionate daughter,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO REV. P. BRONTE

'76 GLOUCESTER TERRACE, 'HYDE PARK, LONDON, _May_ 30_th_, 1851.

'DEAR PAPA,--I have now heard one of Mr. Thackeray's lectures and seen the great Exhibition. On Thursday afternoon I went to hear the lecture. It was delivered in a large and splendid kind of saloon--that in which the great b.a.l.l.s of Almacks are given. The walls were all painted and gilded, the benches were sofas stuffed and cushioned and covered with blue damask. The audience was composed of the _elite_ of London society. d.u.c.h.esses were there by the score, and amongst them the great and beautiful d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland, the Queen's Mistress of the Robes. Amidst all this Thackeray just got up and spoke with as much simplicity and ease as if he had been speaking to a few friends by his own fireside. The lecture was truly good: he has taken pains with the composition. It was finished without being in the least studied; a quiet humour and graphic force enlivened it throughout. He saw me as I entered the room, and came straight up and spoke very kindly. He then took me to his mother, a fine, handsome old lady, and introduced me to her. After the lecture somebody came behind me, leaned over the bench, and said, "Will you permit me, as a Yorkshireman, to introduce myself to you?" I turned round, was puzzled at first by the strange face I met, but in a minute I recognised the features. "You are the Earl of Carlisle," I said. He smiled and a.s.sented. He went on to talk for some time in a courteous, kind fashion. He asked after you, recalled the platform electioneering scene at Haworth, and begged to be remembered to you.

Dr. Forbes came up afterwards, and Mr. Monckton Milnes, a Yorkshire Member of Parliament, who introduced himself on the same plea as Lord Carlisle.

'Yesterday we went to the Crystal Palace. The exterior has a strange and elegant but somewhat unsubstantial effect. The interior is like a mighty Vanity Fair. The brightest colours blaze on all sides; and ware of all kinds, from diamonds to spinning jennies and printing presses, are there to be seen. It was very fine, gorgeous, animated, bewildering, but I liked Thackeray's lecture better.

'I hope, dear papa, that you are keeping well. With kind regards to Tabby and Martha, and hopes that they are well too,--I am, your affectionate daughter,