Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (459 page)

“E.’s” residence was equally within a walk from Dewsbury Moor as it had been from Roe Head; and on Saturday afternoons both “Mary” and she used to call upon Charlotte, and often endeavoured to persuade her to return with them, and be the guest of one of them till Monday morning; but this was comparatively seldom.  Mary says: — “She visited us twice or thrice when she was at Miss W — -’s.  We used to dispute about politics and religion.  She, a Tory and clergyman’s daughter, was always in a minority of one in our house of violent Dissent and Radicalism.  She used to hear over again, delivered
with authority
, all the lectures I had been used to give her at school on despotic aristocracy, mercenary priesthood, &c.  She had not energy to defend herself; sometimes she owned to a
little
truth in it, but generally said nothing.  Her feeble health gave her her yielding manner, for she could never oppose any one without gathering up all her strength for the struggle.  Thus she would let me advise and patronise most imperiously, sometimes picking out any grain of sense there might be in what I said, but never allowing any one materially to interfere with her independence of thought and action.  Though her silence sometimes left one under the impression that she agreed when she did not, she never gave a flattering opinion, and thus her words were golden, whether for praise or blame.”

“Mary’s” father was a man of remarkable intelligence, but of strong, not to say violent prejudices, all running in favour of Republicanism and Dissent.  No other county but Yorkshire could have produced such a man.  His brother had been a
détenu
in France, and had afterwards voluntarily taken up his residence there.  Mr. T. himself had been much abroad, both on business and to see the great continental galleries of paintings.  He spoke French perfectly, I have been told, when need was; but delighted usually in talking the broadest Yorkshire.  He bought splendid engravings of the pictures which he particularly admired, and his house was full of works of art and of books; but he rather liked to present his rough side to any stranger or new-comer; he would speak his broadest, bring out his opinions on Church and State in their most startling forms, and, by and by, if he found his hearer could stand the shock, he would involuntarily show his warm kind heart, and his true taste, and real refinement.  His family of four sons and two daughters were brought up on Republican principles; independence of thought and action was encouraged; no “shams” tolerated.  They are scattered far and wide: Martha, the younger daughter, sleeps in the Protestant cemetery at Brussels; Mary is in New Zealand; Mr. T. is dead.  And so life and death have dispersed the circle of “violent Radicals and Dissenters” into which, twenty years ago, the little, quiet, resolute clergyman’s daughter was received, and by whom she was truly loved and honoured.

January and February of 1837 had passed away, and still there was no reply from Southey.  Probably she had lost expectation and almost hope when at length, in the beginning of March, she received the letter inserted in Mr. C. C. Southey’s life of his Father, vol. iv. p. 327.

After accounting for his delay in replying to hers by the fact of a long absence from home, during which his letters had accumulated, whence “it has lain unanswered till the last of a numerous file, not from disrespect or indifference to its contents, but because in truth it is not an easy task to answer it, nor a pleasant one to cast a damp over the high spirits and the generous desires of youth,” he goes on to say: “What you are I can only infer from your letter, which appears to be written in sincerity, though I may suspect that you have used a fictitious signature.  Be that as it may, the letter and the verses bear the same stamp, and I can well understand the state of mind they indicate.

* * * * *

“It is not my advice that you have asked as to the direction of your talents, but my opinion of them, and yet the opinion may be worth little, and the advice much.  You evidently possess, and in no inconsiderable degree, what Wordsworth calls the ‘faculty of verse.’  I am not depreciating it when I say that in these times it is not rare.  Many volumes of poems are now published every year without attracting public attention, any one of which if it had appeared half a century ago, would have obtained a high reputation for its author.  Whoever, therefore, is ambitious of distinction in this way ought to be prepared for disappointment.

“But it is not with a view to distinction that you should cultivate this talent, if you consult your own happiness.  I, who have made literature my profession, and devoted my life to it, and have never for a moment repented of the deliberate choice, think myself, nevertheless, bound in duty to caution every young man who applies as an aspirant to me for encouragement and advice, against taking so perilous a course.  You will say that a woman has no need of such a caution; there can be no peril in it for her.  In a certain sense this is true; but there is a danger of which I would, with all kindness and all earnestness, warn you.  The day dreams in which you habitually indulge are likely to induce a distempered state of mind; and in proportion as all the ordinary uses of the world seem to you flat and unprofitable, you will be unfitted for them without becoming fitted for anything else.  Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be.  The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and a recreation.  To those duties you have not yet been called, and when you are you will be less eager for celebrity.  You will not seek in imagination for excitement, of which the vicissitudes of this life, and the anxieties from which you must not hope to be exempted, be your state what it may, will bring with them but too much.

“But do not suppose that I disparage the gift which you possess; nor that I would discourage you from exercising it.  I only exhort you so to think of it, and so to use it, as to render it conducive to your own permanent good.  Write poetry for its own sake; not in a spirit of emulation, and not with a view to celebrity; the less you aim at that the more likely you will be to deserve and finally to obtain it.  So written, it is wholesome both for the heart and soul; it may be made the surest means, next to religion, of soothing the mind and elevating it.  You may embody in it your best thoughts and your wisest feelings, and in so doing discipline and strengthen them.

“Farewell, madam.  It is not because I have forgotten that I was once young myself, that I write to you in this strain; but because I remember it.  You will neither doubt my sincerity nor my good will; and however ill what has here been said may accord with your present views and temper, the longer you live the more reasonable it will appear to you.  Though I may be but an ungracious adviser, you will allow me, therefore, to subscribe myself, with the best wishes for your happiness here and hereafter, your true friend,

“ROBERT SOUTHEY.”

* * * * *

I was with Miss Brontë when she received Mr. Cuthbert Southey’s note, requesting her permission to insert the foregoing letter in his father’s life.  She said to me, “Mr. Southey’s letter was kind and admirable; a little stringent, but it did me good.”

It is partly because I think it so admirable, and partly because it tends to bring out her character, as shown in the following reply, that I have taken the liberty of inserting the foregoing extracts from it.

“Sir, March 16th.

“I cannot rest till I have answered your letter, even though by addressing you a second time I should appear a little intrusive; but I must thank you for the kind and wise advice you have condescended to give me.  I had not ventured to hope for such a reply; so considerate in its tone, so noble in its spirit.  I must suppress what I feel, or you will think me foolishly enthusiastic.

“At the first perusal of your letter, I felt only shame and regret that I had ever ventured to trouble you with my crude rhapsody; I felt a painful heat rise to my face when I thought of the quires of paper I had covered with what once gave me so much delight, but which now was only a source of confusion; but after I had thought a little and read it again and again, the prospect seemed to clear.  You do not forbid me to write; you do not say that what I write is utterly destitute of merit.  You only warn me against the folly of neglecting real duties for the sake of imaginative pleasures; of writing for the love of fame; for the selfish excitement of emulation.  You kindly allow me to write poetry for its own sake, provided I leave undone nothing which I ought to do, in order to pursue that single, absorbing, exquisite gratification.  I am afraid, sir, you think me very foolish.  I know the first letter I wrote to you was all senseless trash from beginning to end; but I am not altogether the idle dreaming being it would seem to denote.  My father is a clergyman of limited, though competent income, and I am the eldest of his children.  He expended quite as much in my education as he could afford in justice to the rest.  I thought it therefore my duty, when I left school, to become a governess.  In that capacity I find enough to occupy my thoughts all day long, and my head and hands too, without having a moment’s time for one dream of the imagination.  In the evenings, I confess, I do think, but I never trouble any one else with my thoughts.  I carefully avoid any appearance of preoccupation and eccentricity, which might lead those I live amongst to suspect the nature of my pursuits.  Following my father’s advice — who from my childhood has counselled me, just in the wise and friendly tone of your letter — I have endeavoured not only attentively to observe all the duties a woman ought to fulfil, but to feel deeply interested in them.  I don’t always succeed, for sometimes when I’m teaching or sewing I would rather be reading or writing; but I try to deny myself; and my father’s approbation amply rewarded me for the privation.  Once more allow me to thank you with sincere gratitude.  I trust I shall never more feel ambitious to see my name in print: if the wish should rise, I’ll look at Southey’s letter, and suppress it.  It is honour enough for me that I have written to him, and received an answer.  That letter is consecrated; no one shall ever see it, but papa and my brother and sisters.  Again I thank you.  This incident, I suppose, will be renewed no more; if I live to be an old woman, I shall remember it thirty years hence as a bright dream.  The signature which you suspected of being fictitious is my real name.  Again, therefore, I must sign myself,

“C. Brontë.

“P.S. — Pray, sir, excuse me for writing to you a second time; I could not help writing, partly to tell you how thankful I am for your kindness, and partly to let you know that your advice shall not be wasted; however sorrowfully and reluctantly it may be at first followed.

“C. B.”

I cannot deny myself the gratification of inserting Southey’s reply: —

“Keswick, March 22, 1837.

“Dear Madam,

“Your letter has given me great pleasure, and I should not forgive myself if I did not tell you so.  You have received admonition as considerately and as kindly as it was given.  Let me now request that, if you ever should come to these Lakes while I am living here, you will let me see you.  You would then think of me afterwards with the more good-will, because you would perceive that there is neither severity nor moroseness in the state of mind to which years and observation have brought me.

“It is, by God’s mercy, in our power to attain a degree of self-government, which is essential to our own happiness, and contributes greatly to that of those around us.  Take care of over-excitement, and endeavour to keep a quiet mind (even for your health it is the best advice that can be given you): your moral and spiritual improvement will then keep pace with the culture of your intellectual powers.

“And now, madam, God bless you!

“Farewell, and believe me to be your sincere friend,

“ROBERT SOUTHEY.

Of this second letter, also, she spoke, and told me that it contained an invitation for her to go and see the poet if ever she visited the Lakes.  “But there was no money to spare,” said she, “nor any prospect of my ever earning money enough to have the chance of so great a pleasure, so I gave up thinking of it.”  At the time we conversed together on the subject we were at the Lakes.  But Southey was dead.

This “stringent” letter made her put aside, for a time, all idea of literary enterprise.  She bent her whole energy towards the fulfilment of the duties in hand; but her occupation was not sufficient food for her great forces of intellect, and they cried out perpetually, “Give, give,” while the comparatively less breezy air of Dewsbury Moor told upon her health and spirits more and more.  On August 27, 1837, she writes: —

“I am again at Dewsbury, engaged in the old business, — teach, teach, teach . . .
When will you come home
?  Make haste!  You have been at Bath long enough for all purposes; by this time you have acquired polish enough, I am sure; if the varnish is laid on much thicker, I am afraid the good wood underneath will be quite concealed, and your Yorkshire friends won’t stand that.  Come, come.  I am getting really tired of your absence.  Saturday after Saturday comes round, and I can have no hope of hearing your knock at the door, and then being told that ‘Miss E. is come.’  Oh, dear! in this monotonous life of mine, that was a pleasant event.  I wish it would recur again; but it will take two or three interviews before the stiffness — the estrangement of this long separation — will wear away.”