‘Haworth, June 26th, 1848.
‘Dear Ellen, — I should have answered your last long ago if I had known your address, but you omitted to give it me, and I have been waiting in the hope that you would perhaps write again and repair the omission. Finding myself deceived in this expectation however, I have at last hit on the plan of sending the letter to Brookroyd to be directed; be sure to give me your address when you reply to this.
‘I was glad to hear that you were well received at London, and that you got safe to the end of your journey. Your naïveté in gravely inquiring my opinion of the “last new novel” amuses me. We do not subscribe to a circulating library at Haworth, and consequently “new novels” rarely indeed come in our way, and consequently, again, we are not qualified to give opinions thereon.
‘About three weeks ago, I received a brief note from Hunsworth, to the effect that Mr. Joe Taylor and his cousin Henry would make some inquiries respecting Mme. Héger’s school on account of Ellen Taylor, and that if I had no objection, they would ride over to Haworth in a day or two. I said they might come if they would. They came, accompanied by Miss Mossman, of Bradford, whom I had never seen, only heard of occasionally. It was a pouring wet and windy day; we had quite ceased to expect them. Miss Mossman was quite wet, and we had to make her change her things, and dress her out in ours as well as we could. I do not know if you are acquainted with her; I thought her unaffected and rather agreeable-looking, though she has very red hair. Henry Taylor does indeed resemble John most strongly. Joe looked thin; he was in good spirits, and I think in tolerable good-humour. I would have given much for you to have been there. I had not been very well for some days before, and had some difficulty in keeping up the talk, but I managed on the whole better than I expected. I was glad Miss Mossman came, for she helped. Nothing new was communicated respecting Mary. Nothing of importance in any way was said the whole time; it was all rattle, rattle, of which I should have great difficulty now in recalling the substance. They left almost immediately after tea. I have not heard a word respecting them since, but I suppose they got home all right. The visit strikes me as an odd whim. I consider it quite a caprice, prompted probably by curiosity.
‘Joe Taylor mentioned that he had called at Brookroyd, and that Anne had told him you were ill, and going into the South for change of air.
‘I hope you will soon write to me again and tell me particularly how your health is, and how you get on. Give my regards to Mary Gorham, for really I have a sort of regard for her by hearsay, and — Believe me, dear Nell, yours faithfully,
‘C. Brontë.’
The Ellen Taylor mentioned in the above letter did not go to Brussels. She joined her cousin Mary in New Zealand instead.
TO MISS CHARLOTTE BRONTË
‘Wellington, April 10th, 1849.
‘Dear Charlotte, — I’ve been delighted to receive a very interesting letter from you with an account of your visit to London, etc. I believe I have tacked this acknowledgment to the tail of my last letter to you, but since then it has dawned on my comprehension that you are becoming a very important personage in this little world, and therefore, d’ye see? I must write again to you. I wish you would give me some account of Newby, and what the man said when confronted with the real Ellis Bell. By the way, having got your secret, will he keep it? And how do you contrive to get your letters under the address of Mr. Bell? The whole scheme must be particularly interesting to hear about, if I could only talk to you for half a day. When do you intend to tell the good people about you?
‘I am now hard at work expecting Ellen Taylor. She may possibly be here in two months. I once thought of writing you some of the dozens of schemes I have for Ellen Taylor, but as the choice depends on her I may as well wait and tell you the one she chooses. The two most reasonable are keeping a school and keeping a shop. The last is evidently the most healthy, but the most difficult of accomplishment. I have written an account of the earthquakes for Chambers, and intend (now don’t remind me of this a year hence, because la femme propose) to write some more. What else I shall do I don’t know. I find the writing faculty does not in the least depend on the leisure I have, but much more on the active work I have to do. I write at my novel a little and think of my other book. What this will turn out, God only knows. It is not, and never can be forgotten. It is my child, my baby, and I assure you such a wonder as never was. I intend him when full grown to revolutionise society and faire époque in history.
‘In the meantime I’m doing a collar in crochet work.
‘Pag.’
TO MISS CHARLOTTE BRONTË
‘Wellington, New Zealand,
‘July 24th, 1849.
‘Dear Charlotte, — About a month since I received and read Jane Eyre. It seemed to me incredible that you had actually written a book. Such events did not happen while I was in England. I begin to believe in your existence much as I do in Mr. Rochester’s. In a believing mood I don’t doubt either of them. After I had read it I went on to the top of Mount Victoria and looked for a ship to carry a letter to you. There was a little thing with one mast, and also H.M.S. Fly, and nothing else. If a cattle vessel came from Sydney she would probably return in a few days, and would take a mail, but we have had east wind for a month and nothing can come in.
‘Aug. 1. — The Harlequin has just come from Otago, and is to sail for Singapore when the wind changes, and by that route (which I hope to take myself sometime) I send you this. Much good may it do you. Your novel surprised me by being so perfect as a work of art. I expected something more changeable and unfinished. You have polished to some purpose. If I were to do so I should get tired, and weary every one else in about two pages. No sign of this weariness in your book — you must have had abundance, having kept it all to yourself!
‘You are very different from me in having no doctrine to preach. It is impossible to squeeze a moral out of your production. Has the world gone so well with you that you have no protest to make against its absurdities? Did you never sneer or declaim in your first sketches? I will scold you well when I see you. I do not believe in Mr. Rivers. There are no good men of the Brocklehurst species. A missionary either goes into his office for a piece of bread, or he goes from enthusiasm, and that is both too good and too bad a quality for St. John. It’s a bit of your absurd charity to believe in such a man. You have done wisely in choosing to imagine a high class of readers. You never stop to explain or defend anything, and never seem bothered with the idea. If Mrs. Fairfax or any other well-intentioned fool gets hold of this what will she think? And yet, you know, the world is made up of such, and worse. Once more, how have you written through three volumes without declaring war to the knife against a few dozen absurd doctrines, each of which is supported by “a large and respectable class of readers”? Emily seems to have had such a class in her eye when she wrote that strange thing Wuthering Heights. Anne, too, stops repeatedly to preach commonplace truths. She has had a still lower class in her mind’s eye. Emily seems to have followed the bookseller’s advice. As to the price you got, it was certainly Jewish. But what could the people do? If they had asked you to fix it, do you know yourself how many ciphers your sum would have had? And how should they know better? And if they did, that’s the knowledge they get their living by. If I were in your place, the idea of being bound in the sale of two more would prevent me from ever writing again. Yet you are probably now busy with another. It is curious for me to see among the old letters one from Anne sending a copy of a whole article on the currency question written by Fonblanque! I exceedingly regret having burnt your letters in a fit of caution, and I’ve forgotten all the names. Was the reader Albert Smith? What do they all think of you?
‘I mention the book to no one and hear no opinions. I lend it a good deal because it’s a novel, and it’s as good as another! They say “it makes them cry.” They are not literary enough to give an opinion. If ever I hear one I’ll embalm it for you. As to my own affair, I have written 100 pages, and lately 50 more. It�
�s no use writing faster. I get so disgusted, I can do nothing.
‘If I could command sufficient money for a twelve-month, I would go home by way of India and write my travels, which would prepare the way for my novel. With the benefit of your experience I should perhaps make a better bargain than you. I am most afraid of my health. Not that I should die, but perhaps sink into a state of betweenity, neither well nor ill, in which I should observe nothing, and be very miserable besides. My life here is not disagreeable. I have a great resource in the piano, and a little employment in teaching.
‘It’s a pity you don’t live in this world, that I might entertain you about the price of meat. Do you know, I bought six heifers the other day for £23, and now it is turned so cold I expect to hear one-half of them are dead. One man bought twenty sheep for £8, and they are all dead but one. Another bought 150 and has 40 left.
‘I have now told you everything I can think of except that the cat’s on the table and that I’m going to borrow a new book to read — no less than an account of all the systems of philosophy of modern Europe. I have lately met with a wonder, a man who thinks Jane Eyre would have done better to marry Mr. Rivers! He gives no reason — such people never do.
‘Mary Taylor.’
TO MISS CHARLOTTE BRONTË
‘Wellington, New Zealand.
‘Dear Charlotte, — I have set up shop! I am delighted with it as a whole — that is, it is as pleasant or as little disagreeable as you can expect an employment to be that you earn your living by. The best of it is that your labour has some return, and you are not forced to work on hopelessly without result. Du reste, it is very odd. I keep looking at myself with one eye while I’m using the other, and I sometimes find myself in very queer positions. Yesterday I went along the shore past the wharfes and several warehouses on a street where I had never been before during all the five years I have been in Wellington. I opened the door of a long place filled with packages, with passages up the middle, and a row of high windows on one side. At the far end of the room a man was writing at a desk beneath a window. I walked all the length of the room very slowly, for what I had come for had completely gone out of my head. Fortunately the man never heard me until I had recollected it. Then he got up, and I asked him for some stone-blue, saltpetre, tea, pickles, salt, etc. He was very civil. I bought some things and asked for a note of them. He went to his desk again; I looked at some newspapers lying near. On the top was a circular from Smith & Elder containing notices of the most important new works. The first and longest was given to Shirley, a book I had seen mentioned in the Manchester Examiner as written by Currer Bell. I blushed all over. The man got up, folding the note. I pulled it out of his hand and set off to the door, looking odder than ever, for a partner had come in and was watching. The clerk said something about sending them, and I said something too — I hope it was not very silly — and took my departure.
‘I have seen some extracts from Shirley in which you talk of women working. And this first duty, this great necessity, you seem to think that some women may indulge in, if they give up marriage, and don’t make themselves too disagreeable to the other sex. You are a coward and a traitor. A woman who works is by that alone better than one who does not; and a woman who does not happen to be rich and who still earns no money and does not wish to do so, is guilty of a great fault, almost a crime — a dereliction of duty which leads rapidly and almost certainly to all manner of degradation. It is very wrong of you to plead for toleration for workers on the ground of their being in peculiar circumstances, and few in number or singular in disposition. Work or degradation is the lot of all except the very small number born to wealth.
‘Ellen is with me, or I with her. I cannot tell how our shop will turn out, but I am as sanguine as ever. Meantime we certainly amuse ourselves better than if we had nothing to do. We like it, and that’s the truth. By the Cornelia we are going to send our sketches and fern leaves. You must look at them, and it will need all your eyes to understand them, for they are a mass of confusion. They are all within two miles of Wellington, and some of them rather like — Ellen’s sketch of me especially. During the last six months I have seen more “society” than in all the last four years. Ellen is half the reason of my being invited, and my improved circumstances besides. There is no one worth mentioning particularly. The women are all ignorant and narrow, and the men selfish. They are of a decent, honest kind, and some intelligent and able. A Mr. Woodward is the only literary man we know, and he seems to have fair sense. This was the clerk I bought the stone-blue of. We have just got a mechanic’s institute, and weekly lectures delivered there. It is amusing to see people trying to find out whether or not it is fashionable and proper to patronise it. Somehow it seems it is. I think I have told you all this before, which shows I have got to the end of my news. Your next letter to me ought to bring me good news, more cheerful than the last. You will somehow get drawn out of your hole and find interests among your fellow-creatures. Do you know that living among people with whom you have not the slightest interest in common is just like living alone, or worse? Ellen Nussey is the only one you can talk to, that I know of at least. Give my love to her and to Miss Wooler, if you have the opportunity. I am writing this on just such a night as you will likely read it — rain and storm, coming winter, and a glowing fire. Ours is on the ground, wood, no fender or irons; no matter, we are very comfortable.
‘Pag.’
TO MISS CHARLOTTE BRONTË
‘Wellington, N. Z., April 3rd, 1850.
‘Dear Charlotte, — About a week since I received your last melancholy letter with the account of Anne’s death and your utter indifference to everything, even to the success of your last book. Though you do not say this, it is pretty plain to be seen from the style of your letter. It seems to me hard indeed that you who would succeed, better than any one, in making friends and keeping them, should be condemned to solitude from your poverty. To no one would money bring more happiness, for no one would use it better than you would. For me, with my headlong self-indulgent habits, I am perhaps better without it, but I am convinced it would give you great and noble pleasures. Look out then for success in writing; you ought to care as much for that as you do for going to Heaven. Though the advantages of being employed appear to you now the best part of the business, you will soon, please God, have other enjoyments from your success. Railway shares will rise, your books will sell, and you will acquire influence and power; and then most certainly you will find something to use it in which will interest you and make you exert yourself.
‘I have got into a heap of social trickery since Ellen came, never having troubled my head before about the comparative numbers of young ladies and young gentlemen. To Ellen it is quite new to be of such importance by the mere fact of her femininity. She thought she was coming wofully down in the world when she came out, and finds herself better received than ever she was in her life before. And the class are not in education inferior, though they are in money. They are decent well-to-do people: six grocers, one draper, two parsons, two clerks, two lawyers, and three or four nondescripts. All these but one have families to “take tea with,” and there are a lot more single men to flirt with. For the last three months we have been out every Sunday sketching. We seldom succeed in making the slightest resemblance to the thing we sit down to, but it is wonderfully interesting. Next year we hope to send a lot home. With all this my novel stands still; it might have done so if I had had nothing to do, for it is not want of time but want of freedom of mind that makes me unable to direct my attention to it. Meantime it grows in my head, for I never give up the idea. I have written about a volume I suppose. Read this letter to Ellen Nussey.
‘Mary Taylor.’
TO MISS CHARLOTTE BRONTË
‘Wellington, August 13th, 1850.
‘Dear Charlotte, — After waiting about six months we have just got Shirley. It was landed from the Constantinople on Monday afternoon, just in the thick of our preparations for a “small part
y” for the next day. We stopped spreading red blankets over everything (New Zealand way of arranging the room) and opened the box and read all the letters. Soyer’s Housewife and Shirley were there all right, but Miss Martineau’s book was not. In its place was a silly child’s tale called Edward Orland. On Tuesday we stayed up dancing till three or four o’clock, what for I can’t imagine. However, it was a piece of business done. On Wednesday I began Shirley and continued in a curious confusion of mind till now, principally at the handsome foreigner who was nursed in our house when I was a little girl. By the way, you’ve put him in the servant’s bedroom. You make us all talk much as I think we should have done if we’d ventured to speak at all. What a little lump of perfection you’ve made me! There is a strange feeling in reading it of hearing us all talking. I have not seen the matted hall and painted parlour windows so plain these five years. But my father is not like. He hates well enough and perhaps loves too, but he is not honest enough. It was from my father I learnt not to marry for money nor to tolerate any one who did, and he never would advise any one to do so, or fail to speak with contempt of those who did. Shirley is much more interesting than Jane Eyre, who never interests you at all until she has something to suffer. All through this last novel there is so much more life and stir that it leaves you far more to remember than the other. Did you go to London about this too? What for? I see by a letter of yours to Mr. Dixon that you have been. I wanted to contradict some of your opinions, now I can’t. As to when I’m coming home, you may well ask. I have wished for fifteen years to begin to earn my own living; last April I began to try — it is too soon to say yet with what success. I am woefully ignorant, terribly wanting in tact, and obstinately lazy, and almost too old to mend. Luckily there is no other dance for me, so I must work. Ellen takes to it kindly, it gratifies a deep ardent wish of hers as of mine, and she is habitually industrious. For her, ten years younger, our shop will be a blessing. She may possibly secure an independence, and skill to keep it and use it, before the prime of life is past. As to my writings, you may as well ask the Fates about that too. I can give you no information. I write a page now and then. I never forget or get strange to what I have written. When I read it over it looks very interesting.
Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Page 503