Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (612 page)

‘C. Brontë.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘
December
6
th
, 1853.

‘My dear Sir, — I forwarded last week a box of return books to Cornhill, which I trust arrived safely.  To-day I received the
Edinburgh Guardian
,
  
for which I thank you.

‘Do not trouble yourself to select or send any more books.  These courtesies must cease some day, and I would rather give them up than wear them out. — Believe me, yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

CHAPTER XV: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

The devotion of Charlotte Brontë to Thackeray, or rather to Thackeray’s genius, is a pleasant episode in literary history.  In 1848 he sent Miss Brontë, as we have seen, a copy of
Vanity Fair
.  In 1852 he sent her a copy of
Esmond
, with the more cordial inscription which came of friendship.

The second edition of
Jane Eyre
was dedicated to him as possessed of ‘an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised,’ and as ‘the first social regenerator of the day.’  And when Currer Bell was dead, it was Thackeray who wrote by far the most eloquent tribute to her memory.  When a copy of Lawrence’s portrait of Thackeray
  
was sent to Haworth by Mr. George Smith, Charlotte Brontë stood in front of it and, half playfully, half seriously, shook her fist, apostrophising its original as ‘Thou Titan!’

With all this hero-worship, it may be imagined that no
 
favourable criticism gave her more unqualified pleasure than that which came from her ‘master,’ as she was not indisposed to consider one who was only seven years her senior, and whose best books were practically contemporaneous with her own.

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘Haworth,
October
28
th
, 1847.

‘Dear Sir, — Your last letter was very pleasant to me to read, and is very cheering to reflect on.  I feel honoured in being approved by Mr. Thackeray, because I approve Mr. Thackeray.  This may sound presumptuous perhaps, but I mean that I have long recognised in his writings genuine talent, such as I admired, such as I wondered at and delighted in.  No author seems to distinguish so exquisitely as he does dross from ore, the real from the counterfeit.  I believed too he had deep and true feelings under his seeming sternness.  Now I am sure he has.  One good word from such a man is worth pages of praise from ordinary judges.

‘You are right in having faith in the reality of Helen Burns’s character; she was real enough.  I have exaggerated nothing there.  I abstained from recording much that I remember respecting her, lest the narrative should sound incredible.  Knowing this, I could not but smile at the quiet self-complacent dogmatism with which one of the journals lays it down that “such creations as Helen Burns are very beautiful but very untrue.”

‘The plot of
Jane Eyre
may be a hackneyed one.  Mr. Thackeray remarks that it is familiar to him.  But having read comparatively few novels, I never chanced to meet with it, and I thought it original.  The work referred to by the critic of the
Athenæum
, I had not had the good fortune to hear of.

‘The
Weekly Chronicle
seems inclined to identify me with Mrs. Marsh.  I never had the pleasure of perusing a line of Mrs. Marsh’s in my life, but I wish very much to read her works, and shall profit by the first opportunity of doing so.  I hope I shall not find I have been an unconscious imitator.

 
‘I would still endeavour to keep my expectations low respecting the ultimate success of
Jane Eyre
.  But my desire that it should succeed augments, for you have taken much trouble about the work, and it would grieve me seriously if your active efforts should be baffled and your sanguine hopes disappointed.  Excuse me if I again remark that I fear they are rather
too
sanguine; it would be better to moderate them.  What will the critics of the monthly reviews and magazines be likely to see in
Jane Eyre
(if indeed they deign to read it), which will win from them even a stinted modicum of approbation?  It has no learning, no research, it discusses no subject of public interest.  A mere domestic novel will, I fear, seem trivial to men of large views and solid attainments.

‘Still, efforts so energetic and indefatigable as yours ought to realise a result in some degree favourable, and I trust they will. — I remain, dear sir, yours respectfully,

‘C. Bell.

‘
October
28
th
, 1847.

‘I have just received the
Tablet
and the
Morning Advertiser
.  Neither paper seems inimical to the book, but I see it produces a very different effect on different natures.  I was amused at the analysis in the
Tablet
, it is oddly expressed in some parts.  I think the critic did not always seize my meaning; he speaks, for instance, of “Jane’s inconceivable alarm at Mr. Rochester’s repelling manner.”  I do not remember that.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘
December
11
th
, 1847.

‘Dear Sir, — I have delayed writing to you in the hope that the parcel you sent would reach me; but after making due inquiries at the Keighley, Bradford, and Leeds Stations and obtaining no news of it, I must conclude that it has been lost.

‘However, I have contrived to get a sight of
Fraser’s Magazine
from another quarter, so that I have only to regret Mr. Home’s kind present.  Will you thank that gentleman for me when you see him, and tell him that the railroad is to blame for my not having acknowledged his courtesy before?

 
‘Mr. Lewes is very lenient: I anticipated a degree of severity which he has spared me.  This notice differs from all the other notices.  He must be a man of no ordinary mind: there is a strange sagacity evinced in some of his remarks; yet he is not always right.  I am afraid if he knew how much I write from intuition, how little from actual knowledge, he would think me presumptuous ever to have written at all.  I am sure such would be his opinion if he knew the narrow bounds of my attainments, the limited scope of my reading.

‘There are moments when I can hardly credit that anything I have done should be found worthy to give even transitory pleasure to such men as Mr. Thackeray, Sir John Herschel, Mr. Fonblanque, Leigh Hunt, and Mr. Lewes — that my humble efforts should have had such a result is a noble reward.

‘I was glad and proud to get the bank bill Mr. Smith sent me yesterday, but I hardly ever felt delight equal to that which cheered me when I received your letter containing an extract from a note by Mr. Thackeray, in which he expressed himself gratified with the perusal of
Jane Eyre
.  Mr. Thackeray is a keen ruthless satirist.  I had never perused his writings but with blended feelings of admiration and indignation.  Critics, it appears to me, do not know what an intellectual boa-constrictor he is.  They call him “humorous,” “brilliant” — his is a most scalping humour, a most deadly brilliancy: he does not play with his prey, he coils round it and crushes it in his rings.  He seems terribly in earnest in his war against the falsehood and follies of “the world.”  I often wonder what that “world” thinks of him.  I should think the faults of such a man would be distrust of anything good in human nature — galling suspicion of bad motives lurking behind good actions.  Are these his failings?

‘They are, at any rate, the failings of his written sentiments, for he cannot find in his heart to represent either man or woman as at once good and wise.  Does he not too much confound benevolence with weakness and wisdom with mere craft?

‘But I must not intrude on your time by too long a letter. — Believe me, yours respectfully,

‘C. Bell.

 
‘I have received the
Sheffield Iris
, the
Bradford Observer
, the
Guardian
, the
Newcastle Guardian
, and the
Sunday Times
since you wrote.  The contrast between the notices in the two last named papers made me smile.  The
Sunday Times
almost denounces
Jane Eyre
as something very reprehensible and obnoxious, whereas the
Newcastle Guardian
seems to think it a mild potion which may be “safely administered to the most delicate invalid.”  I suppose the public must decide when critics disagree.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘Haworth,
December
23
rd
, 1847.

‘Dear Sir, — I am glad that you and Messrs. Smith & Elder approve the second preface.

‘I send an errata of the first volume, and part of the second.  I will send the rest of the corrections as soon as possible.

‘Will the inclosed dedication suffice?  I have made it brief, because I wished to avoid any appearance of pomposity or pretension.

‘The notice in the
Church of England Journal
gratified me much, and chiefly because it
was
the
Church of England Journal
.  Whatever such critics as he of the
Mirror
may say, I love the Church of England.  Her ministers, indeed, I do not regard as infallible personages, I have seen too much of them for that, but to the Establishment, with all her faults — the profane Athanasian creed
ex
cluded — I am sincerely attached.

‘Is the forthcoming critique on Mr. Thackeray’s writings in the
Edinburgh Review
written by Mr. Lewes?  I hope it is.  Mr. Lewes, with his penetrating sagacity and fine acumen, ought to be able to do the author of
Vanity Fair
justice.  Only he must not bring him down to the level of Fielding — he is far, far above Fielding.  It appears to me that Fielding’s style is arid, and his views of life and human nature coarse, compared with Thackeray’s.

‘With many thanks for your kind wishes, and a cordial reciprocation of them, — I remain, dear sir, yours respectfully,

‘C. Bell.

 
‘On glancing over this scrawl, I find it so illegibly written that I fear you will hardly be able to decipher it; but the cold is partly to blame for this — my fingers are numb.’

The dedication here referred to is that to Thackeray.  People had been already suggesting that the book might have been written by Thackeray under a pseudonym; others had implied, knowing that there was ‘something about a woman’ in Thackeray’s life, that it was written by a mistress of the great novelist.  Indeed, the
Quarterly
had half hinted as much.  Currer Bell, knowing nothing of the gossip of London, had dedicated her book in single-minded enthusiasm.  Her distress was keen when it was revealed to her that the wife of Mr. Thackeray, like the wife of Rochester in
Jane Eyre
, was of unsound mind.  However, a correspondence with him would seem to have ended amicably enough.
 

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘Haworth,
January
28
th
, 1848.

‘Dear Sir, — I need not tell you that when I saw Mr. Thackeray’s letter inclosed under your cover, the sight made me very happy.  It was some time before I dared open it, lest my pleasure in receiving it should be mixed with pain on learning its contents — lest, in short, the dedication should have been, in some way, unacceptable to him.

‘And, to tell you the truth, I fear this must have been the case; he does not say so, his letter is most friendly in its noble simplicity, but he apprises me, at the commencement, of a circumstance which both surprised and dismayed me.

‘I suppose it is no indiscretion to tell you this circumstance,
 
for you doubtless know it already.  It appears that his private position is in some points similar to that I have ascribed to Mr. Rochester; that thence arose a report that
Jane Eyre
had been written by a governess in his family, and that the dedication coming now has confirmed everybody in the surmise.