Life Of Charlotte Brontë Volume 2 — 14 - Chapter 10 part 2

When Miss Brontë wrote this, on December 8th, she was suffering from a bad cold, and pain in her side.

Her illness increased, and on December 17th, she--so patient, silent, and enduring of suffering--so afraid of any unselfish taxing of others--had to call to her friend for help: "I cannot at present go to see you, but I would be grateful if you could come and see me, even were it only for a few days.

To speak truth, I have put on but a poor time of it during this month past.

I kept hoping to be better, but was at last obliged to have recourse to a medical man.

Sometimes I have felt very weak and low, and longed much for society, but could not persuade myself to commit the selfish act of asking you merely for my own relief.

The doctor speaks encouragingly, but as yet I get no better.

As the illness has been coming on for a long time, it cannot, I suppose, be expected to disappear all at once.

I am not confined to bed, but I am weak,--have had no appetite for about three weeks--and my nights are very bad.

I am well aware myself that extreme and continuous depression of spirits has had much to do with the origin of the illness; and I know a little cheerful society would do me more good than gallons of medicine.

If you CAN come, come on Friday.

Write to-morrow and say whether this be possible, and what time you will be at Keighley, that I may send the gig.

I do not ask you to stay long; a few days is all I request."

Of course, her friend went; and a certain amount of benefit was derived from her society, always so grateful to Miss Brontë.

But the evil was now too deep-rooted to be more than palliated for a time by "the little cheerful society" for which she so touchingly besought.

A relapse came on before long.

She was very ill, and the remedies employed took an unusual effect on her peculiar sensitiveness of constitution.

Mr. Brontë was miserably anxious about the state of his only remaining child, for she was reduced to the last degree of weakness, as she had been unable to swallow food for above a week before.

She rallied, and derived her sole sustenance from half-a-tea-cup of liquid, administered by tea-spoonfuls, in the course of the day.

Yet she kept out of bed, for her father's sake, and struggled in solitary patience through her worst hours.

When she was recovering, her spirits needed support, and then she yielded to her friend's entreaty that she would visit her.

All the time that Miss Brontë's illness had lasted, Miss ---- had been desirous of coming to her; but she refused to avail herself of this kindness, saying, that "it was enough to burden herself; that it would be misery to annoy another;" and, even at her worst time, she tells her friend, with humorous glee, how coolly she had managed to capture one of Miss ----'s letters to Mr. Brontë, which she suspected was of a kind to aggravate his alarm about his daughter's state, "and at once conjecturing its tenor, made its contents her own."

Happily for all parties, Mr. Brontë was wonderfully well this winter;

good sleep, good spirits, and an excellent steady appetite, all seemed to mark vigour; and in such a state of health, Charlotte could leave him to spend a week with her friend, without any great anxiety.

She benefited greatly by the kind attentions and cheerful society of the family with whom she went to stay.

They did not care for her in the least as "Currer Bell," but had known and loved her for years as Charlotte Brontë.

To them her invalid weakness was only a fresh claim upon their tender regard, from the solitary woman, whom they had first known as a little, motherless school-girl.

Miss Brontë wrote to me about this time, and told me something of what she had suffered.

"Feb.

6th, 1852. "Certainly, the past winter has been to me a strange time; had I the prospect before me of living it over again, my prayer must necessarily be, 'Let this cup pass from me.'

That depression of spirits, which I thought was gone by when I wrote last, came back again with a heavy recoil; internal congestion ensued, and then inflammation.

I had severe pain in my right side, frequent burning and aching in my chest; sleep almost forsook me, or would never come, except accompanied by ghastly dreams; appetite vanished, and slow fever was my continual companion.

It was some time before I could bring myself to have recourse to medical advice.

I thought my lungs were affected, and could feel no confidence in the power of medicine.

When, at last, however, a doctor was consulted, he declared my lungs and chest sound, and ascribed all my sufferings to derangement of the liver, on which organ it seems the inflammation had fallen.

This information was a great relief to my dear father, as well as to myself; but I had subsequently rather sharp medical discipline to undergo, and was much reduced.

Though not yet well, it is with deep thankfulness that I can say, I am GREATLY BETTER.

My sleep, appetite, and strength seem all returning."

It was a great interest to her to be allowed an early reading of Esmond;

and she expressed her thoughts on the subject, in a criticising letter to Mr. Smith, who had given her this privilege.

"Feb.

14th, 1852. "My dear Sir,--It has been a great delight to me to read Mr. Thackeray's work; and I so seldom now express my sense of kindness that, for once, you must permit me, without rebuke, to thank you for a pleasure so rare and special.

Yet I am not going to praise either Mr. Thackeray or his book.

I have read, enjoyed, been interested, and, after all, feel full as much ire and sorrow as gratitude and admiration.

And still one can never lay down a book of his without the last two feelings having their part, be the subject or treatment what it may.

In the first half of the book, what chiefly struck me was the wonderful manner in which the writer throws himself into the spirit and letters of the times whereof he treats; the allusions, the illustrations, the style, all seem to me so masterly in their exact keeping, their harmonious consistency, their nice, natural truth, their pure exemption from exaggeration.

No second-rate imitator can write in that way; no coarse scene-painter can charm us with an allusion so delicate and perfect.

But what bitter satire, what relentless dissection of diseased subjects!

Well, and this, too, is right, or would be right, if the savage surgeon did not seem so fiercely pleased with his work.

Thackeray likes to dissect an ulcer or an aneurism; he has pleasure in putting his cruel knife or probe into quivering, living flesh.

Thackeray would not like all the world to be good; no great satirist would like society to be perfect.

"As usual, he is unjust to women; quite unjust.

There is hardly any punishment he does not deserve for making Lady Castlewood peep through a keyhole, listen at a door, and be jealous of a boy and a milkmaid.

Many other things I noticed that, for my part, grieved and exasperated me as I read; but then, again, came passages so true, so deeply thought, so tenderly felt, one could not help forgiving and admiring.

* * * * * But I wish he could be told not to care much for dwelling on the political or religious intrigues of the times.

Thackeray, in his heart, does not value political or religious intrigues of any age or date.

He likes to show us human nature at home, as he himself daily sees it; his wonderful observant faculty likes to be in action.

In him this faculty is a sort of captain and leader; and if ever any passage in his writings lacks interest, it is when this master-faculty is for a time thrust into a subordinate position.

I think such is the case in the former half of the present volume.

Towards the middle, he throws off restraint, becomes himself, and is strong to the close.

Everything now depends on the second and third volumes.

If, in pith and interest, they fall short of the first, a true success cannot ensue.

If the continuation be an improvement upon the commencement, if the stream gather force as it rolls, Thackeray will triumph.

Some people have been in the habit of terming him the second writer of the day; it just depends on himself whether or not these critics shall be justified in their award.

He need not be the second.

God made him second to no man.

If I were he, I would show myself as I am, not as critics report me; at any rate, I would do my best.

Mr. Thackeray is easy and indolent, and seldom cares to do his best.

Thank you once more; and believe me yours sincerely, C. BRONTË."

Miss Brontë's health continued such, that she could not apply herself to writing as she wished, for many weeks after the serious attack from which she had suffered.

There was not very much to cheer her in the few events that touched her interests during this time.

She heard in March of the death of a friend's relation in the Colonies; and we see something of what was the corroding dread at her heart.

"The news of E----'s death came to me last week in a letter from M ----;

a long letter, which wrung my heart so, in its simple, strong, truthful emotion, I have only ventured to read it once.

It ripped up half-scarred wounds with terrible force.

The death-bed was just the same,--breath failing, etc. She fears she shall now, in her dreary solitude, become a 'stern, harsh, selfish woman.'

This fear struck home; again and again have I felt it for myself, and what is MY position to M----'s?

May God help her, as God only can help!"

Again and again, her friend urged her to leave home; nor were various invitations wanting to enable her to do this, when these constitutional accesses of low spirits preyed too much upon her in her solitude.

But she would not allow herself any such indulgence, unless it became absolutely necessary from the state of her health.

She dreaded the perpetual recourse to such stimulants as change of scene and society, because of the reaction that was sure to follow.

As far as she could see, her life was ordained to be lonely, and she must subdue her nature to her life, and, if possible, bring the two into harmony.

When she could employ herself in fiction, all was comparatively well.

The characters were her companions in the quiet hours, which she spent utterly alone, unable often to stir out of doors for many days together.

The interests of the persons in her novels supplied the lack of interest in her own life; and Memory and Imagination found their appropriate work, and ceased to prey upon her vitals.

But too frequently she could not write, could not see her people, nor hear them speak; a great mist of head-ache had blotted them out; they were non-existent to her.

This was the case all through the present spring; and anxious as her publishers were for its completion, Villette stood still.

Even her letters to her friend are scarce and brief.

Here and there I find a sentence in them which can be extracted, and which is worth preserving.

"M----'s letter is very interesting; it shows a mind one cannot but truly admire.

Compare its serene trusting strength, with poor ----'s vacillating dependence.

When the latter was in her first burst of happiness, I never remember the feeling finding vent in expressions of gratitude to God.

There was always a continued claim upon your sympathy in the mistrust and doubt she felt of her own bliss.

M---- believes;

her faith is grateful and at peace; yet while happy in herself, how thoughtful she is for others!"

"March 23rd, 1852. "You say, dear E----, that you often wish I would chat on paper, as you do.

How can I?

Where are my materials?

Is my life fertile in subjects of chat?

What callers do I see?

What visits do I pay?

No, you must chat, and I must listen, and say 'Yes,' and 'No,' and 'Thank you!'

for five minutes' recreation.

* * * * * "I am amused at the interest you take in politics.

Don't expect to rouse me; to me, all ministries and all oppositions seem to be pretty much alike.

D'Israeli was factious as leader of the Opposition; Lord John Russell is going to be factious, now that he has stepped into D'Israeli's shoes.

Lord Derby's 'Christian love and spirit,' is worth three half-pence farthing."

To W. S.

WILLIAMS, ESQ.

"March 25th, 1852. "My dear Sir,--Mr. Smith intimated a short time since, that he had some thoughts of publishing a reprint of Shirley.

Having revised the work, I now enclose the errata.

I have likewise sent off to-day, per rail, a return-box of Cornhill books.

"I have lately read with great pleasure, 'The Two Families.'

This work, it seems, should have reached me in January; but owing to a mistake, it was detained at the Dead Letter Office, and lay there nearly two months.

I liked the commencement very much; the close seemed to me scarcely equal to 'Rose Douglas.'

I thought the authoress committed a mistake in shifting the main interest from the two personages on whom it first rests--viz.

, Ben Wilson and Mary--to other characters of quite inferior conception.

Had she made Ben and Mary her hero and heroine, and continued the development of their fortunes and characters in the same truthful natural vein in which she commences it, an excellent, even an original, book might have been the result.

As for Lilias and Ronald, they are mere romantic figments, with nothing of the genuine Scottish peasant about them; they do not even speak the Caledonian dialect; they palaver like a fine lady and gentleman.

"I ought long since to have acknowledged the gratification with which I read Miss Kavanagh's 'Women of Christianity.'

Her charity and (on the whole) her impartiality are very beautiful.

She touches, indeed, with too gentle a hand the theme of Elizabeth of Hungary; and, in her own mind, she evidently misconstrues the fact of Protestant charities SEEMING to be fewer than Catholic.

She forgets, or does not know, that Protestantism is a quieter creed than Romanism; as it does not clothe its priesthood in scarlet, so neither does it set up its good women for saints, canonise their names, and proclaim their good works.

In the records of man, their almsgiving will not perhaps be found registered, but Heaven has its account as well as earth.

"With kind regards to yourself and family, who, I trust, have all safely weathered the rough winter lately past, as well as the east winds, which are still nipping our spring in Yorkshire,--I am, my dear Sir, yours sincerely, C. BRONTË."

"April 3rd, 1852. "My dear Sir,--The box arrived quite safely, and I very much thank you for the contents, which are most kindly selected.

"As you wished me to say what I thought of 'The School for Fathers,' I hastened to read it.

The book seems to me clever, interesting, very amusing, and likely to please generally.

There is a merit in the choice of ground, which is not yet too hackneyed; the comparative freshness of subject, character, and epoch give the tale a certain attractiveness.

There is also, I think, a graphic rendering of situations, and a lively talent for describing whatever is visible and tangible--what the eye meets on the surface of things.

The humour appears to me such as would answer well on the stage; most of the scenes seem to demand dramatic accessories to give them their full effect.

But I think one cannot with justice bestow higher praise than this.

To speak candidly, I felt, in reading the tale, a wondrous hollowness in the moral and sentiment; a strange dilettante shallowness in the purpose and feeling.

After all, 'Jack' is not much better than a 'Tony Lumpkin,' and there is no very great breadth of choice between the clown he IS and the fop his father would have made him.

The grossly material life of the old English fox-hunter, and the frivolous existence of the fine gentleman present extremes, each in its way so repugnant, that one feels half inclined to smile when called upon to sentimentalise over the lot of a youth forced to pass from one to the other; torn from the stables, to be ushered perhaps into the ball-room.

Jack dies mournfully indeed, and you are sorry for the poor fellow's untimely end; but you cannot forget that, if he had not been thrust into the way of Colonel Penruddock's weapon, he might possibly have broken his neck in a fox-hunt.

The character of Sir Thomas Warren is excellent; consistent throughout.

That of Mr. Addison not bad, but sketchy, a mere outline--wanting colour and finish.

The man's portrait is there, and his costume, and fragmentary anecdotes of his life; but where is the man's nature--soul and self?

I say nothing about the female characters--not one word; only that Lydia seems to me like a pretty little actress, prettily dressed gracefully appearing and disappearing, and reappearing in a genteel comedy, assuming the proper sentiments of her part with all due tact and naivete, and--that is all.

"Your description of the model man of business is true enough, I doubt not; but we will not fear that society will ever be brought quite to this standard; human nature (bad as it is) has, after all, elements that forbid it.

But the very tendency to such a consummation--the marked tendency, I fear, of the day--produces, no doubt, cruel suffering.

Yet, when the evil of competition passes a certain limit, must it not in time work its own cure?

I suppose it will, but then through some convulsed crisis, shattering all around it like an earthquake.

Meantime, for how many is life made a struggle; enjoyment and rest curtailed; labour terribly enhanced beyond almost what nature can bear I often think that this world would be the most terrible of enigmas, were it not for the firm belief that there is a world to come, where conscientious effort and patient pain will meet their reward.

--Believe me, my dear Sir, sincerely yours, C. BRONTË."

A letter to her old Brussels schoolfellow gives a short retrospect of the dreary winter she had passed through.

"Haworth, April 12th, 1852. ".

.

.

I struggled through the winter, and the early part of the spring, often with great difficulty.

My friend stayed with me a few days in the early part of January; she could not be spared longer.

I was better during her visit, but had a relapse soon after she left me, which reduced my strength very much.

It cannot be denied that the solitude of my position fearfully aggravated its other evils.

Some long stormy days and nights there were, when I felt such a craving for support and companionship as I cannot express.

Sleepless, I lay awake night after night, weak and unable to occupy myself.

I sat in my chair day after day, the saddest memories my only company.

It was a time I shall never forget; but God sent it, and it must have been for the best.

"I am better now; and very grateful do I feel for the restoration of tolerable health; but, as if there was always to be some affliction, papa, who enjoyed wonderful health during the whole winter, is ailing with his spring attack of bronchitis.

I earnestly trust it may pass over in the comparatively ameliorated form in which it has hitherto shown itself.

"Let me not forget to answer your question about the cataract.

Tell your papa that MY father was seventy at the time he underwent an operation;

he was most reluctant to try the experiment; could not believe that, at his age, and with his want of robust strength, it would succeed.

I was obliged to be very decided in the matter, and to act entirely on my own responsibility.

Nearly six years have now elapsed since the cataract was extracted (it was not merely depressed); he has never once during that time regretted the step, and a day seldom passes that he does not express gratitude and pleasure at the restoration of that inestimable privilege of vision whose loss he once knew."

I had given Miss Brontë; in one of my letters, an outline of the story on which I was then engaged, and in reply she says:-- "The sketch you give of your work (respecting which I am, of course, dumb) seems to me very noble; and its purpose may be as useful in practical result as it is high and just in theoretical tendency.

Such a book may restore hope and energy to many who thought they had forfeited their right to both; and open a clear course for honourable effort to some who deemed that they and all honour had parted company in this world.

"Yet--hear my protest!

"Why should she die?

Why are we to shut up the book weeping?

"My heart fails me already at the thought of the pang it will have to undergo.

And yet you must follow the impulse of your own inspiration.

If THAT commands the slaying of the victim, no bystander has a right to put out his hand to stay the sacrificial knife: but I hold you a stern priestess in these matters."

As the milder weather came on, her health improved, and her power of writing increased.

She set herself with redoubled vigour to the work before her; and denied herself pleasure for the purpose of steady labour.

Hence she writes to her friend:-- "May 11th.

"Dear E----, --I must adhere to my resolution of neither visiting nor being visited at present.

Stay you quietly at B. , till you go to S. , as I shall stay at Haworth; as sincere a farewell can be taken with the heart as with the lips, and perhaps less painful.

I am glad the weather is changed; the return of the south-west wind suits me; but I hope you have no cause to regret the departure of your favourite east wind.

What you say about ---- does not surprise me; I have had many little notes (whereof I answer about one in three) breathing the same spirit,--self and child the sole all-absorbing topics, on which the changes are rung even to weariness.

But I suppose one must not heed it, or think the case singular.

Nor, I am afraid, must one expect her to improve.

I read in a French book lately, a sentence to this effect, that 'marriage might be defined as the state of two-fold selfishness.'

Let the single therefore take comfort.

Thank you for Mary's letter.

She DOES seem most happy;

and I cannot tell you how much more real, lasting, and better-warranted her happiness seems than ever ----'s did.

I think so much of it is in herself, and her own serene, pure, trusting, religious nature.

----'s always gives me the idea of a vacillating, unsteady rapture, entirely dependent on circumstances with all their fluctuations.

If Mary lives to be a mother, you will then see a greater difference.

"I wish you, dear E. , all health and enjoyment in your visit; and, as far as one can judge at present, there seems a fair prospect of the wish being realised.

--Yours sincerely, "C. BRONTË."