CHAPTER XVI: LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS
There is a letter, printed by Mrs. Gaskell, from Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey, in which Miss Brontë, when a girl of seventeen, discusses the best books to read, and expresses a particular devotion to Sir Walter Scott. During those early years she was an indefatigable student of literature. She read all that her father’s study and the Keighley library could provide. When the years brought literary fame and its accompanying friendships, she was able to hold her own with the many men and women of letters whom she was destined to meet. Her staunchest friend was undoubtedly Mr. Williams, who sent her, as we have seen, all the newest books from London, and who appears to have discussed them with her as well. Next to Mr. Williams we must place his chief at Cornhill, Mr. George Smith, and Mr. Smith’s mother. Mr. Smith happily still lives to reign over the famous house which introduced Thackeray, John Ruskin, and Charlotte Brontë to the world. What Charlotte thought of him may be gathered from her frank acknowledgment that he was the original of Dr. John in Villette, as his mother was the original of Mrs. Bretton — perhaps the two most entirely charming characters in Charlotte Brontë’s novels. Mrs. Smith and her son lived, at the beginning of the friendship, at Westbourne Place, but afterwards removed to Gloucester Terrace, and Charlotte stayed with them at both houses. It was from the former that this first letter was addressed.
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY
‘4 Westbourne Place,
‘Bishop’s Road, London.
‘Dear Ellen, — I have just remembered that as you do not know my address you cannot write to me till you get it; it is as above. I came to this big Babylon last Thursday, and have been in what seems to me a sort of whirl ever since; for changes, scenes, and stimulus which would be a trifle to others, are much to me. I found when I mentioned to Mr. Smith my plan of going to Dr. Wheelwright’s it would not do at all — he would have been seriously hurt. He made his mother write to me, and thus I was persuaded to make my principal stay at his house. I have found no reason to regret this decision. Mrs. Smith received me at first like one who had received the strictest orders to be scrupulously attentive. I had fires in my bed-room evening and morning, wax candles, etc., etc. Mrs. Smith and her daughters seemed to look upon me with a mixture of respect and alarm. But all this is changed — that is to say, the attention and politeness continues as great as ever, but the alarm and estrangement are quite gone. She treats me as if she liked me, and I begin to like her much; kindness is a potent heart-winner. I had not judged too favourably of her son on a first impression; he pleases me much. I like him better even as a son and brother than as a man of business. Mr. Williams, too, is really most gentlemanly and well-informed. His weak points he certainly has, but these are not seen in society. Mr. Taylor — the little man — has again shown his parts; in fact, I suspect he is of the Helstone order of men — rigid, despotic, and self-willed. He tries to be very kind and even to express sympathy sometimes, but he does not manage it. He has a determined, dreadful nose in the middle of his face, which, when poked into my countenance, cuts into my soul like iron. Still, he is horribly intelligent, quick, searching, sagacious, and with a memory of relentless tenacity. To turn to Mr. Williams after him, or to Mr. Smith himself, is to turn from granite to easy down or warm fur. I have seen Thackeray.
‘C. Brontë.’
TO JAMES TAYLOR, CORNHILL
‘November 6th, 1849.
‘My dear Sir, — I am afraid Mr. Williams told you I was sadly “put out” about the Daily News, and I believe it is to that circumstance I owe your letters. But I have now made good resolutions, which were tried this morning by another notice in the same style in the Observer. The praise of such critics mortifies more than their blame; an author who becomes the object of it cannot help momentarily wishing he had never written. And to speak of the press being still ignorant of my being a woman! Why can they not be content to take Currer Bell for a man?
‘I imagined, mistakenly it now appears, that Shirley bore fewer traces of a female hand than Jane Eyre; that I have misjudged disappoints me a little, though I cannot exactly see where the error lies. You keep to your point about the curates. Since you think me to blame, you do right to tell me so. I rather fancy I shall be left in a minority of one on that subject.
‘I was indeed very much interested in the books you sent. Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe, Guesses at Truth, Friends in Council, and the little work on English social life pleased me particularly, and the last not least. We sometimes take a partiality to books as to characters, not on account of any brilliant intellect or striking peculiarity they boast, but for the sake of something good, delicate, and genuine. I thought that small book the production of a lady, and an amiable, sensible woman, and I like it.
‘You must not think of selecting any more works for me yet, my stock is still far from exhausted.
‘I accept your offer respecting the Athenæum; it is a paper I should like much to see, providing you can send it without trouble. It shall be punctually returned.
‘Papa’s health has, I am thankful to say, been very satisfactory of late. The other day he walked to Keighley and back, and was very little fatigued. I am myself pretty well.
‘With thanks for your kind letter and good wishes, — Believe me, yours sincerely,
‘C. Brontë.’
Mrs. Gaskell has much to say of Miss Brontë’s relations with George Henry Lewes. He was a critic with whom she had much correspondence and not a few differences. It will be remembered that Charlotte describes him as bearing a resemblance to Emily — a curious circumstance by the light of the fact that Lewes was always adjudged among his acquaintances as a peculiarly ugly man. Here is a portion of a letter upon which Mrs. Gaskell practised considerable excisions, and of which she prints the remainder: —
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY
‘June 12th, 1850.
‘I have seen Lewes. He is a man with both weakness and sins, but unless I err greatly, the foundation of his nature is not bad; and were he almost a fiend in character 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. Whatever Lewes does or says, I believe I cannot hate him. Another likeness I have seen, too, that touched me sorrowfully. You remember my speaking of a Miss Kavanagh, a young authoress, who supported her mother by her writings. Hearing from Mr. Williams that she had a longing to see me, I called on her yesterday. I found a little, almost dwarfish figure, to which even I had to look down; not deformed — that is, not hunch-backed, but long-armed and with a large head, and (at first sight) a strange face. She met me half-frankly, half-tremblingly; we sat down together, and when I had talked with her five minutes, her face was no longer strange, but mournfully familiar — it was Martha Taylor on every lineament. I shall try to find a moment to see her again. She lives in a poor but clean and neat little lodging. Her mother seems a somewhat weak-minded woman, who can be no companion to her. Her father has quite deserted his wife and child, and this poor little, feeble, intelligent, cordial thing wastes her brains to gain a living. She is twenty-five years old. I do not intend to stay here, at the furthest, more than a week longer; but at the end of that time I cannot go home, for the house at Haworth is just now unroofed; repairs were become necessary.
‘I should like to go for a week or two to the sea-side, in which case I wonder whether it would be possible for you to join me. Meantime, with regards to all — Believe me, yours faithfully,
‘C. B.’
But her acquaintance with Lewes had apparently begun three years earlier.
TO W. S. WILLIAMS
‘November 6th, 1847.
‘Dear Sir, — I should be obliged to you if you will direct the inclosed to be posted in London as I wish to avoid giving any clue to my place of residence, publicity not b
eing my ambition.
‘It is an answer to the letter I received yesterday, favoured by you. This letter bore the signature G. H. Lewes, and the writer informs me that it is his intention to write a critique on Jane Eyre for the December number of Fraser’s Magazine, and possibly also, he intimates, a brief notice to the Westminster Review. Upon the whole he seems favourably inclined to the work, though he hints disapprobation of the melodramatic portions.
‘Can you give me any information respecting Mr. Lewes? what station he occupies in the literary world and what works he has written? He styles himself “a fellow novelist.” There is something in the candid tone of his letter which inclines me to think well of him.
‘I duly received your letter containing the notices from the Critic, and the two magazines, and also the Morning Post. I hope all these notices will work together for good; they must at any rate give the book a certain publicity. — Yours sincerely,
‘C. Brontë.’
Mr. R. H. Horne sent her his Orion.
TO R. H. HORNE
‘December 15th, 1847.
‘Dear Sir, — You will have thought me strangely tardy in acknowledging your courteous present, but the fact is it never reached me till yesterday; the parcel containing it was missent — consequently it lingered a fortnight on its route.
‘I have to thank you, not merely for the gift of a little book of 137 pages, but for that of a poem. Very real, very sweet is the poetry of Orion; there are passages I shall recur to again and yet again — passages instinct both with power and beauty. All through it is genuine — pure from one flaw of affectation, rich in noble imagery. How far the applause of critics has rewarded the author of Orion I do not know, but I think the pleasure he enjoyed in its composition must have been a bounteous meed in itself. You could not, I imagine, have written that epic without at times deriving deep happiness from your work.
‘With sincere thanks for the pleasure its perusal has afforded me, — I remain, dear sir, yours faithfully,
‘C. Bell.’
TO W. S. WILLIAMS
‘Haworth, December 15th, 1847.
‘Dear Sir, — I write a line in haste to apprise you that I have got the parcel. It was sent, through the carelessness of the railroad people, to Bingley, where it lay a fortnight, till a Haworth carrier happening to pass that way brought it on to me.
‘I was much pleased to find that you had been kind enough to forward the Mirror along with Fraser. The article on “the last new novel” is in substance similar to the notice in the Sunday Times. One passage only excited much interest in me; it was that where allusion is made to some former work which the author of Jane Eyre is supposed to have published — there, I own, my curiosity was a little stimulated. The reviewer cannot mean the little book of rhymes to which Currer Bell contributed a third; but as that, and Jane Eyre, and a brief translation of some French verses sent anonymously to a magazine, are the sole productions of mine that have ever appeared in print, I am puzzled to know to what else he can refer.
‘The reviewer is mistaken, as he is in perverting my meaning, in attributing to me designs I know not, principles I disown.
‘I have been greatly pleased with Mr. R. H. Horne’s poem of Orion. Will you have the kindness to forward to him the inclosed note, and to correct the address if it is not accurate? — Believe me, dear sir, yours respectfully,
‘C. Bell.’
The following elaborate criticism of one of Mr. Lewes’s now forgotten novels is almost pathetic; it may give a modern critic pause in his serious treatment of the abundant literary ephemera of which we hear so much from day to day.
TO W. S. WILLIAMS
‘May 1st, 1848.
‘My dear Sir, — I am glad you sent me your letter just as you had written it — without revisal, without retrenching or softening touch, because I cannot doubt that I am a gainer by the omission.
‘It would be useless to attempt opposition to your opinions, since, in fact, to read them was to recognise, almost point for point, a clear definition of objections I had already felt, but had found neither the power nor the will to express. Not the power, because I find it very difficult to analyse closely, or to criticise in appropriate words; and not the will, because I was afraid of doing Mr. Lewes injustice. I preferred overrating to underrating the merits of his work.
‘Mr. Lewes’s sincerity, energy, and talent assuredly command the reader’s respect, but on what points he depends to win his attachment I know not. I do not think he cares to excite the pleasant feelings which incline the taught to the teacher as much in friendship as in reverence. The display of his acquirements, to which almost every page bears testimony — citations from Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, and German authors covering as with embroidery the texture of his English — awes and astonishes the plain reader; but if, in addition, you permit yourself to require the refining charm of delicacy, the elevating one of imagination — if you permit yourself to be as fastidious and exacting in these matters as, by your own confession, it appears you are, then Mr. Lewes must necessarily inform you that he does not deal in the article; probably he will add that therefore it must be non-essential. I should fear he might even stigmatise imagination as a figment, and delicacy as an affectation.
‘An honest rough heartiness Mr. Lewes will give you; yet in case you have the misfortune to remark that the heartiness might be quite as honest if it were less rough, would you not run the risk of being termed a sentimentalist or a dreamer?
‘Were I privileged to address Mr. Lewes, and were it wise or becoming to say to him exactly what one thinks, I should utter words to this effect —
‘“You have a sound, clear judgment as far as it goes, but I conceive it to be limited; your standard of talent is high, but I cannot acknowledge it to be the highest; you are deserving of all attention when you lay down the law on principles, but you are to be resisted when you dogmatise on feelings.
‘“To a certain point, Mr. Lewes, you can go, but no farther. Be as sceptical as you please on whatever lies beyond a certain intellectual limit; the mystery will never be cleared up to you, for that limit you will never overpass. Not all your learning, not all your reading, not all your sagacity, not all your perseverance can help you over one viewless line — one boundary as impassable as it is invisible. To enter that sphere a man must be born within it; and untaught peasants have there drawn their first breath, while learned philosophers have striven hard till old age to reach it, and have never succeeded.” I should not dare, nor would it be right, to say this to Mr. Lewes, but I cannot help thinking it both of him and many others who have a great name in the world.
‘Hester Mason’s character, career, and fate appeared to me so strange, grovelling, and miserable, that I never for a moment doubted the whole dreary picture was from the life. I thought in describing the “rustic poetess,” in giving the details of her vulgar provincial and disreputable metropolitan notoriety, and especially in touching on the ghastly catastrophe of her fate, he was faithfully recording facts — thus, however repulsively, yet conscientiously “pointing a moral,” if not “adorning a tale”; but if Hester be the daughter of Lewes’s imagination, and if her experience and her doom be inventions of his fancy, I wish him better, and higher, and truer taste next time he writes a novel.
‘Julius’s exploit with the side of bacon is not defensible; he might certainly, for the fee of a shilling or sixpence, have got a boy to carry it for him.
‘Captain Heath, too, must have cut a deplorable figure behind the post-chaise.
‘Mrs. Vyner strikes one as a portrait from the life; and it equally strikes one that the artist hated his original model with a personal hatred. She is made so bad that one cannot in the least degree sympathise with any of those who love her; one can only despise them. She is a fiend, and therefore not like Mr. Thackeray’s Rebecca, where neither vanity, heartlessness, nor falsehood have been spared by the vigorous and skilful hand which portrays them, but where the human being has bee
n preserved nevertheless, and where, consequently, the lesson given is infinitely more impressive. We can learn little from the strange fantasies of demons — we are not of their kind; but the vices of the deceitful, selfish man or woman humble and warn us. In your remarks on the good girls I concur to the letter; and I must add that I think Blanche, amiable as she is represented, could never have loved her husband after she had discovered that he was utterly despicable. Love is stronger than Cruelty, stronger than Death, but perishes under Meanness; Pity may take its place, but Pity is not Love.
‘So far, then, I not only agree with you, but I marvel at the nice perception with which you have discriminated, and at the accuracy with which you have marked each coarse, cold, improbable, unseemly defect. But now I am going to take another side: I am going to differ from you, and it is about Cecil Chamberlayne.
‘You say that no man who had intellect enough to paint a picture, or write a comic opera, could act as he did; you say that men of genius and talent may have egregious faults, but they cannot descend to brutality or meanness. Would that the case were so! Would that intellect could preserve from low vice! But, alas! it cannot. No, the whole character of Cecil is painted with but too faithful a hand; it is very masterly, because it is very true. Lewes is nobly right when he says that intellect is not the highest faculty of man, though it may be the most brilliant; when he declares that the moral nature of his kind is more sacred than the intellectual nature; when he prefers “goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice to all the talents in the world.”
Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Page 522