Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (580 page)

‘I am glad, by-the-bye, to hear that
Madeline
is come out at last, and was happy to see a favourable notice of that work and of
The Three Paths
in the
Morning Herald
.  I wish Miss Kavanagh all success.
 

 
‘Trusting that Mrs. Williams’s health continues strong, and that your own and that of all your children is satisfactory, for without health there is little comfort, — I am, my dear sir, yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

The next letter gives perhaps the most interesting glimpse of Emily that has been afforded us.

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘
November
22
nd
, 1848.

‘My dear Sir, — I put your most friendly letter into Emily’s hands as soon as I had myself perused it, taking care, however, not to say a word in favour of homœopathy — that would not have answered.  It is best usually to leave her to form her own judgment, and
especially
not to advocate the side you wish her to favour; if you do, she is sure to lean in the opposite direction, and ten to one will argue herself into non-compliance.  Hitherto she has refused medicine, rejected medical advice; no reasoning, no entreaty, has availed to induce her to see a physician.  After reading your letter she said, “Mr. Williams’s intention was kind and good, but he was under a delusion: Homœopathy was only another form of quackery.”  Yet she may reconsider this opinion and come to a different conclusion; her second thoughts are often the best.

‘The
North American Review
is worth reading; there is no mincing the matter there.  What a bad set the Bells must be!  What appalling books they write!  To-day, as Emily appeared a little easier, I thought the
Review
would amuse her, so I read it aloud to her and Anne.  As I sat between them at our quiet but now somewhat melancholy fireside, I studied the two ferocious authors.  Ellis, the “man of uncommon talents, but dogged, brutal, and morose,” sat leaning back in his easy chair drawing his impeded breath as he best could, and looking, alas! piteously pale and wasted; it is not his wont to laugh, but he smiled half-amused and half in scorn as he listened.  Acton
 
was sewing, no emotion ever stirs him to loquacity, so he only smiled too, dropping at the same time a single word of calm amazement to hear his character so darkly portrayed.  I wonder what the reviewer would have thought of his own sagacity could he have beheld the pair as I did.  Vainly, too, might he have looked round for the masculine partner in the firm of “Bell & Co.”  How I laugh in my sleeve when I read the solemn assertions that
Jane Eyre
was written in partnership, and that it “bears the marks of more than one mind and one sex.”

‘The wise critics would certainly sink a degree in their own estimation if they knew that yours or Mr. Smith’s was the first masculine hand that touched the MS. of
Jane Eyre
, and that till you or he read it no masculine eye had scanned a line of its contents, no masculine ear heard a phrase from its pages.  However, the view they take of the matter rather pleases me than otherwise.  If they like, I am not unwilling they should think a dozen ladies and gentlemen aided at the compilation of the book.  Strange patchwork it must seem to them — this chapter being penned by Mr., and that by Miss or Mrs. Bell; that character or scene being delineated by the husband, that other by the wife!  The gentleman, of course, doing the rough work, the lady getting up the finer parts.  I admire the idea vastly.

‘I have read
Madeline
.  It is a fine pearl in simple setting.  Julia Kavanagh has my esteem; I would rather know her than many far more brilliant personages.  Somehow my heart leans more to her than to Eliza Lynn, for instance.  Not that I have read either
Amymone
or
Azeth
, but I have seen extracts from them which I found it literally impossible to digest.  They presented to my imagination Lytton Bulwer in petticoats — an overwhelming vision.  By-the-bye, the American critic talks admirable sense about Bulwer — candour obliges me to confess that.

‘I must abruptly bid you good-bye for the present. — Yours sincerely,

‘Currer Bell.’

 
TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘
December
7
th
, 1848.

‘My dear Sir, — I duly received Dr. Curie’s work on Homœopathy, and ought to apologise for having forgotten to thank you for it.  I will return it when I have given it a more attentive perusal than I have yet had leisure to do.  My sister has read it, but as yet she remains unshaken in her former opinion: she will not admit there can be efficacy in such a system.  Were I in her place, it appears to me that I should be glad to give it a trial, confident that it can scarcely do harm and might do good.

‘I can give no favourable report of Emily’s state.  My father is very despondent about her.  Anne and I cherish hope as well as we can, but her appearance and her symptoms tend to crush that feeling.  Yet I argue that the present emaciation, cough, weakness, shortness of breath are the results of inflammation, now, I trust, subsided, and that with time these ailments will gradually leave her.  But my father shakes his head and speaks of others of our family once similarly afflicted, for whom he likewise persisted in hoping against hope, and who are now removed where hope and fear fluctuate no more.  There were, however, differences between their case and hers — important differences I think.  I must cling to the expectation of her recovery, I cannot renounce it.

‘Much would I give to have the opinion of a skilful professional man.  It is easy, my dear sir, to say there is nothing in medicine, and that physicians are useless, but we naturally wish to procure aid for those we love when we see them suffer; most painful is it to sit still, look on, and do nothing.  Would that my sister added to her many great qualities the humble one of tractability!  I have again and again incurred her displeasure by urging the necessity of seeking advice, and I fear I must yet incur it again and again.  Let me leave the subject; I have no right thus to make you a sharer in our sorrow.

‘I am indeed surprised that Mr. Newby should say that he is to publish another work by Ellis and Acton Bell.  Acton has had quite enough of him.  I think I
have
before intimated that that
 
author never more intends to have Mr. Newby for a publisher.  Not only does he seem to forget that engagements made should be fulfilled, but by a system of petty and contemptible manœuvring he throws an air of charlatanry over the works of which he has the management.  This does not suit the “Bells”: they have their own rude north-country ideas of what is delicate, honourable, and gentlemanlike.

‘Newby’s conduct in no sort corresponds with these notions; they have found him — I will not say what they have found him.  Two words that would exactly suit him are at my pen point, but I shall not take the trouble to employ them.

‘Ellis Bell is at present in no condition to trouble himself with thoughts either of writing or publishing.  Should it please Heaven to restore his health and strength, he reserves to himself the right of deciding whether or not Mr. Newby has forfeited every claim to his second work.

‘I have not yet read the second number of
Pendennis
.  The first I thought rich in indication of ease, resource, promise; but it is not Thackeray’s way to develop his full power all at once. 
Vanity Fair
began very quietly — it was quiet all through, but the stream as it rolled gathered a resistless volume and force.  Such, I doubt not, will be the case with
Pendennis
.

‘You must forget what I said about Eliza Lynn.  She may be the best of human beings, and I am but a narrow-minded fool to express prejudice against a person I have never seen.

‘Believe me, my dear sir, in haste, yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

The next four letters speak for themselves.

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘
December
9
th
, 1848.

‘My dear Sir, — Your letter seems to relieve me from a difficulty and to open my way.  I know it would be useless to consult Drs. Elliotson or Forbes: my sister would not see the most skilful physician in England if he were brought to her just now, nor would she follow his prescription.  With regard to
 
Homœopathy, she has at least admitted that it cannot do much harm; perhaps if I get the medicines she may consent to try them; at any rate, the experiment shall be made.

‘Not knowing Dr. Epps’s address, I send the inclosed statement of her case through your hands.
 

‘I deeply feel both your kindness and Mr. Smith’s in thus interesting yourselves in what touches me so nearly. — Believe me, yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘
December
15
th
, 1848.

‘My dear Ellen, — I mentioned your coming here to Emily as a mere suggestion, with the faint hope that the prospect might cheer her, as she really esteems you perhaps more than
 
any other person out of this house.  I found, however, it would not do; any, the slightest excitement or putting out of the way is not to be thought of, and indeed I do not think the journey in this unsettled weather, with the walk from Keighley and walk back, at all advisable for yourself.  Yet I should have liked to see you, and so would Anne.  Emily continues much the same; yesterday I thought her a little better, but to-day she is not so well.  I hope still, for I
must
hope — she is dear to me as life.  If I let the faintness of despair reach my heart I shall become worthless.  The attack was, I believe, in the first place, inflammation of the lungs; it ought to have been met promptly in time.  She is too intractable.  I
do
wish I knew her state and feelings more clearly.  The fever is not so high as it was, but the pain in the side, the cough, the emaciation are there still.

‘Remember me kindly to all at Brookroyd, and believe me, yours faithfully,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘
December
21
st
, 1848.

‘My dear Ellen, — Emily suffers no more from pain or weakness now.  She will never suffer more in this world.  She is gone, after a hard, short conflict.  She died on
Tuesday
, the very day I wrote to you.  I thought it very possible she might be with us still for weeks, and a few hours afterwards she was in eternity.  Yes, there is no Emily in time or on earth now.  Yesterday we put her poor, wasted, mortal frame quietly under the church pavement.  We are very calm at present.  Why should we be otherwise?  The anguish of seeing her suffer is over; the spectacle of the pains of death is gone by; the funeral day is past.  We feel she is at peace.  No need now to tremble for the hard frost and the keen wind.  Emily does not feel them.  She died in a time of promise.  We saw her taken from life in its prime.  But it is God’s will, and the place where she is gone is better than she has left.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘
December
25
th
, 1848.

‘My dear Sir, — I will write to you more at length when my
 
heart can find a little rest — now I can only thank you very briefly for your letter, which seemed to me eloquent in its sincerity.

‘Emily is nowhere here now, her wasted mortal remains are taken out of the house.  We have laid her cherished head under the church aisle beside my mother’s, my two sisters’ — dead long ago — and my poor, hapless brother’s.  But a small remnant of the race is left — so my poor father thinks.

‘Well, the loss is ours, not hers, and some sad comfort I take, as I hear the wind blow and feel the cutting keenness of the frost, in knowing that the elements bring her no more suffering; their severity cannot reach her grave; her fever is quieted, her restlessness soothed, her deep, hollow cough is hushed for ever; we do not hear it in the night nor listen for it in the morning; we have not the conflict of the strangely strong spirit and the fragile frame before us — relentless conflict — once seen, never to be forgotten.  A dreary calm reigns round us, in the midst of which we seek resignation.

‘My father and my sister Anne are far from well.  As for me, God has hitherto most graciously sustained me; so far I have felt adequate to bear my own burden and even to offer a little help to others.  I am not ill; I can get through daily duties, and do something towards keeping hope and energy alive in our mourning household.  My father says to me almost hourly, “Charlotte, you must bear up, I shall sink if you fail me”; these words, you can conceive, are a stimulus to nature.  The sight, too, of my sister Anne’s very still but deep sorrow wakens in me such fear for her that I dare not falter.  Somebody
must
cheer the rest.