HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’
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[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell’s record: Charlotte’s dread of a strange face.]
I had several opportunities of perceiving how this nervousness was ingrained in her constitution, and how acutely she suffered in striving to overcome it. One evening we had, among other guests, two sisters who sang Scottish ballads exquisitely. Miss Brontë had been sitting quiet and constrained till they began “The Bonnie House of Airlie,” but the effect of that and “Carlisle Yetts,” which followed, was as irresistible as the playing of the Piper of Hamelin. The beautiful clear light came into her eyes; her lips quivered with emotion; she forgot herself, rose, and crossed the room to the piano, where she asked eagerly for song after song. The sisters begged her to come and see them the next morning, when they would sing as long as ever she liked; and she promised gladly and thankfully. But on reaching the house her courage failed. We walked some time up and down the street; she upbraiding herself all the while for folly, and trying to dwell on the sweet echoes in her memory, rather than on the thoughts of a third sister who would have to be faced if we went in. But it was of no use; and dreading lest this struggle with herself might bring on one of her trying headaches, I entered at last and made the best apology I could for her non-appearance.
[Sidenote: Superstitiousness.]
There was another circumstance that came to my knowledge at this period which told secrets about the finely-strung frame. One night I was on the point of relating some dismal ghost story, just before bed-time. She shrank from hearing it, and confessed that she was superstitious, and prone at all times to the involuntary recurrence of any thoughts of ominous gloom which might have been suggested to her. She said that on first coming to us she had found a letter on her dressing-table from a friend in Yorkshire, containing a story which had impressed her vividly ever since;--that it mingled with her dreams at night, and made her sleep restless and unrefreshing.
[Sidenote: The Brontës not fond of children.]
Neither Charlotte nor her sisters were naturally fond of children. The hieroglyphics of childhood were an unknown language to them, for they had never been much with those younger than themselves. I am inclined to think, too, that they had not the happy knack of imparting information, which seems to be a separate gift from the faculty of acquiring it.... The little Brontës had been brought up motherless; and from knowing nothing of the gaiety and sportiveness of childhood--from never having experienced caresses or fond attentions themselves--they were ignorant of the very nature of infancy, or how to call out its engaging qualities. Children were to them the troublesome necessities of humanity; they had never been drawn into contact with them in any other way. Years afterward, when Miss Brontë came to stay with us, she watched our little girls perpetually; and I could not persuade her that they were only average specimens of well brought up children. She was surprised and touched by any sign of thoughtfulness for others, of kindness to animals, or of unselfishness on their part; and constantly maintained that she was in the right, and I in the wrong, when we differed on the point of their unusual excellence.
My youngest little girl ... would steal her little hand into Miss Brontë’s scarcely larger one, and each took pleasure in this apparently unobserved caress. Yet once when I told Julia to take and show her the way to some room in the house, Miss Brontë shrank back: “Do not _bid_ her do anything for me,” she said; “it has been so sweet hitherto to have her rendering her little attentions _spontaneously_.”
As illustrating her feelings with regard to children, I may give what she says in [one] of her letters to me:
“Whenever I see Florence and Julia again, I shall feel like a fond but bashful suitor, who views at a distance the fair personage to whom, in his clownish awe, he dare not risk a near approach. Such is the clearest idea I can give you of my feeling towards children I like, but to whom I am a stranger--and to what children am I not a stranger? They seem to me little wonders; their talk, their ways, are all matter of half-admiring, half-puzzled speculation.”
MRS. GASKELL: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
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[Sidenote: Manner of composing.]
I remember many little particulars which Miss Brontë gave me, in answer to my inquiries respecting her mode of composition. She said, that it was not every day that she could write. Sometimes weeks or even months elapsed before she felt that she had anything to add to that portion of her story which was already written. Then, some morning, she would waken up, and the progress of her tale lay clear and bright before her, in distinct vision. When this was the case, all her care was to discharge her household and filial duties, so as to obtain leisure to sit down and write out the incidents and consequent thoughts, which were, in fact, more present to her mind at such times than her actual life itself. Notwithstanding this “possession,” ... those who survive, of her daily and household companions, are clear in their testimony, that never was the claim of any duty, never was the call of another for help, neglected for an instant. It had been necessary to give Tabby--now nearly eighty years of age--the assistance of a girl. Tabby relinquished any of her work with jealous reluctance, and could not bear to be reminded, though ever so delicately, that the acuteness of her senses was dulled by age. Among other things, she reserved to herself the right of peeling the potatoes for dinner; but as she was growing blind, she often left in those black specks, which we in the North call the “eyes” of the potato. Miss Brontë was too dainty a housekeeper to put up with this; yet she could not bear to hurt the faithful old servant, by bidding the younger maiden go over the potatoes again, and so reminding Tabby that her work was less effectual than formerly. Accordingly, she would steal into the kitchen, and quietly carry off the bowl of vegetables, without Tabby’s being aware, and breaking off in the full flow of interest and inspiration, in her writing, carefully cut out the specks in the potatoes, and noiselessly carry them back to their place. This little proceeding may show how orderly and fully she accomplished her duties, even at those times when the possession was upon her.
MRS. GASKELL: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë.’
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[Sidenote: Handwriting, etc.]
Miss Brontë’s handwriting was exceedingly small, nervous, and poor, but quite legible. Her first manuscript was a very small square book, or folding of paper, from which she copied, with extreme care. She was as much surprised to find that I never copy at all, as I was at her imposing on herself so much toil which seems to me unnecessary.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’
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[Sidenote: Charlotte’s pen-portrait of herself.]
Those who would understand Charlotte, even more than those who would understand Emily, should study the difference of tenderness between the touch that drew Shirley Keeldar and the touch that drew Lucy Snowe. This latter figure, as Mr. Wemyss Reid has observed with indisputable accuracy of insight, was, doubtless, if never meant to win liking or made to find favor in the general reader’s eyes, yet none the less evidently on that account the faithful likeness of Charlotte Brontë, studied from the life, and painted by her own hand with the sharp austere precision of a photograph rather than a portrait. But it is herself with the consolation and support of her genius withdrawn, with the strength of her spiritual arm immeasurably shortened, the cunning of her right hand comparatively cancelled; and this it is that makes the main undertone and ultimate result of the book somewhat mournfuller even than the literal record of her mournful and glorious life.
A. C. SWINBURNE: ‘A Note on Charlotte Brontë.’ London: Chatto & Windus, 1877.
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[Sidenote: A chat with Mrs. Gaskell.]
[Sidenote: The parlor at Haworth in Charlotte’s last days.]
We talked over the clear, bright fire; it is a cold country, and the fires were a pretty warm dancing light all over the house. The parlor has been evidently refurnished within the last few years, since Miss Brontë’s success has enabled her to have a little more money to spend. Everything fits into, and is in harmony with, the idea of a country parsonage, possessed by people of very moderate means. The prevailing color of the room is crimson, to make a warm setting for the cold, gray landscape without. There is her likeness by Richmond, and an engraving from Laurence’s picture of Thackeray; and two recesses on each side of the high, narrow, old-fashioned mantel-piece, filled with books--books given to her, books she has bought, and which tell of her individual pursuits and tastes; not standard books.