The Letters of Charlotte Bronte: With a Selection of Letters by Family and Friends Volume III: 1852-1855 (Letters of Charlotte Bronte)

The Letters of Charlotte Bronte¨

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The Letters of Charlotte Bronte¨ With a selection of letters by family and friends edited by MARGARET SMITH

VOLUME THREE 1852–1855

CLARENDON PRESS
OXFORD

3

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sa˜o Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ß Margaret Smith 2004. The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0–19–818599–5 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Typeset by Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by

AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T S This edition owes much to the kindness and patience of those who have answered my queries, and of the scholars who have generously allowed me to beneWt from their own research. I am grateful for the continued help and co-operation of the staV of the Bronte¨ Parsonage Museum, especially Ann Dinsdale, Rachel Terry, and Stephen Whitehead. Bronte¨ Council members Louise and Robert Barnard have responded promptly to my requests for information. The addenda to the present volume will show how much I am indebted to Louise’s meticulous recording of facts and dates from the Leeds Intelligencer. Robin Greenwood’s detailed research into the history of Haworth families has provided information about many people and places mentioned in the letters. Margaret and Robert Cochrane’s biography of Arthur Bell Nicholls, My Dear Boy (1999), has proved to be invaluable. In addition, their skilful detective work on the Ringrose–Helmsing families has thrown light on the provenance of Charlotte Bronte¨’s letters to Amelia Ringrose Taylor. The work of J. A. V. Chapple, Alan Shelston, and the late Arthur Pollard in locating and editing Mrs Gaskell’s letters has provided a rich source of information on the friendship between the two writers. Dr Scott Lewis kindly identiWed a number of important reviews of Villette, and Professor Alan Hill lent me his copy of The Autographic Mirror. Christine Penney of Birmingham University Library has been a constant source of information and encouragement. I am also grateful for the help and courtesy of many other librarians, curators, and archivists. I oVer my thanks to Ms Anne Anninger of Wellesley College, Mass., Dr Iain G. Brown of the National Library of Scotland, Mr J. G. Davies of Leeds Grammar School, Dr Wayne Furman of the New York Public Library, Ms Wilma Grant of Reading Public Library, Ms Sara S. Hodson of the Huntington Library, Ms Helga Hughes, Heritage OYcer, Red House, Gomersal, Mr Martin Killeen of Birmingham University Library, Mr Douglas Knock of the Wellcome Trust Library, Dr David McKitterick of Trinity College Library, Cambridge, Mrs Virginia Murray, curator of the John Murray archive, Ms Sheila Noble of Edinburgh University Library, Ms Diana FranzusoV Peterson of Haverford College Library, Ms Jenny Rathbun of the Houghton Library, Harvard, Ms Margaret Sherry Rich of Princeton University Library, Dr Christopher Sheppard and Dr Oliver Pickering of Leeds University Library, Ms Tara Wenger, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, Texas, Mr Timothy Young, the Beinecke Library, Yale, and Dr David S. Zeidberg of the Huntington Library. For permission to publish or to quote from letters or other documents in their possession, on loan to them, or of which they own the copyright, I thank the authorities of the Berg Collection of English and American Literature, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British Library; the Bronte¨ Society; the Brotherton Collection and the Fay and GeoVrey Elliott Collection, University of Leeds; the Cely-Trevilian Collection, the Royal Society of Antiquaries, London; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the Guildhall Library, London; Haverford College; the Houghton Library, Harvard; the Huntington Library, San Marino, California; the John Murray archive; the John Rylands University Library, University of

vi

acknowledgements

Manchester; the King’s School, Canterbury; the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland; the Gilbert and Amy Angell Collier Montague Collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, the New York Public Library; the Morgan Library, New York, MSS MA 2696 and MA 4500; the Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Libraries; the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the English Poetry Collection, Wellesley College; West Yorkshire Archives at Kirklees, HuddersWeld; and the Beinecke Library, Yale University Library. I thank Mr Alan Gill and Mr G. A. Yablon for permission to publish my transcriptions of letters belonging to them; and I thank the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin, for allowing me to consult documents in their collection. Every eVort has been made to seek the permission of copyright owners, and any oversights will be rectiWed in future editions. Finally I thank Pat Lawrence for her meticulous copy-editing, and Frances Whistler for her advice and encouragement during the preparation of this edition. M.S.

CONTENTS List of Illustrations

viii

Abbreviations and Symbols

ix

Introduction

xv

The Manuscripts

xxvii

Textual Policy

xxix

A Chronology of Charlotte Bronte¨

xxxii

Biographical Note

xxxv

THE LETTERS

1

January — December 1852

1

January — December 1853

99

January — December 1854

219

January — March 1855

315

April 1855

333

Undated Letters

339

Appendices

343

I. MS Fragments in Charlotte Bronte¨’s Hand

345

II. List of Manuscript Owners and Locations

348

III. IV.

Quotations from Charlotte Bronte¨’s Letters or Conversation in Mrs Gaskell’s Life

350

Charlotte Bronte¨’s Visit to the Gaskells, 21–28 April 1853

351

V. Mrs Gaskell’s Visit to Haworth, September 1853

353

VI. Charlotte Bronte¨’s Wedding

358

VII. Addenda and Corrigenda to Volumes I and II

361

VIII. Forgeries and Uncertain Attribution

375

Cumulative Index of Correspondents for Volumes I–III

381

General Index for Volume III

384

L I S T O F I L LU S T R AT I O N S 1. Carte-de-visite photograph of Charlotte Bronte¨, 1854, inscribed on the reverse in ink, ‘Within a year of CB’s death’. Seton-Gordon Collection, SG 109(a). ß The Bronte¨ Society.

facing p. 184

2. Carte-de-visite photograph of the Revd Arthur Bell Nicholls, taken at about the time of his marriage to Charlotte Bronte¨. ß The Bronte¨ Society.

facing p. 185

3. Photograph of Ellen Nussey in old age. ß The Bronte¨ Society.

facing p. 216

4. First page of letter from A. B. Nicholls to Ellen Nussey, 31 March 1855, telling her of Charlotte Bronte¨’s death. B. S. 247.2. ß The Bronte¨ Society.

facing p. 217

All originals are owned by the Bronte¨ Society, and are in the Bronte¨ Parsonage Museum.

A B B R E V I AT I O N S A N D S Y M B O L S For books the place of publication is London unless otherwise indicated. Reference to letters in Shorter and W & S (see below) is by number, not page. AB ABN AG Allott a.l.s. AR Arbuckle ART Art of the Bronte¨s Ashton Barker BB BCP Beinecke, Yale Berg ‘Biographical Notice’

BL Boase Bon BPM Brewer Brotherton B.S. BST

BUL CB [CBN] CBCircle CBL CH CKS

Anne Bronte¨ Arthur Bell Nicholls Agnes Grey Miriam Allott, The Bronte¨s: The Critical Heritage (1974) autograph letter signed Amelia Ringrose Harriet Martineau’s Letters to Fanny Wedgwood, edited by Elisabeth Sanders Arbuckle (Stanford, Calif. 1983) Amelia Ringrose Taylor Christine Alexander and Jane Sellars, The Art of the Bronte¨s (Cambridge, 1995) Rosemary Ashton, G. H. Lewes: A Life (Oxford, 1991) Juliet R. V. Barker, The Bronte¨s (1994) Branwell Bronte¨ Book of Common Prayer The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University Library Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. . . A New Edition Revised, with a Biographical Notice of the Authors . . . by Currer Bell (Smith, Elder and Co., 1850) British Library Frederic Boase, Modern English Biography (6 vols., 1965: 2nd impression of privately printed edn., 1892–1908) Bonnell Collection, Bronte¨ Parsonage Museum, Haworth Bronte¨ Parsonage Museum, Haworth E. C. Brewer, A Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (revised and corrected by Ifor H. Evans, 1978) Brotherton Collection, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds Bronte¨ Society Bronte¨ Society Transactions. References are to volume, part, and page[s]; e.g. 17. 90. 339–40. Retitled Bronte¨ Studies from vol. 27, part 1, Mar. 2002 Birmingham University Library Charlotte Bronte¨ [Nicholls] Clement K. Shorter, Charlotte Bronte¨ and her Circle (1896) The Letters of Charlotte Bronte¨, edited by Margaret Smith (3 vols.; Oxford, 1995–2004) Constantin Heger Clement King Shorter

x Cochrane CP Dickens Letters DNB Dugdale ECG EJB EN EN Diary 1849 EVE Fitzwilliam Gaskell Further Letters Ge´rin CB GHL Gr. Graham’s Domestic Medicine GS Harden Harvard Life HM Hours at Home Huxley i.w. JE JKS Jolly Kellett Lady K-S Law-Dixon LD Letters and Memorials Life

abbreviations and symbols Margaret and Robert Cochrane, My Dear Boy: The Life of Arthur Bell Nicholls, B.A., Husband of Charlotte Bronte¨ (Beverley, 1999) The Letters of Mrs Gaskell, edited by J. A. V. Chapple and Arthur Pollard (Manchester, 1966) The Pilgrim Edition of The Letters of Charles Dickens (12 vols.; Oxford, 1965–2002) Dictionary of National Biography Thomas Dugdale, Curiosities of Great Britain: England and Wales Delineated (published in parts, c.1837–41) Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Emily Jane Bronte¨ Ellen Nussey Ellen Nussey, MS Diary, BPM Early Victorian England 1830–1865, edited by G. M. Young (2 vols.; 1934) Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Further Letters of Mrs Gaskell, edited by John Chapple and Alan Shelston (Manchester and New York, 2000) Winifred Ge´rin, Charlotte Bronte¨: The Evolution of Genius (Oxford, 1967) George Henry Lewes Grolier Collection, BPM Thomas John Graham, Modern Domestic Medicine; . . . To which is added, A Domestic Materia Medica . . . (1826) George Smith The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, edited by Edgar F. Harden (2 vols.; 1994) Second edition of Life (1857) annotated by Harriet Martineau in the Houghton Library, Harvard University MS in Huntington Library, San Marino, California Letters of CB published in Scribners’ Hours at Home, vol. xi (New York, 1870) Leonard Huxley, The House of Smith, Elder (1923) illegible word or words Jane Eyre Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth The Life and Letters of Sydney Dobell, edited by E. J. [Emily Jolly] (2 vols.; 1878) Jocelyn Kellett, Haworth Parsonage: The Home of the Bronte¨s (Haworth, 1977) Lady Kay-Shuttleworth MS formerly in the collection of Sir Alfred J. Law, at Honresfeld, Littleborough, Lancashire John Lock and W. T. Dixon, A Man of Sorrow: The Life Letters and Times of the Rev. Patrick Bronte¨ (1965) Letters and Memorials of Catherine Winkworth, ed. [Susanna Winkworth] (Clifton, 1883) E. C. Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte¨ (2 vols.; 1857) (Wrst edition unless otherwise stated)

abbreviations and symbols Life 1900 Lowell, Harvard LW Martineau Autobiography Mayhall MGC MGC Census Montague MS MT Murray MW Needham Nussey

NYPL OCEL ODEP OED Oxon Parliamentary Gazetteer PB Pegasus in Harness Pierpont Morgan PM Poems 1846 Poems 1848 Princeton, Parrish Collection Princeton, Taylor Collection Ray Letters Ray Wisdom ‘Recollections’ Regional History Rylands

xi

E. C. Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte¨, with an introduction and notes by Clement K. Shorter (Haworth Edition, 1900) Amy Lowell Collection, Harvard University Library Laetitia Wheelwright Harriet Martineau, Autobiography (3 vols., the third including memorials by Maria Weston Chapman; 1877) John Mayhall, The Annals of Yorkshire from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (2 vols.; Leeds, 1862) Mildred G. Christian Mildred G. Christian, A Census of Bronte¨ Manuscripts in the United States, in 5 parts, The Trollopian (1947–8) Montague Collection, New York Public Library Holograph manuscript Mary Taylor John Murray Archive, London Margaret Wooler Ellen Nussey’s copies of letters from CB, bought by Mrs Needham of Blackburn in 1898; now in BPM The Story of the Bronte¨s Their Home, Haunts, Friends and Works. Part Second—Charlotte’s Letters (printed for J. Horsfall Turner; Bingley, 1885–9) (The suppressed edition) New York Public Library The Oxford Companion to English Literature, edited by Margaret Drabble (Oxford, 1985) Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs (Oxford, 1970) Oxford English Dictionary J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses 1715–1886 (4 vols.; London and Oxford, 1887, 1888) The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland . . . 1843–4 (10 vols.; Dublin, London, and Edinburgh, 1844) The Revd Patrick Bronte¨ Peter L. Shillingsburg, Pegasus in Harness: Victorian Publishing and W. M. Thackeray (Charlottesville, Va., and London, 1992) Pierpont Morgan Library, New York Postmark[s] Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell [Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte¨] (Aylott and Jones, May 1846) Reissue of Poems 1846 (Smith, Elder, Oct. 1848) Morris L. Parrish Collection, Drawer A–B, Princeton University Library Robert H. Taylor Collection, Princeton University Library The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, edited by Gordon N. Ray (4 vols.; 1945) Gordon N. Ray, Thackeray: The Age of Wisdom, 1847–1863 (1958) George Smith, ‘Recollections of a long and busy life’ (typescript, National Library of Scotland MSS 23191–2) A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain (15 vols.; 1960–91) John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester

xii Rylands MS Life SE Selleck SG Shorter

Sixty Treasures Slater’s Directory þ date

Stevens Tenant TLS Texas t.p. Venn W&S

Wedderburn WH Whitehead White’s Directory þ date Widener, Harvard Wilson Victoria

Winnifrith Background Wright Wroot

WSW WYAS þ location

abbreviations and symbols E. C. Gaskell, holograph MS of The Life of Charlotte Bronte¨ in Rylands Smith, Elder and Co. R. J. W. Selleck, James Kay-Shuttleworth: Journey of an Outsider (Ilford, Essex, 1994) Seton-Gordon Collection, BPM Clement K. Shorter, The Bronte¨s: Life and Letters (2 vols.; 1908). Letters in Shorter are identiWed by their numbers. Reference to material other than letters is by volume and page. Juliet R. V. Barker, Sixty Treasures (Haworth, 1988) Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory and Topography of the Counties of Chester. . . Lancaster. . . and Yorkshire (Manchester and London, 1848) Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Bronte¨: Letters from New Zealand and Elsewhere, edited by Joan Stevens (Oxford, 1972) Anne Bronte¨, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Times Literary Supplement Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin title-page J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses 1752–1900, part 2 (6 vols.; Cambridge, 1922–54) The Bronte¨: Their Lives, Friendships and Correspondence, edited by T. J. Wise and J. A. Symington (4 vols.; Shakespeare Head Bronte¨, Oxford, 1932). Letters in W & S are identiWed by their numbers; other material is referred to by volume and page The Works of John Ruskin, Library Edition edited by E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (39 vols.; 1903) Wuthering Heights Barbara Whitehead, Charlotte Bronte¨ and her ‘Dearest Nell’ (Otley, 1993) William White, Directory and Gazetteer of Leeds, Bradford . . . and the Whole of the Clothing Districts of Yorkshire (SheYeld, 1853) Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Harvard University Library Robert Wilson, The Life and Times of Queen Victoria, with which is incorporated ‘The Domestic Life of the Queen’ by Mrs Oliphant (4 vols.; n.d.; ?1901) Tom Winnifrith, The Bronte¨s and their Background: Romance and Reality (1973) The English Dialect Dictionary, edited by Joseph Wright (6 vols.; 1898–1905) Herbert E. Wroot, Sources of Charlotte Bronte¨’s Novels: Persons and Places (Publications of the Bronte¨ Society, Supplementary Part to no. 4 of vol. 8; Shipley, 1935) William Smith Williams West Yorkshire Archive Service: repositories at Bradford, Calderdale (Halifax), Kirklees (HuddersWeld), Leeds, and WakeWeld

abbreviations and symbols Symbols <> ’’ * ** [ ] — y

xiii

Deleted in MS by author Added in MS by author Word deleted in MS by Ellen Nussey Placed before and after conjectural readings of phrases or longer passages deleted by Ellen Nussey Added by editor Digits or letters missing or obscured in postmark Northern dialectal word, form, or idiom

Unless otherwise indicated page references to novels by the Bronte¨s are to the Clarendon editions published by Oxford University Press under the general editorship of Ian Jack: Anne Bronte¨, Agnes Grey, edited by Hilda Marsden and Robert InglesWeld, 1988 Anne Bronte¨, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, edited by Herbert Rosengarten, 1992 Charlotte Bronte¨, Jane Eyre, edited by Jane Jack and Margaret Smith, 1969; revd. 1975 Charlotte Bronte¨, The Professor, edited by Margaret Smith and Herbert Rosengarten, 1987 Charlotte Bronte¨, Shirley, edited by Herbert Rosengarten and Margaret Smith, 1979 Charlotte Bronte¨, Villette, edited by Herbert Rosengarten and Margaret Smith, 1984 Emily Bronte¨, Wuthering Heights, edited by Hilda Marsden and Ian Jack, 1976. Chapter references are to editions of the Bronte¨s’ novels with continuously numbered chapters.

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I N T RO D U C T I O N 1852 By 20 November 1852 Charlotte Bronte¨ had completed the writing of Villette, but for much of the year the creative mood had deserted her. Her inability to write had intensiWed the depression caused by lingering illness in January and February, when the solitude of her position ‘fearfully aggravated its other evils’. ‘Some long, stormy days and nights there were when I felt such a craving for support and companionship as I cannot express.’1 Many of the letters of this year reveal an intense longing for companionship, sternly suppressed until company became imperative. ‘I am afraid of caring for you too much,’ Charlotte told Ellen Nussey.2 Villette’s disturbing power derives in part from similar Xuctuations between suppression and the extreme emotion of all too brief fulWlment. The storms also have their counterparts in the novel, in the tempests which ultimately reach a climax of destruction. In chapter 15, ‘The Long Vacation’, after turbulent days of ‘sounding hurricane’, Lucy Snowe has a ‘visitation from eternity. Methought the well-loved dead, who had loved me well in life, met me elsewhere, alienated.’ By 12 March 1852 Charlotte, still, like Lucy, a prey to moods of despair, had ‘not put pen to paper’ for nearly four months. ‘My publisher groans over my long delays’, she conWded to Margaret Wooler.3 She must have refrained from the ‘crusty answers’ she was tempted to give, for, surprised but surely encouraged by Smith, Elder’s proposals to reprint Shirley, and relieved by the return of tolerable health, she revised that novel between 11 and 25 March, when she sent a list of errata to W. S. Williams. In the same letter she commented appreciatively, but with reservations, on the books her publishers generously continued to lend or give to her. Julia Kavanagh’s Women of Christianity, she thought, misrepresented Protestantism. Kavanagh did not realize that it was ‘a quieter creed than Romanism’, making less display of its charities. Charlotte pursued this theme vigorously in characterizing Mme Beck in Villette. She also had the ‘rare and special’ pleasure of reading the Wrst two volumes of Thackeray’s Henry Esmond in manuscript. George Smith had secured the novel for his Wrm by oVering the generous sum of £1,200 for the Wrst edition. Charlotte enjoyed the reading, yet after all felt ‘full as much ire and sorrow as gratitude and admiration’. She admired Thackeray’s wonderful evocation of the ‘spirit and letter’ of the age of Queen Anne, but deplored his Werce pleasure in the relentless dissection of ‘diseased subjects’, and his injustice to women.4 Thackeray’s plan to publish his Lectures on the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century in volume form also elicited from her a passionate protest 1

LW 12.4.1852.

2

See e.g. EN ?26.10.1852.

3

MW 12.3.1852.

4

GS 14.2.1852.

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against the lax moral values and cynicism of Thackeray’s worship of his ‘Bee¨lzebub’, Fielding.5 This and her condemnation of Thackeray’s lecture on Richard Steele, recalled in a letter from Mrs Gaskell to John Forster of 3 May 1853, show that Branwell Bronte¨’s physical and moral degeneration had left her, as it had left Anne Bronte¨, with a burning hatred of any inXuence which might destroy a promising life. She must have resumed the writing of Villette fairly soon after 12 March. She made good enough progress to begin fair-copying the Wrst volume on 29 March, and probably continued during April. In May a letter from Mary Taylor described the death of Ellen Taylor in New Zealand. Her account ‘ripped up halfscarred wounds with terrible force’, and Mary’s fear that ‘in her dreary solitude’ she might become ‘a stern, harsh, selWsh woman’ struck home: ‘Again and again I have felt it for myself ’, she told Ellen Nussey on 4 May. A four-week visit to Filey from late May until 24 June restored Charlotte’s physical health. She walked as much as she could, and looked ‘almost as sunburnt and weatherbeaten as a Wsherman or a bathing-woman with being out in the open air’.6 But the visit intensiWed her loneliness, for both Filey and Scarborough, which she had to visit to arrange for correction of the lettering on Anne’s gravestone, recalled the desolate days of May and June 1849. In her letter of 23 June she confessed to Margaret Wooler, ‘As to my work—it has stood obstinately still for a long while . . . no spirit moves me.’ Another loss troubled her: there was no letter from James Taylor, who had visited her in April 1851 and had sailed to India leaving her in doubt about his intentions. Though she then believed she must remain single if he was the ‘only husband Fate’ oVered her, she still longed for a clearer understanding of their relationship. ‘All is silent as the grave,’ she told Ellen Nussey on 1 July 1852. James Taylor, small of stature, choleric, and intense, travelling overseas at the behest of others, perhaps inXuenced Charlotte’s portrayal of M. Paul Emanuel in Villette, though the qualities which inspire Lucy Snowe’s deep love are those of Constantin Heger. Charlotte began to write again in July, denying herself visits from friends so that she could concentrate on Villette. Her closest bond was now with her father. She had been anxious about his health when she was away from home, but revealed nothing of her own depression in her letter to him. Instead she described with wonderful vividness the ‘tumbling in of great tawny turbid waves’, and a ‘great dog’ bearing up against them ‘like a seal’. She shared with him, and by implication with his curate, her amusement at the ludicrous manœuvres of the singers and congregation in a tiny brick-Xoored church: ‘Had Mr. Nicholls been there—he certainly would have laughed out.’7 When Mr Bronte¨ suVered apoplectic symptoms in late July, she was severely shocked—the more so since they involved ‘acute inXammation of the eye’. For some days he 5

GS 11.3.1852.

6

MW 23.6.1852.

7

PB 2.6.1852.

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was in a critical state, and Charlotte’s letters convey her anxiety, and the need to conceal her worst fears from her father: ‘To tell him he had been in danger of apoplexy would almost be to kill him at once.’8 By 3 August, when her father was out of danger, Charlotte was able to resume work on Villette. Much of the second volume must have been completed and the third begun at this period. She determined that she could not indulge in the holiday of a visit from Ellen Nussey until she had done her work.9 But by 9 October, ‘excessive solitude’ pressed too heavily, the novel refused to progress, and she begged Ellen to come for ‘one reviving week’—from 15 to 22 October. Refreshed and reinvigorated, she ‘fell to work’ on 23 October, and sent the Wrst two volumes of the fair-copy manuscript to W. S. Williams on 26 October, with the cheering news that the third volume was near completion. In a personal letter to George Smith on 30 October, she told him how she ‘hungered’ for his opinion of the work: she had ‘sometimes desponded and almost despaired’ because she had no listener or adviser: ‘ ‘‘Jane Eyre’’ was not written under such circumstances, nor were two-thirds of ‘‘Shirley’’.’10 Smith must have read rapidly, for on 3 November she was relieved to have his favourable opinion. She frankly discussed the ‘angular’ transfer of John Bretton’s aVections from Ginevra Fanshawe to Paulina, and aYrmed her conviction that ‘Lucy must not marry Dr John’. On 6 November she thanked W. S. Williams for his candid ‘strictures’, but insisted that she could not pile on the agony. ‘The emotion of the book’, she claimed, was ‘kept throughout in tolerable subjection.’ Printing began almost immediately, and Charlotte was already correcting proof-sheets by 23 November. She completed the last six chapters of the novel rapidly, sending volume iii on 20 November. But she was perturbed by Smith’s delay in giving his opinion of this volume, and by the ‘crabbed’ letter she eventually received from him on her return from a visit to Ellen Nussey. Something ‘sticks confoundedly in his throat,’ she told Ellen on ?9 December. Yet she must have known what delicate ground she was treading in presenting recognizable and by no means uncritical portraits of Smith and his mother as the Brettons. If George Smith also detected in the exiling of M. Paul in the service of Mammon a likeness to his own dispatch of James Taylor to India, he might well be displeased and disturbed. He had also paid less than the £700 she and her father had expected for the novel: £500—no more than for Shirley—seemed ‘not quite equitable’. However, it was ‘not to be despised’, and Mrs Smith had written kindly to invite her to stay in London. A quite unexpected event made her willing to escape from the Parsonage for a time. Arthur Nicholls, her father’s curate, whom she had once regarded as a ‘highly uninteresting, narrow and unattractive’ specimen of the ‘coarser sex’, had suddenly revealed the ‘meaning of his constant looks—and strange, feverish 8

EN 26.7.1852.

9

EN 25.8.1852.

10

GS 30.10.1852.

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introduction

restraint’. In an intensely dramatic letter to Ellen of 15 December, she described his proposal: ‘He stopped in the passage: he tapped: like lightning it Xashed on me what was coming. He entered—he stood before me. . . . Shaking from head to foot, looking deadly pale, speaking low, vehemently yet with diYculty—he made me for the Wrst time feel what it costs a man to declare aVection where he doubts response.’11 Her account of the subsequent interview with her father conveys so forcefully his dangerous fury, threatening apoplexy—‘the veins on his temples started up like whip-cord—and his eyes became suddenly bloodshot’—that Charlotte’s promise of a ‘distinct refusal’ is seen as the only possible response at the time. Yet her father’s irrational, excessive hostility to Nicholls would ultimately be self-defeating. Charlotte’s perception of his injustice led her to pity her suitor, and she accompanied her father’s ‘most cruel note’ to him with a letter explaining that though he must ‘never’ expect her to reciprocate his feeling, she did not wish to pain him, and he must keep up ‘his courage and spirits’. Despite her pity, her longing for companionship, and her realization that she was loved, she still felt ‘a sense of incongruity and uncongeniality in feelings, tastes—principles’. Nicholls’s persistence, integrity, and unselWsh loyalty were eventually to overcome her scruples; meanwhile she welcomed and nurtured other relationships—with her women friends, and, until the summer of 1853, with George Smith. From 1852 onwards the letters bear witness to the increasingly warm friendship and mutual appreciation between Charlotte and Mrs Gaskell. Charlotte delighted in the Cranford episodes, published at intervals in Dickens’s Household Words from December 1851. She also read and admired Gaskell’s ‘noble sketch’ of the novel that would become Ruth, and was unselWshly concerned that its publication should not clash with that of Villette. Fuller texts of Charlotte’s letters to Mrs Gaskell have been provided than in previous editions. The collection of Gaskell MSS now in the John Rylands University Library in Manchester was not available to Shorter or Wise and Symington; but in the present edition the complete letter of 6 February 1852 adds to Charlotte’s account of her own severe pain and depression during the past winter, three paragraphs showing her concern for and gratitude to others—concern for Gaskell’s ‘poor little Julia’, gratitude for the kind messages of Mrs Gaskell and Mrs Davenport, for the cheering company of the Nusseys who care for her personally, not as the famous Currer Bell; and pleasure in Mrs Gaskell’s favourable opinion of the young Frank Williams, for whom Charlotte had provided an introduction. A complete letter of 22 May 1852 sets in context the two previously printed (and widely separated) fragments—Charlotte’s praise of ‘Visiting at Cranford’ (‘I wished the paper had been twice as long’) and her shyness in the company of the ‘little wonders’, Florence and Julia Gaskell. We learn that 11

EN 15.12.1852.

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Mrs Gaskell had sent a collection of her daughter Meta’s letters, and that Charlotte had enjoyed them as ‘specially conversible, companionable, interesting’, with her ‘Mamma’s gift’ of creating ‘with a few strokes’ ‘a lively little pen-andink sketch of character’. 1853 By 2 January 1853 Charlotte had realized that she would have to go to London to correct the remaining proof-sheets of Villette. ‘Papa wants me to go too—to be out of the way,’ she told Ellen. She was kindly received by the Smiths, and her time passed ‘pleasantly enough’. While she noticed that George Smith was physically showing the signs of overwork, he and his mother and sisters thought ‘Miss Bronte¨ better than we had before seen her; . . . in better health, and in much better spirits.’12 She surprised the family by choosing to visit ‘real’ rather than decorative places—prisons, the Bank, the Exchange, the Foundling and Bethlem hospitals. Meanwhile the publication of Villette was delayed until 28 January, so that it should not clash with that of Mrs Gaskell’s Ruth, on 10 January. Unsurprisingly, Villette did not take the public by storm, as Jane Eyre had done; but for several reviewers it made up for the ground lost in Shirley. The secular journals praised the ‘admirable delineation of character’, originality, passion, and power; the ‘charm of a style that never grows tame’. Harriet Martineau mingled eulogy with criticism in a long review in the Daily News for 3 February, as she did also in a private letter to Charlotte. ‘All the female characters,’ she wrote, ‘in all their thoughts and lives, are full of one thing, or are regarded by the reader in the light of that one thought—love. . . . It is not thus in real life. There are substantial, heartfelt interests for women of all ages, and under ordinary circumstances, quite apart from love.’13 Charlotte never forgave her. ‘I know what love is as I understand it—& if man or woman shd. feel ashamed of feeling such love—then is there nothing right, noble, faithful, truthful, unselWsh on this earth as I comprehend rectitude, nobleness, Wdelity, truth & disinterestedness.’14 High church reviewers, especially those in the Guardian and Christian Remembrancer, while conceding the novel’s merits, its strong, clear, and often eloquent style, hurt Charlotte in a diVerent way by criticizing her attitude to religion. She was accused of degrading Christianity to a ‘loose sentiment or feeling’, a religion without awe, of constantly quoting or playing with the sacred pages of the Bible, and (by the Remembrancer) of having been formerly ‘an alien, it might seem, from society, and amenable to none of its laws’.15 In a letter of protest to the editor, Charlotte explained that her seclusion was caused by her ‘plain duty’ as the only survivor of six children, to care for her aged father, 12 14

GS to Harriet Martineau 18.3.1853; p. 136. To Harriet Martineau [?Feb. 1853].

13

15

Allott 172–3. Allott 203.

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suVering from ‘partial privation and threatened loss of sight’. Though her protest was generally temperate in tone, it ended with the violent image of a poisoned shaft wounding the hunter’s prey—echoing the recurrent images of torture, fate, and pursuing furies, paralysing ‘chill and poison’ in Villette.16 Mrs Gaskell reported to John Forster in May 1853 that Charlotte, who had stayed with her for a week in April, was not going to write for some time; but, perhaps stimulated by the visit, Charlotte began almost immediately to draft a new story. Three fragments of ‘Willie Ellin’ survive, written in May and June. They return to the two brothers theme of the juvenilia, which she had reworked in the still-unpublished The Professor, in the fragmentary story called ‘The Moores’ or ‘John Henry’, and in Shirley. The opening episode is striking in its evocation of the divided self—an eerie vision of the self as the ‘other’. Charlotte made a last attempt to begin a new novel, ‘Emma’, on 27 November 1853. Its two chapters were to be printed in the Cornhill Magazine for April 1860, with a Wne preliminary essay by Thackeray praising Charlotte Bronte¨’s ‘noble English’ and ‘burning love of truth’. Charlotte’s adulation of Thackeray as the ‘Wrst social regenerator of the day’ had been reduced to a much more critical appraisal by 1853. Henry Esmond, she thought, was uneven: volume iii had the ‘most sparkle’, the others ‘too much history’; the real should be sparingly introduced amidst the ideal. Thackeray’s lecture on Swift had been ‘almost matchless’; but she was not enthralled by the opening chapters of his new novel, The Newcomes. Her publishers’ generous supply of new books, her friendship with Mrs Gaskell, and her reading of newspapers like the Examiner with its regular essays and reviews nevertheless continued to connect her with cultural and literary life, and to increase her critical discrimination. Julia Kavanagh’s Nathalie had impressed her in January 1851, but her recent Daisy Burns was curtly dismissed as ‘disastrous’, a tawdry deformity with no real blood or life.17 On the other hand she could thank Smith, Elder for giving her ‘Ruskin’s beautiful book’, the second volume of his magniWcent The Stones of Venice ‘so soon after’ its publication in July 1853. She also received from them Dr John Forbes’s now-forgotten Memorandums made in Ireland in the Autumn of 1852—an illustrated work which must have given her a foretaste of some of the exhilarating scenery she and Nicholls were to enjoy together during their honeymoon.18 It was probably one of the books ‘acceptable and interesting’ to her father.19 Mrs Gaskell sent a copy of Ruth to Charlotte as soon as it was published, and received two generously appreciative letters from her, praising this controversial novel’s goodness and philanthropic purpose, and delighting in the servant Sally as ‘an apple of gold’. Mr Bronte¨ also assured Mrs Gaskell that he admired her works; some he had read for himself, others were read to him by Charlotte. Thanking Mrs Gaskell for the gift of 16

17

18.7.1853.

WSW 9.3.1853.

18

GS 14.7.1853 n. 2.

19

WSW 28.5.1853.

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Cranford in volume form on 9 July 1853, she wrote, ‘I have read it over twice; once to myself, and once aloud to my Father. I Wnd it pleasurable reading—graphic, pithy, penetrating, shrewd, yet kind and indulgent.’ She also read aloud to him one of Robert Robinson’s published letters, thoughtfully sent by Mrs Gaskell after her visit to Haworth in September, and found that he could forestall her ‘in each paragraph: it seems he had read that very letter Wfty years ago at Cambridge’.20 As in 1852, letters from Charlotte to Mrs Gaskell published in the Wise and Symington edition have been supplemented or replaced by MS-based texts, which reveal more fully their mutual understanding and liking. Three fragments of letters to Gaskell have been juxtaposed in late January 1853, since they may be parts of a single letter; nine other letters are printed in full, and an unlocated letter of 25 September is noted. Mr Bronte¨’s enthusiastic encouragement of the friendship is also evident in the complete texts of his letters to Gaskell; and a fuller selection of Gaskell’s letters to John Forster and other friends (Lady Kay-Shuttleworth, Monckton Milnes, Lady Hatherton) sets the friendship, and especially Gaskell’s crucial visit to Haworth in September 1853, in context. While this friendship strengthened, others weakened in the course of the year. Personal links with Smith, Elder became more fragile. Charlotte’s correspondence with George Smith continued to be friendly, candid, and easy during the winter and spring, but Smith’s letters gradually declined in frequency. He was overworked, and, more importantly, he met the young and beautiful Elizabeth Blakeway in April, and immediately determined that she should become his wife—though he did not propose until November. Charlotte, naturally ignorant of this new preoccupation, was inevitably hurt. In a letter of June or early July, he acknowledged that in his exhaustion from overwork he had (in Charlotte’s words) turned ‘with distaste from the task of answering a friendly letter’. Replying on 3 July, she wrote: ‘Let me just say, though I say it not without pain, a correspondence which has not interest enough in itself to sustain life—ought to die.’ The complete version of this letter, like the letter from Mrs Smith in December 1853 which broke the news about her son’s ‘important step in life’—his engagement—was unknown before 1970, when most of the original MSS of the Smith correspondence were given to the BPM. They included Charlotte’s extraordinarily curt note of ‘congratulation’ to Smith of ?10 December. It followed an almost equally ungracious note to W. S. Williams of 6 December, telling him not ‘to select or send any more books’. In this year there was also an almost unprecedented rift in the friendship between Charlotte and Ellen Nussey. It was caused by Ellen’s irrational and excessive jealousy of Charlotte’s rapprochement with Arthur Nicholls, revealed 20

ECG 15.11.1853.

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to her when she stayed at Haworth from 30 June until early July 1853. In his desperation after the debacle of December 1852, Nicholls had applied to become a missionary to Australia, withdrawn his application, moved instead to a curacy at Kirk Smeaton, begun a secret correspondence with Charlotte, hovered near Haworth during his visits to the area, and convinced her of his unselWsh devotion. With great diYculty she won her father’s permission for the correspondence to continue, and by the end of June she was willing to contemplate marriage with him. Ellen’s furious reaction must have caused her to speak unforgivably. Mary Taylor’s response to a complaining letter from Ellen reveals plainly enough what cause Charlotte had for the ensuing breach: ‘You talk wonderful nonsense abt C. Bronte¨ in yr letter. What do you mean about ‘‘bearing her position so long, & enduring to the end’’? & still better—‘‘bearing our lot whatever it is’’. If its C’s lot to be married shd n’t she bear that too? . . . How wd. she be inconsistent with herself in marrying? . . . It is an outrageous exaction to expect her to give up her choice in a matter so important.’21 Charlotte’s feeling of loneliness pervades her letters after 12 December, when she felt distanced from her London friends as well as from Ellen. Longing to end the estrangement, but hardly knowing how, she reXected on the self-discipline which kept other solitary people like Margaret Wooler serene and unsoured. It is evident that neither Charlotte nor Ellen had yet broken their silence. A letter dated by Charlotte simply ‘Thursday Morng’ is dated by Wise and Symington ‘[October 6th, 1853]’, halfway through the estrangement; but there is no manuscript evidence for this. The paper used suits a date before June 1853, as does the friendly tone of the letter, which gives no hint of alienation. I have tentatively dated it in early May 1853, where it forms part of a coherent sequence of letters. 1854 Charlotte’s correspondence during 1854 reveals her cherishing of friendships which helped to Wll the void caused by the virtual severance of her ties with her publishers. The satisfaction of discussing with W. S. Williams and George Smith the books she had read was no longer hers, but she could still write in keen appreciation of Mrs Gaskell’s work: ‘Morton Hall’ was ‘capitally told’, Charlotte assured her, in a letter not previously published in full;22 and she wrote sympathetically of Gaskell’s diYculties with Dickens over the serialization of North and South. An important letter to Gaskell of 30 September 1854, represented by no more than fragments in previous editions, shows Charlotte’s sensitive reaction to the chapters venturing on the ‘thorny’ ground of Mr Hale’s leaving the Church of England, her realization that it was not an 21

MT to EN 24.2–3.3.1854.

22

ECG ?early Jan. 1854.

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attack on the Church, and her praise of Gaskell’s understanding of ‘the Genius of the North’. She responded conscientiously to less congenial acquaintances, sending to Sydney Dobell a carefully phrased critique of his monstrous ‘spasmodic’ poem Balder, encouraging him to believe that he would one day set his critics right in the second part of the poem. In two previously unpublished letters of 22 February and 17 March 1854 she courteously agreed to look over some poems by the young Henry Garrs, (a brother of the former parsonage servants Sarah and Nancy Garrs), praised his thoughts, and pointed out where his ‘execution’ was defective. Charlotte’s own creative impulse seems to have been dormant until the very end of 1854. In her personal life, however, there was a renaissance. The year began inauspiciously with her father’s continuing refusal to countenance her marriage to Arthur Nicholls. Charlotte’s letter to Ellen Nussey of 11 April 1854 recounts the gradual progress of the courtship, and Mr Bronte¨’s eventual capitulation. Though she makes clear how hostile and ‘bitterly unjust’ her father had been, it is a brief and fairly restrained account, perhaps to make her changed fortune and her engagement more palatable to Ellen, only recently reconciled after the long estrangement. Charlotte, encouraged by Margaret Wooler, had taken the initiative in healing the breach. When Charlotte visited Mrs Gaskell in May 1854 she gave a much more dramatic account of her deWance of her father, and her eventual victory. Gaskell reported the conversation with relish in a letter to John Forster of ?17 May: ‘She said ‘‘Father I am not a young girl, not a young woman even—I never was pretty. I now am ugly. . . . do you think there are many men who would serve seven years for me?’’ . . . For a week he never spoke to her. . . . Then the old servant interfered, and asked him, sitting blind & alone, ‘‘if he wished to kill his daughter?’’ . . . And so it has ended where it has done.’23 Charlotte also frankly acknowledged her reservations about Mr Nicholls to Mrs Gaskell and Catherine Winkworth, for she recognized the diVerence between his high church rigidity and her own tolerance. One of her most vigorous letters on the subject, written to Mrs Gaskell on 26 April 1854, and printed in BST (1952), 12. 62. 123, was not included in the Wise and Symington edition. It shows a Wne blending of amusement and serious respect which augurs well for her marriage: ‘I had a little talk with him about my ‘‘latitudinarianism’’ and his opposite quality. He did not bristle up at all—nor feel stiV and unmanageable—he only groaned a little over something in ‘‘Shirley’’ . . . Yet if he is indulgent to some points in me—I shall have carefully to respect certain reverse points in him. . . . But I will not be a bigot.’ The climax of the year was of course Charlotte’s marriage to Nicholls on 29 June. In a recently discovered letter-fragment, probably written in early June, she gives a spirited account of her purchase of the wedding-dress: ‘white I had to 23

See pp. 261–2.

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buy and did buy to my own amazement—but I took care to get it in cheap material—there were some insinuations about silk . . . but I stuck convulsively to muslin.’ The letters she wrote during her honeymoon convey with wonderful vividness her sense of discovery—of the kindness and quiet ‘English’ manners of Nicholls’s family, of their aVection and high esteem for her husband, of the splendid scenery in Wales ‘surpassing anything I remember of the English Lakes’, and of the ‘battling of waves with rocks’ oV the ‘wild, iron-bound coast’ at Kilkee in Ireland, such as she had never imagined. Even more important were the discoveries she made about her husband: like her, he could ‘laugh instead of grumbling’ at the deWciencies of Kilkee’s ‘splendidly designated’ West End Hotel; like her, he rejoiced ‘to sit on a rock’, watch ‘the broad Atlantic boiling & foaming at our feet’, and allow Charlotte also to look and be silent. Her narrow escape from death when she fell from her unruly horse, and felt it ‘kick, plunge, trample’ round her, left Charlotte ‘full of gratitude for more sakes’ than her own for her survival. Above all, she realized that Nicholls’s ‘kind and ceaseless protection’ had ‘ever surrounded her’. Even though secure in this knowledge, she was uneasy because her father had not been well. She had ‘been longing, longing intensely sometimes, to be at home. Indeed, I could enjoy and rest no more, and so home we are going.’24 Once at home, she was relieved to Wnd that her father recovered fairly soon, and that the ‘understanding’ between him and her husband seemed excellent. In gratitude for the parishioners’ ‘hearty welcome’ on their return to Haworth, she and her husband asked 500 people ‘to Tea and Supper in the school-room’, and Charlotte was touched by praise of her husband as ‘a consistent Christian and a kind gentleman’.25 Though she found new demands on her time, and assured Ellen that marriage was ‘a solemn and strange and perilous thing’, her happiness, trust, and ever-deepening aVection for Nicholls are touchingly evident in the letters written during her all too short married life. ‘He is well—thank God—and so am I—and he is ‘‘my dear boy’’ certainly—dearer now than he was six months ago’, she told Ellen on 26 December. Near the close of 1854 she began to share her life as a writer with him, for he recalled how she read aloud the two chapters of her ‘Emma’, one evening as they sat ‘by the Wre listening to the howling of the wind about the house’. ‘The critics will accuse you of repetition,’ he remarked, and her reply showed that she intended to go on writing: ‘Oh! I shall alter that. I always begin two or three times before I can please myself.’26 It was inevitable that Charlotte’s relationship with Ellen should change. When she wrote freely to Ellen about Amelia Taylor’s ‘fancies’, or warned Ellen that if she heard Robert Clapham disparage single women, she would ‘go oV like a bomb-shell’, Nicholls was hovering near and ‘glancing over this note’. Ellen must burn the letter when she had read it, he insisted, ‘or ‘‘there will be no 24

EN [?28.7.1854].

25

MW 22.8.1854.

26

Cornhill Magazine, i (1860), 486.

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27

more’’ ’. Charlotte couldn’t help laughing—‘this seems to me so funny’. But on 31 October Charlotte reported that Arthur required Ellen to give ‘a plain pledge’ to burn her letters. Ellen thereupon pledged herself to their destruction provided that Nicholls pledged himself to ‘no censorship in the matter communicated’.28 Nicholls agreed to the condition, and Charlotte wrote ‘Arthur thanks you for the promise’. Ellen had been displaced from her privileged position as Charlotte’s most intimate friend, and the grudge which she nursed against Nicholls was to become an obsession with her in later years. In the letters from Charlotte (obviously still unburnt) that she edited for production by Horsfall Turner in the 1880s, and later for publication by C. K. Shorter, Ellen made sure that her pledge was concealed: the relevant sentence was printed as ‘Arthur wishes you would burn my letters’, and ‘censorship’ became ‘authorship’. Wise and Symington retained these doctored texts. However fortunate for posterity the survival of most of Charlotte’s letters to her may be, Ellen’s own later censorship, ironically enough, was responsible for the prolonged and serious distortion of the historical record. As Ellen herself wrote in a letter of 31 March 1897, complaining about the ‘sins’ of the Bronte¨ Society, ‘People are very apt to forget that Truth in the long run asserts itself & they cannot escape it.’ Meanwhile, in November 1854, Charlotte enjoyed ‘inexpressibly’ a walk over the moors with her husband, rejoicing in the sight of the waterfall, ‘a perfect torrent raving over the rocks white and bountiful’, and returning home ‘under a streaming sky’.29 ‘I did not achieve the walk to the waterfall with impunity— though I changed my wet things immediately on returning home,’ Charlotte admitted on 7 December, ‘yet I felt a chill afterwards, and the same night had sore throat and cold—however I am better now—but not quite well.’ She probably improved later in December, for on 19 January 1855 she told Ellen that her health had been ‘really very good’ till about ten days ago. Indeed, in November 1854 she had been willing to visit Ellen’s home at Brookroyd despite reports of Mercy Nussey’s illness. Fortunately Mr Nicholls did not allow her to do so, for (as Margaret Wooler informed them), Mercy had been suVering from typhus fever. Charlotte was anxious about her, and about Joe Taylor, who was seriously ill. Her concerned, loving letters to Joe’s wife were to continue in the early months of 1855. 1855 Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth had invited the Nichollses to visit Gawthorpe in January. Charlotte, gratiWed by his appreciation of her husband, accepted the invitation; they travelled by train on 9 January, and stayed two or three days.30 Mrs Gaskell writes that while at Gawthorpe ‘she increased her lingering cold, by 27 29

EN ?20.10.1854. EN 29.11.1854.

28 30

EN to ABN [Nov. 1854] p. 297. JKS 5.1.1855.

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a long walk over damp ground in thin shoes’.31 Whether this was so or not, it must have been on the day she travelled to Gawthorpe that Charlotte Wrst experienced what were for her quite unusual symptoms: ‘The stomach seemed quite suddenly to lose its tone—indigestion and continual faint sickness have been my portion ever since,’ she wrote to Ellen on 19 January. ‘Don’t conjecture—dear Nell—for it is too soon yet—though I certainly never before felt as I have done lately.’ Like her father and the Parsonage servant Martha Brown, Charlotte clearly thought she might be pregnant. It was Mr Bronte¨ who wrote to Sir James on 3 February, after she had been ‘conWn’d to her bed’ for several days, that the Bradford physician Dr Macturk and the village surgeon ‘both think her sickness is symptomatic—and that after a few weeks they hope her health, will again return’.32 Despite her continuing illness and increasing emaciation, most of her letters in February dwell on her husband’s care rather than her own suVerings: ‘No kinder better husband than mine it seems can there be in the world,’ she told Laetitia Wheelwright on 15 February. ‘I do not want now for kind companionship in health and the tenderest nursing in sickness.’ But by the end of the month she could not conceal her distress. Her last letters, written from her ‘weary bed’, are inWnitely touching in their faint, pitifully uneven pencil writing: ‘Let me speak the plain truth—my suVerings are very great—my nights indescribable—sickness with scarce a reprieve—I strain until what I vomit is mixed with blood.’ Yet she remembers to send a prayer for Joe Taylor and for ‘all of us health strength—comfort’.33 She still believed she was pregnant. Knowing that Mary Hewitt had a diYcult pregnancy before giving birth to her son Edward, she asked ‘about Mrs. Hewitt’s case, how long she was ill and in what way’, and was grateful for her ‘sensible clear letter’ when Ellen forwarded it in early March.34 There was a brief improvement for two days in March during the only mild weather in a winter and spring of exceptional severity, ‘cold, nipping, and miserable beyond record’.35 On 15 March Mr Nicholls had to write on Charlotte’s behalf to say that the ‘bad weather’ had thrown her back; and in the early morning of 31 March she died. We shall never know for certain whether the ‘phthisis’—the wasting to which her death was attributed by Dr Ingham on the death certiWcate—had been caused by, or was a concomitant of, pregnancy. If it was, she might have suVered from hyperemesis gravidarum, the excessive sickness during pregnancy fatal to one of her delicate build when eVective treatment was unknown. The bereaved father and husband were united in their grief. Arthur Nicholls proved himself worthy of Charlotte’s trust and love, fulWlling for the rest of Mr Bronte¨’s life her dearest wish that he would be a ‘devoted and reliable’ assistant to her father. 31 33 35

32 Life ii. 321. Not in W & S; inaccurate version of part of the letter in LD 474–5. 34 Amelia Taylor ?late Feb. 1855. EN c.21.2.1855, ?early Mar. 1855. Annual Register (1855), ‘Chronicle’, p. 1.

THE MANUSCRIPTS Most of the surviving holograph MSS of Charlotte Bronte¨’s letters have been well preserved. A few have been damaged in the past by clumsy mounting or unsuitable storage, but most of these have been conserved by modern methods and are accessible and legible. Charlotte normally wrote in ink which has faded to a light or medium brown, and used a clear cursive hand. The few exceptions are described in the notes. She rarely gave a full address at the beginning of a letter, but most often signed her name formally as C Bronte¨, Currer Bell, C Bell, or (after her marriage) C B Nicholls. In letters to Ellen Nussey she sometimes used Charlotte, CB, or a nickname. Her deletions consist of straight strokes, scribbles, or very occasionally more thorough deletion with the addition of extra ascenders and descenders. Most of the heavy deletions in darker ink were made by Ellen Nussey, who also scraped out parts of some names of people or places. Some letters have been mutilated for the sake of the signatures. Charlotte Bronte¨ naturally wrote more neatly or formally to some correspondents than others, but the development of her handwriting may be roughly divided into four periods. 1829–37: a carefully formed, fairly well-spaced copperplate style, sloping to the right, with elongated ascenders and descenders, usually written with a Wnepointed pen. A Wnal ‘d’ is not usually looped back, ‘y’ may be Wnished with either a narrow downward loop or a long shallow backward curve. A long ‘s’ is habitually used in the address for the Wrst ‘s’ in ‘Miss’ and ‘Nussey’, and occasionally elsewhere. Letters in this and, less often, in later periods, may be wholly or partly cross-written. The size of the writing is appropriate to the paper used: normally large double sheets of watermarked wove or laid, with an average leaf-size of about 186 mm.  228 mm. Smaller double sheets of watermarked paper c.113 mm.  185 mm. were used between June and October 1836. 1838–40: the gradual development of a more loosely formed, bolder, irregular hand, retaining long ascenders and descenders, and often with wider spacing between lines and words. Thicker pens and darker ink may be used. A Wnal ‘y’ may be Wnished with a straight descender, a smooth backward curve, or an angled hook. The ascender of a Wnal ‘d’ may be straight or looped backward. Letters of late 1839 and early 1840 are often noticeably untidy. The long ‘s’ is retained in ‘Miss’ and ‘Nussey’. A smaller, neater version of this hand develops towards the end of 1840. Large double sheets of unwatermarked paper range from a leaf-size of c.183 mm.  224 mm. to c.204 mm.  258 mm. 1841–3: a transition from a small but slightly irregular and disjointed hand with occasional blotted loops to a neat, regularly sloped, very small, clear style. The tail of a Wnal ‘y’ may be sharply angled, or have a narrow loop. Medial and Wnal

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‘d’ are often neatly curved backward, an initial ‘d’ may also have a full round loop formed anti-clockwise and recrossing the stem to link with the next letter. The long ‘s’ is retained in ‘Miss’ in a formal address, as it would be in almost all remaining letters to the end of Charlotte’s life; but by the end of 1842 ‘Nussey’ usually lacks the long ‘s’. The paper size varies according to whether Charlotte was away from home or not, but typically consists of double sheets of unwatermarked wove with an average leaf-size of c.114  188 mm. A few large or watermarked papers were used. 1844–55: the handwriting has settled into more or less its Wnal form by 1844–5. It is usually small, Xuent, even, slightly and regularly sloped to the right, written with a Wne nib, and with most ascenders and descenders pleasantly proportioned and harmoniously related to the Xow of the script. Hasty notes to Ellen Nussey may be less regular. Sharply angled ‘y’ tails give place on the whole to a wider angle or smoother curve, but the curving stroke may be prolonged backward to the beginning of a word or beyond. The looped-back ‘d’ continues and may be a loosely formed open letter; Wnal ‘d’ may be a straight ascender, or it may loop or curve back towards the beginning of a word. Small double sheets of unwatermarked cream paper are the norm in this period with leaf-sizes ranging from c.91  138 mm. to 117  186 mm., but there are occasional sequences of watermarked laid paper, or of double sheets with distinctive embossed devices on the Wrst leaf. After the deaths of Branwell and Emily, and for a year after Anne Bronte¨’s death, greyish black-bordered mourning stationery is normally but not invariably used. It should be emphasized that there are exceptional handwriting styles and types of paper in all periods. See the examples of handwriting illustrated in Volume I of these Letters between pages 318 and 319.

T E X T UA L P O L I C Y The aim has been to include all known letters to or from Charlotte Bronte¨, together with a selection of contemporary letters and other material referring to her or illuminating her own references. Wherever possible, texts are based on original holograph manuscripts. Most transcriptions have been made from (or checked against) the manuscripts, and the rest from photocopies. Letters for which the manuscripts have not been traced are based on secondary sources: copy manuscripts, quotations from or transcriptions in printed sources, summaries or references in sale catalogues or elsewhere. As with all such material, complete Wdelity to the original manuscript cannot be assumed. The relative value of the major secondary sources has been indicated in the introductory history of the letters in Volume I of these Letters. Composite texts have been produced where individual secondary texts appear to be incomplete, and where variants may derive from the original manuscript. A note on the text gives the source of such variants. No attempt has been made to list all variants between secondary sources. Where two secondary texts are substantially the same, the earlier is normally preferred. Fragmentary letters and references to missing letters are placed in the main chronological sequence if an approximate date can be provided. Undatable fragments and references are printed together at the end of Volume III. Appendix VIII provides a list of forgeries. Most letters written before and some written after 1840 were sent folded and sealed, with the address of the recipient on the outer fold. Addresses so written are described as ‘integral’ in the notes. Letters written during and after 1840 could be enclosed in envelopes. A few manuscript letters are accompanied by their original envelopes. The BPM, West Yorkshire archives (Kirklees), and some private owners have separate collections of envelopes, many of them annotated by Ellen Nussey. These have been matched with the appropriate letters wherever possible, using evidence derived from paper, size, stamps, seals, wafers, postmarks, address, or annotation. Format and Conventions The heading of each letter is given in a standardized form. Letters from Charlotte Bronte¨ are headed ‘To [recipient]’, with the date. The heading of a letter from any other person begins with the name of the sender, as for example ‘Emily J. Bronte¨ to Ellen Nussey’. A reference in the notes to ‘EN 15.4.1839’ signiWes a letter from CB to Ellen Nussey. Date: dates provided by the author are included in the heading of the letter in a standardized form, and are not repeated in the text unless they occur between

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textual policy

the body of the letter and a postscript. Dates derived from postmarks or other reasonably reliable evidence are given in square brackets. A query is used to indicate dates derived from handwriting, paper, watermarks, separate envelopes, from the content of the letter, or from external sources, such as Ellen Nussey’s diaries and letters to other friends, or the diary papers written by Emily and Anne Bronte¨. Evidence for the suggested date is given in a note where necessary. The sender’s address is recorded before the letter in the form in which it occurs in the MS. If no address is given in the MS, the probable place of origin is given in square brackets. Source: If the holograph manuscript has been located, it is the source of the text, and is identiWed after each letter. For ease of reference the number of the letter in the Wise and Symington edition of 1932 is given, if a version or part of the letter appears there. A page reference to the Wrst publication, if any, is given for letters not in W & S. The source of a letter for which the manuscript has not been located is given in a note on the text. See below. The recipient’s address is given after the letter if there is manuscript evidence for it, along with postmarks if any. Contemporary annotations by recipients or owners of manuscripts such as Ellen Nussey or A. B. Nicholls are recorded. Other annotations such as postage costs, library reference numbers, and descriptions are normally omitted. Notes on the text are given for obscure or mutilated manuscripts, and for letters not based on holograph manuscripts, to explain the choice of copy-text[s] and the inclusion of variants if any. Here and throughout the notes letters in Shorter and W & S are identiWed by their numbers, other material by volume and page. Spelling: archaic or irregular spellings are recorded as written, without ‘sic’, provided their meaning is recognizable. Forms such as ‘Mr’, ‘Esqr’ have been standardized to ‘Mr.’, ‘Esqr.’. Abbreviated words are so recorded if they are readily comprehensible (‘Yrs’, ‘aVectly’) but are expanded if not (‘ev[enin]g’, ‘morn[in]g’). Initials used for proper names are expanded on their Wrst use in a letter, but retained thereafter. Capital initials are retained where they are clearly intentional. Punctuation: authorial punctuation is followed as faithfully as possible. Alterations or additions, indicated by square brackets, are occasionally made in order to prevent misunderstanding or confusion. Where CB fails to supply a full-stop, a longer-than-usual space between words indicates the appropriate sentence division. Lacunae: words or single letters inadvertently omitted by the writer are supplied in square brackets. Lacunae caused by the mutilation, repair, or imperfect mounting of a manuscript are indicated by ‘[ . . . ]’. Conjectural readings may be supplied in square brackets. Notes give the reason for the

textual policy

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lacunae and if necessary the source of the material supplied. Omissions in a text based on a secondary source are indicated by ‘ . . . ’. Additions and Deletions: authorial additions or insertions in MSS are enclosed within ’ ’. Other additions are given in square brackets. Matter deleted by the author is enclosed within angle brackets < >. Proper names and short phrases in letters to Ellen Nussey which have been wholly or partly deleted by her are preceded by a single asterisk, with the addition of a query if her deletion makes the reference uncertain. Longer phrases or passages deleted by Ellen Nussey are enclosed within pairs of asterisks (** **) and the readings given must be assumed to be conjectural. A note is given when the obliteration is exceptionally thorough or confusing. The suggested readings of such passages derive from the visible shapes of letters, word divisions indicated by varying density of deletion, diVering ink colours, and context. Deciphering has occasionally been assisted by the use of a light-table or ultra-violet light. References: the place of publication of books referred to in the notes is London unless otherwise indicated. Volume Division: the present volume is the third of three. Each volume includes biographical notes and a chronology appropriate to the period covered, and an index. A cumulative index of correspondents is provided in this volume.

A C H R O N O LO G Y O F C H A R LOT T E B R O N T E¨ 1 8 5 2 – 1 8 5 5 1852

January–February ?27 January–11 February 12 March 11–25 March 29 March c.27 May–24 June 23 June July–September

?15–22 October 23 October 26 October 20 November c. 20 November ?24 November–8 December November–December 13 December

1853

5 January–2 February 27 January 28 January February–April ?late March 21–8 April 25 April 28 April–?4 May 27 May May–late June early June

30 June–early July

CB still suVering from the eVects of a ‘low nervous fever’ and mercury poisoning. She gradually recovers CB with the Nusseys at Brookroyd Villette does not progress: CB has not ‘put pen to paper’ for nearly four months CB revises Shirley for a second edition She begins to write a fair copy of vol. i of Villette CB at CliV House, Filey Villette has stood still ‘for a long while’ CB resumes work on Villette, but Wnds her life is ‘a pale blank’. She is worried by her father’s apoplectic symptoms in July–August EN at the Parsonage The creative mood returns; CB writes rapidly CB sends Villette MSS vols. i and ii to Smith, Elder CB sends Villette MS vol. iii to Smith, Elder Second edition of Shirley published, dated 1853 on t.p. CB with the Nusseys at Brookroyd CB correcting proof-sheets of Villette A. B. Nicholls proposes marriage. Mr Bronte¨’s hostile reaction and apoplectic symptoms make it impossible for CB to accept the proposal CB’s last visit to London; she stays with the Smiths, correcting the proofs of Villette Gift-copies of Villette sent out Villette by Currer Bell published in three volumes by Smith, Elder and Co. Reviews of Villette are on the whole favourable, except for those in the high church journals CB declines to visit Harriet Martineau, and breaks oV her friendship CB visits Mrs Gaskell in Manchester With the Gaskells, CB sees Twelfth Night CB with the Nusseys at Brookroyd Mr Nicholls leaves Haworth for the south of England, before taking up his curacy at Kirk Smeaton, Yorks. CB writes three draft MS fragments of a story, ‘Willie Ellin’ CB’s inXuenza, tic douleureux, and headaches cause the postponement of Mrs Gaskell’s visit to Haworth Mr Bronte¨ has an ‘attack’ which causes temporary blindness Ellen Nussey visits the Parsonage

a c h r o n o l o g y o f c h a r l o t t e b r o n t E¨ July 1853–late February 1854 August

?13–16 September 19–?23 September ?6–13 October 27 November 10 December 1854

January 21 February 3–8 April 1–4 May 4–8 May 8–11 May 29 June 29 June–4 July 4–7 July

7 July

18 July 27 July

28 July 1 August 21 September–early October 11–13 November

1855

9–?12 January c.9 January 19 January 29 January 30 January

xxxiii

Ellen’s antagonism to the idea of CB marrying Mr Nicholls causes estrangement between her and CB. CB spends a week with Joseph Taylor and his family, travelling to Scotland and returning with them to Ilkley, Yorks. CB in Ilkley Mrs Gaskell visits Haworth Parsonage CB stays with Margaret Wooler in Hornsea, Yorks. CB writes ‘Emma’, the opening chapters of a new novel CB writes a brief, cool, note congratulating George Smith on his engagement to Elizabeth Blakeway Mr Nicholls spends ten days near Haworth By this date CB has written to Ellen Nussey after hearing of her illness Mr Nicholls near Haworth. He and CB become engaged CB’s last visit to the Gaskells in Manchester CB with the Taylors at Hunsworth CB with the Nusseys at Brookroyd CB and Nicholls marry at Haworth and begin their honeymoon journey They travel to and stay at Conwy and Bangor, North Wales They travel to Holyhead, cross the Irish Channel to Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), and go on to Dublin, where they spend two days With three of ABN’s relatives, they travel to Banagher, King’s County (OValy), where they are welcomed by ABN’s Aunt Harriette Bell and her family at Cuba House They have left Banagher in order to travel to Limerick and Kilkee, County Clare They have reached Cork, after visiting Tarbert, Tralee, Killarney (where Charlotte narrowly escapes death in the Gap of Dunloe), and GlengariV They have returned to Dublin, from where they will travel back to Haworth In Haworth Ellen Nussey visits the Parsonage Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth visits the Parsonage and oVers ABN the living of Padiham, near Gawthorpe Hall. ABN declines the oVer The Nichollses stay at Gawthorpe, where CBN takes ‘a long walk over damp ground in thin shoes’ CBN begins to experience indigestion and sickness, and to grow thin CBN writes to postpone a visit to Brookroyd She has been conWned to bed for some days Amos Ingham of Haworth and Dr Macturk of Bradford both think Charlotte’s sickness and indisposition are ‘symptomatic’ (of pregnancy?). Macturk predicts an illness ‘of some duration’ but ‘no immediate danger’

x x x iv

a c h r o n o l o g y o f c h a r l o t t e b r o n t E¨ 14 February 17 February late February ?early March 15 March 31 March

4 April 16 June

By this date CBN is completely prostrated ‘with weakness and sickness and frequent fever’ The Parsonage servant Tabitha Aykroyd dies. She is buried on 21 February CBN is suVering ‘sickness with scarce a reprieve’ CBN is somewhat better for two days, but her ‘skeleton emaciation’ continues unchanged She is very ill CBN dies at Haworth, of phthisis according to the death certiWcate, but possibly of hyperemesis gravidarum, excessive sickness during pregnancy CBN is buried in Haworth church Mr Bronte¨ asks Mrs Gaskell to write an account of Charlotte’s life, with ‘some remarks on her works’. She agrees, and begins to gather materials for the Life, which will be published by Smith, Elder in 1857, followed by The Professor, A Tale by Currer Bell, in two volumes.

B I O G R A P H I C A L N OT E The Revd Arthur Bell Nicholls, 6 January 1819–2 December 1906 Arthur Bell Nicholls was Mr Bronte¨’s curate from May 1845 to 1861, and Charlotte’s husband for a tragically short time, from 29 June 1854 until her death on 31 March 1855.1 He was born in Killead, County Antrim, one of ten children of a Presbyterian farmer, William Nichols or Nicholl[s], and his wife Margaret, ne´e Bell, an Anglican. In 1825 Arthur and his brother Alan were sent to the care of their uncle Alan Bell, headmaster of the Royal Free School at Banagher, King’s County (now OValy). They lived in Dr Bell’s home, the impressive Georgian Cuba House, were brought up as Anglicans, and received a classical education at the school. Dr Bell presumably paid Arthur’s fees when he was admitted as a pensioner to Trinity College Dublin on 4 July 1836. He matriculated in January 1837, but, for some unknown reason, did not graduate until February 1844, when he obtained a second-class BA and a ‘Testimonium’ in Divinity. He eventually sought a ‘Title for Orders’ in England, possibly through advertisement in the Ecclesiastical Gazette. He was ordained deacon at LichWeld on 18 May 1845, and licensed to the curacy of Haworth on 5 June 1845, having already oYciated there on 25, 28, and 29 May. Charlotte commented: ‘He appears a respectable young man, reads well, and I hope will give satisfaction.’ On 30 January 1854 Richard Monckton Milnes described him in a letter to Elizabeth Gaskell as ‘a strong-built, somewhat hard-featured man, with a good deal of Celtic sentiment about his manner & voice—quite of the type of the Northern Irishmen’. Mr Nicholls’s religious views are probably reXected in the devotional works he acquired in 1848: sermons by Dr William Beveridge and selected works by Dr William Hall, reprinted and published by the Religious Tract Society; and The Churchman’s Companion (SPCK, 1845). SigniWcantly, in or after 1848, that year of Bronte¨ deaths, Mr Nicholls turned down the corner of a page in Dr Hall’s ‘Devout Meditations on Death’. His competence in the Classics is implied by William Cartman’s gift of a 1671 Elzevir printing of Valerii Maximi—Dictorum Factorumque Memorabilium Libri IX. On the other hand Nicholls’s copy of Cranford reminds one that his customary gravity could give way to mirth. His Haworth landlady, Martha Brown’s mother, ‘heard him giving vent to roars of laughter as he sat alone [reading Shirley]—clapping his hands and stamping on the Xoor. . . . he triumphed in his own character’ (EN ?28.1.1850). 1

A version of this Biographical Note also appears in Christine Alexander and Margaret Smith, The Oxford Companion to the Bronte¨s (Oxford, 2003).

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biographical note

Fortunately Charlotte’s portrayal of him as ‘Mr Macarthey’ (‘Macarthur’ in the Shirley manuscript) is benign. ‘Decent, decorous, and conscientious’, he ‘laboured faithfully in the parish: the schools, both Sunday and day-schools, Xourished under his sway’ (ch. 37). The truth of this portrait is attested in the parish registers, where his name as oYciating minister appears so frequently, and in the formal reference given by Joseph Grant in January 1853: through Nicholls’s work and inXuence, Haworth National School scholars had increased from sixty to between two and three hundred, church attendance was up sixfold, and in the nearby village of Stanbury a schoolroom and place of worship had been erected. Mr Nicholls also supported public-spirited eVorts such as Mr Bronte¨’s petition to the General Board of Health on 29 August 1849. In Shirley Charlotte qualiWes her praise of ‘Macarthey’ by good-humoured mockery of his ‘proper, steady-going, clerical faults . . . Wnding himself invited to tea with a Dissenter would unhinge him for a week . . . the thought of an unbaptized fellow-creature being interred with Christian rites . . . could make strange havoc in Mr. Macarthey’s physical and mental economy; otherwise, he was sane and rational, diligent and charitable.’ There is a hint here of the narrowness and Puseyite tendencies which later troubled Charlotte, since she feared they might inhibit her friendship with the Unitarian Gaskells. These tendencies, and his generally reserved, stiV manner, did not endear him to the parishioners, though there were stories of his kindness to individuals, and he visited poor parishioners almost every afternoon. After his successful campaign in 1847 against the Haworth women’s custom of drying washing in the churchyard, Charlotte ruefully noted that many parishioners wished he would not return after his holiday in Ireland. In July 1851, however, she observed a change in his customary behaviour; he was ‘good—mild and uncontentious’ when he took tea at the Parsonage. A year later, in a letter from Filey to her father of 2 June 1852, she sent the Wrst of several friendly messages to Nicholls, with the comment that she was sure he would ‘laugh out’ at the ‘ludicrous’ behaviour of the singers in the mouldy, decayed church she had visited. But at home she began to observe with ‘dim misgivings’ his low spirits, ‘threats of expatriation’, ‘constant looks at her, and ‘strange, feverish restraint’. They culminated in his proposal on 13 December 1852, when, ‘shaking from head to foot, looking deadly pale’ he made her feel ‘what it costs a man to declare aVection where he doubts response’ (EN 15.12.1852). In this and in her subsequent letters Charlotte describes the aftermath—Mr Bronte¨’s apoplectic fury, her refusal, Nicholls’s misery, and his decision to leave Haworth. In January 1853 he wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, oVering himself as a missionary to the Australian Colonies of Sydney, Melbourne, or Adelaide. Mr Bronte¨, one of six referees who praised his character and conduct, admitted that he had behaved ‘wisely, soberly, and piously’, and was ‘sound and orthodox’ in principles. Though invited for an interview, he

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xxxvii

changed his mind by 26 February, postponed his decision, then gave a return of his rheumatism as the reason for withdrawing his application. He remained miserable and touchy, and he broke down completely when he took the Whitsunday Communion service in the presence of Charlotte and a crowded congregation; but when questioned he told the churchwardens that his imminent departure was his own fault, not Mr Bronte¨’s. On 25 May 1853 sympathetic parishioners presented him with a gold watch as a farewell gift. On 26 May Charlotte saw him lingering at the Parsonage gate after handing over the National School deeds to Mr Bronte¨: going out, she found him in a ‘paroxysm of anguish’ and let him know she was not ‘cruelly blind and indiVerent to his constancy and grief ’. His duties were to be taken by the unsatisfactory George De Renzy, while he became curate to the Revd Thomas Cator, MA (1790–1864), at Kirk Smeaton near Pontefract. His letters to Charlotte, at Wrst unanswered, eventually led to their clandestine correspondence, meetings when he stayed with the Grants near Haworth, Mr Bronte¨’s grudging permission for his daughter to become better acquainted with him, and Wnally to consent for their marriage. Nicholls had refused livings oVered to him, through Monckton Milnes’s inXuence, because he knew he could never marry Charlotte unless he could return to Haworth, for she would not leave her father. He gained Mr Bronte¨’s respect by proving himself ‘disinterested and forbearing’, and won from Charlotte ‘more than mere cool respect’, for ‘with exquisitely keen feelings’, he could still ‘freely forgive’. During the honeymoon in Wales and Ireland which followed their quiet wedding on 29 June 1854, he proved to be tenderly considerate to Charlotte, who learnt how highly valued he was by his relatives. Like her, he was exhilarated by the magniWcence of the Atlantic waves; together they visited exquisite scenery at Kilkee, GlengariV, and Killarney; and, by reacting swiftly when he realized she had fallen from her horse in the Gap of Dunloe, he helped to save her life. During their marriage their mutual love grew strong. By 26 December 1854 she could write, ‘He is ‘‘my dear boy’’ certainly, dearer now than he was six months ago.’ He did not discourage her from writing. C. K. Shorter stated in Life 1900 that ‘Mr. Nicholls repudiates . . . [the allegation] that he discouraged his wife’s literary activities’. On the contrary, they had read her chapters of ‘Emma’ and ‘chatted pleasantly over the possible development of the plot’ (634). She tolerated and was amused by his quirks of behaviour—as for example when he ‘threatened to bolt’ when the aVected Amelia Taylor visited the Parsonage, or when he demanded that Ellen Nussey should burn Charlotte’s rash letters, which he thought as ‘dangerous as lucifer matches’. In her last illness she wrote to Laetitia Wheelwright: ‘No kinder better husband than mine . . . can there be in the world. I do not want now for kind companionship in health and the tenderest nursing in sickness’ (15.2.1855).

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biographical note

After Charlotte’s death he cared faithfully for her father and, much against his own inclination, agreed to Mr Bronte¨’s wish that Mrs Gaskell should write a biography of her, even though he was horriWed that she wanted to quote directly from Charlotte’s letters, and that he was required to cede copyright for the quotations as used in the Life. He wrote indignantly to George Smith that the matter had ‘from beginning to end . . . been a source of pain and annoyance’ to him. It continued to cause him distress after Mrs Gaskell’s statements about Cowan Bridge and Carus Wilson led to an acrimonious newspaper controversy from April to August 1857, in which Charlotte’s motives in ‘caricaturing’ the school and making injurious ‘misstatements’ about it were questioned. Mr Nicholls wrote Wve indignant letters, his ‘sole desire’ being ‘to defend the dead from the aspersions cast on her by interested individuals’ (W & S Appendix I). His concern to protect her reputation led him to obliterate several phrases in the manuscript of The Professor, which he edited for publication. He also supplied George Smith with the manuscript and a transcription of ‘Emma’, and three poems, one by Emily and two by Charlotte, for the Cornhill Magazine. See BST 19. 3. 97–106 and 21. 4. 101–15. Though many parishioners expected him to be the new incumbent after Mr Bronte¨’s death on 7 June 1861, the Church Trustees voted against him by Wve to four. He immediately resigned. Before returning to Banagher, he gave away many items, especially to Martha and Tabitha Brown; retained private papers and other treasured Bronte¨ possessions such as Charlotte’s writing-desk, workbox, and paintbox; and put up the remaining contents of the Parsonage for auction on 1 October 1861. In Banagher he lived at the Hill House (still extant), the home of his widowed aunt Mrs Harriette Bell and her daughter Mary Anna. Martha Brown visited frequently as a welcome guest and helper in the household. Nicholls corresponded with her when she returned to Haworth, taking a kindly interest in her life there, and occasionally sending gifts of money. On 26 August 1864 he married Mary Anna (1830–1914). Having known him from her childhood, she understood him well, recognizing the devotion to Charlotte which led him to place mementoes of her throughout the house. Shorter, who met both husband and wife at Banagher on 31 March 1895, described their marriage as one of ‘unmixed blessedness’. He had found Nicholls ‘in a home of supreme simplicity and charm, esteemed by all who knew him and idolised in his own household’. Though he regularly attended church, Nicholls did not return to the ministry, possibly owing to throat trouble. He occupied himself with farming in a small way, and, unlike Ellen Nussey, did not attempt to edit Charlotte’s letters or exploit his connection with her. Ellen had been hostile to him from shortly after Charlotte’s death. She was jealous of him as the usurper of her position as Charlotte’s closest friend, on the defensive about her failure to burn Charlotte’s letters, and sceptical about his possession of copyright in them. The publication

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of Thomas Wemyss Reid’s articles on Charlotte in Macmillan’s Magazine for August–October 1876, for which Ellen had provided much information, caused Mr Nicholls to break his long silence on Bronte¨ matters, to protest against an ambiguous passage on Charlotte’s ‘sole failure of duty’ and against the revelation of her feelings for ‘Mr X’ ( James Taylor). Nicholls blamed himself for not cautioning Ellen that his wife’s letters were not ‘hers for publication’. Shorter and T. J. Wise were well aware of the laws of copyright. Shorter charmed his way into Mr Nicholls’s good will, and on 23 November 1895 purchased the copyright in MSS which passed through his hands, paying Mr Nicholls £150. In fact most of Nicholls’s manuscripts were passed on to Wise, and Nicholls was again distressed by the unscrupulous use of letters, when Charlotte’s description of his breakdown at the Whitsuntide service was printed in Sotheby’s catalogue for 28 February 1896 (and later printed in CBCircle). But he still apparently trusted Shorter in 1900, when his assistance was acknowledged in Shorter’s edition of the Life. During the last few years of his life, Nicholls’s health declined. Mary Anna cared for him devotedly, helped by a professional nurse from the end of November 1906, when bronchitis was diagnosed. He died on 2 December 1906, and was buried in St Paul’s churchyard, Banagher. Mary Anna, who died on 27 February 1915, lies in the same grave.

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The Letters January–December 1852

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To George Smith, 1 January 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir After all I have written a line to Miss Martineau.1 I grieve to think that the whole matter should be defeated through the fatal perversity of a nature on the whole great and good. I have just said these words to her—and whether they will produce any beneWcial eVect or whether she will be displeased—I do not know. ‘‘What Mr. Smith wanted and expected was another ‘‘Deerbrook’’.2 He did not look for politics or theology. ‘‘Deerbrook’’ made you beloved wherever it was read: ‘‘Oliver Weld’’ will not have this eVect It is powerful; it is vivid ’it must strike’—but it will rarely please. You think perhaps it will do good? Not so much good as ‘‘Deerbrook’’ did. Better the highest part of what is in your own self than all the political and religious controversy in the world. Rest a little while, Consider the matter over—and see whether you have not another ‘‘Deerbrook’’ in your heart to give England.’’ I wish you and yours a happy New Year C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 65. W & S 734. Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. For Harriet Martineau, see the Biographical Note, CBL ii, pp. xlix–li. Since July 1851 CB had acted as a go-between for the proposed publication of Miss Martineau’s novel Oliver Weld by Smith, Elder. Martineau’s views on society in general and her advocacy of total religious toleration caused George Smith to refuse it as too risky a business venture. See references to the novel in CBL ii, esp. 679–81, 732–4. 2. Martineau’s novel, Wrst published by Edward Moxon in 1839, and generally well received. In 1853, after George Smith wrote to her, ‘I should be very glad to publish a cheap edition of a Book which has always been a favorite of mine,’ she passed on the good news to Fanny Wedgwood:‘ . . . he oVered £50, and sent the money by return of post!’ (GS to Martineau 18.3.1853, BUL Martineau Collection MS HM 1206; Martineau to Wedgwood 11.4.1853, Arbuckle 125.)

To W. S. Williams, [?1 January 1852] [Haworth] My dear Sir, I am glad of the opportunity of writing to you, for I have long wished to send you a little note, and was only deterred from doing so by the conviction that the period preceding Christmas must be a very busy one to you. I have wished to thank you for your last,1 which gave me very genuine pleasure. You ascribe to Mr. Taylor an excellent character; such a man’s

4

the letters, 1852

friendship, at any rate, should not be disregarded; and if the principles and disposition be what you say, faults of manner and even of temper ought to weigh light in the balance. I always believed in his judgment and good-sense, but what I doubted was his kindness—he seemed to me a little too harsh, rigid, and unsympathising. Now, judgment, sense, principle are invaluable and quite indispensable points, but one would be thankful for a little feeling, a little indulgence in addition—without these, poor fallible human nature shrinks under the domination of the sterner qualities. I answered Mr. Taylor’s letter by the mail of the 19th November, sending it direct, for, on reXection, I did not see why I should trouble you with it. Did your son Frank2 call on Mrs. Gaskell? and how did he like her? My health has not been very satisfactory lately, but I think, though I vary almost daily, I am much better than I was a fortnight ago.3 All the winter the fact of my never being able to stoop over a desk without bringing on pain and oppression in the chest has been a great aZiction to me, and the want of tranquil rest at night has tried me much, but I hope for the better times. The doctors say that there is no organic mischief. Wishing a happy New Year to you, C. Bronte¨. MS untraced. W & S 735. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: CBCircle 322. Shorter 546 and W & S 735 reproduce this text, save for the reading ‘good sense’ in para. 2. 1. On ?10 Nov. 1851 CB had asked Mr Williams for his opinion of James Taylor’s character: was he a man ‘of any feeling’? On the strength of Williams’s reply she wrote a carefully worded letter to Taylor on 15 Nov. 1851. 2. Frank Williams was an artist. See CB’s letters to Mrs Gaskell of ?3 and 6.11.1851, 6.2.1852, and notes. 3. In Dec. 1851 CB had suVered from a bad cold accompanied by headaches, toothaches, ‘stupefaction and depression’. Mr Ruddock prescribed ‘blue pills’ which caused severe mercury poisoning (CBL ii. 735 n. 3).

To Ellen Nussey, [6 January 1852] [Haworth] Tuesday Morng. Dear Ellen I am sorry to say that my headache did turn out to be symptomatic of relapse1—but on the whole I think I am better again now—and I do not in the least regret your going2—really when I am downright ill—i.e. under the pressure of headache, sickness or other prostrating ailment—I would rather have it

the letters, 1852

5

to myself and not feel it augmented by the sense of its being burdensome to others—3 It is when bodily ailment is gone, and the mind alone languishes that cheerful and cherished society becomes a boon. You did me great good whilst you stayed here—and you went away just when your kindness would have become unavailing, and I and my liver were best left alone. All yesterday I was very very sick—to-day I feel somewhat relieved—though qualms of nausea haunt me still. I expect Mr. Ruddock4 and shall ask him whether part of this sickness is not owing to his medicine, which I suspect and hope. Poor Ellen *Taylor!5 I fear hers will not be a long life—Should she die in New Zealand—it will be most sad for Mary—there are no particulars of her illness given in the letter I have seen I had a note yesterday from Amelia—She says that when you were at Hunsworth6 she thought you looking much better—which is a great deal from her who is so apt to grumble about your looks. Mind—however—that the circumstance of your being pretty well just now does not make you grow careless. Ill health is sooner fallen into tha[n] got out of—I fear the changeful weather of the last day or two will have tried Mr. Clapham7 as it tried me—but to-day is Wner and I hope he will feel its good eVects— With kind regards to all at Brookroyd I am [dearest Nell Yours faithfully] If I feel that it will do me good to go to Brookroyd for a few days I will tell you— but at present—I am certainly best at home. MS BPM Bon 239. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/52. W & S 736 as [Jan. 5th, 1852]. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j JA 6 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j JA 6 j 1852 j F (iv) BIRSTALL Annotation (i) by EN in ink: 255 Jan 5—52 (ii) by EN in pencil: CB health (iii) on envelope by EN in pencil: Jan 6—52 Date: ‘Tuesday Morng’ indicates 6, not 5, January. Text: Ellen Nussey wrote ‘dearest Nell j Yours faithfully’ to replace the original words cut out of the manuscript, but she did not replace the signature. 1. Though CB told George Smith on 31 Dec. 1851 that she was ‘somewhat relieved’ about her health, ‘harassing symptoms’ heralded this relapse. 2. Ellen stayed at Haworth 20–9 Dec. 1851. See EN 31.12.1851 and MW 20.1.[1852]. 3. The second deleted word may read ‘thou’—perhaps the beginning of ‘though’. 4. William Ruddock (1814–60), surgeon, MRCS, LSA 1837 (Provincial Medical Directory, 1851, 482). See Bronte¨ Studies (Mar. 2002), 27. 1. 76–8. 5. Mary Taylor’s cousin Ellen (1826–27 Dec. 1851) had died of pulmonary TB in Wellington, New Zealand, where she had shared in Mary’s shopkeeping business since 16 Aug. 1849. See CBL ii. 83 n., 184 n. 6. Mary Taylor’s brother Joseph and his wife Amelia, ne´e Ringrose, lived in a cottage near the Taylors’ Hunsworth mill. See CBL i. 396, ii. 477–8. 7. Ellen Nussey’s brother-in-law Robert Clapham (?1788–1855), who had married Ann Nussey on 26 Sept. 1849. He had been ill since Dec. 1851.

6

the letters, 1852

To Ellen Nussey, [?14 January 1852] [Haworth] My dear Ellen I have certainly been ill enough since I wrote to you—but do not be alarmed or uneasy—I believe my suVerings have been partly—perhaps in a great measure owing to the medicine—the pills given me—they were alterative and contained a mixture of Mercury1—this did not suit me—I was brought to a ’sad’ state—Thank God—I believe I am better—but too weak now to tell you particulars—Poor Papa has been in grievous anxiety—on the point of sending for Mr. Teale,2 I had hard work to restrain him—Mr. Ruddock was sorely Xustered when he found what he had done——but I don’t much blame him. Can’t write more at present. Good bye dear Nell [Yours faithfully CB] Be quite tranquil. Mr. R—— vows and protests I shall do perfectly well with time—and that it will even be all the better for me—but it was rough work I return M. G[orham]’s3 good and happy letter. MS BPM Bon 240. W & S 738. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation (i) by EN in ink: 256 j Jan 14—52 (ii) by EN in pencil: CB health OP j [at the end of the letter] Jan 14—52 Date: EN’s date, 14 Jan., was a Wednesday—the day probably given by CB, but now cut away except for ‘sday’. Text: EN pencilled in the words ‘Yours faithfully CB’ to replace the original text which has been cut away. 1. An ‘alterative’ medicine alters ‘the processes of nutrition, and reduce[s] them to healthy action’ (OED). ‘Blue pills’ containing mercury were prescribed for ‘liverishness’ with constipation and headache; usually given at night and followed the next morning by a purgative ‘black draught’ of Epsom salts with liquorice, compound tincture of cardamoms, aromatic spirits of ammonia, and infusion of senna. In Graham’s Domestic Medicine, the blue pill is described as ‘mild and valuable’ in cases of digestive disorder or diseases originating in ‘obstruction’, but not ‘generally applicable to the stomach and bilious complaints’ if the stomach is ‘much enervated, and . . . very irritable’ (11). 2. Thomas Pridgin Teale (1800–?67), MRCS 1823, FLS, the capable surgeon of the Leeds General InWrmary who had diagnosed Anne Bronte¨’s illness as pulmonary tuberculosis in Jan. 1849. 3. Ellen Nussey’s friend Mary Gorham (1826–1917), with whom Ellen had stayed in Cakeham, Sussex. By this time Mary had probably become engaged to the Revd Thomas Swinton Hewitt (1817–84), whom she was to marry on 29 June 1852 at West Wittering, Sussex. A graduate of Worcester College, Oxford, he became Rector of North Marden, Sussex, in 1851, leaving in 1858 to become Vicar of Leysters, Hereford.

the letters, 1852

7

To Ellen Nussey, 16 January 1852 [Haworth] Dear Ellen I wish you could have seen the coolness with which I captured your letter on its way to Papa and at once conjecturing its tenor, made the contents my own. Be quiet. Be tranquil. It is—dear Nell—my decided intention to come to Brookroyd for a few days when I can come—but of this last I must positively judge for myself—and I must take my time—I am better—to-day—much better—but you can have little idea of the sort of condition into which Mercury throws people to ask me to go from home anywhere in close or open carriage— and as to talking— four days since I could not well have articulated three sentences—my mouth and tongue were ulcerated1—for a week I took no sustenance except half-a-tea-cupful of liquid administered by tea-spoonsfuls in the course of the day—yet I did not need nursing—and I kept out of bed. It was enough to burden myself—it would have been misery to me to have annoyed another. Mr. Ruddock says he never in his whole practice knew the same eVect produced by the same dose on Man—woman or child—and avows it is owing to an altogether peculiar sensitiveness of constitution. He expressed great regret and annoyance at its having occurred but aYrms it will do me good in the end. If this be so—the suVerings are welcome My appetite begins to return—my mouth and tongue are healing fast—in short—I believe I am doing well but it harasses me dear Nell—to be so urged to go from home—when I know I cannot—A week or fortnight may make all the diVerence—You know I generally rally pretty quickly With kind love and a mixture of thanks and scolding I am Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ Poor Mr. C——2 has a lingering time of it; remember me to him—to your Mother &c. MS HM 24488. W & S 739. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: Jan 16—52 j CB, health, j O.P. 1. Classic symptoms of mercury poisoning. 2. Robert Clapham recovered, but he was to die shortly before CB herself, on 12 Mar. 1855.

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Revd Patrick Bronte¨ to Richard Monckton Milnes,1 16 January 1852 Haworth, Nr. Keighley, My Dear Sir, My Daughter, and myself, beg to oVer our acknowledgements for your invitation, for which we both feel the implied kindness.2 Were I in the habit of going from home, there are few persons, to whom I would give the preference over yourself,—such not being the case, you will permit me to retain my customary rule, unbroken, and kindly accept my excuse. My Daughter, I regret to say, is not well enough to be a visitor anywhere, just now—She has been out of health, for some time, and though now better, requires care, and for the present, I should wish her to stay at home. She begs me to express the pleasure she felt, at meeting you in London,—as well as her gratitude for the present attention. I am, my Dear Sir, Yours, truly & obediently, P. Bronte¨. R. M. Milnes, Esqr. Monk Fryston Hall3 Ferrybridge MS Trinity College Cambridge. Quoted inaccurately in James Pope Hennessy, Monckton Milnes (New York, 1951), ii. 66. Address (integral): R. M. Milnes, Esqr. j Monk Fryston Hall j Ferrybridge PM: not in MS. 1. Richard Monckton Milnes (1809–85; created Baron Houghton 1863); politician, minor poet, bon viveur, and patron of the arts, whom CB had met in London in May and June 1851. See CBL ii. 625–7, 639–40, 648. He and Mrs Gaskell later sought to beneWt A. B. Nicholls so that Mr Bronte¨ would look more favourably on his wish to marry CB. 2. Milnes had obtained the Bronte¨s’ address from W. E. Forster, who with his wife Jane. ne´e Arnold, had visited Haworth at an unknown date, possibly in late Jan. 1851, when they obtained from CB a promise to visit them in the spring—a promise she did not fulWl. See CBL ii. 451–2, 568–70, 706. In a letter of 1 Jan. 1852, Forster had accepted Milnes’s invitation to visit him, ‘if we are not then in the agony of moving from Rawden to our new cottage in Wharfedale’. At Milnes’s request, Forster provided CB’s address: ‘Miss Bronte’s address is Howarth near Keightley [sic], but Miss Martineau, who by the by sent an aVectionate message to you, tells me what I knew before that there is no use our trying to get her away from her father—. My wife & I have done our best, but in vain, she will not, I expect can not, leave him— j She has been ill, but is better’ (MS Trinity College Cambridge). 3. Thackeray had remarked to Milnes that ‘Fryston combined the graces of the chaˆteau and the tavern’. By about 1790 Milnes’s father had added to the original Fryston Hall a ‘handsome Italian front, with Ionic pilasters and pediment, and a large corps de logis behind’. Books

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pervaded the house, and ‘the very hall at Fryston [had] been converted into a library’ (T. Wemyss Reid, The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, First Lord Houghton, 2 vols. (1891), i. 454–5).

To George Smith, 19 January [1852] [Haworth] My dear Sir The enclosed copy1 should have been returned ere this—if I had been able to attend to ordinary matters—but I grew worse after I wrote to you last and was very ill for some days. Weak I still continue but believe I am getting better and very grateful do I feel for the improvement—grateful for my Father’s sake—no less than for my own. It made me sorrowful to hear that you too had been ill—but I trust you are now quite recovered. I thought you would hardly ever be ill; you looked so healthy—but over anxiety and conWning labour will undermine the strongest. I have not heard a word from Miss Martineau2 and conclude her silence is of no good omen. With kind regards to your Mother and Sisters I am sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 44. W & S 740. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: The content shows that this letter was written in 1852. CB misdates ‘1851’. 1. The nature of the ‘copy’ is unclear. Possibly George Smith had sent to CB a copy of a letter to Miss Martineau about his dissatisfaction with Oliver Weld. 2. CB had not heard from her since Miss Martineau received the letter quoted by CB in her letter to Smith of 1 Jan. 1852.

To Margaret Wooler, 20 January [1852] Haworth My dear Miss Wooler Your last kind note would not have remained so long unanswered if I had been in better health. While Ellen Nussey was with me, I seemed to recover wonderfully—but began to grow worse again the day she left, and this falling oV proved symptomatic of a relapse. My Doctor called the next day;1 he said the headache from which I was suVering arose from inertness in the liver—prescribed some alterative pills and promised to call again in a week. I took the pills duly and truly—hoping for beneWt—but every day I grew worse—before the

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week was over I was very ill—unable to swallow any nourishment except a few teaspoonsful of liquid per diem, my mouth became sore, my teeth loose, my tongue swelled; raw and ulcerated while water welled continually into my mouth. I knew by this time that Mercury had formed an ingredient in the alterative pills and that I was suVering from its eVects. When my Doctor came and found me in this condition he was much shocked and startled; a result had been produced which he had not intended, nor anticipated: according to him the dose of blue pill2 he had given was not suYcient to salivate a child—and he talked much about exceptional sensitiveness of constitution &c. Strong medicines were then administered to counteract this mistake—so that altogether I have been much reduced. Thank God—I now feel better—and very grateful am I for the improvement—grateful no less for my dear Father’s sake, than for my own. Most fully can I sympathize with you in the anxiety you express about Mr. Thomas.3 The thought of his leaving England and going out alone to a strange country with all his natural sensitiveness and retiring diYdence—is indeed painful—Still—my dear Miss Wooler—should no means be found of preventing the step—should he actually go to America—I can but then suggest to you the same source of comfort and support you have suggested to me—and of which indeed I know you never lose sight—namely—Reliance on Providence. ‘‘God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,’’4 and He will doubtless care for a good though aZicted man amidst whatever diYculties he may be thrown. When you write again—I should be glad to know whether your anxiety on this subject is relieved—and also to hear how Mrs. Moore5 and her family are getting on—I was truly glad to ’learn’ through Ellen Nussey that Ilkley6 still continued to agree with your health. Earnestly trusting that the New Year may prove to you a happy and tranquil time I am my dear Miss Wooler Sincerely and aVectionately yours C Bronte¨ Give my kind love to Miss Sarah.7 Papa says I am always to give his best respects when I write to you MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 741. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation: ‘?1852’ in unknown hand above CB’s incorrect ‘1851’. Date: content indicates 1852. 1. Mr Ruddock visited CB on Tuesday 30 Dec. 2. Cf. EN [?14.1.1852] n. 1. 3. Margaret Wooler’s younger brother Thomas (13 July 1803–1895) had suVered from ‘hypochondria’ for ten years when CB wrote to Miss Wooler in ?Nov. or Dec. 1846. Graham’s Domestic Medicine describes ‘Hypochondriasis, or Low Spirits’ as ‘a certain state of the mind accompanied with indigestion, wherein the greatest evils are apprehended upon the slightest grounds,

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4. 5.

6. 7.

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and the worst consequences imagined from any unusual feeling even of the slightest kind; and in respect to such apprehensions and feelings, there is always the most obstinate belief and persuasion’ (contents table and p. 343). Graham advises that ‘exercise should be very considerable daily. . . Indeed, travelling alone is a powerful remedy in this disease, since it is often one of the most eYcient means of removing indigestion, of strengthening the body, and exhilarating the spirits’ (345). Proverbial. ODEP’s Wrst quotation is a French version of the saying: ‘Dieu mesure le froid a` la brebis tondue’ (1594). A relative of Margaret Wooler, who had spent six years in the Isle of Wight with her uncle and aunt, Dr and Mrs Moore. The latter was the mother of Thomas Barrington G. Moore, third son of William Moore, christened 17 Dec. 1804 in Newport, Isle of Wight, and curate of Bromsgrove, Worcs., in the early 1840s. A Mrs Moore of Bromsgrove, perhaps the wife of one of Margaret Wooler’s cousins, was suVering a ‘great trial’ in Oct. 1851. See CBL ii. 704 and 705 n. 2; and the reference to Mrs Moore in MW 17.2.1852. Margaret Wooler was living in Ilkley, North Yorkshire, when CB wrote to her on 14 July 1851. Margaret Wooler’s sister Sarah, born 6 Apr. 1798, and probably a former private governess.

To Ellen Nussey, [22 January 1852] [Haworth] Dear Ellen, I have continued to make progress, and I think very quickly. I do not suppose I am looking much worse than when you were here, though of course I am very thin. If all be well I hope to come to Brookroyd next week.1 Mr. Ruddock wished me to put oV for another week, but I want to see you, and my spirits sadly need some little support. I do and have done as well as I can, but the hours have been very dark sometimes. Through it all papa continues well, thank God! I intend coming by the same train you took and should therefore reach you in the course of the afternoon, but I will write again to mention the day, etc. I had a note from Amelia the other day which struck me as not being happy somehow. I don’t quite like her frequent recurrence in a rather repining tone to Rosy’s superior good fortune.2 I am glad to hear that Mr. Clapham is making some progress and that Mrs. Clapham3 is better.—Believe me, dear Nell, yours faithfully, C. Bronte¨. You must not expect me to stay one day longer than a week. MS untraced. Envelope: BPM B.S. 104/52.2. W & S 742. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j JA 22 j 185-(iii) LEEDS j JA 22 j 185- j F (iv) BIRSTALL Annotation: on envelope, by EN in pencil: <51> 52 Jan 22 j of pining after her illness Date: from postmark. EN’s comment on the envelope is appropriate for this letter. Text: Shorter 551, the source of W & S 742. Nussey 272 is incomplete, and uses initials for names. 1. CB intended to reach Brookroyd on Tuesday 27 Jan., but she stayed longer than a week— probably until 11 Feb. 2. ‘I had a note . . . fortune’ omitted in Nussey. Amelia’s sister Rosy (Rosetta) married John Dugdale of Irwell Bank, Eccles, on 16 Jan. 1851 and had given birth to a ‘Wne little boy’ by

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21 Oct. 1851, whereas Amelia, who married Joe Taylor on 2 Oct. 1850, suVered poor health and probably had a miscarriage before giving birth to the delicate Emily Martha on 29 Sept. 1851. 3. Ann Clapham, ne´e Nussey, and her husband.

To Ellen Nussey, 24 January 1852 Haworth Dear Nell I hope (D.V.) to come to Brookroyd on Tuesday1—and shall be at Bradford about 2 o’clock. If Mr. C—— can send the gig without inconvenience I shall be glad to have it—it will save so much trouble—but he must on no account run the risk unless the weather be Wne and calm: I dare not come if it be wet, windy or very cold—if there be the least doubt—don’t let him send—as I could get a cab if necessary. And now my dear physician with reference to putting myself into your hands you must take notice of this—I am to live on the very plainest fare—to take no butter—at present I do not take tea—only milk and water with a little sugar and dry bread—this with an occasional mutton chop is my diet—and I like it better than anything else—During the week you were at Haworth—I did myself harm by eating too indiscriminately—but I am resolved to be more careful now—and indeed I have no alternative if I wish to be well. Mr. Ruddock has made me take tonics which have stimulated the appetite—but I eat little at a time. I tell you all this to prevent you from giving yourself one bit of trouble in the cooking line. It would make me miserable to see you bother yourself—and ill besides. Hoping Tuesday will be Wne—and with kind regards to all—I am, dear Nell Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS HM 24489. Envelope Kirklees. W & S 743. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j JA 24 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j JA 24 j 1852 j F (iv) BIRSTALL Annotation: on envelope by EN in pencil: 24 Jan—52? Coming after her illness 1. CB was writing on Saturday. ‘Mr C——’ is Robert Clapham.

To George Smith, 29 January 1852 Brookroyd. Birstal. Leeds My dear Sir I have rallied very rapidly within the last week and, as the date1 of this letter will shew you—am now from home—staying with the friend I told you of. I do wish now I had delayed my departure from home a few days longer that I might

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have shared with my Father the true pleasure of receiving you at Haworth Parsonage. Such a pleasure your visit would have been as I have sometimes dimly imagined but never ventured to realize.2 I shall be returning in about a week—but if you must make your excursion before that time and if you came Northward and would call at Brookroyd—I am desired to tell you that you would have the warmest Yorkshire welcome. My friends would like to see you. You would Wnd me thin but not exactly ill now—I have only a sort of low intermittent fever which still hangs about me—but which the Doctor says will leave me as I grow stronger. They are hospitable people at Brookroyd and you would be made comfortable. I and my friend would do our best to amuse you— it is only 6 miles distant from Leeds—you would have to stay all night. Thank your Mother from me for her very kind note and tell her where I am and that I will write to her erelong. Send me a line to say whether we shall see you, and when; and believe me Sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 66. W & S 744. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The place from which CB was writing, not the calendar date. Cf. EN 9.6.1838 (CBL i. 178–9) and ECG 6.2.1852 (CBL iii. 14). 2. George Smith never visited CB in Yorkshire, and though the wording of this letter is ambiguous (‘I might have shared with my Father’), Smith probably did not call at the Parsonage in her absence. When CB wrote this letter, Smith’s ‘excursion’ was still, apparently, in the future, and its direction undetermined. See also GS 26.2.1853, where CB wonders whether Smith will ever see the pictures he has given her ‘on the walls where they now hang’.

To Mrs Elizabeth Smith, 29 January 1852 Brookroyd. My dear Mrs. Smith Your note and invitation are very truly kind—but as Mr. Smith will have told you—I am already from home trying the eVect of those remedies you recommend—change of air and scene. I am much better than I was—though I cannot expect to be well all at once. When I bid you good b’ye in Euston Square Station1—I determined in my own mind that I would not again come to London except under conditions which are yet unfulWlled. A treat must be earned before it can be enjoyed and the treat which a visit to you aVords me is yet unearned, and must so remain for a time—how long I do not know. I will tell you about my illness and how it came on. I suVered exceedingly from depression of spirits in the Autumn. Then—at the commencement of Winter the weather set in very severe.2 One day when I was walking out—I felt a peculiar pain in my right side: I did not think much of it at Wrst—but was not

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well from that time. Soon after I took cold—the cold struck in, inXamatory3 action ensued, I had high fever at nights, the pain in my side became very severe—there was a constant burning and aching in my chest—I lost my sleep and could eat nothing. My own conclusion was that my lungs were aVected— but on consulting a medical man—my lungs and chest were pronounced perfectly sound, and it appeared that the inXamation4 had fallen on the liver. I have since varied—being better sometimes when the internal fever subsided, and again worse when it was increased by change of weather or any other exciting cause—but I am told that there is no danger as it is a case of functional derangement—not of organic disease. The solitude of my life I have certainly felt very keenly this winter—but every one has his own burden to bear— ’and’ where there is no available remedy—it is right to be patient and trust that Providence will in his own good time, lighten the load. I have wanted for no attention that kind and faithful servants could give—and my dear Father is always kind in his way. Give my true regards to all your circle: It is unavailing to say how glad I shall be when I can with a good conscience once more come and see you all. I do not however anticipate this event at an early date. Good bye my dear Mrs. Smith. Believe me Yours sincerely & aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 66/12B. W & S 745. Address (integral): Mrs. Smith j Gloucester Terrace PM: not in MS. 1. CB had been the guest of George Smith and his mother in London, which she left on 27 June 1851 to visit Mrs Gaskell in Manchester before returning to Haworth on 30 June. 2. Cf. EN 8.12.1851, MW 17.2.1852, LW 12.4.1852 and notes. 3. Thus in MS. 4. Thus in MS.

To Mrs Gaskell, 6 February 1852 Brookroyd. Birstal Thank you—My dear Mrs. Gaskell, for your letter and all the kindness it expresses. As the date1 of this letter will shew—I am now from home—and have already beneWted greatly by the kind attentions and cheerful society of the friends with whom I am staying—friends who probably do not care for me a pin—as Currer Bell—but who have known me for years as C. Bronte¨—and by whom I need not fear that my invalid weakness (which indeed I am fast overcoming) will be felt as a burden.

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Certainly the past Winter has been to me a strange time—had I the prospect before me of living it over again—my prayer must necessarily be—‘‘Let this cup pass from me.’’2 That depression of spirits which I thought was gone by when I wrote last3—came back again with a heavy recoil—internal congestion ensued and then inXamation4—I had severe pain in my right side, frequent burning and aching in my chest—sleep almost forsook ’me’ or would never come except accompanied by ghastly dreams5—appetite vanished and slow fever was my continual companion—It was some time before I could bring myself to have recourse to medical advice—I thought my lungs were aVected—and could feel no conWdence in the power of medicine—When at last, however, a doctor was consulted—he declared my lungs and chest sound and ascribed all my suVerings to derangement of the liver—on which organ it seems the inXamation had fallen. This information was ’a’ great relief—to my dear Father as well as to myself—but I had subsequently rather sharp medical discipline to undergo and was much reduced. Though not yet well—it is with deep thankfulness that I can say I am greatly better. My sleep, appetite and strength seem all returning. Poor little Julia!6 How terrible that moment you describe must have been! I trust there will be no return of such alarm. I thank Mrs. Davenport7 for her kind message and am truly glad to hear of her happy prospects. It was a pleasure too to hear that young Mr. Williams8 had impressed you agreeably—I trust his conduct may justify the favourable opinion you express of him. Begging to be kindly remembered to Mr. Gaskell and to all your circle I am my dear Mrs. Gaskell Yours gratefully & aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS Rylands. W & S 746 (part). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Cf. previous letter n. 1. 2. Mark 14: 36. Christ’s words as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, before his betrayal by Judas. 3. On 6 Nov. 1851, when CB felt ‘greatly better’ after ‘a month or six weeks’ of deep dejection at about the time of the autumnal equinox. 4. Thus in MS. 5. CB’s dejection was associated with bitter memories: ‘It was the anniversary of my poor brother’s death and of my Sisters’ failing health’ (ECG 6.11.1851). Cf. Villette, ch. 15, where Lucy Snowe’s ‘avenging dream’ at the time of the equinoctial storms leaves her ‘torn, racked and oppressed in mind. Amidst the horrors of that dream I think the worst lay here. Methought the well-loved dead, who had loved me well in life, met me elsewhere, alienated.’ 6. Late in 1851 Mrs Gaskell had written to her daughter Marianne: ‘Baby [i.e. Julia, aged 5] is very poorly, she ate a too hearty dinner yesterday, romped violently in the drawing-room too soon after,—grew very tired & hot & complained of headache, had a very restless night, and all day long has dozed either in Hearn’s arms, or mine . . . Papa has her . . . now. We think she is better’ (CP letter 109).

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7. Mrs Davenport, ne´e Caroline Hurt, had accompanied CB to the Grosvenor Gallery on 23 June 1851. Charlotte thought her beautiful and kind. See CBL ii. 645–9. On 11 Feb. 1852 she was to marry Edward John Littleton (1791–1863, created 1st Baron Hatherton 1835; DNB). 8. Frank (William Francis) Williams, eldest son of W. S. Williams, who had asked CB to provide an introduction for him to Mrs Gaskell. See CBL ii. 709 n.

To George Smith, 7 February 1852 Brookroyd. My dear Sir The M. S.1 reached me quite safely this morning. I shall not read it here— where I remain two or three days longer, but shall take it home with me as a comfort and pleasure in anticipation. Alas for Mr. Thackeray’s promises! Alas for the faith of authorhood enshrined in him! My health—though still variable—continues on the whole to improve. My spirits are certainly much better—and the capacity of sleep is being restored. You have never told me how you are, but I do hope you are well. Believe me Sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 67. W & S 747. Address (integral): George Smith Esqre. PM: not in MS. 1. The manuscript of the Wrst volume of Thackeray’s Henry Esmond, Esq., A Colonel in the service of her Majesty Queen Anne j Written by himself j edited by W. M. Thackeray. On 27 June 1851 Thackeray had contracted to submit the manuscript of the complete novel to George Smith on 1 Dec. 1851. He had made slow progress, partly owing to his distress after Jane BrookWeld’s husband forbade further communication with her after Sept. 1851. See CBL ii. 655–6 n. Yet Smith had announced in the Publishers’ Circular in October that the novel would appear in Jan. 1852. By 25 Oct. Thackeray had told the London agents of Tauchnitz that it would appear in February. He progressed more rapidly with vols. ii and iii, completing them on 28 May 1852. The Wrst volume has a prefatory chapter on the Esmond family, and thereafter deals with ‘The Early Youth of Henry Esmond, up to the time of his leaving Trinity College, in Cambridge’. See Edgar F. Harden, ‘The Writing and Publication of Esmond’, Studies in the Novel, 13 (1981), esp. 83–4, 90.

To Ellen Nussey [?12 February 1852] [Haworth] Dear Ellen I reached home safely a little before 5 yesterday—all right but for a headache which I am sorry to say continues with me to-day. I found Papa well—he thanks you for the potted tongue and says ‘‘old fellows get more kindness from the ladies than young ones.’’

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17 1

I am anxious to know how you got home and how your teeth are —I fear too you were a little ailing in yourself—be sure to write directly and tell me how Mr. & Mrs. *Clapham your Mother and *Mercy are—kind love to all Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ I Wnd I have stolen a pencil-case of yours. I put it away with my pen in my little box—I will take care of it till you come. MS BPM Bon 241. W & S 748 as 12 February. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN in ink: 260 Feb 2—52 Date: EN’s date probably derives from a partial or misread postmark. CB arrived at Brookroyd on Tuesday 27 Jan., and on 7 Feb. wrote to George Smith that she would be there ‘two or three days longer’. A return date of Wednesday 11 Feb. would suit her reference to ‘a fortnight’s stay’ in MW 17.2.1852. 1. CB and EN had travelled together as far as Leeds, where EN could consult a dentist, possibly John Atkinson of 14 East Parade. See CBL ii. 270 n., 388 n.

To George Smith, 14 February 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir It has been a great delight to me to read Mr. Thackeray’s Manuscript1 and I so seldom now express any sense of kindness that for once you must permit me, without rebuke, to thank you for a pleasure so rare and special. Yet I am not going to praise either Mr. Thackeray or his book. I have read, enjoyed—been interested and—after all feel full as much ire and sorrow as gratitude and admiration. And still—one can never lay down a book of his— without the last two feelings having their part—be the subject or treatment what it may. In the Wrst half of the work what chieXy struck me was the wonderful manner in which the author throws himself into the spirit and letter of the times whereof he treats;2 the allusions, the illustrations, the style all seem to me so masterly in their exact keeping, their harmonious consistency, their nice natural truth, their pure exemption from exaggeration. No second-rate imitator can write in this way; no coarse scene-painter can charm us with an illusion so delicate and perfect. But what bitter satire—what relentless dissection of diseased subjects!3 Well—and this too is right—or would be right if the savage surgeon did not seem so Wercely pleased with his work. Thackeray likes to discover an ulcer or an aneurism; he has pleasure in putting his cruel knife or

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probe into quivering, living Xesh. Thackeray would not like all the world to be good; no great satirist would like Society to be perfect. As usual—he is unjust to women—quite unjust: there is hardly any punishment he does not deserve for making Lady Castlewood peep through a keyhole, listen at a door and be jealous of a boy and a milkmaid.4 Many other things I noticed that—for my part—grieved and exasperated me as I read—but then again came passages so true—so deeply thought—so tenderly felt—one could not help forgiving and admiring. I wish there was any one whose word he cared for to bid him good speed—to tell him to go on courageously with the book; he may yet make it the best thing he has ever written. But I wish he could be told not to care much for dwelling on the political or religious intrigues of the times. Thackeray, in his heart, does not value political or religious intrigue of any age or date; he likes to shew us human-Nature at home—as he himself—daily sees it; his wonderful observant faculty likes to be in action. In him—this faculty is a sort of Captain and Leader—and if ever any passage in his writings lacks interest—it is when this master faculty is for a time thrust into a subordinate position. I think such is the case in the former half of the present work; towards the ’middle’ he throws oV restraint—becomes himself and is strong to the close. Everything now depends on the 2nd. & 3rd. vols. If in pith and interest they fall short of the Wrst—a true success cannot ensue; if the continuation be an improvement upon the commencement—if the stream gather force as it rolls—Thackeray will triumph. Some people have been in the habit of terming him the second writer5 of his day; it just depends on himself whether or not these critics shall be justiWed in their award. He need not to be second. God made him second to no man. If I were he—I would shew myself as I am—not as critics report me; at any rate—I would do my best—but I believe Mr. Thackeray is easy and indolent and very seldom cares to do his best.6 Thank you once again, and believe me Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 68. W & S 749. Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. The Wrst volume of Henry Esmond ends with the fatal duel between Francis, Viscount Castlewood, and Lord Mohun. The priest who attends Castlewood on his deathbed reveals that the dying man has confessed to a sin for which he intends to make restitution. Esmond nevertheless burns the confessional paper, and readers suspect that he and not Frank Castlewood is the true heir. 2. Thackeray had read widely in preparation for his Lectures on the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century in 1851, and writers such as Steele and Addison also play a part in Esmond. Further reading enabled him to provide the impressive historical verisimilitude of the novel:

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3.

4.

5.

6.

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narrative style, conversation, costume, and, more profoundly, political, religious, and social attitudes and schisms are presented so as to sustain the illusion of ‘authentic’ eighteenthcentury discourse. This relentless dissection, evident in Thackeray’s earlier work, was exacerbated by his sense that he had been betrayed and deserted by the BrookWelds. The dowager Isabel Esmond is a ‘Xy-blown rank old morsel’, as ‘Mr Wycherley said’, and to the lascivious Lord Mohun, women are ‘fair game (as his Lordship styled this pretty sport)’. Lady Castlewood is angered by Esmond’s visits to the milkmaid Nance Sievewright not only because he may have brought smallpox into the household, but because she is jealous of all pretty women. She watches and ‘listen[s] at a door’ when her husband plays cards with Lord Mohun in vol. i, ch. 13. Second to Dickens—a common judgement at the time. A reviewer in the Prospective Review for July 1851, for example, found good qualities in both writers, but ended with a preference for Dickens as ‘more varied, imaginative, and . . . more healthy, and therefore . . . more true’. When George Smith sent Thackeray this letter, Thackeray forwarded it on 23 Feb. to Mary Holmes at Gargrave, Skipton, with a note on the envelope Xap, ‘Dont say anything about Miss B’s letter’ (Harden letter 824A). On 25 Feb. Thackeray wrote to Miss Holmes: ‘I wish you’d set those verses in Pendennis to a pretty tune . . . Or do you think them rubbish? I don’t care. Currer Bell is right about that. I don’t care a straw for a ‘‘triumph’’. Pooh!—nor for my art enough’ (Ray Letters iii. 13; and see GS 17.2.1852 and notes).

To Ellen Nussey, 16 February 1852 Haworth Dear Nell Many thanks for yours. You had a sad reception at Mrs. *Wards1—I had quite calculated on your getting from her the relief and rest which you needed so much—however it is well that the rum proved beneWcial when you at last had time to apply it. My headache after continuing two days left me, and I have continued very decent indeed ever since—much better than I was before leaving home— though the headache by making me look ill—robbed me of the expected congratulations on improved appearance. I do believe if the weather would but be pleasant and serene, I should be right enough—better perhaps than I was before my illness. Mr. Ruddock to my dismay—came blustering in on Saturday—I had not intended to let him know of my return till this week—but somebody had caught sight of me at Keighley station and told him I was come home. He was actually cross that I had not immediately written—he began about the quinine directly—I told him I thought it did not suit me—but he would not listen to reason—says it is the only thing to do me permanent good &c.2 however I procured a respite of a week—and meantime I go on with the hop-tea which as far as I know, agrees quite well. I said nothing about it to him—but I mentioned the potass3—and he laughed it to scorn—I wish I knew better what to think of this man’s skill. He seems to stick like a leech: I thought I should have done with him when I came home.

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the letters, 1852

I have just returned Mr. T[hackeray]’s M.S. with a criticising letter which Mr. Smith may shew if he likes. I said what I thought and I sometimes thought bitter things. Do I understand rightly from your note that Mr. *Rayner4 was mistaken in his Wrst opinion respecting the nature of your sister *Anne’s illness? Is it the passing of the gall-stones or bilious cholic? I hope she is better by this time but I somewhat fear that the return of stormy weather after a few days calm will be felt injuriously both by her and Mr. *Clapham: it has brought me back something of the pain in my side—which I had hoped gone Give my kind regards to your Mother, Mr. C[lapham] and all the rest—Write again soon and believe me, dear Nell Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ How is your thumb-nail?—no light mischance that of turning it back. MS HM 24490. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/53. W & S 750. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j FE -6 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j FE ?16 j 1852 j F (iv) BIRSTALL Annotation (i) by EN in pencil: C B—health O P (ii) on envelope by CB in ink: Pd. (iii) on envelope by EN in pencil: Feb 6–52 j of Mr. Ruddock j after her return j home Date: CB dates the letter clearly ‘Feby. 16th./52’. EN was misled by the Keighley postmark. 1. A family friend? Cf. entries in EN Diary 1849: 9 Jan, ‘returned from Haworth j dined at Mrs Wards’ and 9 July, ‘Mrs Ward and I H Noble came’. 2. For Mr Ruddock see CBL ii. 730 n., 735 n., and references in the present volume. Quinine and ‘sulphate of quinine’ were recommended as ‘a tonic and febrifuge in general debility’ (Graham’s Domestic Medicine 61). Under ‘Bark’ Graham described quinine as ‘a powerful and permanent tonic, superior to all other remedies in counteracting the diseased actions of intermittent fever’ (9). 3. OED describes the word ‘potass’ as ‘rare’, with the date 1799; variously used for potash, potassa, and (in names of compounds) potassium. Some potassium compounds were used medicinally. Graham’s Domestic Medicine describes a ‘very useful’ ‘Anodyne and Sleeping Draught’ and a ‘Refrigerant Draught for Fevers’, both containing ‘subcarbonate of potash’ (82). 4. The Post OYce Directory of Yorkshire for 1857 lists under ‘Birstall’ ‘Rayner, Thomas & Son, Surgeons’, and ‘Rayner, Robert, Surgeon’ (102). The latter may be the Robert Rayner christened at Birstall on 9 Nov. 1825, son of Thomas Ingham Rayner and his wife Martha, who also had a son named Thomas, christened on 29 June 1837.

To George Smith, 17 February 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir I do not think my note would do Mr. Thackeray much good, but as—(so far as I recollect) it contains nothing I can have any objection to his seeing—you are quite at liberty to use your own discretion in the matter.1 What is said in that

the letters, 1852

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note—I would if I had nerve—and could speak without hesitating and looking like an idiot2—say to himself—face to face—prepared of course—for any amount of sarcasm in reply—prepared too for those misconstructions which are the least Xattering to human pride—and which we see and take in and smile at quietly and put by sadly: little ingenuities in which—if I mistake not—Mr. Thackeray—with all his greatness—excels. I have never seen the ‘‘Paris Sketch-Book’’3 but you really must send nothing more for the present—at least not by Post—let your recklessly lavished ‘‘Queen’s Heads’’4 repose for a while. I am truly glad to hear that you are better—I think too, I grow stronger. Believe me Sincerely Yours C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 69. W & S 751. Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. Smith sent the letter to Thackeray, who wrote to his mother on 26 Feb.: ‘Miss Bronte has seen the Wrst volume and pronounces it admirable and odious—well I think it is very well done and very melancholy too—but the melancholy part ends pretty well with Vol. I. and everybody begins to move and be cheerful’ (Ray Letters iii. 15. See also GS 14.2.1852 n. 6). 2. The uneasy personal relationship between Thackeray and CB is indicated in his letter to Mary Holmes of 25 Feb.: ‘You see by Jane Eyre’s letter dont you why we can’t be very great friends? We had a correspondence—a little one; and met, very eagerly on her part. But there’s a Wre and fury raging in that little woman a rage scorching her heart wh. doesn’t suit me. She has had a story and a great grief that has gone badly with her. ‘‘Tis better to have loved & lost than never to have loved at all.’’ I said the same thing before I read it in Tennyson’ (Ray Letters iii. 12). 3. Eighteen articles, most of them Wrst published in Fraser’s Magazine and the New Monthly Magazine, collected and published in one volume as The Paris Sketch-Book in July 1840. George Smith recalled it as the book which Wrst introduced him to Thackeray’s work and made him resolve to publish books by him. It, or more probably Comic Tales and Sketches (1841), had fascinated and distracted him at Tegg’s remainder sale, when it was marked down from one guinea to 1s. 9d. See Huxley 66–7, Ray Letters i, p. clxvii and n. 158. 4. Postage stamps.

To Margaret Wooler, 17 February 1852 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler Your last welcome letter found me at Brookroyd whence I am just returned after a fortnight’s stay; the change has proved beneWcial, not only to my health but more especially to my spirits which were so prostrated by the debility consequent on my illness that solitude had become somewhat too trying. If serene weather were only restored—I feel as if I should soon be well again but these long storms1—these incessantly howling winds depress the nervous system much. I trust Mr. Thomas2 has been heard of ere now; continued

22

the letters, 1852

suspense respecting his safe arrival at Hamburgh would be most painful during weather so inclement. When you write again—just mention whether you have received news of him. If you would send me one of Mrs. Moore’s3 circulars—I could—at any rate— make the best use of it in my power—though—whether any favourable result would ensue must—as you well know—be very uncertain. Mrs. Gaskell’s eldest daughter is at school near London;4 Lady Shuttleworth has but one little girl—a child of seven—for whom, however, she has a foreign governess5—and her ladyship seemed to place so little reliance on the competency of Englishwomen to train the young—and to entertain such sweeping suspicions of English schools in general that—I fear—her patronage could hardly be looked for. During my stay at Brookroyd—I had the pleasure of seeing Miss Eliza6—she had heard I was in the neighbourhood and kindly walked over one morning to make a call—bringing with her a most interesting little party—three of her nieces, Harriet, Lucy and Fanny, and her nephew John—a Wne little fair-haired English-featured boy—strikingly like his uncle, Mr. John Wooler. Ellen Nussey and I were to have dined at Rouse Mill—but the weather on the day appointed proved so unpropitious—it was impossible to stir out—and it was well we were prevented—for we heard afterwards that on that day the baby was again taken very ill, so that our visit might have proved an inconvenience. I also saw Mr. & Mrs. Wm. Wooler and Ellen who was accompanied by a Miss Rogers;7 they all appeared to me to be looking well—especially Mrs. Wooler who grows quite stout. In the midst of it all—both E. Nussey and I could not help regretting your absence and we did regret it deeply and often. As to the French President8—it seems to me hard to say what a man with so little scruple and so much ambition will not attempt: I wish, however, the English Press would not prate so much about invasion; if silence were possible in a free Country—would it not be far better to prepare silently for what may come—to place the national defences in an eVective state and refrain from breathing a word of apprehension? Doubtless such is the thought of practical Men like the Duke of Wellington9—I can well conceive his secret impatience at the mischievous gabbling of the newspapers. Wonderful is the French Nation [Letter incomplete and lacks signature] MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 752. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The Times had reported heavy gales and shipwrecks on at least Wve occasions between 11 and 26 Jan. A disastrous Xood following almost incessant rainfall on 5 Feb. was reported on 6 Feb.: there had been ‘a most alarming destruction of life and property in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire’. At HolmWrth, near HuddersWeld, the bursting of a reservoir caused a Xood which rushed with ‘terriWc force’ down the valley, killing ‘upwards of eighty’ people, destroying four mills and seventy-nine other buildings, and damaging farmland (see The Times 6.2.1852, 7, col. 6, and Mayhall i. 600–8).

the letters, 1852 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

23

For Thomas Wooler, see MW 20.1.[1852] n. 3. See MW 20.1.[1852] n. 5. Marianne Gaskell was a boarder at Mrs Lalor’s school in Hampstead. The German-Polish Rosa Poplawska, governess to Janet Elizabeth Shuttleworth (1843–1914). See CBL ii. 368 n. Margaret Wooler’s sister Eliza (1808–84), who had taught at Miss Wooler’s schools at Roe Head and Dewsbury Moor. Her nieces and nephew were the children of her youngest brother James Upton Wooler (1811–92), who carried on the family corn-milling and farming business at Rouse Mill, Batley. His children by his second wife, ne´e Ann Sykes, were Fanny and Lucy, both christened 11 Mar. 1846 at Dewsbury, and John, christened 15 Feb. 1847. Perhaps Harriet was a daughter by his Wrst wife, also called Harriet. The children’s uncle John was James’s elder brother, born 18 Aug. 1893. Dr William Moore Wooler (1795–1873) and his second wife, ne´e Anne Medley (1812–84), and (probably) William’s daughter by his Wrst wife, Sidney Maria, ne´e Allbutt—Margaret Ellenora (Ellen), born 1828. Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (1808–73), nephew of Napoleon I of France, considered that he had a claim to the French throne. After a life spent mainly in exile 1815–48, he was elected in Sept. 1848 as a member of the Constituent Assembly of the second French Republic. Then, promising a return of ‘la gloire’, order, and prosperity, he was elected President by plebiscite on 10 Dec. 1848. By 31 Oct. 1849 he had increased his power by giving key positions in the administration, cabinet, and army to his adherents. Since the Constitution prevented his re-election after four years as President, he carried out a coup d’e´tat on 2 Dec. 1851. Violent street-Wghting ensued, the troops’ ruthless volleys killing innocent bystanders as well as rioters, and republicans hostile to Louis Napoleon were defeated by 4 Dec. Thousands of arrests and deportations followed, and local oYcials were empowered to suppress newspapers. Louis was elected President for ten years, and then, when the Senate resolved to restore the Empire, a plebiscite in Nov. 1852 conWrmed him as Emperor of the French. English politicians and journalists foresaw trouble in Italy and Belgium, and W. E. Forster, writing to Monckton Milnes on 1 Jan. 1852, could see little to prevent Louis Napoleon arriving in England ‘some Wne morning with some hundred thousand friends, & putting down the London as well as the Paris Clubs’ (MS Trinity College Cambridge). On 17 Feb. 1852 The Times reported a parliamentary debate on how Britain might best prepare to be on a warlike footing, and pointed out that the situation resembled that in 1800–14: ‘The French nation is throwing itself . . . knowingly and precipitately, into that imperial and aggressive position from which force alone compelled it to withdraw in 1814’, and it was now more populous, richer, and better prepared for military and naval operations than it was then. Britain was already going to ‘enormous expense’ in preparing against war, but should also face the possibility of invasion. A British volunteer corps should be trained with a view to service if France invaded, however improbable and distant such an emergency might seem (5, col. 3). Wellington was now 85 years old, but though very deaf, he was still physically and mentally vigorous, and as recently as 1848 had organized the government’s defensive preparations against the perceived Chartist threat. Parliament’s bill to raise a militia ‘was the occasion of the Duke’s last major statement in the House of Lords. Although what he had really wanted was an increase in the regular army he welcomed the militia as the Wrst step in strengthening the country’s defences’ (Neville Thompson, Wellington after Waterloo (1986), 257).

To Ellen Nussey, [?24 February 1852] [Haworth] Tuesday Morning Dear Ellen I return Mary *Gorham’s1 letter with thanks. The time of your visit does not seem to me very distant; three months will soon pass.

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the letters, 1852

I am sorry, dear Nell, you are treating the subject of my going to Sussex as if it were at all a probable thing. Let me say distinctly—it is not at all likely—few things less so—as far as I can at present see. I am glad to hear your Sister *Ann is a little better—perhaps this illness may improve her general health—you do not mention Mr. *Clapham—I hope he still progresses. As to Papa—his health has really been wonderful this winter—good sleep—good spirits—an excellent steady appetite—all seem to mark vigour— may it but continue! As for me—I yet do well—could I but get rid of indigestion and headache I should manage—but these pains pursue me. The Indian Mail brought me nothing.2 I am dear Nell Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS Princeton. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/54. W & S 753. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j FE 24 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j FE 24 j 1852 j H (iv) BIRSTALL Annotation (i) by EN on letter: 262 j Feb 24—52 (ii) by EN on envelope: Feb 24—52 1. Ellen was to be a bridesmaid for Mary Gorham. 2. CB had hoped for a letter from James Taylor, now managing Smith, Elder’s Bombay branch under its new title of ‘Smith, Taylor & Co.’ Although she had recoiled from the idea of marriage with Taylor during his farewell visit to her in Apr. 1851, she did not wish to lose contact, and had written a long letter to him on 15 Nov. 1851. See CBL ii, esp. pp. liii–lv (Biographical Note), 597–610, 716–19.

To Ellen Nussey, [5 March 1852] [Haworth] Dear Ellen I suppose as I have heard nothing since your last—that the baby1 at Hunsworth is now better. I do not return Amelia’s letters—conceiving that they are hardly such as you will make a point of retaining. Seldom have I seen any from her that impressed me less favourably—the loud—weak outcry is too much—I pity her but less than I should do if I did no[t] feel2 that she is straining her emotions to the utmost—All that part about Hopkinson’s wife and her child is sad. The apostrophe to you ‘‘You never were a Mother(!!!)3 &c. is really theatrical and entirely superXuous. It is well that A. has a better side to her character than all this. If such be the sort of diet on which she feeds Rosy4—I do not wonder at the latter’s occasional silence. This kind of correspondence would do me up.

the letters, 1852

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I hope you are all better at Brookroyd—the cold weather disagreed with me very much at Wrst—I think however I am getting used to it though I still have frequent head-aches and just now a swelled face and tic in the cheek-bone. Mr. Ruddock has contradicted himself about Quinine5—allowed that it will not do for me and prescribed another tonic which I have taken though without any beneWt that I can perceive. I had a letter from Miss Martineau6 [a] few days since. She has actually suppressed her intended work calls it now ‘‘a foolish prank’’. but it is obvious she is much chagrined. I suppose you have received your Sussex parcel7 ere this and I trust its contents were satisfactory. This dry Wne frosty weather ought to suit you— dear Nell—Write soon and tell me how you are. Papa is well. Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS HM 24492. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/54.3. W & S 755. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nuss[ey] j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j MR 5 1852 (iii) LEEDS j MR 5 j 1852 j H (iv) BIRSTALL Annotation (i) by EN on letter: omitted entirely j OP Mar 5—52 j Mar 5 52 (ii) by EN on envelope in pencil: Mar 5—52 1. Amelia Taylor’s daughter Emily Martha (‘Tim’). See EN ?28.7.1851 n. 6. 2. CB wrote ‘did nor feel’. 3. Cf. Mary Taylor to EN 28.1.1858: ‘It is sad to see how slender is the thread all Amelia’s happiness hangs on. . . . The wrapping & nursing & feeding that the child gets seem absurd; but so do all the precautions that delicate people take seem absurd to healthy ones . . . All Amelia’s [letters] are utterly absorbed in this matter [care for Joe] & Tim’ (MS BPM Horsfall Turner collection; Nussey 383–4). Juliet Barker points out that Ginevra Fanshawe in Villette becomes an obsessive mother who accuses Lucy Snowe of not knowing ‘what it was to be a mother’ (Villette, ch. 40). 4. Amelia’s sister Rosetta Dugdale. 5. See EN 16.2.1852 n. 2. 6. CB wrote ‘I few days’. See GS 1.1.1852 n. 1. According to Miss Martineau, George Smith refused to publish Oliver Weld ‘on account of some favourable representations & auguries on behalf of the Catholics’. See CBL ii. 733–4. 7. From Mary Gorham.

To Ellen Nussey, [?10 March 1852] [Haworth] Dear Ellen, With regard to the pains in chest and shoulders, if they still continue there should be no delay in asking the opinion of a medical man, Mr. Rayner1 for instance. Pains of this sort often indicate congestion of some organ; in my case it was the liver, and I had the pains at intervals for three years before I knew their origin. Have you tried a moderate dose of opening medicine? Two camomile pills might be of use, but you had better speak to a doctor.

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the letters, 1852

The hand-squeezing adventure made me smile. Who was the gentleman? Could it be Mr. ——? Are you sure he was ——? Was not the squeeze probably too slight to be felt? Have you not tormented yourself about what was perceptible to yourself only?2 Mary Gorham’s letter is very interesting; it shows a mind one cannot but truly admire. Compare its serene, trusting strength with poor Mrs. Joe Taylor’s vacillating dependence. When the latter was in her Wrst burst of happiness, I never remember the feeling Wnding vent in expressions of gratitude to God. There was always a continued claim upon your sympathy in the mistrust and doubt she felt of her own bliss. Mary believes, has faith, is grateful and at peace: yet while happy in herself, how thoughtful she is for others!3 I enclose a letter from New Zealand4 which I ought to have sent before, but forgot it until my last note was sealed. It contains nothing new, being indeed of a date prior to the one you have already seen, but somehow it tends to conWrm one’s fears about Ellen Taylor.5 With love to all at Brookroyd,—Believe me, dear Nell, yours faithfully, C. Bronte¨. MS untraced. W & S 737 as [January, 1852]. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: the quotation from this letter in Life ii. 246 is placed two pages after GS 14.2.1852, and immediately before EN 23.3.1852. Nussey 277 and Shorter 564 date 10 Mar. 1852. W & S 737 dates [January, 1852], probably because the letter was evidently written before CB heard of Ellen Taylor’s death in New Zealand. This is mentioned in EN 4.[5].1852, misdated by CB and W & S as 4 Mar. See this letter and Stevens 106. Text: Shorter 564. The quoted paragraph in Life ii. 246 and the incomplete Nussey 277 have the variants noted below. W & S 737 reproduces Shorter. 1. See EN 16.2.1852 n. 4. Camomile Xowers are ‘used in medicine for their bitter and tonic properties’ (OED). They were formerly used also as a febrifuge, and in large doses as an emetic. ‘Tincture of camomile’ could be used for colds and coughs. 2. Nussey omits ‘Have you tried . . . yourself only?’ 3. This paragraph is quoted in Life, using ‘M——’ for Mary Gorham and ‘——’ for Mrs Joe Taylor. 4. From Mary Taylor. This letter has not been located. 5. For Ellen Taylor’s death see EN [6.1.1852] n. 5 and 4.[5].1852.

To George Smith, 11 March 1852 [Haworth] (a) My dear Sir I am very glad to hear that Mr. Thackeray is ‘‘getting on’’ as he says—and it is to be hoped the stimulus may prove more than temporary.1 Is not the publication of the Lectures ‘‘with no end of illustrations’’2 -a most commendable idea? I should think every one who heard them delivered will like to read them over again at leisure:3 for my own part I can hardly imagine a greater treat, were it

the letters, 1852

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only for the opportunity thereby aVorded of Wshing for faults and fallacies—and of fuming, fretting and brooding at ease over the passages that excited one’s wrath. In listening to a lecture you have not time to be angry enough. Mr. Thackeray’s worship of his Baal—Bel—Bee¨lzebub4 (they are all one) his false god of a Fielding—is a thing I greatly desire to consider deliberately. In that red book of yours (which I returned long ago) there was a portrait of the Author of ‘‘Jonathan Wild’’—in the cynical prominence of the under-jaw, one read the man.5 It was the stamp of one who would never see his neighbours (especially his women-neighbours) as they are—but as they might be under the worst circumstances. In Mr. Thackeray’s own nature is a small seasoning of this virtue but it does not (I hope) prevail throughout his whole being. I have read the ‘‘Paris Sketches’’ slowly, and by regulated allowances of so much per diem. I was so afraid of exhausting the precious provision too quickly. What curious traces one Wnds (at least so it struck me) of a somewhat wild, irregular and reckless life being led at that time by the Author!6 And yet how good—how truthful and sagacious are many of the papers—such as touch on politics for instance—and above all the critical articles—and then whatever vinegar and gall—whatever idle froth a book of Thackeray’s may contain it has no dregs—you never go and wash your hands when you put it down—nor rinse your mouth to take away the Xavour of a degraded soul—Perverse he may be and is—but—to do him justice—not degraded—no—never. Is the 1st. no. of ‘‘Bleak House’’7 generally admired? I liked the Chancery part—but where it passes into the autobiographic form and the young woman who announces that she is not ‘‘bright’’ begins her history—it seems to me too often weak and twaddling—an amiable nature is caricatured—not faithfully rendered in Miss Esther Sum[m]erson. Did I tell you that I had heard from Miss Martineau8 and that she has quite thrown aside ‘‘Oliver Weld’’ and calls it now ‘‘a foolish prank’’—? For the present she declines turning her attention to any other work of Wction; she says her time for writing Wction is past—this may be so. Please to tell Mr. Williams that I mean (D.V.) to look over ‘‘Shirley’’ soon and to send him a list of errata9—but I marvel at your courage in contemplating a reprint; I cannot conceive a score of copies being sold. Believe me Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ (b) I return Mr. Thackeray’s little illustrated note.10 How excellent is Goldsmith issuing in full-blown complacency from Filby’s Shop—with Dr. Johnson walking half-benignant—half-sarcastic by his side. Captain Steele too is very good. Surely if Mr. Thackeray undertook to furnish illustrations—he would not be troublesome and procrastinating about what he can dash oV so easily and rapidly

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the letters, 1852

(a) MS BPM SG 70. W & S 757. (b) MS placed with BPM SG 83. W & S 720 (postscript). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. George Smith had forwarded to CB a ‘little illustrated note’ from Thackeray, announcing that he was ‘getting on [with vol. ii of Esmond] so as to satisfy’ even himself, and ‘had a great mind to pack up some more MS, & say what will she [CB] say to this?’ (Harden letter 834B). 2. Thackeray’s Lectures on the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century were printed ‘for fear of American pirates’, with ‘notes, personal, illustrative, & tant soit peu antiquarian’ to make them more entertaining. These were provided at Thackeray’s request by James Hannay (1827–73), author and journalist, and the volume was published in Mar. 1853. See Harden letter 882D and Edgar Harden, Thackeray’s ‘‘English Humourists’’ and ‘‘Four Georges’’ (Associated University Presses, 1986). 3. CB attended four of the lectures in London in 1851, but missed those on Swift (22 May) and Sterne and Goldsmith (3 July). After hearing Thackeray lecture on Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding on 26 June 1851, she deplored his failure to condemn Fielding’s drinking the ‘cup of pleasure which the town oVered to him’ and his getting into debt owing to his taste for ‘good wine, good clothes, and good company’. See CBL ii. 652 n. 2, and GS 26.3.1853 in the present volume. 4. CB aligns the false god Baal served by the Israelites in Judges 2: 11–13 with the Babylonian god Bel ( Jeremiah 51: 44) and Beelzebub, prince of the devils (Mark 3: 22 and Milton, Paradise Lost). 5. Hogarth’s proWle portrait of Fielding is reproduced in many editions of his works. Fielding’s long nose and prominent chin appear to compress between them his thin, tightly closed mouth. Jonathan Wild would give CB a constricted view of Fielding, who writes with sustained heavy irony. If she had read Tom Jones she had perhaps forgotten the portrayal of Sophia Western. 6. See GS 17.2.1852 n. 3. While living in Paris and studying drawing in 1832–3 Thackeray eked out a meagre subsistence by journalism. Several of the Paris Sketches are set in seedy areas of the city—pawnshops, gambling houses, and taverns, the haunts of tricksters and adventurers. See for example ‘The Painter’s Bargain’ and ‘A Gambler’s Death’. 7. The Wrst of the twenty parts of Dickens’s Bleak House was published on 28 Feb. 1852. 8. See EN [5.3.1852] and n. 6. 9. The second edition of Shirley, incorporating some corrections and revisions, was published in one volume in Nov. 1852 at 6 s. CB made a few minor revisions in substantives, and omitted two lengthy footnotes dealing with French verse in chs. 6 and 27, and a comment addressed to the reader in ch. 7. She may also have restored some manuscript punctuation and capitalization. See Clarendon edn. 106, 559, 119, ‘Textual History’ (pp. xxiv–xxxvi), and ‘Descriptive List of Editions’ (pp. xxxix–xl). 10. Thackeray had sent three drawings, ‘one of Captain Steele, one of Sterne in a chair ogling a shopgirl, and one of Johnson and Goldsmith walking in front of Filby’s shop’ (Harden i. 463). For the Filby drawing see Ray Letters iv, opp. 71 and 71 n. 10. Filby, the tailor, sits cross-legged in the shop-window, and the caption reads, ‘Dr. Johnson and Dr. Goldsmith j Goldsmith in the new Plum-coloured Coat. Mr. Filby looking anxiously after it.’ In his lecture on Sterne and Goldsmith Thackeray commented that for some of Goldsmith’s splendid clothes ‘the heirs and assignees of Mr. Filby. . . have never been paid to this day’.

To Margaret Wooler, 12 March 1852 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler Your kind note holds out a strong temptation, but one that must be resisted. From home I must not go unless health or some cause equally imperative render a change necessary. For nearly four months now (i.e since I Wrst became

the letters, 1852

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1

ill) I have not put pen to paper—my work has been lying untouched and my faculties have been rusting for want of exercise; further relaxation is out of the question and I will not permit myself to think of it. My publisher groans over my long delays; I am sometimes provoked to check the expression of his impatience with short and crusty answers. Yet the pleasure I now deny myself I would fain regard as only deferred. I heard something about your purposing to visit Scarbro’ in the course of the Summer and could I—by the close of July or August bring my task to a certain point—how glad should I be to join you there for awhile!2 Ellen Nussey will probably go to the South about May to make a stay of two or three months3—she has formed a plan for my accompanying her and taking lodgings on the Sussex Coast—but the scheme seems to me impracticable for many reasons—and moreover my medical man doubts the advisability of my going Southward in Summer—he says it might prove very enervating—whereas Scarbro’ or Burlington4 would brace and strengthen. However—I dare not lay plans at this distance of time—for me so much must depend—Wrst on Papa’s health (which—throughout the winter—has been—I am thankful to say—really excellent), and 2nd. on the progress of work—a matter not wholly contingent on wish or will—but lying in a great measure beyond the reach of eVort and out of the pale of calculation. I am truly glad to learn that satisfactory tidings have been received regarding Mr. Thomas5—he may prosper better than could be anticipated foreign scenes and faces may prove a salutary stimulus; ere now I have observed that persons of diYdent, self-doubting character are more at ease amongst total strangers than with those to whom they are partially known. I will not write more at present as I wish to save this post. All the house would join in kind remembrances to you if they knew I was writing; Tabby and Martha both frequently enquire after ‘‘Miss Wooler’’ and desire their respects when an opportunity oVers of presenting the same.6 Believe me Yours always aVectionately & respectfully C Bronte¨ MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 758. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. On Villette. 2. Cf. EN 7[?April] 1852 and n. 4. 3. i.e. before and after the wedding of Mary Gorham. 4. The alternative name for Bridlington on the E. Yorks. coast, visited by CB and EN in Sept.–Oct. 1839 and June 1849. In the event CB was to stay in Filey, ‘utterly alone’ from c.27 May until 24 June 1852. 5. See MW 20.1.[1852] and 17.2.1852. 6. Miss Wooler had stayed at Haworth Parsonage for ten days from 29 Sept. 1851.

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the letters, 1852

To George Smith, 21 March 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir I have read and now return Mr. Thackeray’s 2nd. Vol.1 The Complaint, I suppose, will be that there is too little story. I thought so myself in reading the Wrst part of this packet of M.S. I felt tedium in the Wrst campaign of Harry Esmond; the 2nd. and 3rd. seemed to me to kindle to spirit. The character of Marlborough—I thought a masterly piece of writing.2 But where is the use of giving one’s broken impressions of such a book? It ought not to be judged piecemeal. You are kind enough to enquire after Currer Bell’s health. Thank you; he is better; latterly, he has been much better; if he could continue so well—he would look up yet; but—I say again—expect no good of him this summer. I suppose that Mr. Forster3 about whom you enquire is a Mr. F—— from the neighbourhood of Bradford—he wrote an answer to Macaulay’s attack on Penn & the Quakers;4 he is or was a quaker himself—he has published also letters in the ‘‘Leader’’ on Communism or the Associative Principle. I trust you are better. Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ George Smith Esqr. I return the Manuscript by this Post. MS BPM SG 71. W & S 759. Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. Henry Esmond in manuscript, presumably received by CB soon after 11 Mar. See her letter of that date. 2. John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1650–1722. Esmond takes part in campaigns during the war against France and its allies, 1702–11, when Marlborough was Captain-General of the British forces. He was accused of peculation and was dismissed from all oYces on 31 Dec. 1711. Thackeray’s portrayal of him is hostile. He emphasizes Esmond’s loyalty to General John Richmond Webb (?1667–1724) whom Thackeray at this period believed to be his ancestor, treated with gross injustice by Marlborough. But he gives a brilliant, biased, malicious analysis of the chief who ‘had this of the godlike in him, that he was impassible before victory, before danger, before defeat. . . . he betrayed his benefactor, and supported him, or would have murdered him, with the same calmness always . . . ’ (Book II, ch. 9, ‘I make the campaign of 1704’. See also Ray Wisdom 179 and 461–2 nn.). 3. William Edward Forster. See Mr Bronte¨’s letter to Milnes, 16.1.1852 n. 2, and CBL ii. 451–2. He had been educated at Quaker schools, and in 1849 ‘his quakerism was roused by Macaulay’s attacks [in his History of England] on the character of William Penn’. He therefore reissued Thomas Clarkson’s Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn (2 vols., 1813) ‘prefacing it by a long and able defence against the historian’s charges’ of scandalous conduct by Penn.

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See DNB vii. 466. Forster’s vindication of Penn ‘did much to mitigate the feeling which Macaulay’s strictures upon Penn had occasioned. About the same time Forster wrote to the Leader newspaper a series of letters on the ‘‘Right to Work,’’ which he pithily described as ‘‘a man’s right to do his duty.’’ They formed a vigorous indictment of the existing economic system’ (T. Wemyss Reid, Life of the Right Honourable William Edward Forster (2 vols. (1888), i. 285). A letter signed ‘W’, published on 10 June 1851, asked the Leader whether it would publish in collected form ‘the letters of Thornton Hunt, on the theory of Communism . . . they are the best statement, of the subject in the English language’ (568). Articles by other writers on the ‘progress of association’, ‘social reform . . . The Coo¨perative Associations of England’, ‘The Practical Progress of Industrial Fellowship’, and the like, continued to be published in the Leader in 1852.

To Ellen Nussey, 23 March 1852 Haworth. Dear Ellen Let me fulWl in this note a duty I forgot in the last—to thank you for the pretty d’oyley and to enclose payment in postage stamps I gave your Mother ‘‘The Women of Christianity.’’1 I have not been to visit Miss Wooler—She asked me very kindly and I should have liked it—but felt it incumbent on me to refuse as I often feel it incumbent on me to refuse you. My health has been decidedly better lately—less headache—pain in the side sometimes but not often—Papa now begins to say I am looking better: he— thank God—is well and looks well. H. *Cockhill’s2 account of J. *Nussey is beautiful—if I were a man—that is the sort of family I would not marry into—the sort of father-in law I would not have. I don’t envy Mr. *Richardson. You may well indeed felicitate yourself that such relatives in the Xesh do not Wnd you kindred in the spirit—and that they never will. Did you go to *Rouse *Mill3 on Friday? How did you enjoy yourself and whom did you see? You say, dear Nell—that you often wish I would chat on paper as you do. How can I—? Where are my materials?—is my life fertile in subjects of chat—? What callers do I see—what visits do I pay? No—you must chat and I must listen and say yes and no and thank you for Wve minutes recreation. I don’t know what that dear Mrs. Joe T[aylor] will make of ’her’ little one in the end: between port-wine and calomel and Mr. Bennet and Mr. Anderson4—I should not like to be in its socks. Yet I think it will live—that it will ever be a good life—I do not think. I am amused at the interest you take in politics—don’t expect to rouse me— to me all ministries and all oppositions seem to be pretty much alike. D’Israeli was factious as Leader of the Opposition—Lord J[ohn] Russel[l] is going to be

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factious now that he has stepped into D’I’s shoes5—Confound them all. Lord Derby’s ‘‘christian tone and spirit’’ is worth 3 halfpence 1/4 Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS HM 24494. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/54.5. W & S 760. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j MR 23 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j MR 23 j 1852 j H (iv) BIRSTALL Annotation by EN on envelope in pencil: Mar 23—52 j [i.w.] a ?tri——in politics 1. Julia Kavanagh, Women of Christianity, Exemplary for Acts of Piety and Charity. . . . with portraits (Smith, Elder, 1852). Kavanagh aimed ‘to record those marvels of charity and devotedness which are the greatest boast of the Christian faith, and in which man has not as yet surpassed woman’. The engraved portraits are of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Rosa Govona, and Elizabeth Fry. See also the next letter n. 4. 2. Hannah Cockill (1810–93) who with her sisters Sarah and Elizabeth ran a girls’ school at Oakwell Hall, Birstall. Their mother was the cousin of Mrs Sarah Nussey, ne´e Clapham, the wife of an uncle of EN. ‘J. Nussey’ is probably Ellen’s rich cousin John Nussey of White Lee, Batley, whose daughter Isabella (c.1821–99) married her former tutor, the Revd George Richardson (d. 1879), perpetual curate of Gomersal since 1847, and later Vicar of Kilburn near Northallerton, N. Yorks. 3. The Wooler family’s home. 4. Emily Martha Taylor’s mother Amelia Taylor had probably called in the local doctor from Cleckheaton, Joseph Blacker Bennett, MRCS, LSA 1840, or the Bradford physician Dr James A. Bennett, MRCS England, LSA 1844, MD Edinburgh 1845 (London and Provincial Medical Directory (1854), 334). Dr Anderson could be William Charles Anderson of 17 Stonegate, York, MRCS, LSA 1831, lecturer on midwifery at the York School of Medicine and consultant surgeon to the York Midwifery Institute (ibid. 318). 5. Lord John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878), Whig MP, Premier from 1846, had demanded Palmerston’s resignation after the latter, as Foreign Secretary, congratulated Louis Napoleon on his coup d’e´tat in Dec. 1851 without asking the opinion of the cabinet. Russell himself resigned in Feb. 1852, after his government was defeated on an amendment. Lord Derby (Edward Stanley, 1799–1869) became Prime Minister in a Coalition government, Russell went to the Foreign OYce, and the Tory Disraeli (1804–81) became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Addressing the Lords on 27 Feb., Derby ‘stressed the importance of the Church and the diVusion of the Scriptures and of evangelical truth’ (Angus Easson, note on a quotation from this letter in Life, World’s Classics edn. 559, note to 401). CB valued his statements at three halfpence farthing—i.e. less than two pence.

To W. S. Williams, 25 March 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir Mr. Smith intimated a short time since, that he had some thoughts of publishing a reprint of ‘‘Shirley’’. Having revised the work, I now enclose the errata.1 I have likewise sent oV to-day per Rail a return box of Cornhill books.2 I have lately read with great pleasure ‘‘The Two Families’’.3 This work, it seems, should have reached me in January—but owing to a mistake it was

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detained at the Dead Letter OYce and lay there nearly two months. I liked the commencement very much; the close seemed to me scarcely equal to ‘‘Rose Douglas’’. I thought the authoress committed a mistake in shifting the main interest from the two personages on whom it Wrst rests—viz Ben Wilson and Mary—to other characters of quite inferior conception. Had She made Ben & Mary her hero and heroine, and continued the development of their fortunes and characters in the same truthful natural vein in which she commences it—an excellent—even an original book might have been the result. As for Lilias and Ronald—they are mere Romantic Wgments—with nothing of the genuine Scottish peasant about them; they do not even speak the Caledonian dialect; they palaver like a Wne lady and gentleman. I ought long since to have acknowledged the gratiWcation with which I read Miss Kavanagh’s ‘‘Women of Christianity’’.4 Her charity and (on the whole) her impartiality are very beautiful. She touches indeed with too gentle a hand the theme of Elizabeth of Hungary—and in her own mind—she evidently misconstrues the fact of Protestant Charities seeming to be fewer than Catholic. She forgets or does not know that Protestantism is a quieter creed than Romanism—as it does not clothe its priesthood in Scarlet so neither does it set up its good women for Saints canonize their names and proclaim their good works—In the records of man their almsgiving will not perhaps be found registered—but Heaven has its Account as well as Earth. With kind regards to yourself and family who—I trust—have all safely weathered the rough Winter lately past—as well as the East Winds which are still nipping our Spring in Yorkshire— I am—my dear Sir Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM Bon 242. W & S 761. Address (integral): W. S. Williams Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. See GS 11.3.1852 n. 9. Emendations based on the second edition are asterisked in the Clarendon Shirley footnotes. They include spelling corrections and the replacement of ambiguous pronouns by proper nouns. 2. Since 31 Oct. 1851, when CB returned a box of books sent to her by Smith, Elder, she must have received other parcels of books, for on 17 Feb. 1852 she told George Smith that he must ‘send nothing more for the present’. 3. [Mrs Sarah R. Whitehead] The Two Families: An Episode in the History of Chapelton. By the author of ‘‘Rose Douglas’’ (Smith, Elder, & Co., 1852). After describing the pretty country town, marred by the squalor of the older lanes where the poor live, Mrs Whitehead gives a pleasantly Cranfordian account of its genteel society before introducing Ben Wilson. He is a little ragged boy, stunted and undersized, living in a wretched garret with his drunken mother. His cousin Mary, realistically described as intelligent, though neither pretty nor lively, secretly teaches Ben to read. Reluctant to become an apprentice, he disappears from Chapelton, to reappear much later in the story as a rich gentleman with an Indian servant. A complicated and unconvincing story of mercenary marriages and misappropriated wealth ensues. The widowed Mary Wilson,

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who had married a highland gamekeeper, is kept in ignorance of Ben’s bequest to her, but, a paragon of unselWsh virtue, she renounces it when she is eventually told. Her daughter Lilias is an angelic beauty of great ‘reWnement of mind, and . . . delicacy of perception’ who marries the devoted Ronald Maclean, who, though only ‘a simple shepherd’, has a passion for knowledge and has advanced far ‘in the science of geology’. CB’s opinion seems totally justiWed. She had predicted success for Mrs Whitehead’s Rose Douglas; or, Sketches of a Country Parish; being the Autobiography of a Scotch Minister’s Daughter, 2 vols. (1851), and Smith, Elder reprinted it in, for example, 1854 and 1862. See CBL ii. 583–4. 4. See EN 23.3.1852 n. 1. Julia Kavanagh sets out to depict Elizabeth as a saint whose great austerities ‘never aVected her natural cheerfulness; she was gay and merry in the very midst of penance’. The harshness and cruelty of her confessor, the monk Conrad, are admitted, but Kavanagh insists that ‘in his own austere way, he loved her’. Charlotte’s comments in this letter were inXuenced by Charles Kingsley’s strongly anti-Catholic treatment of Elizabeth of Hungary in The Saint’s Tragedy (1848), which Charlotte had read in Aug. 1851. See CBL ii. 677–9. Compare also Lucy Snowe’s attitude to Mme Beck’s charities in Villette, and her comments on the ‘dreadful viciousness, sickening tyranny and black impiety’ of the story of Elizabeth in ch. 13.

To W. S. Williams, 3 April 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir The box arrived safely and I very much thank you for the contents which are most kindly selected. As you wished me to say what I thought of ‘‘The School for Fathers’’1—I hastened to read it. The book seems to me clever, interesting, very amusing and likely to please generally. There is a merit in the choice of ground which is not yet too hackneyed; the comparative freshness of subject, character and epoch give the tale a certain attractiveness. There is also—I think—a graphic rendering of situation, and a lively talent for describing whatever is visible and tangible— what the eye meets on the surface of things. The humour appears to me such as would answer well on the Stage:2 most of the scenes seem to demand dramatic accessories to give them their full eVect. But I think one cannot with justice bestow higher praise than this. To speak candidly—I felt in reading the tale—a wondrous hollowness in the moral and sentiment; a strange dilettante shallowness in the purpose and feeling. After all—‘‘Jack’’ is not much better than a ‘‘Tony Lumpkin’’,3 and there is no very great breadth of choice between the clown he is and the fop his Father would have made him. The grossly material life of the Old English Foxhunter—and the frivolous existence of the Fine Gentleman present extremes, each in its way, so repugnant—that one feels half-inclined to smile when called upon to sentimentalize over the lot of a youth forced to pass from one to the other—torn from the stables to be ushered perforce into the ballroom. Jack dies mournfully indeed and you are sorry for the poor fellow’s untimely end—but you cannot forget that if he had not been thrust into the way of Colonel Penruddock’s weapon—he might possibly have

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broken his neck in a fox-hunt. The character of Sir Thomas Warren is excellent—consistent throughout. That of Mr. Addison—not bad but sketchy—a mere outline—wanting colour and Wnish. The man’s portrait is there and his costume and fragmentary anecdotes of his life—but where is the man’s nature— soul and self ? I say nothing about the female characters—not one word—only that Lydia seems to me like a pretty little actress, prettily dressed, gracefully appearing and disappearing and re-appearing in a genteel comedy; assuming the proper sentiments of her part with all due tact and naı¨vete´, and—that is all. Your description of the Model Man of Business is true enough, I doubt not— but we will not fear that ’Society’ will ever be brought quite to this Standard; Human Nature—(bad as it is) has, after all, elements that forbid it. But the very tendency to such a consummation—the marked tendency—I fear of the day—produces no doubt cruel suVering—Yet when the evil of Competition passes a certain limit—must it not in time work its own cure? I suppose it will—but then through some convulsed crisis—shattering all round it like an earthquake. Meantime for how many is Life made a struggle—enjoyment and rest curtailed—labour terribly enhanced beyond almost what Nature can bear— I often think that this World would be the most terrible of enigmas were it not for the Wrm belief that there is a World to Come where conscientious eVort and patient pain will meet their reward. Believe me—my dear Sir Sincerely Yours C Bronte¨ MS HM 24401. W & S 762. Address (integral): W. S. Williams Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. The School for Fathers. An Old English Story. By T[albot] Gwynne [Josepha Gulston] (Smith, Elder, 1852, reprinted 1865). ‘Talbot Gwynne’ also wrote The Life and Death of Silas Barnstarke, The School for Dreamers (both 1853), Nanette and her Lovers (1854), and Young Singleton (1856). Like Henry Esmond, The School for Fathers was printed in an eighteenth-century style, using a fount with long ‘s’ and the traditional ligatures. Many reviewers approved of this ‘hale, hearty, unaVected, honest, downright English tale’ (The Globe, quoted in Smith, Elder’s catalogue for Oct. 1852). 2. As two of Gwynne’s titles show, she was aware of the theatrical tradition exempliWed in France by Molie`re’s L’E´cole des femmes and in England by Sheridan’s The School for Scandal. Her novel is full of theatrical cliche´s, such as the aVected Wne gentleman Sir Thomas Warren’s mistaking his son for a village bumpkin, a country squire speaking in dialect, and a French servant speaking in absurdly mangled English. The narrative style is at Wrst vigorous and lively, and some of the settings are picturesquely described, but the comedy soon wears thin. 3. In Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer. In Gwynne’s novel Jack’s ‘untimely end’, the result of a duel between him and the jealous Colonel Penruddock, is an awkwardly contrived means of concluding this part of the plot. The rest concerns the reformed rake, Addison, whose bride had been shot dead on their wedding day by a thwarted lover, and who eventually marries the insipid Lydia, Jack’s former sweetheart.

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Mary Taylor to Charlotte Bronte¨, Spring 1852 [Wellington, New Zealand] Dear Charlotte I began a letter to you one bitter cold evening last week, but it turned out such a sad one that I have left it & begun again. I am sitting all alone in my own house, or rather what is to be mine when I’ve paid for it. I bought it of Henry,1 when Ellen died, shop & all, & carry on by my self. I have made up my mind not to get any assistance; I have not too much work & the annoyance of having an unsuitable companion was too great to put up with without necessity. I Wnd now that it was Ellen that made me so busy & without her to nurse I have plenty of time. I have begun to keep the house very tidy; it makes it less desolate. I take great interest in my trade2—as much as I could do in anything that was not all pleasure. But the best part of my life is the excitement of arrivals from England. Reading all the news, written & printed, is like living another life quite separate from this one. The old letters are strange, very, when I begin to read them but quite familiar notwithstanding. So are all the books & newspapers tho I never see a human being to whom it wd ever occur to me to mention <wh> anything I read in them. I <saw> see your nom de guerre in them sometimes. I saw a criticism on the preface to the second edition of Wuthering heights.3 I saw it among the notables who attended Thackeray’s lectures.4 I have seen it somehow connected with Sir J. K. Shuttleworth.5 Did he want to marry you or only to lionize you? or was it somebody else? Your life in London is a ‘‘new country’’ to me which I cannot even picture to myself. You seem to like it—at least some things in it, & yet your late letters to Mrs J. Taylor6 talk of low spirits & illness. ‘‘What’s the matter with you now’’ as my mother used to say, as if it were the twentieth time in a fortnight. It is really melancholy that now, in the prime of life in the Xush of your hard earned prosperity you can’t be well! Did not miss Martineau improve you?7 If she did why not try her & her plan again? But I suppose if you had hope & energy to try, you wd be well.—Well it’s nearly dark & you will surely be well when you read this, so what’s the use of writing? I shd like well to have some details of your life but how can I hope for it? I have often tried to give you a picture of mine but I have not the skill. I get a heap of details, most paltry in themselves & not enough to give you an idea of the whole. O for one hour’s talk! You are getting too far oV & beginning to look strange to me. Do you look as you used to do I wonder? What do you & Ellen Nussey talk about when you meet? There! it’s dark. Sunday night. I have let the vessel go that was to take this. As there [are] others going soon I did not much care. I am in the height of cogitation whether to send for some worsted stockings &c. They will come next year at this time & who can tell what I shall want then, or shall be doing! Yet hitherto we have

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sent such orders & have guessed or known pretty well what we shd. want. I have just been looking over a list 4 pages long in Ellen’s handwriting. These things ought to come by the next vessel or part of them at least. Then tired of that I began to read some pages of ‘‘my book’’8 intending to write some more but went on reading for pleasure. I often do this & Wnd it very interesting indeed. It does not get on fast tho. I have written about 1 vol & a half. Its full of music, poverty, disputing, politics, & original views of life. I can’t for the life of me bring the lover into it nor tell what he’s to do when he comes. Of the men generally I can never tell what they’ll do next. The women I understand pretty well, & rare tracasserie9 there is among them,—they are perfectly feminine in that respect at least I am just now in a state of famine. No books & no news from England for this 2 months. I am thinking of visiting a circulating library from sheer dulness. If I had more time I should get m[elan]choly10 No one can prize activity more than I do little interest [?though]11 there is in it. I never ’long’ am without it but a gloom comes over me. The cloud seems to be always there behind me & never quite out of sight but when I keep on at a good rate. Fortunately the more I work the better I like it—I shall take to scrubbing the Xoor before its dirty & polishing pans on the outside in my old age.—<2 i.w.> It is the only thing that gives me an appetite for dinner. I suppose if the vessel coming from England is not lost I shall soon be too busy to write if the last vessel were sailing that ever was to go. So take this in anticipation as I can’t write an answer to your letters until they get too old to answer. Pag. Give my love to Ellen Nussey MS Berg. W & S 763 as April 1852. Address (integral): Miss Bronte j Haworth j Bradford PM: (i) WELLINGTON NEW ZEALAND j [i.w.] (ii) ?NEW ZEALAND j — (iii) CR j 26 OC 2[6] j 1852 (iv) BRADFORD YORKS j OC 26 j 1852 j ?H (v) KEIGHLEY j OC ?27 j 1852 Annotation on 2v in pencil; unknown hand: Wuthering Heights 1. Mary’s cousin William Henry Taylor, Ellen Taylor’s brother, who would have inherited Ellen’s money and property at her death on 27 Dec. 1851. See EN [6.1.1852] n. 5. In her letter to CB of 13 Aug. 1850 Ellen Taylor wrote, ‘I built the house we live in’—i.e. she provided the money for it. 2. Mary’s shop was a general store, trading in clothing, materials, grocery, and other goods, and getting patterns, samples, and lists of prices, etc., from ‘all the wholesale stores’ before deciding what to buy for resale. 3. Smith, Elder’s edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1850) was edited by ‘Currer Bell’. 4. Possibly in the Morning Post or Morning Herald for 20 June 1851, reporting on Thackeray’s lecture of 19 June. Both gave lists of ‘notables’ evidently provided by the same informant and (it seems) listing CB twice. The notables in the Post include ‘Mr. Monckton Milnes, Miss Jewsbury, Mr. Currer Bell, Mr. Spedding, Miss Bront [sic]’. The Herald names ‘Currer Bell’ and ‘Miss Brout’. 5. CB had been in the company of the Kay-Shuttleworths in Mar. 1850 in Haworth, in June 1850 in London, in Aug. 1850 in the Lake District, in Dec. 1850 when her visit to Harriet Martineau was

38

6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

the letters, 1852 reported in the Westmoreland Gazette (21.12.1850) and Bradford Observer (2.1.1851, 5), and most recently in London in June 1851. Mary Taylor’s sister-in-law, Amelia Ringrose Taylor. During her visit to Harriet Martineau, CB had agreed to be mesmerized, and afterwards wrote to James Taylor on 15 Jan. 1851, admitting that though she was ‘scarcely’ a convert to mesmerism, she had ‘heard miracles of its eYcacy’ (CBL ii. 554 and 556 nn. 5 and 6.) Miss Miles, not published until 1890. See the Oxford University Press edition, with an introduction by Janet H. Murray (1990). Worry, fuss. Loss of letters caused by a tear in the paper. Word omitted in error.

To Ellen Nussey, 7 [?April] 1852 [Haworth] Dear Nell I hope both your Mother’s cold and yours are quite well ere this—Papa has got something of his Spring attack of bronchitis—but so far it is in a greatly ameliorated form—very diVerent to what it has been for th[r]ee1 years past—I do trust it may pass oV thus mildly. I continue better. Dear Nell—I told you from the beginning that my going to Sussex was a most improbable event—I tell you now that unless ’want of ’ health should absolutely compel me to give up work2 and leave home (which I trust and hope will not be the case) I certainly shall not think of going. It is better to be decided—and decided I must be. You can never want me less than when in Sussex surrounded by amusement and friends.3 I do not know that I shall go to Scarbro’4 but it might be possible to spare a fortnight to go there (for the sake of a sad duty rather than pleasure) when I could not give a month to a longer excursion. You mention ‘‘meanness’’5 in connection with my going to Scarbro’—did you think I meant to sponge upon Miss Wooler—No—I intended to take lodgings and pay for them honestly. I have not a word of news to tell you—Many Mails have come in from India since I was at Brookroyd—and always when the day came round—(I know it now) expectation would be on the alert—but Disappointment knocked her down. I have not heard a syllable6—and cannot think of making inquiries at Cornhill. Well—long suspense on any matter usually proves somewhat cankering—but God orders all things for us and to his will we must submit. Be sure to keep a calm mind when you go to Sussex: *expect *nothing.7 Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS HM 24493. W & S 756 as ‘March 7th. 1852’. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j AP 7 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j AP 7 j 1852 j H (iv) BIRSTALL

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Annotation by EN on envelope: Ap 7—52 j in half sadness j half fun Date: CB dated, almost certainly in error, 7 Mar. 1852. The re-dating is supported by the survival of an envelope with an Apr. 7 postmark, and by the content, especially the close similarity of CB’s reference to her father’s health to that in her letter to Laetitia Wheelwright of 12 Apr. 1852. In both she describes his ‘Spring attack’ of bronchitis in ‘ameliorated form’. In the Wheelwright letter CB begins her date ‘12 Ma’ but corrects it to ‘12 April’. 1. CB wrote ‘thee’. 2. The writing of Villette. 3. The Gorhams. 4. See MW 12.3.1852. Anne Bronte¨ died at Scarborough on 28 May 1849. In June 1852 CB stayed in Filey, visiting Scarborough brieXy from there to give directions for re-facing and re-lettering Anne’s tombstone. See EN 6.6.1852. 5. Someone has inserted a pencilled exclamation mark after ‘ ‘‘meanness ’’ ’. 6. From James Taylor. See EN [?24.2.1852] n. 2. Smith, Elder’s Cornhill premises included a special department for the dispatch and receipt of Indian mail. 7. EN had formerly cherished hopes that Mary Gorham’s brother, the Revd John Gorham (1823–66) was ‘interested’ in her. See CBL i. 417 n. At this date he was a curate at Aldingbourne, Sussex, within easy reach of Mary’s home at Cakeham. W & S 756 omits the words ‘expect nothing’ which are visible, though deleted, in the manuscript.

To Laetitia Wheelwright, 12 April 1852 Haworth. 1

Dear Laetitia Your last letter gave me much concern. I had hoped you were long ere this restored to your usual health—and it both pained and surprised me to hear that you still suVer so much from debility. I cannot help thinking your constitution is naturally sound and healthy—Can it be the air of London which disagrees with you? For myself—I struggled through the winter and the early part of the spring often with great diYculty. My friend2 stayed with me a few days in the early part of January—she could not be spared longer; I was better during her visit—but had a relapse soon after she left me which reduced my strength very much. It cannot be denied that the solitude of my position fearfully aggravated its other evils. Some long, stormy days and nights there were when I felt such a craving for support and companionship as I cannot express.3 Sleepless—I lay awake night after night—weak and unable to occupy myself—I sat in my chair day after day—the saddest memories my only company. It was a time I shall never forget—but God sent it and it must have been for the best. I am better now—and very grateful do I feel for the restoration of tolerable health—but—as if there was always to be some aZiction—Papa who enjoyed wonderful health during the whole winter—is ailing with his Spring attack of bronchitis—I earnestly trust it may pass over in the comparatively ameliorated form in which it has hitherto shewn itself.4 Let me not forget to answer your question about the cataract. Tell your Papa that my Father was 70 at the time he underwent an operation;5 he was most

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reluctant to try the experiment—could not believe that at his age and with his want of robust strength it would succeed—I was obliged to be very decided in the matter and to act entirely on my own responsibility—Nearly 6 years have now elapsed since the cataract was extracted (it was not merely depressed) he has never once during that time regretted the step—and a day seldom passes that he does not express gratitude and pleasure at the restoration of that inestimable privilege of vision whose loss he once knew. I hope the next tidings you hear of your brother Charles6 will be satisfactory—for his parents’ and Sisters’ sake as well as his own—Your poor Mamma7 has had many successive trials—and her uncomplaining resignation seems to oVer us all an example worthy to be followed. Remember me kindly to her—to your Papa and all your circle, and believe me with best wishes to yourself, Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS Princeton. W & S 764. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Laetitia Elizabeth Wheelwright (23 May. 1828–1 Dec. 1911) whom CB met in Brussels in 1843. See CBL i. 301 n. 7 for the Wheelwright family, who now lived at 29 Phillimore Place, Kensington, where CB visited them. Some correspondence must be missing, for Charlotte’s most recent surviving letter to Laetitia is dated 12 Jan. 1851. Joseph J. Green, husband of the eldest daughter of Emily Poulter, ne´e Wheelwright, saw Laetitia destroy many letters and family papers at 2 Campden Grove, to which the family moved in 1858. 2. Ellen Nussey stayed at Haworth in Dec. 1851, 20–9 Dec., not in Jan. 1852. 3. Cf. Villette, ch. 15: ‘a want of companionship maintained in my soul the cravings of a most deadly famine. . . . bewildered with sounding hurricane—I lay in a strange fever of the nerves and blood.’ 4. Cf. the description of Mr Bronte¨’s illness in the preceding letter. 5. Mr Bronte¨ was 69 when William James Wilson operated on him for cataract on 25 Aug. 1846. Laetitia’s father Dr Thomas Wheelwright was blind owing to cataract for some time before his death in 1861, according to J. J. Green. 6. Charles Thomas Wheelwright (?1826–1908), second son of Dr Wheelwright. He emigrated to South Africa, settled there, married three times, left a widow still living in 1908, and had triplets by his second marriage ( Joseph J. Green, ‘The Bronte¨–Wheelwright Friendship’, Friends’ Quarterly Examiner, 2 vols. (SheYeld, 1916), with photographs). 7. Elizabeth, ne´e Ridge, d. 1882. Her trials included the death of her 7-year-old daughter Julia in Brussels.

To Ellen Nussey, 22 April 1852 [Haworth] Dear Ellen I have forgotten whether the 22nd. is your birthday or mine1—whichever it be—I wish you many happy returns. Poor.2M[r] *[i.w.]2—I am very sorry to hear of his illness—especially as I fear he will never be strong.

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You seem to be quite gay—in paying and receiving visits—take care of your health in the midst of it all—Papa I think is pretty well again—the attack3 was comparatively very slight—I too am keeping better—a little pain sometimes and still obliged to take medicine—consequently I keep thin—but I am most thankful to be so well. When I read to Papa Mrs. J[oe] T[aylor]’s account of her system with the poor little water-patient—he said ‘‘if that child dies4—its parents ought to be tried for infanticide.’’ I think they go much too far—yet she says it is stronger. It is quite unlikely that you will get to Haworth before you go into Sussex—I deny myself pleasure just now— Yours sincerely enough (as you see) C Bronte¨ MS Beinecke, Yale. W & S 765. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Ellen’s birthday was on 20 Apr., Charlotte’s on 21 Apr. 2. The name is thoroughly scraped out, save for the initial ‘M’, presumably ‘Mr’. The deleted surname is short, and may end in ‘p’. A possible candidate is the Revd John Kemp, born c.1828, curate at Birstall 1850–75, and Vicar thereafter. See CBL ii. 602 n. 5. 3. Bronchitis: see EN 7.[?4]. 1852. 4. MS may read ‘child died’. Amelia Taylor was probably using hydropathic methods on her infant daughter Emily Martha. They included cold water baths, douches, and wrapping in wet sheets or bandages. See CBL i. 335 n., 337 n.

To Miss Mary Holmes,1 22 April 1852 [Haworth] Dear Miss Holmes I fear you will have thought somewhat hardly of me for my delay in answering your kind notes. The fact was I waited the coming of the little book,2 and when it came—I wished to read it before acknowledging its receipt. Now that I have read it—I cannot help smiling at the notion of my ‘criticising’ it—or the apprehension of my thinking it ‘frivolous’. It seems to [me] very clever and very learned. The writer of that small treatise knows more than I do—and has read a score of books I have never handled. You erred in telling me to skip the Wrst chapters; I am glad I disobeyed the injunction. The latter part of the book evinces the author’s knowledge; the former contains more of the author’s self; I own I prefer the study of the human being—to that of the human being’s acquirements. Though I understand nothing of your art,3 I cannot but feel interested in your sincere love for it: I feel too that there is both good sense and good feeling in the views you take of—and the principles you lay down for—Music Teaching

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the letters, 1852

You are right in supposing that I must feel a degree of interest in the details of a Governess-life. That life has on me the hold of actual experience; to all who live it—I cannot but incline with a certain sympathy; and any kind feeling they express for me—comes pleasantly and meets with grateful acceptance4 With my best wishes for your welfare Believe me Sincerely Yours C Bronte¨ MS private. Facsimile in The Autographic Mirror. Address (integral): Miss Holmes PM: not in sources. Text: based on facsimile in The Autographic Mirror: L’Autographe Cosmopolite, inedited autographs . . . lithographed by Vincent Brooks. Chandos St. Charing Cross (published serially, 1865), 341, no. 206. Recipient’s name as given in transcript in BPM by owner of MS. I am indebted to the owner, and to Professor Alan Hill for the use of his copy of The Autographic Mirror. 1. Mary Holmes was an acquaintance of Thackeray. In early 1852, a convert to Catholicism, she wrote to him from Gargrave, Skipton, asking for his help in ‘getting a hearing for a little book on music that she had written & in Wnding a position as a governess’. His sympathies aroused, he found a friend who would ‘notice’ her book in a leading newspaper, and oVered help with the printer’s bill, but warned her that it would be impossible to ‘make the public buy a little book issued as yours has been’ (Ray Letters iii. 9). Thackeray also wrote candidly to her about Mrs BrookWeld, Charlotte Bronte¨, and Newman. But when she came to London to be a music mistress for his daughters, Thackeray found her tiresome, especially in her endeavours to convert him to Catholicism, and he ceased to write to her when he departed for America in Oct. 1852. See references to Mary Holmes in the notes to GS 14.2.1852 and 17.2.1852, Ray Letters i, pp. cxxxix–cxli, and the Thackeray–Holmes correspondence: nine letters in Ray vol. iii and three in Harden vol. i. Thackeray had presumably given Miss Holmes CB’s address. 2. I have not traced the book. 3. Writing to his mother, Mrs Carmichael-Smyth, on 26 Feb. 1852, Thackeray reported that Miss Holmes wrote well about music in a book ‘written like an artist & Poet, and Mr. [Joseph Alford] Novello says she is uncommonly strong as a musician’ (Ray Letters iii. 17). 4. On 1 Mar. 1852 Thackeray had written to Mary Holmes, ‘I don’t know anything about C. B but from her book . . . And if Currer Bell has not her cross in life to bear, I’m very much mistaken. God help her and all poor souls’ (Ray Letters iii. 19).

To Mrs Gaskell, [26 April 1852] [Fragments] [Haworth] (a) . . . I lately got hold of a bound copy of Dickens’s Houshold Words for 1851.1 Therein I have as yet only read three articles to wit. Society at Cranford. Love at Cranford. Memory at Cranford. Before reading them I had received a hint as to the authorship which hint gave them special zest. The best is the last—Memory; how good I thought it—I must not tell you.

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2

(b) The sketch you give of your work (respecting which I am, of course, dumb) seems to me very noble; and its purpose may be as useful in practical result as it is high and just in theoretical tendency. Such a book may restore hope and energy to many who thought they had forfeited their right to both; and open a clear course for honourable eVort to some who deemed that they and all honour had parted company in this world. Yet—hear my protest! Why should she die? Why are we to shut up the book weeping? My heart fails me already at the thought of the pang it will have to undergo. And yet you must follow the impulse of your own inspiration. If that commands the slaying of the victim, no bystander has a right to put out his hand to stay the sacriWcial knife:3 but I hold you a stern priestess in these matters. MS untraced. W & S 766. Address: not in sources. PM: not in sources. Date: from Symington transcript of (a). Text: (a) Symington transcript. (b) Life ii. 252–3. Order as in W & S 766; not necessarily the order in the original MS. 1. Dickens’s weekly magazine, Household Words, appeared 30 Mar. 1850–28 May 1859. CB had been reading vol. iv, containing the numbers 27 Sept. 1851–13 Mar. 1852. The Wrst of eight parts of Cranford, ‘Our Society at Cranford’ (chs. 1 and 2) appeared on 13 Dec. 1851, the second, ‘A Love AVair at Cranford’ (chs. 3 and 4) on 3 Jan. 1852, and the third, ‘Memory at Cranford’ (chs. 5 and 6) on 13 Mar. 1852. The last part, ‘A Happy Return to Cranford’, appeared on 21 May 1853, and a revised text of the complete book in volume form in June 1853. 2. Ruth. The composition of this story of a ‘fallen woman’, eventually published in Jan. 1853, caused Mrs Gaskell much anxiety. She conWded to her friend Mary Green on ?20 Nov. 1852 that though she had written a good deal of it, she did not want it ‘talked about. It only disturbs me utterly; and I expect I shall have grief & annoyance enough to go through about it’ (Further Letters 74). In 1849–50 Mrs Gaskell had done her best to help a prostitute named Pasley to emigrate and so to Wnd a new life. Pasley was a girl of good family, who had been seduced by a doctor called in when she was ill. In the novel Ruth’s good works bring about her death when she catches the fever from which her former lover is suVering. See Jenny Uglow, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories, ch. 16, for a discussion of the anomalies inherent in the novel. The book proved to be highly controversial, and was banned by some libraries. 3. Cf. Genesis 22, where Abraham is prepared to obey what he believes is the divine command to slay his only son Isaac. In writing her own novels CB acted upon her belief in the ‘divine aZatus’.

To Ellen Nussey, 4 [May] 1852 Haworth Dear Ellen The news of E[llen] *Taylor’s death came to me last week in a letter from Mary—a long letter—which wrung my heart so—in its simple strong, truthful emotion—I have only ventured to read it once. It ripped up half-scarred wounds with terrible force—the death-bed was just the same—breath failing &c.

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She fears she shall now in her dreary solitude become ‘‘a stern, harsh, selWsh woman’’—this fear struck home—again and again I have felt it for myself—and what is my position—to Mary’s? I should break out in energetic wishes that she would return to England—if Reason would permit me to believe that prosperity and happiness would there await her—but I see no such prospect. May God help her as God only can help! I like to hear of your being cheerful—but I fear you impose on yourself too much fatigue with all this entertainment of visitors—Poor Emma *Sherwood!1 Will she be at all provided for in case of her father’s death—she will hardly like to turn governess. How are Mr. & Mrs *Clapham2 & your Mother? You have not mentioned them lately. I continue better—and Papa is getting through the Spring admirably. I am sure Miss Wooler would enjoy her visit to Brookroyd—as much as you, her company. Dear Nell—I thank you sincerely for your discreet and friendly silence on the point alluded to—I had feared it would be discussed between you two—and had an inexpressible shrinking at the thought—Now—less than ever—does it seem to me a matter open to discussion. I hear nothing.3 And you must quite understand that if I feel any uneasiness—it is not the uneasiness of conWrmed and Wxed regard—but that anxiety which is inseparable from a state of absolute uncertainty about a somewhat momentous matter. I do not know—I am not sure myself tha[t]4 any other termination would be better than lasting estrangement and unbroken silence—yet a good deal of pain has been a[nd] must be gone through in that case. However to each—his burden. I have not yet read the papers5—D.V. I will send them to-morrow. Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ Understand—that in whatever I have said above—I was not Wshing for pity or sympathy—I hardly pity myself. Only I wish that in all matters in this world there was fair and open dealing—and no underhand work. MS HM 24491. W & S 754 as ‘March 4th, ’52’. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: Mr. T. O.P. Date: CB dated ‘Haworth March 4th/52’, but there are several slips in the letter, which was evidently written under stress. Joan Stevens points out (106) that Mary Taylor had sent the news of Ellen Taylor’s death in Wellington (27 Dec. 1851) by the packet-boat Clara which left New Zealand on 9 Jan. 1852; and it was not until 18 May 1852 that CB sent on to Ellen Nussey a letter from Mary ‘announcing Ellen’s death’ which she had received that morning from the Taylors at Hunsworth. The May date is supported by the evidence of the writing-paper, which is the same as that of EN 11.5.1852.

the letters, 1852

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1. Ellen Nussey’s friend Emma Sherwood (b. ?1828) was one of the daughters of the Revd William Sherwood, MA, incumbent of St James’s church, Bradford, and formerly a lieutenant of the Royal Navy, who died aged 57, ‘very deeply lamented’, on 4 May 1852, after ‘a long period of inWrm health, and . . . painful illnesses’. See the Bradford Observer 6.5.1852, 7 col. 2 (a notice of the death ‘on Tuesday last’) and a long obituary in the Bradford Observer 20.5.1852, 5 col. 2. 2. Ellen’s sister Ann and her husband Robert Clapham. 3. From James Taylor. See CBL ii. 597–610, 716–19, and EN [?24.2.1852] n. 2. CB no doubt wanted a clear statement of his intentions and his attitude to her. 4. CB wrote ‘than any other’. 5. Probably the Examiner and the Leader, sent by Smith, Elder or G. H. Lewes. Cf. EN 16.6.1852.

To Ellen Nussey, 11 May 1852 Haworth. Dear Ellen I must adhere to my resolution of neither visiting nor being visited at present—Stay you quietly a[t]Brookroyd till you go into Sussex1—as I shall stay at Haworth; as sincere a farewell can be taken with the heart as with the lips and perhaps less painful. I am glad the weather is changed—this return of the South-West Wind suits me—but I hope you have no cause to regret the departure of your favourite East wind. What you say about A[melia Taylor] does not surprise ’me’; I have had many little notes (whereof I answer about 1 in three) breathing the same spirit—Self & Child the sole all absorbing topics on which the changes are rung even to weariness. But I suppose one must not heed it—or think the case singular—nor, I am afraid, must one expect her to improve; I read in a French book lately a sentence to the eVect that ‘‘Marriage might be deWned as the state of twofold selWshness.’’2 Let the single therefore3 take comfort Thank you for M. G[orham]’s4 letter. She does seem most happy—and I cannot tell you how much more real, lasting and better-warranted her happiness seems than ever A[melia]’s did. I think so much of it is in herself and her own serene, pure, trusting, religious nature—A. always gave one the idea of a vacillating unsteady rapture entirely dependant on circumstances with all their Xuctuations. If Mary lives to be a Mother—you will then see a still greater diVerence I wish you—dear E. all health—enjoyment and happiness in your visit—And as far as one can judge—at present there seems a fair prospect of the wish being realized Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS HM 24495. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/55. W & S 767. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds

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PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j MY 11 j 1852 j (iii) LEEDS j MY 11 j 1852 j H (iv) BIRSTALL Annotation by EN on envelope: May—1852 j of my [i.w.] j of M.G. 1. Ellen had left Birstall for the south by 6 June. See CB’s letter of that date. 2. ‘E´goı¨sme a` deux’. 3. MS reads ‘single therefore therefore’. 4. CB contrasts Mary Gorham, soon to be married to the Revd Thomas Swinton Hewitt, with Amelia Taylor.

To Ellen Nussey, 18 May 1852 Haworth. Dear Ellen I enclose Mary’s letter announcing Ellen’s death & Ellen’s two last letters— sorrowful documents—all of them.1 I received them this morning from Hunsworth without any note or directions where to send them, but I think—if I mistake not—Amelia in a previous note told me to transmit them to you. What you say about your Sister *Anne—concerns me much—every time I have seen her for some years past I have been struck by her sickly and weary look—Most certainly there must be something seriously wrong—either derangement or disease of some organ—it is very many years now since she has enjoyed good health. I hope you will write again very soon and let me know particularly how she gets on.2 Do not fear—dear Nell—that I shall think you conceited in what you say about Mr.——3 and do not apprehend either that I shall trouble you with advice—I always think that the two persons most concerned in these matters are those who alone can rightly judge the expediency or inexpediency of their own case. That they always do rightly judge I will not aYrm—but if their bias is to error—no other hand can rectify it It seems desirable that you should have been able to start from home at once and without impediment—but who knows? A temporary delay may turn out for the best after all. It is really too bad of *Mercy4 to give trouble just now. Be sure to write soon and believe me Yours faithfully CB—— MS BPM Bon 243. W & S 768. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN in ink: 270 May 18—52 1. For Ellen Taylor’s death see EN 4.[5].52, note on date. The letters had been sent to Mary Taylor’s relatives at Hunsworth. 2. Ann Nussey Clapham survived until 24 Apr. 1878. See the photograph of her in Whitehead 223. 3. Thus in MS. 4. Ellen’s sister Mercy often annoyed her relatives by her ‘vagaries’. See e.g. CBL ii. 268, 397, 731.

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To George Smith, 22 May 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir Your note enclosing a Bank Post Bill for the amount of my Dividend reached me safely.1 Occupied as you are—I will not at present detain you by more than an acknowledgment. Should you write to me in the course of the next fortnight or three weeks— my address will be. CliV House. Filey. East-Riding. Yorkshire.2 It is a small watering-place on the coast where I purpose going for change of air. [Signature cut oV.]3 MS BPM SG 72. W & S 769. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. At CB’s request, George Smith had invested £500, the ‘price of the copyright’ in Shirley, in government funds in Oct. 1849, and £100 for the cheap edition of Jane Eyre (1850) in July 1851. See her correspondence with Smith, 14. 9–24 10.1849, 7.11.1851, and 18.4.1854. 2. CB stayed in Filey for about a month, from c.27 May until 24 June. The house is still extant, in Belle Vue Street, formerly North Street. See EN 7. [4]. 1852 n. 4, and PB 9.6.1849 and n. 1. CB’s landlady was a Mrs Smith, widow of the Strickland family’s land-agent; possibly the ‘Eleanor Smith, CliV House’ included among the lodging-house keepers in Slater’s Yorkshire Directory for 1864 (129). Slater’s Yorkshire Directory for 1848 reports that ‘Within the last seven years Filey has advanced towards celebrity as a sea-bathing place, and is resorted to in the season by many respectable families, who are attracted hither by the grand scenery around, and the remarkably Wne sands’ (224). 3. W & S 769 reads ‘Yours sincerely, j C. Bronte¨.’

To Mrs Gaskell, 22 May 1852 Haworth My dear Mrs. Gaskell I read ‘‘Visiting at Cranford’’1 with that sort of pleasure which seems always too brief in its duration: I wished the paper had been twice as long. Mr. Thackeray ought to take a series of articles such as these—retire with them to his chamber, put himself to bed, and lie there—till he had learnt by diligent study how to be satirical without being exquisitely bitter. Satirical you are—however; I believe a little more so than you think. And to see how that little maiden—Meta—has inherited Mamma’s gift! What is her age?2 It cannot be more than fourteen, and with a few strokes she can put on paper a lively little pen-and-ink sketch of character. I read her letters with pleasure—they seem to me remarkable: I might well use the word ‘‘companion’’ in speaking of her;

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there is something specially conversible, companionable, interesting in these letters. Neither in autograph nor matter is Marianne’s note so marked or so rich in character—but without special talent or distinct originality—Marianne may be very good and dear. Without having seen her—I hold a doctrine that she is so.3 I return all the letters in two packets—because I could not with a clear conscience keep them longer unless I had thoughts of soon visiting Manchester, and these thoughts I do not entertain. Yet I keep the visit in view— and refresh myself now and then with a distant doubtful prospect thereof.4 On such and such conditions—(I say to myself ) you shall one day go and see Mrs. Gaskell. I only wish the conditions were fulWlled—but such is not the case. Whenever I see Florence & Julia5 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 I hear from Miss Martineau occasionally She always announces herself as well—happy and gloriously busy. Thank you, dear Mrs. Gaskell for Meta’s letters and your own kind note—give my friendliest remembrances to Mr. Gaskell and believe me Yours sincerely & aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS Rylands 17. W & S 700 and 770 (fragments only). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. ‘Visiting at Cranford’, published in Household Words on 3 Apr. 1852, consisted of chs. 7, ‘Visiting’, and 8, ‘Your Ladyship’. 2. Mrs Gaskell described her daughter Margaret Emily (‘Meta’, 1837–1913) as ‘brim-full’ of ‘something deeper, & less showy than talent’, evident in her musical and artistic skills, and her intelligent appreciation of books (CP letter 101). 3. To her mother, Marianne Gaskell (1834–1920) was, like Meta, a ‘great darling’ with real musical talent and an admirable sense of duty, but she looked at nothing ‘from an intellectual point of view; & [would] never care for reading’ (ibid.). 4. CB visited the Gaskells in Apr. 1853, after the completion and publication of Villette (the conditions implied here) and in May 1854. 5. Mrs Gaskell thought Florence (‘Flossy’, 1842–81) lacking in talent, nervous, anxious, but sweetnatured in her absence of jealousy. The youngest daughter, Julia, was ‘witty, & wild, & clever and droll[,] the pet of the house’ (CP letter 101). Julia had ‘possessed a fraction’ of Charlotte’s heart since their Wrst meeting in June 1851. When Amelia Taylor’s daughter Emily Martha grew out of babyhood, CB became very fond of her. No other close friend had young children, but Charlotte had enjoyed ‘romps’ with the child Fanny Whipp at Easton in 1839.

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To Mrs Gore,1 28 May 1852 Filey.2 Dear Mrs. Gore I have no thoughts of visiting Town this Summer.3 The past Winter and Spring proved somewhat trying to me, and I am now at the Seaside endeavouring to regain lost ground. Already I am very much better—and if the weather were a little milder—no doubt should be better still. With thanks for your kind note I am, dear Mrs. Gore Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM Bon 244. W & S 771. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The novelist Catherine Grace Frances Gore, ne´e Moody (1799–1861) had been eager to meet CB during the latter’s visits to London in Nov. 1849, Aug. 1850, and June 1851, and had sent her a copy of her novel The Hamiltons. See CB’s letter to her of 27 Aug. 1850 and notes. 2. See GS 22.5.1852 n. 2 and CBL ii. 218–19. 3. CB did not visit London again until Jan. 1853.

To the Revd Patrick Bronte¨, 2 June 1852 CliV House. Filey Dear Papa Thank you for your letter which I was so glad to get that I think I must answer it by return of post. I had expected one yesterday and was perhaps a little unreasonably anxious when disappointed—but the weather has been so very cold that I feared either you were ill or Martha worse. I hope Martha will take care of herself—and cannot help feeling a little uneasy about her. On the whole I get on very well here—but I have not bathed yet as I am told it is much too cold and too early in the season. The Sea is very grand. Yesterday it was a somewhat unusually high tide—and I stood about an hour on the cliVs yesterday afternoon—watching the tumbling in of great tawny turbid waves—that made the whole shore white with foam and Wlled the air with a sound hollower and deeper than thunder. There are so very few visitors at Filey yet—that I and a few sea-birds and Wshing-boats have often the whole expanse of sea, shore and cliV to ourselves— When the tide is out—the sands are wide—long and smooth and very pleasant

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to walk on. When the high tides are in—not a vestige of sand remains. I saw a great dog rush into the sea yesterday—and swim and bear up against the waves like a seal—I wonder what Flossy1 would say to that. On Sunday afternoon I went to a church2 which I should like Mr. Nicholls to see. It was certainly not more than thrice the length and breadth of our passage—Xoored with brick—the walls green with mould—the pews painted white but the paint almost all worn oV with time and decay—at one end there is a little gallery for the singers—and when these personages stood up to perform—they all turned their backs upon the congregation—and the congregation turned their backs on the pulpit and parson—the eVect of this manoeuvre was so ludicrous—I could hardly help laughing—had Mr. Nicholls been there—he certainly would have laughed out. Looking up at the gallery and seeing only the broad backs of the singers presented to their audience was excessively grotesque. There is a well-meaning but utterly inactive clergyman3 at Filey—and Methodists Xourish. I cannot help enjoying Mr. ButterWeld’s4 defeat—and yet in one sense this is a bad state of things—calculated to make working-people both discontented and insubordinate. Give my kind regards—dear Papa—to Mr. Nicholls, Tabby and Martha—Charge Martha to beware of draughts and to get such help in her cleaning as she shall need. I hope you will continue well—Believe me Your aVectionate daughter C Bronte¨ MS with envelope Pierpont Morgan. W & S 772. Address (envelope): Revd. P. Bronte¨ j Haworth j Keighley j W. R. Yorkshire PM: (i) FILEY j JU 2 j 18–2 j A (ii) YORK j JU ?2 j 1852 j C (iii) LEEDS j J——j 1852 (iv) KEIGHLEY j JU 3 j [1]852 1. The King Charles spaniel which had belonged to Anne Bronte¨. He is depicted in some of Emily and Anne Bronte¨’s drawings: see especially Art of the Bronte¨s nos. 327, 331. 2. According to F. R. Pearson, this could have been Speeton church on the high cliVs between Filey and Flamborough Head. Before 1911 the little Norman church was Xoored with brick, and traces of green mould could still be seen ‘at the foot of the chancel arch’ in the 1950s. There is no evidence that Speeton had a gallery, but there might have been a slightly raised singers’ pew (Charlotte Bronte¨ on the East Yorkshire Coast (York, 1957), 23–4). Kevin Berry assumes that CB attended St Oswald’s church, Filey—a nearer place of worship for her. Berry Wnds CB’s observations ‘entirely accurate’: ‘St Oswald’s was apparently held together by plaster and whitewash, congregations were small and the church seemed to have been run in a very careless manner. . . . Charlotte may also have seen sheep in the church. It was quite a normal occurrence because much of the Xoor was bricked and the sheep were encouraged to keep down the grass and weeds growing between the stones [sic]’ (Charlotte Bronte¨: The Novelist’s visits to Bridlington, Scarborough, Filey and Hornsea (Beverley, 1990), 30). But St Oswald’s is a comparatively large church, bigger than ‘thrice the length and breadth of our passage’. 3. The Revd Thomas Norfolk Jackson (?1808–91), Vicar of Filey 1833–73. 4. Richard Shackleton ButterWeld JP (1806–69), a Methodist, was the eldest of Wve brothers who were increasingly prosperous millowners in the 1850s and 1860s. Following the bankruptcy of James Greenwood (1793–1857) in 1848, R. S. ButterWeld, whose family already operated mills at

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Stanbury and Keighley, bought Greenwood’s Bridgehouse mill, and his house, Woodlands (see CBL ii. 104–6 n.). In 1851 ButterWeld had organized a petition of ratepayers against the proposed water rate which was needed for the improved water supply and drainage system advocated by Mr Bronte¨, so that he was already disliked by the Bronte¨s. Juliet Barker describes the events of 1852 referred to in this letter: ButterWeld ‘employed his weavers at the lowest possible rates’ and obliged each man to work two looms simultaneously. ‘On May 18th, his weavers had walked out’; and when they refused to return despite a magistrate’s warrant, eight were arrested, of whom two were committed to two months’ hard labour at WakeWeld before the third, Robert Redman, announced that he could prove malpractices on ButterWeld’s part. When ButterWeld admitted the truth of his statements, ‘the bench discharged all the prisoners and ordered him to pay them 3/6d each for their day’s wages’ (see Barker 697–8 and Halifax Guardian 29.5.1852, 5).

To Ellen Nussey, 6 June 1852 CliV-House. Filey Dear Ellen I am at Filey utterly alone. Do not be angry. The step is right. I considered it and resolved on it with due deliberation. Change of air was necessary; there were reasons why I should not go to the South and why I should come here. On Friday I went to Scarbro’, visited the church-yard and stone—it must be refaced and re-lettered—there are 5 errors.1 I gave the necessary directions—that duty then is done—long has it lain heavy on my mind—and that was a pilgrimage I felt I could only make alone. I am in our old lodgings at Mrs. Smith’s2—not however in the same rooms— but in less expensive apartments—They seemed glad to see me—remembered you and me very well and seemingly with great good will. The daughter who used to wait on us is just married. Filey seems to me much altered—more lodging-houses—some of them very handsome—have been built3—the sea has all its old grandeur—I walk on the sands a good deal and try not to feel desolate and melancholy. How sorely my heart longs for you I need not say. I have bathed once: it seemed to do me good—I may perhaps stay here a fortnight. There are as yet scarcely any visitors. A Lady Wenlock4 is staying at the large house of which you used so <scrupulously> ’vigilantly’ to observe the inmates. One day I set out with intent to trudge to Filey Bridge5 but was frightened back by two cows. I mean to try again some morning. Mrs. Smith in talking about Mr. & Mrs. *Hudson6 yesterday—observed that they were now in quite reduced circumstances: I was very sorry to hear this. Dear Nell—a part of your letter touched me to the heart—but you should have been more explicit—what makes you so certain? Have you just grounds for

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your present conclusion? Not that I would wish to revive deceptive hopes—you know I am always for facing the stern truth—but still—life seems hard and dreary for some of us. And yet—it must be accepted—and with submission. I left papa well—I have been a good deal troubled with head-ache and with some pain in the side since I came here but I feel that this has been owing to the cold wind—for very cold has it been till lately—at present I feel better—Shall I send the papers to you as usual? Write again directly and tell me this—and anything and everything else that comes into your mind. Georgiana8 wants *whipping. Believe me—dearest Nell Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS HM 24496. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/55.2. W & S 773. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Mrs. Gorham j Cakeham j nr. Chichester j Sussex PM: (i) FILEY (ii) JU 7 j 18–2 j A (iii) O B j JU 8 j 1852 (iv) CH j JU j 18 j B Annotation on envelope by EN in pencil: June 6—52 j from Filey j interesting 1. A photograph of Anne Bronte¨’s gravestone as it was in about 1890 appears on the back cover of the Bronte¨ Society Gazette, 22 (Apr. 1999). One error still remains on the stone: Anne’s age is given as 28 instead of 29. For the inscription see the fragmentary letter of 9 June 1849, CBL ii. 218, and illustration before 407. 2. See GS 22.5.1852 n. 2. ‘The house had been built in 1824 by a Mr. Smith, who was a land agent . . . Mrs. Smith did not realize the identity of her distinguished visitor and, much to her subsequent regret, inadvertently destroyed the letters which she received from Charlotte at the time. . . . the windows on the north side have been Wlled in, and . . . a straight window in front, which a hundred years ago would command a clear view of the sea, has been made into a bay’ (F. R. Pearson, Charlotte Bronte¨ on the East Yorkshire Coast (York, 1957), 22). 3. The tall houses of the Crescent, Crescent Hill, and other roads south-east of CliV House block the view of the sea. 4. Probably Caroline (1792–1868), daughter of the second Lord Braybrooke, and widow of Baron Wenlock (1784–1852), who had been MP for the East Riding of Yorkshire 1832–7 and its Lord Lieutenant 1840–7. He had died on 9 May 1852. The family’s ‘principal residence’ was Escrick Park, near York, and they owned thousands of acres of land in the East Riding (G. E. C., The Complete Peerage (revised and enlarged 1959), vol. xii, part ii, p. 486). 5. Usually known as Filey Brigg, this is the ‘black desolate reef of rocks’ mentioned in CB’s letter to her father of 9 June 1849, and resembling the ‘black and rough’ reef in Shirley, ch. 32. It juts out eastwards into the sea from the northern cliVs of Filey Bay, and is dangerous when the tide is coming in. At high tide waves crash into the rock pools and over the Brigg End. 6. John Hudson (d. 1878), a gentleman farmer and his wife Sophia, ne´e Whipp, of Easton House, about 2 miles west of Bridlington. They had been the kind hosts of CB and EN in Sept.-Oct. 1839 and June 1849. See CBL i. 202–3, ii. 221–2. A tiny miniature portrait of Mrs Hudson which might have been painted by CB was discovered in Lincolnshire in 2001. See the colour reproduction and article in The Dalesman (Nov. 2001), 48–50. Easton was part of the Strickland estate, and was near Boynton and Boynton Hall, the former home of the Strickland family for whom Mr Smith had been an agent. 7. Perhaps EN had realized that Mary Gorham’s brother John was unlikely to propose marriage to her. 8. EN’s niece Georgiana Mary Nussey (11 July 1829–1881), daughter of Ellen’s eldest brother, John (1794–1862), the London apothecary in whose house either in London or Chislehurst Ellen had probably stayed on her way to Cakeham.

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To Ellen Nussey, 16 June [1852] Filey. Dear Ellen I send the ‘‘Examiner’’ with this: the ‘‘Leader’’1—I imagine will be out of place at *Cakeham: it had better not go. Be quite easy about me. I really think I am better for my stay at Filey—that I have derived indeed more beneWt from it than I dared to anticipate—I believe could I stay here two months and enjoy something like social cheerfulness as well as exercise and good air—my health would be quite renewed. This— however—cannot possibly be—but I am most thankful for the good received I may stay another week. Tell me no particulars,2 dear Nell—that would give you pain—I only asked because I thought you might be viewing the subject too hardly for yourself. Notice this. A visit that opens very pleasantly often closes in pain and disappointment—and vice versa. Be of good courage. I fancy somehow—you will be more comfortable when the wedding is over. Your plan about the school-girls—the little caps—the Xower-scattering &c.3 made me smile—and still more the idea of my aiding and advising in it were I on the spot—Not at all—I should not relish it in the least—do it if you like—your motive is kind and excellent—Mary and her spouse may like that sort of thing— you know best. I return E. *Sherwood’s letter. I am sorry for her; I believe she suVers—but—I do not like her style of expressing herself; it absolutely reminds me of Amelia * Walker.4 Grief as well as joy manifests ’itself ’ in most diVerent ways in diVerent people—and I doubt not she is sincere and in earnest when she talks of her ‘‘sainted, precious father’’; but I could wish she used simpler language. Write again soon and believe me Yours faithfully CB—— I have calculated that it takes two posts to reach you—if [I] am wrong—tell me as I would not put you to useless expense MS HM 24497. W & S 774. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The outspoken Leader, edited by G. H. Lewes and Thornton Hunt, advocated tolerance of all faiths and none. It would be unwelcome in an orthodox Anglican household where Mary Gorham’s marriage with T. S. Hewitt, the Rector of North Marden, was imminent. 2. About John Gorham, or about the Gorham family’s behaviour generally? 3. EN was to spread Xowers in Charlotte’s honour at her wedding-breakfast on 29 June 1854. Writing to George Smith on 28 Mar. 1860, Ellen recalled how Charlotte admired her ‘disposal of

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the gathering brought by Martha [Brown] from the village gardens’ (MS letter in Murray archives). 4. See EN 4.5.1852 n. 1 for Emma Sherwood. Amelia Walker (c. 1818–25 May 1892) was a fellow pupil of CB at Roe Head school. See EN c.7.7.1836, where CB describes Amelia as ‘very ladylike and polished, but spoilt utterly spoilt by the most hideous aVectation’ (CBL i. 148).

To Laetitia Wheelwright,1 [c.23 June 1852] Filey (a) Dear Laetitia, I return that most precious document—the letter of Maria Miller.2 SelWsh indeed is the policy which has dictated it—worldly the adroitness with which the suggestion has been carried out. The impudent pretence of revived interest (under the circumstances, it is sheer impudence), the sly postponement of her real motive to the postscript, are too bad; yet the whole is but clumsily managed—being quite transparent. If you wish to have my opinion about answering it—I can only say it seems to me you are bound to consult nothing in the world in this matter but your own inclination and convenience. No deference is due to Mrs. W. P. Robertson. Alas! she proves herself too unmistakably selWsh. I think the less you have to do with her or any of her aVairs—the better. The residence at Boulogne3 does not sound very well; Boulogne is the asylum of a not very respectable class. The publication of a work by subscription is a decidedly objectionable, shifty, shabby expedient. Wash your clean hands4 of them, Laetitia: keep out of the mess. It grieves me much that your state of health is still so far from satisfactory. (b) I am now staying at Filey—a small bathing-place on the east coast of Yorkshire; I have been here three weeks and thus far think I have derived real beneWt from the change. I earnestly wish you could say as much. Of all merely material blessings—I think health is the greatest. Well can I sympathise with you all on the subject of your Papa’s state.5 I have watched the progress of that calamity and know how sad is the gradual darkening. With kindest regards to your dear Parents and all your sisters—with hopes that strength needful for the day will be given to all—and with sincere solicitude for yourself I am—dear Laetitia Yours aVectionately C Bronte MS (a) untraced; (b) Brotherton. W & S 775 as June 16th, 1852. Address: not in sources. PM: not in sources. Annotation on Brotherton MS, in unknown hand: (i) CliVhouse, Filey June 1852 20 (ii) [after ‘Laetitia’] (Wheelwright)

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Date: Shorter 577 and W & S 775 date 16 June, which may be right; but cf. the following letter to Miss Wooler, dated 23 June. In both letters CB says she has been in Filey for three weeks. Text: (a) Shorter 577, without the valediction added by Shorter after ‘satisfactory’ (‘Yours aVectionately, CHARLOTTE BRONTE¨’). (b) Brotherton MS. The two parts do not necessarily belong to the same letter. 1. For Laetitia Wheelwright, see LW 12.4.1852 and notes. 2. Maria Miller, a fellow pupil of the Bronte¨s and Wheelwrights at the Pensionnat Heger in Brussels in 1843. She married W. P. Robertson, possibly William Parish Robertson, author of Letters on South America ( John Murray, London, 1843) and A Visit to Mexico (Simpkin Marshall & Co., London, 1853). J. J. Green describes relics of the Wheelwrights’ stay in Brussels, including a thin gold and garnet ring given by Maria to Laetitia, a ‘pious farewell note, and a lock of her light hair’. Fanny Wheelwright identiWed her with Ginevra Fanshawe in Villette, and recalled that a gold brooch she gave to Laetitia contained a piece cut ‘oV the rug’, not a lock of her own hair. ‘Maria would not notice me and I did not care for her. Charlotte . . . was the opposite; she always noticed us youngest ones very kindly, and I liked her not Emily [Bronte¨]’ ( Joseph J. Green, ‘The Bronte¨–Wheelwright Friendship’, Friends’ Quarterly Examiner (SheYeld), 1916 ). 3. Boulogne was a popular summer holiday resort, with a sizeable British colony. It was also a convenient refuge for British debtors Xeeing from their creditors, and for others with a tarnished reputation. CB would recall Becky Sharp’s ‘Wrst Xight’ after her downfall in Vanity Fair, when ‘she perched upon the French coast at Boulogne, that refuge of so much exiled English innocence’, where she was avoided or insulted by all but the dubious ‘Mrs. Crackenbury and Mrs. Washington White’ (ch. 64). 4. W & S 775 reads ‘hands clean’, which may be a silent emendation of Shorter’s text. 5. Dr Wheelwright’s eyesight was failing. See LW 12.4.1852 n. 5.

To Margaret Wooler, 23 June 1852 Filey-Bay My dear Miss Wooler Your kind and welcome note reached me at this place where I have been staying three weeks—quite alone. Change and sea-air had become necessary; distance and other considerations forbade my accompanying Ellen Nussey to the South—much as I should have liked it—had I felt quite free and unfettered; Ellen told me some time ago that you were not likely to visit Scarbro’ till the Autumn—so I forthwith packed my trunk and betook myself here. The Wrst week or ten days—I greatly feared the sea-side would not suit me— for I suVered almost constantly from head-ache and other harassing ailments; the weather too was dark, stormy and excessively—bitterly cold; my Solitude, under such circumstances, partook of the character of desolation; I had some dreary evening-hours and night-vigils. However—that passed; I think I am now better and stronger for the change, and in a day or two—hope to return home. E. Nussey told me that Mr. Wm. Wooler1 said—people with my tendency to congestion of the liver—should walk three or four hours every day; accordingly I have walked as much as I could since I came here, and look almost as sunburnt and weather-beaten as a Wsherman or a bathing-woman2 with being out in the open air.

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As to my work—it has stood obstinately still for a long while: certainly a torpid liver makes torpid brains: no spirit moves me.3 If this state of things does not entirely change—my chance of a holiday in the Autumn is not worth much. Yet I should be very sorry not to be able to meet you for a little while at Scarbro’. The duty to be discharged at Scarbro’ was the chief motive that drew me to the East Coast: I have been there—visited the Churchyard, seen the stone— there were Wve errors—consequently I had to give directions for its being refaced and re-lettered. My dear Miss Wooler—I do most truly sympathise with you in the success of your kind eVorts to provide for your young kinsman4—I know what your feelings would be under the circumstances. To me—the decision of his Uncles seems too hard—too worldly, and I am glad that Providence saw Wt to make you the means of awarding him a milder doom. Poor youth! such banishment might have been justiWable ’in the case’ of a rough, reckless, unmanageable boy—but for one whose disadvantages had their source in over-timidity and weak nerves—it would have been really cruel. Very grateful must be his Mother’s feelings towards you. Give my kind regards to Mr. & Mrs. Carter5—tell me about Ellen and Susan when you write [Lacks signature] MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 776. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation in pencil by ?EN or MW, above ‘seen the stone’: Anne Bs tomb 1. Dr William Moore Wooler of Dewsbury. See MW 17.2.1852 n. 7. 2. The attendant who ensured privacy for the lady-bather, and helped her to don the appropriate loose, enveloping garments within a bathing-machine, ‘a small carriage in which a bather may be carried out into water conveniently deep for bathing’ (Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary, 1939 repr.). 3. Cf. Acts 2: 4, ‘they. . . began to speak . . . as the Spirit gave them utterance’ and 2 Peter 1: 21 ‘holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost’. 4. Not identiWed. Possibly one of Miss Wooler’s relatives, the Moores of Bromsgrove. 5. The Revd Edward Nicholl Carter (1800–72), Vicar of Heckmondwike, his wife Susan [Susanna] (1800–72, a younger sister of Margaret Wooler), and their daughters Ellen (b. 1834) and Susan (b. 1837). See CBL i. 109 n., 181 n.

To Ellen Nussey, 1 July 1852 Haworth. July 1st. 1852 Dear Ellen I am again at home where (thank God) I found all well. I certainly feel much better than I did—and would fain trust that the improvement may prove permanent.

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Do not be alarmed about the pains in your chest and between your shoulders—they are certainly not desirable but, I believe, not dangerous nor indicative of serious ailment. The weather has no doubt much to do with them. Certain states of the atmosphere produce more or less of visceral congestion, and these pains are the result. Such is my theory—gathered from experience. The Wrst fortnight I was at Filey I had constantly recurring pain in the right side—the right hip—just in the middle of the chest—burning and aching between the shoulders—and sick headache into the bargain—My spirits at the same time were cruelly depressed—prostrated sometimes—I feared the misery and the suVerings of last winter were all returning—consequently I am now indeed thankful to Wnd myself so much better. Tell me particularly, when you write, how, you are. You ask about India—Let us dismiss the subject in a few words and not recur to it—All is silent as the grave.1 Cornhill is silent too: there has been bitter disappointment there at my having no work ready for this season.2 Ellen we must not rely upon our fellow-creatures—only on ourselves—and on Him who is above both us and they. My labours as you call them stand in abeyance and I cannot hurry them—I must take my own time—however long that time may be. I was amused to learn from Miss Martineau that Joe *Taylor & suite3 during their late visit to Ambleside actually called on her under the plea of being my friends. I fancy she received them very kindly. She terms A[melia] ‘‘a tranquil little Dutchwoman’’4 Joe’s organ of combativeness5 and contradiction amused and amazed her: she liked the baby best of the lot. How utterly inconsistent of Joe *Taylor to make this call! He—who railed at Lord J Manners & Mr. Smythe6 and accused them of insolence in calling on me! I send the Examiner7—let me hear from you soon and believe me Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS Guildhall Library, London, MS 3790/1. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/55.4. W & S 777. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Mrs. Gorham j Cakeham j Chichester j Sussex PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j JY 1 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j JY 1 j 1852 (iv) —W j 2 JY 2 j 1852 (v) CHICHESTER j JY 2 j 1852 j B Annotation by EN (i) on letter: 273 (ii) on envelope: July 2—52 j C’s experience thoughts [i.w.] Taylor’s call on Miss Martineau 1. There had been no news of or from James Taylor. 2. Villette did not appear until 28 Jan. 1853. 3. Joe and Amelia Taylor, their baby daughter Emily Martha, and probably a nursemaid, had called at Harriet Martineau’s house, The Knoll, on the outskirts of Ambleside. 4. Amelia was born in Rotterdam, but she was of English parentage. 5. ‘Combativeness’, according to the phrenologist Lorenzo Niles Fowler, was one of the ‘SelWsh propensities’ providing ‘for man’s animal wants’, and was located behind the ear, next to

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‘Destructiveness’. It included the ‘desire to encounter’, and its ‘perversion’ involved ‘contrariety’, and ‘contention’. No separate ‘organ’ of contradiction was located (Fowler’s New Illustrated Self-Instructor in Phrenology, Physiology, and Physiognomy (n.d.), 89, 92). 6. John James Robert Manners (1818–1906; Duke of Rutland, 1888), and George Smythe (1818–57; 7th Viscount Strangford, 1855); both formerly Tory radicals associated with the Young England movement, who had visited Haworth in Aug. 1850 mainly to see the famous ‘Currer Bell’. Joe Taylor, like his brother John and sister Mary, was theoretically a radical, and, like Hunsden Yorke Hunsden in The Professor, had presumably ‘railed at’ ‘ugly distinction’ and anything that resembled toadying or lionizing. 7. CB might have been reminded of Lord John Manners by an item in the Examiner for 19 June 1852, reporting his speeches during Parliament’s debate on the Metropolitan Water Supply Bill and Burials Bill (394).

To Ellen Nussey, 26th July 1852 Haworth Dear Ellen I return Mrs. J *Swinton *Hewitt’s1 letter. It is the language of a happiness which dares not trust itself to full expression. A kind of suppressed buoyancy is obvious throughout. I should not have written to you to-day by choice—lately I have again been harrassed with head-ache—the heavy electric atmosphere oppresses me much— Yet I am less miserable just now than I was a little while ago—a severe shock came upon me about Papa. He was suddenly attacked with acute inXammation of the eye. Mr. Ruddock2 was sent for and after he had examined him—he called me into another room, and said that Papa’s pulse was bounding at 150 per minute—that there was a strong pressure of blood on the brain—that in short the symptoms were decidedly apoplectic3— Active measures were immediately taken—by the next day the pulse was reduced to 90—Thank God he is now better—though not well—the eye is still a good deal inXamed—He does not know his state—to tell him he had been in danger of apoplexy would almost be to kill him at once—it would increase the rush to the brain and perhaps bring about rupture—He is kept very quiet. Dear Nell—you will excuse a short note. Write to me again soon—tell me all concerning yourself that can relieve you—4 MS Haverford. W & S 778. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Mary Gorham had married the Revd Thomas Swinton Hewitt on 29 June 1852. They were to live at East Marden, Sussex, a parish whose population in c.1840 was 48 (Dugdale 1190). 2. William Ruddock had attended CB during her illness Dec. 1851–Jan. 1852. See CBL ii. 730 n. 2. 3. A. B. Nicholls’s proposal to CB in Dec. 1852 was to produce similar frightening symptoms in Mr Bronte¨. See EN 15.12.1852. T. J. Graham notes that in apoplexy ‘the face is red and puVed, the veins of the head and neck are distended . . . the eyes are prominent, blood-shot’ (Graham’s Domestic Medicine 197).

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4. The Haverford manuscript ends here. W & S 778 adds ‘Yours faithfully, j C.B.’, but perhaps CB, in her haste and agitation, failed to sign the letter.

To W. S. Williams, 28 July 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir Is it in contemplation to publish the new edition of ‘‘Shirley’’ soon?1 Would it not be better to defer it for a time? In reference to a part of your letter permit me to express this wish—and I trust that, in doing so, I shall not be regarded as stepping out of my position as an author, and encroaching on the arrangements of business—viz. that no announcement of a New Work by the Author of ‘‘Jane Eyre’’ shall be made till the M.S. of such work is actually in my Publishers’ hands.2 Perhaps we are none of us justiWed in speaking very decidedly where the future is concerned, but for some, too much caution in such calculations can scarcely be observed; amongst this number I must class myself—nor in doing so—can I assume an apologetic tone: he does right who does his best. Last Autumn I got on for a time quickly; I ventured to look forward to Spring as the period of publication; my health gave way; I passed such a Winter as— having been once experienced will never be forgotten. The Spring proved little better than a protraction of trial. The warm weather and a visit to the Sea have done me much good physically, but as yet I have recovered neither elasticity of animal spirits nor Xow of the power of composition. And if it were otherwise the diVerence would be of no avail, my time and thoughts are at present taken up with close attendance on my Father whose health is just now in a very critical state—the heat of the weather having produced determination3 of blood to the head. I am yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BuValo Public Library, New York. W & S 779. Address (integral): W. S. Williams Esqre. PM: not in MS. 1. The second edition of Shirley, published in one volume in Nov. 1852, included corrections and revisions by CB. See WSW 25.3.1852 n. 1. Smith, Elder had evidently sold enough copies of the original three-volume edition of 26 Oct. 1849 to warrant the production of a cheap edition, which would have the advantage of keeping ‘the author of Jane Eyre’ before the public. Nevertheless they complied with her request to defer its publication until Villette was nearly ready. 2. The one-volume Shirley, already printed by 19 Aug. 1852, contained an announcement of ‘a new novel’ by CB in three volumes, even though she had not Wnished writing the new work. 3. T. J. Graham notes that ‘Whatever operates in determining a great quantity of blood to the head, or in impeding a free return from it, may produce excessive distention or eVusion within the cranium’ (Graham’s Domestic Medicine 198 under ‘Causes of apoplexy’).

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To Ellen Nussey, 3 August 1852 [Haworth] Dear Ellen I write a line to say that Papa is now considered quite out of danger—his progress to health is not without relapse—but I think he gains ground if slowly—surely. Mr. Ruddock says the seizure was quite of an apoplectic character—there was partial paralysis for two days—but the mind remained clear—in spite of a high degree of nervous irritation. One eye still remains inXamed—and Papa is weak—but all the muscular aVection is gone—and the pulse is accurate. One cannot be too thankful that Papa’s sight is yet spared—it was the fear of losing that which chieXy distressed him. With best wishes for yourself dear Ellen I am yours faithfully C Bronte¨ My headaches are better—I have needed no help—but I thank you sincerely for your kind oVers. MS HM 20069. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/55.6. W & S 777. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Mrs. Gorham j Cakeham j Chichester j Sussex PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGH—— j AU 3 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j AU 3 j 1852 j 1 (iv) —AU— j FY (v) CHICHESTER j AU 5 j 1852 j A Annotation by EN (i) on letter: 275 (ii) on envelope: Aug 3—52 j Mr B’s illness

To Ellen Nussey, 12 August 1852 Haworth. Dear Ellen Papa has varied occasionally since I wrote to you last—Monday was a very bad day—his spirits sunk painfully—Tuesday and Yesterday however were much better and to-day he seems wonderfully well. The prostration of spirits which accompanies anything like a relapse is almost the most diYcult point to manage. Dear Nell—you are tenderly kind in oVering your Society—but rest very tranquil where you are—be fully assured that it is not now nor under present circumstances that I feel the lack either of society or occupation—my time is pretty well Wlled and my thoughts appropriated—Mr. Ruddock seems quite satisWed that there is now no present danger whatever—he says Papa has an excellent constitution and may live many years yet—the true balance is not

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yet restored to the circulation of the blood—but I believe that impetuous and dangerous determination to the head is quite obviated. A letter has ’just’ been received from Mary *Taylor which no doubt will be duly sent you1—She seems to write in somewhat better spirits—she had got the box containing the bonnets &c. which you selected—and expresses herself most thoroughly satisWed with Ellen *Nussey’s choice—She says Amelia could not have put the aVair in better hands. I cannot permit myself to comment much on the chief contents of your last— advice is not necessary—as far as I can judge you seem hitherto enabled to take these trials in a good and wise spirit2—I can only pray that such combined strength and resignation may be continued to you [submission—courage— exertion when practicable—these seem to ?be the weapons with which we must Wght life’s long battle Yours faithfully C Bronte¨] MS Brotherton. W & S 781 as ‘August 13th, 1852’. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: ?276 Date: CB was writing on a Thursday. The W & S date, ‘Augst 13th’, a Friday, is incorrect. Text: the words in square brackets are written in an unknown hand on the verso of the last halfsheet. They replace CB’s conclusion to the letter, originally written on the recto of the second leaf, the lower part of which has been cut oV. 1. Ellen Nussey was still with the Gorhams (Mary’s parents) at Cakeham on 3 Aug. but had moved to the newly married couple’s home by 25 Aug. Mary Taylor’s letter from New Zealand would be sent on to her by the Taylors of Hunsworth. It has not been located. 2. The nature of Ellen’s ‘trials’ is unknown. The image of life’s battle recurs in Villette, as it does in The Pilgrim’s Progress, a seminal work which profoundly inXuenced CB’s thought and style.

To George Smith, 19 August 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir I am thankful to say that my Father is now much better though still weak. The danger is—I trust—subsided, but I am warned that the attack has been of an apoplectic character—a circumstance which—at his age—brings anxieties not easily dispelled. His mind however has not been in the least clouded, and the muscular paralysis which existed for a time seems quite gone now. I am assured that with his excellent constitution—there is every prospect that a return of the seizure may be long delayed. I am glad to hear that your Mother is at Woodford,1 as I know how much she is attached to the country and its quiet pleasures; your Sisters also will—no doubt enjoy the change at this season. I do not wonder that you all felt regret at

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parting from Alick; he seemed to me an amiable boy. It is to be hoped however that the climate of Bombay will agree with him, and if it should not—less than a month will bring him once more home. I had better refrain from commenting on the brief glimpse you give of what your own labours have lately been.3 Surely you will now take some rest. Such systematic overtasking of mind and body may be borne for a time by some constitutions, but in the end it tells on the most vigorous. If physical strength stands it out—the brain suVers—and where the brain is continuously irritated— I believe both peace of mind and health of body are endangered. ‘‘Shirley’’ looks very respectable in her new attire.4 Do not send the 3rd. Vol. of Mr. Thackeray’s M.S.5 I would rather wait to see it in print. It will be something to look forward to. My stay at the seaside was of great use. As to last Winter and Spring—they are gone and I have no wish to dwell upon their passage. Give my kind remembrances to your Mother and Sisters6 when you see them [Signature cut oV.] MS BPM SG 73. W & S 782. Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. Annotation on 2v: rough pencil calculations of various small sums in £.s.d., ranging from one shilling to £6; probably made by someone in Smith, Elder’s oYce. 1. Probably Woodford in Essex, east of Epping Forest, with Woodford Bridge nearby in the Roding valley; now part of Greater London. In 1852 Woodford was a series of wooded hamlets, with small cottages and larger eighteenth-century houses, including Woodford Hall (1771), a handsome house with gardens laid out to Repton’s design in 1804. There had formerly been medicinal springs at Woodford Wells. Improved roads had made for easier access from London to Woodford’s ‘quiet pleasures’ (History of the County of Essex (1973), vi). 2. George Smith’s young brother, the 17-year-old Alexander, sent out to India, presumably to assist in the Bombay branch of the family business, Smith, Taylor and Co. In the Mar. 1851 Census he was listed as a 16-year-old bookseller, living in the family home in London. CB had met him during her visit to Edinburgh in July 1850, when George Smith brought Alick back from his school there. See EN 21.6.1850. 3. The pressure of work on George Smith was caused by Smith, Elder’s banking and publishing business, the long strain of debt repayments, and the Wrm’s increasing export trade with the Far East. He often worked far into the night. Leonard Huxley writes that by 1853 ‘Seven years of heavy strain and undivided responsibilities had told upon his health’, leading him to take a partner into the business, Henry Samuel King, a bookseller of Brighton (Huxley 82). 4. The second edition, a single volume bound in grey-purple morocco cloth, blocked in blind with a Xoral pattern, was described as ‘Now ready’ in the Athenæum for 20 Nov. 1852, but was dated ‘1853’ on the title-page, which reads ‘SHIRLEY. j A Tale. j BY CURRER BELL, j AUTHOR OF ‘‘JANE EYRE.’’ j A NEW EDITION. j LONDON: j SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. j BOMBAY: SMITH, TAYLOR, AND CO. j 1853.’ Publication was delayed in response to her request to W. S. Williams on 28 July 1852, q.v. 5. CB had read the Wrst two volumes of Henry Esmond in manuscript: see GS 14.2.1852, 21.3.1852. Thackeray had sent the Wrst corrected sheets to Smith, Elder on 15 Aug. (Harden i. 479) and had completed work on the proofs of vol. i by the end of August, when the printers were still working on the second volume. He had proofread vol. ii by 20 Sept. 1852. The manuscript of the third volume could have been sent to CB in August, had she wished to read it. See Edgar

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F. Harden, ‘The Writing and Publication of Esmond’, Studies in the Novel, 13 (1981) esp. 84, 85, 91; and Harden i. 483. 6. Eliza, aged about 29, Sarah (21), and Isabella (14). See CBL ii. 85 n. 2.

To Ellen Nussey, 25 August 1852 Haworth Dear Ellen I am thankful to say that Papa’s convalescence seems now to be quite conWrmed. There is scarcely any remainder of the inXammation in his eyes and his general health progresses satisfactorily. He begins even to look forward to resuming his duty erelong1—but caution must be observed on that head. Martha has been very willing and helpful during Papa’s illness—Poor Tabby is ill herself at present with English Cholera2 which complaint together with inXuenza ’has’ lately been almost universally prevalent in this district; of the last—I have <just> myself had a touch—but it went oV very gently on the whole—aVecting my chest and liver less than any cold has done for the last three years. I trust, dear Ellen, you are well in health yourself—this visit to the South has not so far been productive of unmingled present pleasure3—yet it may bring you future beneWt in more ways than one. I write to you about yourself rather under constraint and in the dark—for your letters—dear Nell—are most remarkably oracular—dropping nothing but hints—which tie my tongue a good deal. What for instance can I say to your last postscript? It is quite Sybilline. I can hardly guess what checks you in writing to me—There is certainly no one in this house or elsewhere to whom I should shew your notes—and I do not imagine they are in any peril in passing through the Post-OYces Perhaps you think that as I generally write with some reserve—you ought to do the same. My reserve, however, has its foundation not in design, but in necessity—I am silent because I have literally nothing to say. I might indeed repeat over and over again that my life is a pale blank and often a very weary ’burden’—and that the Future sometimes appals me—but what end could be answered by such repetition except to weary you and enervate myself ? The evils that now and then wring a groan from my heart—lie in position— not that I am a single woman and likely to remain a single woman—but because I am a lonely woman and likely to be lonely. But it cannot be helped and therefore imperatively must be borne—and borne too with as few words about it as may be. I write all this just to prove to you that whatever you would freely say to me—you may just as freely write.

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Understand—that I remain just as resolved as ever not to allow myself the holiday of a visit from you—till I have done my work. After labour— pleasure—but while work was lying at the wall4 undone—I never yet could enjoy recreation Yours very faithfully C Bronte¨ MS HM 24498. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/55.7. W & S 783. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Revd. S. Hewitt j East Marden j PetersWeld j Sussex PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j AU 26 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j AU 26 j 1852 j H (iv) 1852 j 27 AU 27 j FAnnotation by EN (i) on letter: A single woman and likely to remain single—a lonely woman and likely to remain lonely (ii) on envelope: Aug 26—52 of unreserve in our letters Date: CB dates clearly ‘Haworth Augst. 25th. / 52’. 1. Mr Bronte¨ took a single baptismal service on 22 July, and burials on 10 and 22 July, but Mr Nicholls then took all baptisms 25 July–13 Sept. 1852, and all burials 28 July–14 Sept. Nicholls also took all marriage services 10 Aug. 1852–7 Feb. 1853 (Haworth Parish Registers). Probably Mr Bronte¨ was able to take Sunday services again in September. 2. CB may refer to ‘cholera nostras’ or summer cholera, ‘A disorder, attended with bilious diarrhœa, vomiting, stomach-ache, and cramps . . . rarely fatal to adults’ (OED); to be distinguished from the malignant and often fatal Asiatic cholera of the kind prevalent in the epidemics of 1831–2 and 1848–9. See CBL i. 111–12. In CBL ii. 239 it is not clear which disease is described as ‘English cholera’. 3. EN’s stay with the recently married Hewitts might well have proved less than perfectly harmonious, but her friendship with Mrs Hewitt continued into old age. 4. OED2 gives this usage as obsolete, with the last quotation dating from 1787. See under ‘wall’, ‘To lie . . . by the wall’, to lie on one side, remain idle or useless.

To Margaret Wooler, 2 September 1852 Haworth My dear Miss Wooler I have delayed answering your very kind letter till I could speak decidedly respecting Papa’s health. For some weeks after the attack there were frequent variations and once—a threatening of relapse, but I trust his convalescence may now be regarded as conWrmed. The acute inXammation of the eye which distressed Papa so much as threatening loss of sight, but which, I suppose, was merely symptomatic of the rush of blood to the brain—is now quite subsided; the partial paralysis has also disappeared, the appetite is better; weakness with occasional slight giddiness seem now the only lingering traces of disease. I am assured that with Papa’s excellent constitution—there is every prospect of his still being spared to me for many years.

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For two things I have reason to be most thankful—viz. that the mental faculties have remained quite untouched, and also that my own health and strength have been found suYcient for the occasion. Solitary as I certainly was at Filey—I yet derived great beneWt from the change. It would be pleasant at the seaside this Wne warm weather, and I should dearly like to be there with you; to such a treat, however, I do not now look forward at all. You will fully understand the impossibility of my enjoying peace of mind during absence from Papa under present circumstances; his strength must be very much more fully restored before I can think of leaving home. My dear Miss Wooler in case you should go to Scarbro’1 this season—may I request you to pay one visit to the churchyard and see if the inscription on the Stone has been altered as I directed—We have heard nothing since on the subject and I fear the alteration may have been neglected. Ellen Nussey has made a long stay in the South, but I believe she will soon return now, and I am looking forward to the pleasure of having her company in the course of the Autumn. Your account of the Carters2 interested me much: Susan seems a good, dear girl; I liked that trait of her choosing rather to spend the holidays at home than to give part of the precious time to a visit amongst comparative strangers; such a preference speaks volumes; I wish she may grow up such a character as will please you; I wish she may always retain some genuine feeling, something congenial and consolatory in her disposition, Something you can turn to with reliance, esteem, aVection—I wish in short that she may prove a dutiful and tender niece With kind regards to all old friends, and sincere love to yourself I am my dear Miss Wooler Yours respectfully and aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 784. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation in pencil, possibly by Thomas CliVord Allbutt, who gave CB’s letters to his aunt Margaret Wooler to the Fitzwilliam Museum: ‘Miss Susan Wooler married Rev E N. Carter vicar 1 of Lothersdale, 2 of Heckmondwike’. 1. Miss Wooler rented or owned a house in the North Bay, Scarborough, in early 1849, at the time when Anne Bronte¨ was mortally ill. For Anne’s gravestone, see EN 6.6.1852 and n. 1. 2. Susan, the daughter of Susanna, ne´e Wooler, and the Revd E. N. Carter, was said by the Carters’ great-nephew the Revd Max Blakeley to have kept a girls’ school at Oakwell Hall with her sister Kate (Catherine), and to have been present there during his visit to the hall in 1881, and during ‘the great storm of 1882 ’ which ‘smashed in the roof and the Xoor below’, so that ‘Susan, in her bed at the time, was carried down with the Xoor into the drawing-room . . . She was seriously shaken, but recovered’ (BST 12. 62. 114). The 1871 Census for Oakwell Hall lists Ellen M. Carter and Catherine E. Carter, but not Susan.

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To Ellen Nussey, 9 September 1852 [Haworth] Dear Ellen I did not send the Ex[amin]er last week not knowing how to address;1 I send it however this week as usual. Thank you for Ann’s notes—I like to read them—they are so full of news— but they are illegible—a great many words I really cannot make out. It is pleasing to hear that Mercy is doing so well—and the tidings about your Mother seem also good—What she said about the necessity of ‘‘mending her manners’’ when Ellen came home made me laugh. Papa continues pretty well but his spirits often Xag and he complains much of weakness I get a note from Hunsworth2 every now and then—but I fear my last reply has not given much satisfaction—it contained a taste of that unpalatable commodity called advice—such advice too as might ’be’ and I dare say was— construed into faint reproof. I can scarcely tell what there is about Amelia that in spite of one’s conviction of her amiability—in spite of one’s sincere wish for her welfare—palls upon one—satiates—stirs impatience. She will complacently put forth opinions and tastes as her own—which are not in her own—nor in any sense natural to her— she pretentiously talks Taylorism with a Ringrose air and voice—my patience can really hardly sustain the test of such a jay in borrowed plumes. She prated so much about the Wne wilful spirit of her child whom she describes as a hard brown little thing who will do nothing but what pleases herself—that I hit out at last not very hard—but enough to make her think herself ill-used—I doubt not.—Can’t help it: She often says she is not ‘‘absorbed in self ’’—but the fact is—I have seldom seen any one more unconsciously thoroughly and often weakly egotistic. Then too—she is inconsistent. In the same breath she boasts her matrimonial happiness and whines for sympathy. Don’t understand it. With a paragon of a husband and child—why that whining, craving note? Either her lot is not all she professes it to be—or she is hard to content. The fact is she makes me a little savage. How does she write to you? Answer soon and believe me Yours faithfully C. Bronte¨ If you be waited on by lady’s maids **you’ll have to pay them—for which reason I enclose**3

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MS Pforzheimer. W & S 785. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN [at the top of the letter]: 279 Sep 9—52; [at the end]: Sept ?7—52 of A’s character &c &c 1. EN had probably left the Hewitts for her brother John’s house in London, a convenient place to stay on her way back to Yorkshire. 2. From Amelia Taylor. For Joe Taylor’s mixture of concern and seeming callousness, see his prediction in Amelia’s hearing that their delicate daughter ‘will die . . . and I shall be glad of it— Nay my dear! why do you look so miserable; her life would be only a prolonged trouble to herself & to us, while even she is spared much’ (CP letter 192, reported by Mrs Gaskell to John Forster, ?8–14 May 1854). 3. ‘you’ll . . . enclose’ heavily obscured in the manuscript. Perhaps CB enclosed money for a tip to the lady’s maid or maids; ‘enclose’ is a more likely reading of the MS than ‘refuse’, printed in W & S 785. John Nussey was comparatively wealthy, and a photograph of his wife Mary shows her dressed in the height of fashion (Whitehead 173). Perhaps her lady’s maid, or one of her daughters’ maids, waited on Ellen during her stay with them. Cf. the description of ‘Madame . . . very stately in her carriage’ in EN 28.1.1853.

To Ellen Nussey, [?24 September] 1852 [Haworth] Friday— Dear Nell I did not think you would at all expect to hear from me again till you got home, so little as I have to communicate, it did not seem to me worth while to write. I do hope and believe the changes you have been having this summer will do you permanent good—notwithstanding the pain with which they have been too often mingled—Yet I feel glad that you are soon coming home—and I really must not trust myself to say how much I wish the time were come when without let or hindrance I could once more welcome you to Haworth. But oh Nell! I don’t get on—I feel fettered—incapable—sometimes very low—However—at present the subject must not be dwelt upon—it presses me too hardly—nearly and painfully. Less than ever can I taste or know pleasure till this work is wound up. And yet—I often sit up in bed at night—thinking of and wishing for you. Thank you for the Times—what it said on the mighty and mournful subject1 was well said—All at once the whole Nation seems now to take a just view of that great character. There was a review too of an American book2 which I was glad to see. Read ‘‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’’: probably though you have read it.

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Papa’s health continues satisfactory thank God! As for me—my wretched liver has been disordered again of late—but I hope it is now going to be on better behaviour—it hinders me in working—depresses both power and tone of feeling. I must expect this derangement from time to time. Write as soon as you can—I hope this letter will reach you before you start from Town—Good bye. Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ Your hint about Mrs. *Gorham does not in the least surprise me—I felt sure that with her alone you would not be comfortable. Mary is a genuine pearl of pure water.3 MS HM 24499. W & S 786. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The Times for Wednesday 15 Sept. reported the death of the Duke of Wellington (b. 1 May 1769): ‘DOVER, TUESDAY, 5 P.M. His Grace the Duke of Wellington was seized with illness this morning, and expired at Walmer Castle at a quarter past 3 this afternoon, after a succession of Wts.’ The immensely detailed obituary article took up pp. 5, 6, 7, and cols. 1–3 on p. 8, and was completed in The Times for 16 Sept., pp. 5–6. For many weeks other articles and letters about the Duke continued to be published. CB and her father would be especially interested in the account of the Duke’s military achievements, notably in the Iberian Peninsula: ‘Thus terminated, with unexampled glory to England and its army, the great Peninsular War—a struggle commenced with ambiguous views and prosecuted with doubtful expectations, but carried to a triumphant conclusion by the extraordinary genius of a single man.’ The writer admitted that Wellington’s later political principles were ‘not always reconcilable with the opinions and demands of modern advancement’, but added, ‘If he was less liberally-minded than the statesmen of his later days, we may fairly inquire how many of his own generation would have been as liberal as he?’ (15 Sept., 8). It was generally agreed that the Duke’s death for the moment ‘stilled the clamour of contending parties, and united the whole nation in one great wail of mourning’ (Wilson Victoria ii. 507–8.) 2. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published on 20 Mar. 1852 by John P. Jewett of Boston, who had accepted it ‘with some reluctance’, but sold more than 200,000 copies in seven months. ‘More than a million copies were sold in England that year, nearly all of them pirated’ (Eugene Exman, The Brothers Harper (New York, 1965), 337). The lengthy Times review of 3 Sept. 1852 conceded that it was impossible not to respect the novel, which was ‘a decided hit’; but while Mrs Stowe’s vehement abolitionism and purity of motive would secure proselytes, the book would ‘rivet the fetters of slavery’ more Wrmly because it would excite opprobrium and indignation. She made Uncle Tom an incredible paragon of virtue and every negro capable of miraculous conversion, but depicted white people in the ‘blackest black’. This was melodrama, not truth. Enfranchisement must be voluntarily undertaken by the whole community, not forced upon slaveowners, many of whom wished to remove the stain of slavery: any attempt to dictate to the south would destroy the Union and result in instant anarchy. In any case the system of slavery must eventually disintegrate ‘under the weight of public opinion and its own infamy’ (5). CB was to admit that she veiled her face ‘before such a mighty subject’ (GS 30.10.1852). 3. Figuratively, of high ‘excellence or quality’, ‘water’ being ‘the transparency and lustre characteristic of a diamond or a pearl’ (OED).

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To Ellen Nussey, 5 October 1852 Haworth Dear Ellen I must write a line to accompany the two letters which I return with thanks— Mary’s1 is very pleasant and cheerful. I hope you are safe at home by this time Write very soon and tell me how you are and how you found all. Dear Nell—you know very well I should as soon think of going to the moon as of setting oV to Brookroyd at present—no—I trust when we meet it will be at Haworth. Mr. and Mrs. Foster2 made another of their sudden calls here yesterday—they came in a Xy in the midst of dreadful drenching weather—a lady accompanied them a Miss Dixon3 from Dublin—it seems there is some distant connection between her family and that of the Birmingham Dixons but they have no personal intercourse. They wanted to take me back with them—of course—vainly. Papa and I are both under pressure of colds at present—I was very uneasy about Papa on Sunday—but I trust he is better now—and so I think am I. Do you escape pretty well? I send the newspapers4—write soon Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS Berg. W & S 787. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Mary Hewitt’s. 2. Thus in MS, for William Edward Forster and his wife Jane, ne´e Arnold. See Mr Bronte¨’s letter to R. M. Milnes, 16.1.1852 and n. 2. C. K. Shorter added a footnote to the present letter in his 1908 edition, ii. 280 n.: ‘ . . . Mrs. Forster, in a letter to the editor, regretted that she had kept none of Miss Bronte¨’s letters’, but a brief note from CB survives in a private collection. See CBL ii. 706. 3. Not identiWed. The Birmingham Dixons were cousins of the Taylors of Gomersal. CB met several members of the family in Brussels in 1842–3, and was invited, but refused, to stay with them in Birmingham for Christmas 1849. See CBL i. 296–7 n., ii. 316–17 n. 4. Probably the Leader and the Examiner.

To Ellen Nussey, 9 October 1852 [Haworth] Dear Nell Papa expresses so strong a wish that I should ask you to come and I feel some little refreshment so absolutely necessary myself that I really must beg you to come to Haworth for one single week. I thought I would persist in denying

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myself till I had done my work—but I Wnd it won’t do—the matter refuses to progress—and this excessive solitude presses too heavily—So let me see your dear face Nell just for one reviving week Could you come on Wednesday?1 Write tomorrow and let me know by what train you would reach Keighley—that I may send for you. I am right glad that you keep up your courage so nobly—How much better— how much wiser than to sink in bodily and mental weakness—The eVort will have its reward. We will leave all other matters to talk about. Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ If you write a line tomorrow—I shall get it on Monday. MS Pierpont Morgan MA 4500. W & S 788 (part). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. 13 Oct. CB was writing on Saturday.

To Ellen Nussey, [?11 October 1852] [Haworth] Monday Morning Dear Ellen I Wnd I cannot have the gig1 till Friday—On that day (D.V.) it shall be at the Station at the hour you mention viz. 43 m past 3 o’clock—and then I hope it will bring you safe to me. The prospect of seeing you already cheers. One reason which I may tell you when you come partly reconciles me to this temporary delay. If I do not hear anything from you to the contrary—I shall consider the matter settled. May no other hindrance arise either here or at Brookroyd—kind regards to all— [dear Nell Yours faithfully] [Signature cut oV along with the original autograph of the words above and the beginning of a postscript of which the last six words remain:] on account of the double trouble.2 MS BPM Bon 245. W & S 789. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by ?EN: 245 1854 j 1852 87

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Date: Shorter places this letter in late 1853 as ‘Letter 650’, but the W & S date in 1852 is supported by the writing paper and content. By Oct. 1854 Charlotte was married, and would be writing ‘We’ rather than ‘I’. Text: the letter, written on a single sheet, has been mutilated for the sake of the signature. The words ‘dear . . . faithfully’ were probably written by EN. The Wrst part of a postscript must also have been cut oV; the remaining phrase, ‘on . . . trouble’ was written by CB at the top of 1v. 1. A hired gig available in Haworth. ‘Friday’ would be 15 Oct. EN probably stayed until 22 Oct. 2. Shorter 650 and W & S 789 lack this phrase, but supply a conclusion after ‘kind regards to all’: ‘Dear Nell,—Yours faithfully, j C. Bronte¨.’

To Margaret Wooler, 21 October 1852 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler I was truly sorry to hear that when Ellen Nussey called at the Parsonage at Heckmondwike1 you were suVering under inXuenza: I know that an attack of this debilitating complaint is no triXe in your case as its eVects linger with you long. It has been very prevalent in this neighbourhood; I did not escape, but the sickness and fever only lasted a few days, and the cough was not severe. Papa—I am thankful to say—continues pretty well; Ellen Nussey thinks him little, if at all, altered. And now for your kind present. The book2 will be precious to me—chieXy perhaps for the sake of the giver, but also for its own sake—for it is a good book—and I wish I may be enabled to read it with some approach to the spirit you would desire; its perusal came recommended in such a manner as to obviate danger of neglect—its place shall always be on my dressing-table. As to the other part of the present—it arrived under these circumstances. For a month past an urgent necessity to buy and make some *chemises3 for winter-wear had been importuning my conscience; the buying might soon be eVected but the making was a more serious consideration. At this juncture Ellen Nussey arrives with a good-sized parcel which—when opened—discloses **three excellent chemises**4—perfectly made and of capital useful fabric— adorned **also with cambric frills**5—which seemly decoration it is but too probable I might myself have foregone as an augmentation of trouble not to be lightly incurred. I felt strong doubts as to my right to proWt by this sort of fairygift so unlooked-for and so curiously opportune: on reading a note accompanying the garments—I am told that to accept will be to confer a favour(!) The doctrine is too palatable to be rejected: I even waive all nice scrutiny of its soundness—in short—I submit with as good a grace as may be. Ellen Nussey has only been my companion one little week6—I would not have her any longer—for I am disgusted with myself and my delays—and consider it was a weak yielding to temptation in me to send for her at all— but in truth my spirits were getting low—prostrate sometimes and she has done me inexpressible good—I wonder when I shall see you at Haworth again; both

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my Father and the servants have again and again insinuated a distinct wish that you should be requested to come in the course of the Summer and Autumn,7 but I always turned rather a deaf ear; ‘‘Not yet’’ was my thought ‘‘I want Wrst to be free’’—work Wrst—then pleasure. I venture to send by E. N. a book which may amuse an hour—a Scotch Tale by a Minister’s wife8—it seems to me well told—and may serve to remind you of characters and manners you have seen in Scotland When you have time to write a line—I shall feel anxious to hear how you are. With kind regards to all old friends—and truest aVection to yourself—in which E. N. joins me— I am my dear Miss Wooler Yours gratefully & respectfully C Bronte¨ MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 790. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The home of the Revd E. N. Carter, Margaret Wooler’s brother-in-law. See MW 2.9.1852 n. 2. 2. The Revd Hugh White, The Gospel Promotive of True Happiness (Dublin: James McGlashan, 1851). The BPM copy, inscribed ‘Miss Bronte¨ From her aVectionate friend M W Sept 3rd 1852’, had probably been handed to Ellen Nussey during her visit to Heckmondwike for transmission to CB. An edition in the British Library is ascribed to ‘Hugh White, Curate of St Mary’s, Dublin’ and is the ‘Third thousand, . . . Dublin, 1843’. 3. A chemise was a woman’s full-length, loose-Wtting undergarment. EN deleted ‘chemises’ and substituted ‘things’ when she prepared Charlotte’s letters for printing. See the discreet version printed by Shorter in CBCircle 273–4, and for Ellen’s editing, see CBL i. 37, 47, 50–2. 4. Deleted; ‘the things I require’ written above in pencil. 5. Deleted; ‘too’ written above in pencil. 6. EN was to leave the Parsonage on the following day. 7. Miss Wooler had been a welcome visitor at the Parsonage for ten days in autumn 1851. See EN 3.10.1851, CBL ii. 703. 8. Possibly Mrs Sarah R. Whitehead’s Rose Douglas, though this was the ‘Autobiography of a Scotch Minister’s Daughter’. See CBL ii. 582–4 and WSW 25.3.1852 in the present volume.

To W. S. Williams, 26 October 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir In sending a return-box of books to Cornhill—I take the opportunity of enclosing 2 Vols. of M.S.1 the third vol. is now so near completion that I trust, if all be well, I may calculate on its being ready in the course of two or three weeks. My wish is that the book should be published without Author’s name.2 I shall feel obliged if you will intimate the safe arrival of the Manuscript—3 Believe me Yours Sincerely C Bronte¨

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MS Bodleian Eng lett. e.30. Bodleian Library Record, vol. 4, p. 222 (Oct. 55) fo. 187r. Address (integral): W. S. Williams Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. The fair copy manuscript of Villette, written in CB’s admirably clear cursive hand, now forms part of the George Smith Memorial Bequest in the British Library, Add. MSS 43480–2. The Wrst volume (fos. 1–271), as in the Wrst edition, ends with ch. 15, ‘The Long Vacation’; the second, now fos. 1–275, with ch. 27, ‘The Hotel Cre´cy’. CB had originally numbered continuously, 1– 546, the third volume (now 1–297) being fos. 546–846. Though she made numerous revisions of words and phrases in all three volumes, they are less drastically altered than the second and third volumes of Shirley. See the Clarendon edition of Villette, Introduction and Textual Introduction, pp. [xi]–xlix. 2. Mr Williams evidently passed on this message to George Smith, whose reaction was predictable. He was unlikely to forgo the great asset of having his best-selling novelist’s pseudonym on the title-page. 3. Juliet Barker suggests that the abruptness of this letter may show that CB had taken oVence at Mr Williams’s silence since July, which she interpreted as the Wrm’s ‘bitter disappointment at her failure to produce a new book’ (Barker 703).

To Ellen Nussey, [?26 October 1852] [Haworth] Tuesday Dear Nell, Your note came only this morning, I had expected it yesterday and was beginning actually to feel uneasy, like you.1 This won’t do, I am afraid of caring for you too much. You must have come upon Hunsworth at an unfavourable moment; seen it under a cloud. Surely they are not always or2 often thus, or else married life is indeed but a slipshod paradise. I am glad, however, that the child is, as we conjectured, pretty well. Miss Wooler’s note is indeed kind, good, and characteristic. I only send the ‘Examiner,’ not having yet read the ‘Leader.’3 I was spared the remorse I feared. On Saturday I fell to business,4 and as the welcome mood is still decently existent, and my eyes consequently excessively tired with scribbling, you must excuse a mere scrawl. You left your smart shoes. Papa was glad to hear you had got home well, as well as myself. Regards to all. Good-bye.— Yours faithfully, C. Bronte¨. I do miss my dear bed-fellow. No more of that calm sleep.5 MS untraced. Envelope: BPM B.S. 104/56. W & S 791, with an unrelated paragraph after the postscript. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j OC 26 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j OC 26 j 1852 j 1 (iv) BIRSTALL Annotation on envelope by EN in pencil: Oct 26—5—[remainder cut oV]

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Date as in Nussey 289 and source. The postmark supports 26 Oct., a Tuesday, not 25 Oct., as reported in the Bronte¨ Society catalogue for 1908. A paraphrase of part of the letter appears in Life ii. 262, immediately before GS 30.10.1852. Text: W & S 791 without the unrelated paragraph after the postscript. See n. 5. Shorter 591 and Nussey 289 lack part of the W & S text, but are correct in not adding the extra paragraph. The manuscript was formerly in the BPM, dated ‘25 Oct 52’: see 1908 catalogue 218, where the donor is given as ‘Mr. D. Wheater’. 1. Ellen left the Parsonage on Friday 22 Oct. 2. Nussey and Shorter omit ‘always or’. For the marital relationship of Joe and Amelia Taylor, see EN 9.9.1852 n. 2. 3. CB would probably be eager to read articles in the Leader for 23 Oct. on the funeral of the Duke of Wellington, on Louis Napoleon, on the ‘Progress of Association’ of workers, and on the ‘Morality of Woman’s Rights’. In the last of these, a writer comments that legal compulsion on men to support their illegitimate children would reduce or even do away with infanticide; and equality for women would tend to ‘clear our land of the miserable, abandoned, vagrant, and criminal juvenile population’. 4. i.e. the work of completing Villette. 5. Nussey and Shorter read ‘companion’ instead of ‘bed-fellow’. After ‘calm sleep’, W & S 791 adds a three-sentence paragraph, ‘I have been very well . . . getting dark’, previously printed as the last part of Shorter 527 (EN 18.8.1851). But the manuscript of that letter, HM 24483, shows that it does not include this material, which is part of a fragmentary letter now at Haverford College. See EN [?3 or 10. 8. 1851] and notes (CBL ii. 673–4).

To George Smith, 30 October 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir You must notify honestly what you think of ‘‘Villette’’ when you have read it. I can hardly tell you how much I hunger to have some opinion besides my own, and how I have sometimes desponded and almost despaired because there was no one to whom to read a line—or of whom to ask a counsel. ‘‘Jane Eyre’’ was not written under such circumstances, nor were two-thirds of ‘‘Shirley’’.1 I got so miserable about it, I could bear no allusion to the book— it is not Wnished yet, but now—I hope. As to the anonymous publication—I have this to say. If the witholding of the author’s name should tend materially to injure the publisher’s interest—to interfere with booksellers’ orders &c. I would not press the point; but if no such detriment is contingent—I should be most thankful for the sheltering shadow of an incognito. I seem to dread the advertisements—the large lettered ‘‘Currer Bell’s New Novel’’ or ‘‘New Work by the Author of ‘Jane Eyre’ ’’.2 These, however, I feel well enough are the transcendentalisms of a retired wretch—and must not be intruded in the way of solid considerations; so you must speak frankly. The Bank Bill for my dividend arrived safely.3 I shall be glad to see Colonel Esmond.4 My objection to the 2nd. Vol. lay here. I thought it decidedly too much History—too little Story.

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You will see that ‘‘Villette’’ touches on no matter of public interest. I cannot write books handling the topics of the day—it is of no use trying. Nor can I write a book for its moral—Nor can I take up a philanthropic scheme though I honour Philanthropy—And voluntarily and sincerely veil my face before such a mighty subject as that handled in Mrs. Beecher Stowe’s work—‘‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’’.5 To manage these great matters rightly they must be long and practically studied—their bearings known intimately and their evils felt genuinely—they must not be taken up as a business-matter and a trading-speculation. I doubt not Mrs. Stowe had felt the iron of slavery6 enter into her heart from childhood upwards long before she ever thought of writing books. The feeling throughout her work is sincere and not got up. Remember to be an honest critic of ‘‘Villette’’ and tell Mr. Williams to be unsparing—not that I am likely to alter anything—but I want to know his impressions and yours. Believe me Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 74. W & S 792 (part). Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. In a letter to Mrs Gaskell, Mary Taylor wrote that CB had found that fame ‘seemed to make no diVerence to her. She was just as solitary, and her life as deWcient in interest as before. . . . She never criticised her books to me, farther than to express utter weariness of them, and the labour they had given her’ (Life third edn. ii. 138.; see Stevens 167.) Charlotte told Mrs Gaskell that the Wrst chapter of Shirley that she wrote after her sister Anne’s death was ‘The Valley of the Shadow of Death’. 2. See WSW 26.10.1852. The title-page of the Wrst edn. of Villette, vol. i, reads: ‘VILLETTE. j BY CURRER BELL, j AUTHOR OF ‘‘JANE EYRE,’’ ‘‘SHIRLEY,’’ ETC. j IN THREE VOLUMES. j VOL. I. j LONDON: j SMITH, ELDER & CO., 65, CORNHILL. j SMITH, TAYLOR & CO., BOMBAY. j 1853. j The Author of this work reserves the right of translating it.’ 3. Dividend was earned on George Smith’s investment of CB’s literary earnings, on her behalf, in reduced bank annuities. See e.g. CBL ii. 262, 270 nn. 4. See GS 7.2.1852, 14.2.1852 and notes. Thackeray had sent the Wnal proofs of Henry Esmond on 13 Oct. (Harden i. 490 n. 1). The second volume is largely concerned with Esmond’s involvement, Wrst as a lieutenant and then as Lieutenant Colonel, in ‘Brigadier Webb’s regiment of Fusileers’, in the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–13). Plotting and counter-plotting, favouritism, the venality of Marlborough, and the brutality of war and its aftermath, are major themes. Thackeray’s narrative is often allusive rather than clearly explicatory. 5. See EN 24.9.1852 n. 2. 6. Cf. Psalms 105: 17–18 in the Book of Common Prayer. The allusion is to Joseph, who was ‘sold to be a bond-servant; Whose feet they hurt in the stocks: the iron entered into his soul.’ In CB’s phrase there is an echo of the slave-traders’ and owners’ practice of shackling and branding slaves, and of Mrs Stowe’s words in the last chapter of Uncle Tom’s Cabin: ‘The writer has given only a faint shadow. . . of the anguish and despair that are . . . riving thousands of hearts.’ CB also used the biblical image in Villette, ch. 39, where the ‘iron’ of a false conviction that M. Paul loved Justine Marie Sauveur ‘had entered well’ into Lucy’s soul.

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To Ellen Nussey, 31 October 1852 [Haworth] Dear Ellen Mrs. *Upjohn’s1 letter—which I return—interested me a good deal. It reads like the production of a warm-hearted good-natured woman—there is a sort of vivacity of temperament and feeling about it which seems to have had genuineness to survive such a catalogue of aZictions ’as’ rarely fall in succession on one human being. Poor woman! She has been sorely tried. Her proposal ’to you’ is peculiar. If I rightly understand it—it amounts to this—that you should go and spend some time with them on a sort of experiment visit—that if the result <was> ’were’ mutually satisfactory—they would wish in a sense to adopt you—with the prospect of leaving you property— amount of course indeWnite. The aVectionate remembrance2 which has suggested this idea says much both to your credit and hers. It seems to me that the experiment visit should be paid, if not now—as you have so lately and so long been absent—yet next spring for instance—and this is all you are called upon to decide for the present—the rest may be left for future consideration. After you shall have seen them both and know what it is to live with them—your way will be clearer.3 I cannot help wishing that something permanently advantageous to you may spring from this incident. Yet it is a case which presents diYculties. To leave your own home and mother for the society of two elderly ’invalids’ is a step demanding caution. Mrs. J. T[aylor]’s epistle is characteristic enough—‘‘sits-bath’’4—‘‘alum & water’’5 and all! She seems to have got into the way of perpetually messing with something or other. I have just got a letter from New Zealand6 which I enclose—it made me sad— I cannot help earnestly wishing that *Mary were back in England—if one could but see the slightest chance of an opening for her making her way. I am quite glad to hear *Mercy is such a good girl—long may she continue so—both for your sake and her own. Give my love both to her and your Mother and believe me dear Nell Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ Write again soon. MS HM 24500. W & S 793. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: Oct 31—52

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1. Sarah, ne´e Gorham (?1792–1881; married 1842) second wife of the Revd Francis Upjohn (1787– 1874, BA Queens’ College Cambridge 1830, ordained priest 1831; MA 1833), son of a London jeweller; Vicar of St Andrew’s, Gorleston, and Rector of Southtown and Westtown, SuVolk, from 1841, but non-resident by this date. Stevens notes that Sarah Upjohn was the sister of George Cornelius Gorham, who had been at the centre of the ‘Gorham controversy’ in 1850. See CBL ii. 442–3, and Stevens 111–12. 2. Christiana Elizabeth Gorham, the sister of Sarah, ‘had married in 1819 the Rev. Dr Joseph Holmes, at that date a Fellow and Tutor of Queens’, and later Headmaster of Leeds Grammar School from 1830 to 1854’ (Stevens 111). Ellen’s brother Henry (b. 1812) attended school in Leeds, according to Venn, and matriculated at Magdalene College Cambridge in 1831. If his school was the grammar school, the Nusseys might have met the Upjohns there; but they had many relatives and friends in Leeds through whom contact might have been made. 3. After EN had visited the Upjohns in May–June 1853, her letters must have painted a very diVerent picture of their characters as ‘strange, unhappy people’ (EN ?13.6.1853). See also Mary Taylor’s letter to EN of May–July 1853. 4. A sitz bath is a hip bath, or the bath taken in it. OED gives the date 1852 for the latter meaning. It is not mentioned in Graham’s Domestic Medicine, though there are sections on ‘cold and warm bathing’, ‘The Vapour Bath’, and the highly recommended shower-bath. 5. Alum is ‘a double sulphate of aluminium potassium’ (OED). It could be used in a 1% solution as a vaginal douche for leucorrhœa—hence perhaps Amelia Taylor’s need for a sitz bath. 6. Mary Taylor’s letter of spring 1852 (pp. 36–7) had arrived in England by 26 Oct., and reached Keighley on or about 27 Oct. It might have come from New Zealand via Port Phillip in Australia: the San Francisco arrived at Gravesend from Port Phillip on 25 Oct.

To George Smith, 3 November 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir I feel very grateful for your letter: it relieved me much for I was a good deal harassed by doubts as to how ‘‘Villette’’ might appear in other eyes than my own.1 I feel in some degree authorized to rely on your favourable impressions, because you are quite right where you hint disapprobation; you have exactly hit two points at least where I was conscious of defect: the discrepancy, the want of perfect harmony between Graham’s boyhood and manhood; the angular abruptness of his change of sentiment towards Miss Fanshawe.2 You must remember though that in secret he had for some time appreciated that young lady at a somewhat depressed standard—held her as a little lower than the angels,3 but still—the reader ought to have been better made to feel this preparation towards a change of mood. As for the publishing arrangements—I leave them to Cornhill. There is undoubtedly a certain force in what you say about the inexpediency of <expe> aVecting a mystery which cannot be sustained—so you must act as you think ’is’ for the best. I submit also to the advertisements and large letters4—but under protest, and with a kind of Ostrich-longing for concealment. Most of the 3rd. Vol. is given to the development of the ‘‘crabbed Professor’s’’5 character. Lucy must not marry Dr. John; he is far too youthful,

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handsome, bright-spirited and sweet-tempered; he is a ‘‘curled darling’’6 of Nature and of Fortune; he must draw a prize in Life’s Lottery; his wife must be young, rich and pretty; he must be made very happy indeed. If Lucy marries anybody—it must be the Professor—a man in whom there is much to forgive—much to ‘‘put up with.’’ But I am not leniently disposed towards Miss Frost7—from the beginning I never intended to appoint her lines in pleasant places.8 The conclusion of this 3rd. Vol. is still a matter of some anxiety. I can but do my best, however; it would speedily be Wnished—could I but ward oV certain obnoxious headaches which—whenever I get into the spirit of my work, are apt to seize and prostrate me. [Signature cut away] George Smith Esqr. Colonel Henry Esmond is just arrived.9 He looks very antique and distinguished in his Queen Anne’s garb—the periwig, sword, lace and ruZes are very well represented by the old Spectator type. MS BPM SG 75. W & S 795. Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. John Graham Bretton’s boyhood and his early infatuation with Ginevra are largely imaginary creations. His adult appearance, more mature personality, and his relationship with his mother, are recognizably based on George Smith who recalled that: ‘In ‘‘Villette’’ my mother is the original of ‘‘Mrs. Bretton’’; several of her expressions are given literally verbatim. I myself, as I discovered, stood for ‘‘Dr. John’’ in ‘‘Villette’’. Charlotte Bronte admitted this to Mrs. Gaskell, to whom she wrote: I was kept waiting longer than usual for Mr. Smith’s opinion of the book, and I was rather uneasy for I was afraid he had found me out, and was oVended’ (‘Recollections’ i. 116). No letter to Mrs Gaskell containing these words has been located, and Smith might have been recalling a letter from CB to himself, or a passage in Life ii. 271: ‘The friend with whom she was staying says, that she immediately fancied there was some disappointment about ‘‘Villette,’’ or that some word or act of hers had given oVence . . . ’ The ‘friend’ was Ellen Nussey: see CB’s letter to Smith from Brookroyd of 1 Dec. 1852. 2. Ginevra Fanshawe is said to have resembled, in various ways, Amelia Walker and Maria Miller. See EN 30.1.1851, LW [c.23.6.1852] and notes. 3. Cf. Psalm 8: 4 in BCP, ‘Thou madest [man] lower than the angels.’ 4. See WSW 26.10.1852 and GS 30.10.52. 5. Paul Emanuel, based on CB’s Brussels teacher, Constantin Heger (1809–96), for whom see CBL i. 92–3, and her letters to and about him. See also M. Heger’s letter to Mr Bronte¨ of 5 Nov. 1842 for his attitude towards his Bronte¨ pupils (CBL i. 298–302). 6. Cf. Othello I. ii. 68. Desdemona’s father describes the ‘wealthy curled darlings of our nation’ who cannot believe that she would voluntarily seek Othello’s ‘sooty bosom’. See the Clarendon edition notes for other echoes of the play. In Villette the auburn-haired Dr Bretton marries ‘young, rich and pretty’ Paulina, while M. Paul, a dark, swarthy man in a soot-dark paletot, chooses Lucy Snowe. Mrs Gaskell was to describe Elizabeth Blakeway, whom George Smith married on 11 Feb. 1854, as ‘a very pretty, Paulina-like little wife’ (CP letter 294; see GS 3.7.1853 n. 2).

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7. The manuscript of Villette shows that Lucy’s surname was Wrst ‘Snowe’, then ‘Frost’, then ‘Snowe’ again. See WSW 6.11.1852 and n. 2. 8. Cf. Psalms 16: 6. 9. W & S note that ‘Thackeray sent Miss Bronte¨ a copy of The History of Henry Esmond’ (W & S iv. 16 n. 2). See the facsimile of his inscription in Shorter ii. 284: ‘Miss Bronte. j with W M Thackeray’s grateful regards. j October 28. 1852.’ The three volumes of Henry Esmond are handsomely printed in clear, elegant old-face type, using long ‘s’ and ligatures. The full title in the title-page of vol. i is followed by a Latin quotation, and the imprint imitates eighteenthcentury phrasing: ‘LONDON: j PRINTED FOR SMITH, ELDER, & COMPANY, j OVER AGAINST ST. PETER’S CHURCH IN CORNHILL. j 1852.’ The text pages are generously leaded, have few words to a line, and are headed by running titles in neat italic. The printers were Bradbury and Evans.

To Ellen Nussey, [? c.5 November 1852] [Haworth] Dear Nell Forgive a mere scrap of writing—I am hurried—I send your shoes by this post. Thanks for the letter—you are right to go and to go soon—I somehow wish you to get it over—I hope you won’t be very long away this time—whatever you eventually decide on. I am not sanguine. If your aVections bind or incline you to Mr. & Mrs. Uppjohn [sic],1 you ought to stay.—if they do not I know from your nature—you never will be able to get on. I feel certain that for the mere prospect of ‘‘—future advantage’’ you could <not> ’no’ more live with them than I could, you will see ’how it is’. I quite anticipate diYculties, but you will see. I wish the ‘‘future advantage’’ were more deWned—would it be a legacy of 40 or 50£ per ann. or what—? When I mentioned it to Papa—he remarked that it was not delicately expressed—I could not but agree in this remark—He seems however most specially solicitous that you should try the adventure—and thinks unimportant objections ought not lightly to weigh with you Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS Wellesley College Library. W & S 794. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: 293 [or ‘?273] 52 Date: uncertain, but probably soon after EN’s visit to Haworth, where she had left her ‘smart shoes’ (EN 26.10.1852), and after EN 31.10.1852, which mentions the Upjohns for the Wrst time. 14 or 15 Nov. is possible, but less likely: see EN [?15.11.1852], envelope only. EN’s clear ‘52’ makes Shorter’s placing in Feb. 1853 unlikely. W & S 794, ‘Undated’, follows EN 31.10.1852. Mildred Christian notes that EN numbered the letter to her of 22.11.1852 ‘284’, indicating that the present letter was considerably later; but Ellen’s numbering is unreliable. See MGC Census part v, 230. 1. See EN 31.10.1852 and notes.

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To W. S. Williams, 6 November 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir I must not delay thanking you for your kind letter with its candid and able commentary on ‘‘Villette’’. With many of your strictures—I concur. The 3rd. Vol. may perhaps do away with some of the objections—others will remain in force. I do not think the interest of the story culminates anywhere to the degree you would wish. What climax there is—does not come on till near the conclusion—and even then—I doubt whether the regular novel-reader will consider ‘‘the agony piled suYciently high’’—(as the Americans say) or the colours dashed on to the Canvass1 with the proper amount of daring. Still—I fear they must be satisWed with what is oVered: my palette aVords no brighter tints— were I to attempt to deepen the reds or burnish the yellows—I should but botch. Unless I am mistaken—the emotion of the book will be found to be kept throughout in tolerable subjection. As to the name of the heroine—I can hardly express what subtility of thought made me decide upon giving her a cold name; but—at Wrst—I called her ‘‘Lucy Snowe’’ (spelt with an e) which ‘‘Snowe’’ I afterward changed to ‘‘Frost’’. Subsequently—I rather regretted the change and wished it ‘‘Snowe’’ again: if not too late—I should like the ’alteration’ to be made now throughout the M.S.2 A cold name she must have—partly—perhaps—on the ‘‘lucus a non lucendo’’3—principle—partly on that of the ‘‘Wtness of things’’4—for she has about her an external coldness. You say that she may be thought morbid and weak unless the history of her life be more fully given. I consider that she is both morbid and weak at times— the character sets up no pretensions to unmixed strength—and anybody living her life would necessarily become morbid. It was no impetus of healthy feeling which urged her to the confessional for instance5—it was the semi-delirium of solitary ’grief and’ sickness. If, however, the book does not express all this— there must be a great fault somewhere— I might explain away a few other points but it would be too much like <wr> drawing a picture and then writing underneath the name of the object intended to be represented. We know what sort of a pencil6 that is which needs an ally in the pen.7 Thanking you again for the clearness and fulness with which you have responded to my request for a statement of impressions—I am, my dear Sir Yours very sincerely C Bronte¨ I trust the work will be seen in M.S. by no one except Mr. Smith and yourself.

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MS BPM Grolier F 11. W & S 797. Address (integral): W. S. Williams Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. Thus in MS. Given as an alternative to ‘canvas’ in OED. 2. In the fair copy MS, Lucy’s surname is ‘Frost’ in the Wrst two volumes, which she had already sent to her publishers. The early chapters of vol. iii show her altering ‘Frost’ to ‘Snowe’. She was still using ‘Frost’ at the beginning of the chapter called ‘Sunshine’ (ch. 37, numbered ‘39’ in MS and Wrst edn.) and forgot to alter it on fo. 177 (Clarendon edn. 615); but four leaves later ‘Snowe’ appears as an original reading for the Wrst time. This may mean that almost all of the material in the last six chapters remained to be fair-copied between 6 and 20 Nov., when vol. iii was sent to London. See Clarendon edn., p. xxxii and textual footnotes. 3. ‘An etymological contradiction; a phrase used by etymologists who accounted for words by deriving them from their opposites. It means literally ‘‘a grove (called lucus) from not being lucent’’ (lux, light, luceo, to shine)’ (Brewer). 4. Eternal ‘Wtness’ or conformity to the relations inherent in the nature of things: an eighteenthcentury phrase referring to an assertion by the Revd Samuel Clarke (1675–1729) in A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God (1705). Cf. CBL ii. 431 n. 4. 5. Cf. EJB 2.9.1843 (CBL i. 329–31). During a period of loneliness and depression, CB took ‘a fancy’ to change herself into a Catholic ‘and go and make a real confession to see what it was like’. Lucy Snowe’s confession is described in Villette, ch. 15. 6. Here, a lead pencil; but the ‘camel-hair pencils’ with which Jane Eyre ‘delineates’ a portrait in JE, ch. 16, are artist’s paintbrushes. 7. An allusion to the painter Orbaneja who, ‘when they asked him what he was painting, used to answer ‘‘Whatever it turns out.’’ Sometimes he would paint a cock, . . . so unlike one that he had to write . . . beside it: This is a cock’ (Cervantes, Don Quixote, pt. ii, ch. 3, trans. J. M. Cohen; Penguin edn., 1950).

To George Smith, 10 November 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir I only wished the publication of ‘‘Shirley’’ to be delayed till ‘‘Villette’’ was nearly ready; so that there can now be no objection to its being issued whenever you think Wt.1 About putting the M.S. into type—I can only say that—should I be able to proceed with the 3rd. Vol. at my average rate of composition, and with no more than the average amount of interruptions—I should hope to have it ready in about three weeks. I leave it to you to decide whether it will be better to delay the printing for that space of time, or to commence it immediately. It would certainly be more satisfactory if you were to see the 3rd. Vol. before printing the 1st. & 2nd., yet if delay is likely to prove injurious—I do not think it is indispensable.2 I have read the 3rd. Vol. of ‘‘Esmond’’; I found it both enchaining and exciting: to me it seems to possess an impetus and interest beyond the other two; that movement and brilliancy its predecessors sometimes wanted—never fails here. In certain passages I thought Thackeray used all his powers; their grand, serious force yielded a profound satisfaction ‘‘At last he puts forth his strength,’’ I could

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not help saying to myself. No character in the book strikes me as more masterly than that of ‘‘Beatrix’’;3 its conception is fresh and its delineation, vivid. It is peculiar; it has impressiveness of a new kind—new—at least—to me. ‘‘Beatrix’’ is not in herself all bad; so much does she sometimes reveal of what is good and great as to suggest this feeling: you would think she was urged by a fate. You would think that some antique doom presses on her House, and that once in so many generations—its brightest ornament was to become its worst disgrace. At times—what is good in her struggles against this terrible destiny, but the Fate conquers. ‘‘Beatrix’’ cannot be an honest woman and a good man’s wife—she ‘‘tries and she cannot’’. Proud, beautiful and sullied—she was born— what she becomes—a King’s Mistress. I know not whether you have seen the notice in the ‘‘Leader’’—I read it just after concluding the book—Can I be wrong in deeming it a notice tame, cold and ineYcient? With all its professed friendliness, it produced on me a most disheartening impression. Surely another sort of justice than this will be rendered to ‘‘Esmond’’ from other quarters. One acute remark of the critic is to the eVect that Blanche Amory and Beatrix are identical—sketched from the same original! To me they seem about as identical as a weazel and a Royal Tigress of Bengal—both the latter are quadrupeds—both the former— women. But I must not take up either your time or my own with further remarks Believe me Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 76. W & S 798 (as to W. S. Williams). Address (integral): George Smith Esqre. PM: not in MS. 1. The second edition of Shirley, already printed by 19 Aug. 1852, and containing an announcement of ‘Currer Bell’s’ new novel, was described as ‘Now ready’ in the Athenæum for 20 Nov. 1852. On the same day the Athenæum and Spectator carried advertisements for ‘A New Novel by Currer Bell . . . in the Press’. See GS 19.8.1852 n. 4. 2. Smith, Elder may have begun printing soon after the receipt of this letter. CB had received some proof-sheets by 23 Nov., though she did not dispatch the third volume of manuscript until 20 Nov. See the Clarendon edition textual introduction, esp. pp. xxxv–xliii, for an analysis of a copy of Villette in the Sterling Library of the University of London, containing a mixture of proof-sheets and Wrst edition sheets. 3. In vol. iii Henry Esmond returns wounded from the Continent and becomes enamoured of the beautiful and ambitious Beatrix Esmond, whose grand marriage with the Duke of Hamilton is prevented by his death. With her mother, brother, and Henry Esmond, Beatrix becomes involved in a plot to ensure that the Catholic James Stuart, Prince of Wales, should be named by Queen Anne as her successor. At the crucial time the Prince leaves London in pursuit of Beatrix, who becomes his mistress, and thus he baZes his own supporters. In a brilliant analysis, Thackeray compares Beatrix to a leopard, who ‘follows his nature . . . she can neither help her beauty, nor her courage, nor her cruelty’. Angus Easson notes that ‘she ‘‘tries and she cannot’’ ’ epitomizes ‘what Beatrix says in her interview with Esmond (vol. iii, ch. vii)’. See Easson’s edition of The Life of Charlotte Bronte¨ (Oxford, 1996), 561 n.

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4. G. H. Lewes, reviewing Esmond in the Leader for 6 Nov. 1852 is cool, but acknowledges that the book is ‘beautiful’: ‘It is to show us some reXected image of the time that this book is written; and therefore, unless duly warned, the reader may feel some disappointment when he Wnds that ‘‘Thackeray’s new novel’’ is not a comic novel, scarcely a novel at all, and in no sense a satire. It is a beautiful book, not one sentence of which may be skipped; but it is as unlike Vanity Fair and Pendennis as a book written by Thackeray can be’ (1071). Rosemary Ashton comments: ‘Lewes generally praised Thackeray’s wit, style, and truthfulness, while Wnding his plots carelessly constructed and his work lacking in passion’ (Ashton 66). 5. Lewes may be wrong in detecting the ‘same original’ for these ladies, though the older Lady Castlewood and Mrs Pendennis each have some traits of Thackeray’s mother, Mrs CarmichaelSmyth; but CB distorts what he says about them. He writes, ‘The characters are numerous, but are rather ‘‘sketched in,’’ . . . Lady Castlewood and Beatrix are, indeed, full-length portraits; both charmingly drawn, from the same originals, we suspect, as Mrs Pendennis and Blanche Amory. The attentive reader will note, however, that in the portrait of the coquette, Beatrix, he has thrown so much real impulsive goodness, that she becomes a new creation—and, let us add, a true one. She is not bad—she is vain; and her fascination is made very intelligible’ (1071). Blanche Amory is the petty, sly, and mercenary anti-heroine of Pendennis. Thackeray met a Miss Gore ‘who says she is Blanche Amory, and I think she is Blanche Amory. Amiable (at times) amusing, clever, and depraved’ (Ray Wisdom 451 n. 33).

To Ellen Nussey ?15 November 1852: envelope only MS: BPM B.S. 104/56.5 Address: Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j NO—5 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j NO 15 j 1852 j H (iv) BIRSTALL Annotation by EN in pencil: Nov 5—52 of the Upjohns Date: the accompanying letter must have been c.14 or 15 Nov. It would Wll the fairly long gap between EN [?c.5.11.1852] q.v., and EN [22.11.1852]. EN was misled by the imperfect Keighley postmark to note ‘Nov 5’, but she might have retained a letter of that date.

To George Smith, 20 November 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir I send the 3rd. Vol. of ‘‘Villette’’ to-day, having been able to get on with the concluding chapters faster than I anticipated. When you shall have glanced over it—speak, as before, frankly. I am afraid Mr. Williams was a little disheartened by the tranquillity of the 1st & 2nd. Vols.: he will scarcely approve the former part of the 3rd., but perhaps the close will suit him better. Writers cannot choose their own mood: with them it is not always high-tide, nor—thank Heaven!—always Storm. But then— the Public must have ‘‘excitement’’: the best of us can only say: ‘‘Such as I have, give I unto thee.’’1 Glad am I to see that ‘‘Esmond’’ is likely to meet something like the appreciation it deserves.2 That was a genial notice in the ‘‘Spectator’’.3 That in

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the ‘‘Examiner’’ seemed to me—not perhaps so genial, but more discriminating.4 I do not say that all the ‘‘Examiner’’ says is true—for instance the doubt it casts on the enduring character of Mr. Thackeray’s writings must be considered quite unwarranted—still the notice struck me as containing much truth. I wonder how the ‘‘Times’’ will treat ‘‘Esmond.’’5 Now that ‘‘Villette’’ is oV my hands—I mean to try to wait the result with calm. Conscience—if she be just—will not reproach me, for I have tried to do my best. Believe me Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 76:13B. W & S 799. Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. Cf. Acts 3: 6, the words of St Peter to the lame man: ‘Such as I have give I thee.’ The third volume of Villette begins with ch. 28, ‘The Watchguard’ (misnumbered ch. 30 in MS). 2. Thackeray reported jubilantly from New York to James Thomas Fields on 29 Nov. 1852: ‘Smith writes to me from London that the whole of the Wrst edition of Esmond is disposed of, an edition of three thousand at a guinea & a half !’ (Harden i. 499–500). 3. George Brimley’s review of Esmond in the Spectator for 6 Nov. brought tears into Thackeray’s eyes. He thought it ‘the best of the many that appeared, for Brimley was almost alone in asserting Lady Castlewood’s primary importance in the novel’ which was ‘throughout a record of his attachment to one woman’ (Harden i. 497, 498 n. 4, and Ray Wisdom 188). The implication is that Thackeray had embodied in Lady Castlewood traits of Jane BrookWeld, and endowed Esmond with his own love for her. Brimley praises the novel as more than a costume drama: Thackeray deals mainly with ‘men and women, not with high-heeled shoes . . . The book has the great charm of reality’ and of Thackeray’s characteristic mixture of ‘gayety and seriousness, of sarcasm and tenderness’. He is ‘a profound moralist’, for in his ‘picture of society as it is, society as it ought to be is implied’. Esmond is a noble type in his unswerving devotion to ‘lofty principle’, and his blending of ‘Wlial aVection’ with an ‘unconscious passion’ for Lady Castlewood is so skilfully depicted that it is not ridiculous, but a triumph. Brimley perceives the tragedy of Beatrix, and claims that Esmond will ‘rank higher as a work of art than either Vanity Fair or Pendennis’. See Thackeray: The Critical Heritage, ed. GeoVrey Tillotson and Donald Hawes (1968), 138–44. 4. John Forster reviewed Esmond in the Examiner on 13 Nov. 1852, 723–6. He praises the taste, tact, and skill of Thackeray in adopting a polished eighteenth-century style, and Wnds in the novel ‘enlivening humour’, and a ‘strength, grace, and elegance of form’, making its ‘literary power’ greater than that of Vanity Fair, though its interest is less. But the story is faulty, and ‘pictures of life’ defective, because Thackeray lacks faith in the almost universal ‘spark of divinity’ in human beings; and readers are aware of the author constantly as the superior creator and judge of his puppets. This defect falsiWes his portrayal of historical characters, as it did in his lectures; and his characters, unlike Fielding’s, are not well-proportioned, consistent wholes, but dreamWgures only. Beatrix, for example, is impossible, because she is inconsistent. Forster concludes that though educated readers ‘will enjoy Esmond heartily’, the work may not last, for Thackeray is ‘writing upon sand while he is founding books upon his present notions of society’. See Thackeray: The Critical Heritage, 144–50. 5. For the ‘slashing’ review of Esmond in The Times, see CB’s letter to Mrs Elizabeth Smith, 30.12.1852 n. 2.

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To Ellen Nussey, [22 November 1852] [Haworth] Monday Morning Dear Ellen Truly thankful am I to be able to tell you that I Wnished my long task on Saturday, packed and sent oV the parcel to Cornhill. I said my prayers when I had done it. Whether it is well or ill done—I don’t know—D.V. I will now try to wait the issue quietly. The book, I think, will not be considered pretentious— nor is it of a character to excite hostility.1 As Papa is pretty well—I may I think dear Nell—do as you wish me and come for a few days to Brookroyd. Miss Martineau has also urgently asked me to go and see her—I promised if all were well to do so—the close of Novbr. or the commencement of Decbr.2 so that I could ’go’ on from Brookroyd to Westmoreland. Would Wednesday3 suit you? I should leave Keighley by the 2 o’clock train—reach Bradford by 20 mts. after 2. get to Heckmondwike by 8 min. past—3. Thence if it were not convenient to send the gig to meet me—I could walk and get my luggage sent on. Whether would it be better to stop at Heckmondwike or ’Liversedge’—?4 if you write a line when you get this I shall receive it on Wednesday Morning I’ll pay you for the stamps when I see you. ‘‘Esmond’’ shall come with me. i.e. Thackeray’s Novel. Yours in cruel haste C Bronte¨ MS Harvard, Widener 1.5.2. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/57. W & S 800 (part). Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j NO 22 j 185- (iii) LEEDS j NO 22 j 1852 j ?I Annotation (i) by EN on letter: 284 O P—Nov 22—52 (ii) by EN in pencil on envelope: Nov. 22—5- j of sending Vill [——] j to Cornhil[1] j of coming here 1. CB’s portrayal of Mme Beck was readily recognizable. It was to arouse great hostility in Mme Heger who read the novel in a pirated version, probably the translation into French dated ‘Bruxelles et Leipzig 1855’. Descendants of the Hegers brought a copy of this edition to the BPM in Aug. 1953. 2. CB went to EN’s home at Brookroyd, but on 6 Dec. wrote to George Smith to explain that she would not be visiting Miss Martineau. 3. 24 Nov. 4. A branch line from Low Moor (3 miles from Bradford) down the Spen Valley via Cleckheaton, Liversedge, and Heckmondwike to MirWeld had opened on 18 July 1848. Heckmondwike is slightly nearer to Brookroyd than the other intermediate stations. See David Joy, Regional History, viii (1984), 121, 248, 254.

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To George Smith, 23 November 1852 [Haworth] My dear Sir I like the type of the Proof-Sheets much. I have corrected them in Some haste—being on the point of starting from home.1 I may be absent about a fortnight;2 the next sheets should be directed to me at Brookroyd. Birstal. Leeds. Thence I may perhaps go on to Ambleside for a few days I sent the 3rd. Vol. of ‘‘Villette’’ on Saturday.3 The cash for the copyright may be invested in the Funds with the rest—except 20£—for which I have a present use and which perhaps you will be kind enough to send me in a Bank bill Give my best regards to your Mother & Sisters—and believe me, in great haste Yours very sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 76: 14B. W & S 801. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. CB normally corrected without reference to the fair-copy manuscript. For Villette, early proofsheets of some gatherings survive, bound with normal Wrst edition sheets for the rest of the gatherings, in the Sterling Library, University of London. They show that she sometimes retained a compositor’s misreading of the MS and adapted the context to suit it. No proofs have been located for the opening chapters, but as far as one can tell, CB herself made about a dozen small revisions in the Wrst few pages, and then very few others until she reached chs. 8 and 9. See the Clarendon edn., pp. xxx–xlix. 2. In the event CB stayed at Brookroyd for a fortnight, and did not go on to visit Harriet Martineau at Ambleside. See GS 6.12.1852 nn. 1 and 6. 3. i.e. on 20 Nov. £480 less ? bank charges was invested in annuities on CB’s behalf. The full payment of £500 was the same as that for the three-volume editions of Jane Eyre and Shirley.

To Mrs Elizabeth Smith, 25 November 1852 Brookroyd My dear Mrs. Smith Your kind note reached me just when I was on the point of leaving home. I have promised to stay with my friends here for a week, and afterwards I have further promised to spend a week with Miss Martineau at Ambleside: a fortnight is as long a time as—for the present—I should like to be absent from my Father. You must then permit me to defer my visit to you.1 I own I do not at all wish to be in a hurry about it: it pleases me to have it in prospect, it is something to

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look forward to and to anticipate; I keep it, <something> on the principle of the school-boy who hoards his choicest piece of cake. When I mentioned your invitation to my Father—he suggested another reason for delay: he said I ought to wait and see what the critics would do to me—and indeed I think myself, that in case of the great ‘‘Times’’ for instance— having another Field-Marshal Haynau2 castigation in store for me—I would rather undergo that inXiction at Haworth than in London. I was glad to hear of your long stay at Woodford3 during the summer—for I felt sure you would enjoy it much. I trust that ere this you have heard good news from Alick.4 Mr. Smith mentioned last August that he was gone out to India; no doubt—you will have heard before now of his safe arrival, and whether he is likely to settle comfortably in his new and distant quarters. Remember me very kindly to all your circle, and believe me my dear Mrs. Smith Yours sincerely & aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 76/15B. W & S 802. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The visit to the London home of George Smith and his mother was deferred until Wednesday 5 Jan. 1853. 2. In The Times for 7 Dec. 1849 Samuel Phillips had pronounced Shirley ‘at once the most high Xown and the stalest of Wctions’. See CBL ii. 306–7 n. 5 and Allott 148–51. The Austrian FieldMarshal Freiherr von Haynau (1786–1853) had shown ruthless severity at the capture of Brescia in Italy in June 1849. Following the capitulation of Hungary on 13 Aug. 1849, he and the Austrian Prime Minister Schwarzenberg had ordered the execution of fourteen Hungarian generals, and some 100 other executions. Haynau had also ordered the wholesale Xogging of Hungarian women. 3. See GS 19.8.1852 n. 1. 4. George Smith’s younger brother. See GS 19.8.1852 n. 2.

To George Smith, 1 December 1852 Brookroyd. My dear Sir I am afraid—as you do not write—that the 3rd. Vol. has occasioned some disappointment.1 It is best, however, to speak plainly about it, if it be so. I would rather at once know the worst than be kept longer in suspense. [Signature cut oV.] MS BPM SG 77. BST 18. 92. 111. Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS.

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1. George Smith did not explain this delay, though he complained openly of the ‘transfer of interest’ in the third volume. But as he later acknowledged, he recognized himself in Graham Bretton. He can hardly have felt pleased that Bretton is portrayed as in some respects worldly and shallow. He might also have detected in the ‘junta’s’ selWsh exiling of M. Paul in the service of Mammon a covert allusion to his own ‘exiling’ of James Taylor to further the Wrm’s commercial interests in India. Smith might have known of Taylor’s attraction to CB, as Mme Beck and her cronies knew of M. Paul’s love of Lucy Snowe. See Alison Hoddinott, ‘Charlotte Bronte¨ and the ‘‘Little Men’’ ’, BST 26. 2. 111–28.

To George Smith, 6 December 1852 Brookroyd. [Birstall] My dear Sir The receipts for £479—8s—6d have reached me safely.1 I received the Wrst on Saturday, enclosed in a cover without a line, and had made up my mind to take the train on Monday and go up to London to see what was the matter and what had struck my publisher mute. On Sunday morning your letter came and you have thus been spared the visitation of the unannounced and unsummoned apparition of Currer Bell in Cornhill. Inexplicable delays should be avoided when possible, for they are apt to urge those subjected to their harrassment to sudden and impulsive steps. I must pronounce you right again, in your complaint of the transfer of interest in the 3rd. Vol.—from one set of characters to another.2 It is not pleasant, and will probably be found as unwelcome to the reader, as it was, in a sense, compulsory upon the writer. The spirit of Romance would have indicated another course, far more Xowery and inviting; it would have fashioned a paramount hero, kept faithfully with him and made him supremely ‘‘worshipful’’—he should have been an idol, and not a mute, unresponding idol—either—: but this would have been unlike real Life,3 inconsistent with Truth—at variance with Probability. I greatly apprehend, however, that the weakest character in the book is the one I aimed at making the most beautiful, and if this be the case—the fault lies in its wanting the germ of the real, in its being purely imaginary.4 I felt that this character lacked substance: I fear the reader will feel the same. Union with it— resembles too much the fate of Ixion who was mated with a Cloud.5 The childhood of ‘‘Paulina’’ is—I think pretty well imagined, but her < . . . is a ?failure>. < . . . >6 Ambleside for the present, both my Father and my friends in this neighbourhood being so much opposed to the visit—that without giving them pain—I could not please Miss Martineau. As I expect to return home on Wednesday—the next proof-sheets should be directed to Haworth. A brief visit to London becomes thus more practicable, and if your Mother will kindly write when she has time, and name a day—after Christmas—which will suit her—I shall have pleasure—Papa’s health permitting—in availing

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myself of her invitation. I wish I could come in time to correct some at least of the proofs—it would save trouble. [signature cut oV.] MS BPM SG 78. W & S 803 (part). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Text: some three lines of text have been removed from fo. 2r along with the signature. 1. i.e. £500 for the copyright of Villette less £20 for which she had ‘a present use’ (GS 23.11.1852) and (presumably) bank charges. If CB travelled when she planned to do so, she was with the Nusseys from 24 Nov. until Wednesday 8 Dec. See EN [22.11.1852], GS 23.11.1852 n. 2. 2. Vol. iii begins with ch. 28, ‘The Watchguard’. CB transfers interest from the Brettons and Paulina to M. Emanuel and the Pensionnat. 3. In her preface to The Professor CB claimed that publishers ‘would have liked something more imaginative and poetical’ than a story based on ‘the real’. 4. Polly Home, later known as Paulina de Bassompierre, and her Scottish father Mr Home de Bassompierre, are based on characters in CB’s early writings. Marian or Marina Hume or Home, always dressed in ‘pure white or vernal green’, resembles a ‘fairy-tale princess’, and her father is a Scots physician (C. Alexander, The Early Writings of Charlotte Bronte¨ 71). Paulina’s ‘attire’ is ‘in texture clear and white’ in Villette, ch. 27. Polly Home may have some traits of the ‘dear but dangerous’ ‘small sprite’ Julia Gaskell, who fascinated CB. See ECG 6.8.1851, 20.9.1851. 5. Ixion, King of the mythical Lapithae, is carried up to heaven, where he attempts to rape Hera, the wife of Zeus, who creates a cloud-like phantom resembling her. By mating with the cloud Ixion becomes the father of a Centaur, another ‘purely imaginary’ creation. In fact the character of Paulina was singled out for praise in several reviews: she was drawn with ‘exquisite delicacy, and . . . exceeding skill’ (Critic, 13.2.1853, xii. 95) and was an ‘elWn child’ . . . ‘one of the quaintest and most delicate creations we have met with since the ever to be lamented death of Paul Dombey (The Examiner 5.2.1853; Allott omits both passages). 6. See the note on text above. CB decided not to accept Harriet Martineau’s invitation to stay with her in Ambleside. Juliet Barker notes that Margaret Wooler visited Brookroyd while CB was there, and suggests, plausibly, that Miss Wooler ‘joined Ellen in arguing that it was quite wrong of Charlotte to go to the house of a self-declared atheist’ (Barker 709). Martineau denied that she was an atheist; but CB had interpreted her joint work with H. G. Atkinson, Letters on the Laws of Man’s Social Nature and Development (1851) as an ‘exposition of avowed Atheism and Materialism’ ( James Taylor 11.2.1851, CBL ii. 574–5). See also MW 27.1.1853 n. 6.

To Margaret Wooler, 7 December [1852] Brookroyd. My dear Miss Wooler Since you were so kind as to take some interest in my small tribulation of Saturday—I write a line to tell you that on Sunday Morning a letter came which put me out of pain and obviated the necessity of an impromptu journey to London. The money transaction, of course, remains the same—and perhaps is not quite equitable—but when an author Wnds that his work is cordially approved—he can pardon the rest; indeed my chief regret now lies in the conviction that Papa will be disappointed—he expected me to earn £700—nor

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did I—myself—anticipate that a lower sum would be oVered; however <Wve> 500£ is not to be despised1 Your sudden departure from Brookroyd left a legacy of consternation to the bereaved breakfast-table: Ellen was not easily to be soothed, though I diligently represented to her that you had quitted Haworth with the same inexorable haste.2 I am commissioned to tell you, Wrst that she has decided not to go to Yarmouth3 till after Christmas—her mother’s health having within the last few days betrayed some symptoms not unlike those which preceded her former illness—and though it is to be hoped that these may pass without untoward result—yet they naturally increase Ellen’s reluctance to leave home for the present. Secondly—I am to say—that when the present you left—came to be examined—the costliness and beauty of the cambric inspired some concern. *Ellen thinks you are too kind—as I also think every morning when I put on my frilled under-raiment—for I am now beneWting by your kind gift.4 With sincere regards to all at the ’Parsonage’5—and especially I think to Mr. *Carter as a friend who having temporarily been lost is again found—I am my dear Miss Wooler Yours respectfully and aVectionately C Bronte¨ P.S. I shall direct that ‘‘Esmond’’ (Mr. Thackeray’s work) shall be sent on to you at Heckmondwyke as soon as the Hunsworth party have read it. It has already reached a 2nd. edition.6 MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 804. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by ?EN: Great anxiety about Shirley [sic] had determined C. to set oV to London instanter a letter not arriving as expected—she was prevailed upon to wait another post—when the letter came. [This note may be by Miss Wooler, but its style and inaccuracy are characteristic of Ellen in old age. Cf. the note on CB’s letter to Margaret Wooler of 16 May 1849 (CBL ii. 211).] 1. The gap of more than three years between Shirley and Villette, and the general perception that Shirley was inferior to Jane Eyre, had probably led Smith, Elder to expect reduced proWts from CB’s third novel. But the payment contrasts sharply with the £1,200 they paid Thackeray ‘for the Wrst edition (2,500 copies) and subsequent half proWts’ of Henry Esmond (Huxley 69). The Smith, Elder ledgers covering the production of the Wrst edition of Villette are missing, but sales were good enough to warrant the publication of the cheap one-volume second edition of 2,500 copies in Oct. 1855—still signiWcantly fewer than the 3,000 copies of the Wfth edition of Jane Eyre in the same year. See the Clarendon Villette, p. xlvi. 2. In Oct. 1851. 3. To the Upjohns at Gorleston near Yarmouth. 4. See MW 21.10.1852. 5. Edward Nicholl Carter was the perpetual curate, not the Vicar, of Heckmondwike. CB had known him since her schooldays at Roe Head, and he had become a friend when she was a governess in the Sidgwick household in Lothersdale in 1839. See CBL i. 191. 6. 1,000 copies of the second edition of Esmond were printed by this date. See CB’s letter to Mrs Smith of 30 Dec. 1852 and notes.

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To Ellen Nussey, [?9 December 1852] [Haworth] Thursday Morning Dear Nell I got home safely at Wve o’clock yesterday afternoon—and—I am most thankful to say—found Papa and all the rest quite well. I did my business satisfactorily in Leeds—getting the head-dress1 rearranged as I wished—it is now a very diVerent matter to the bushy, tasteless thing it was before. On my arrival—I found no proof-sheets—but a letter from Mr. S[mith] which I would have enclosed—but so many words are scarce legible—you would have no pleasure in reading it: he continues to make a mystery of his ‘‘reason’’— something in the 3rd. vol. sticks confoundedly in his throat2—and as to the ‘‘female character’’ about which I asked—he responds crabbedly that ‘‘she3 is an odd, fascinating little puss’’—but aYrms that he is ‘‘not in love with her.’’ He tells me also that he will answer no more questions about ‘‘Villette’’. This morning I have a brief note from Mr. Williams—intimating that he has ‘‘not yet been permitted to read the 3rd. Vol.’’—Also there is a note from Mrs. S—very kind—I almost wish I could still look on that kindness just as I used to do: it was very pleasant to me once.4 Write immediately dear Nell—and tell me how your Mother is—give my kindest regards to her and all others at Brookroyd: everybody seemed very ’good’ to me this last visit—I remember them with corresponding pleasure. Papa seems glad on the whole, to hear that you are not going to Yarmouth just yet—he thinks you should be cautious. Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ I enclose a postage stamp for the ½d. you were to pay for me at the Station. Don’t forget it. MS Montague. W & S 805. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: 285 Dec 9—52 Date: EN’s date is likely to be right. CB planned to return home on Wednesday 8 Dec. 1. A better ‘hair-piece’, perhaps, than the too-obvious ‘crown of brown silk’ Mrs BrookWeld noticed at Thackeray’s party on 12 June 1850. See EN [29.4.1850] n. 4 (CBL ii. 395). 2. See GS 1.12.1852 and note. 3. Presumably Paulina de Bassompierre, mentioned in GS 6.12.1852—the character with whom ‘Dr Bretton’ was in love. 4. The reason for CB’s changed attitude to Mrs Smith’s kindness is unclear.

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To Mrs Elizabeth Smith, 10 December 1852 [Haworth] My dear Mrs. Smith Since you leave the question of time to my decision—I will—if all be well— write to you again within a short period after Christmas, when the holiday week shall be well over—and name the day and train of arrival. Meantime there is pleasure in looking forward to seeing once more you and yours. It will be about eighteen months since I bid you good-bye1 in EustonSquare: the interim has not always been one of good health to me, and I must expect that friends who have not seen me for a year and a half, will Wnd some change. Latterly, however, I have felt much better: a brief stay with some kind old friends has proved specially beneWcial. I am thankful to say my Father’s health seems now very satisfactory. With best wishes and kindest regards to your family I am—my dear Mrs. Smith Yours sincerely & aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS BPM Bon 246. W & S 806. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. On 27 June 1851, when CB began her train journey to Manchester to stay with the Gaskells.

To Ellen Nussey, 15 December 1852 [Haworth] Dear Nell I return Mrs. *Upjohn’s note. It is highly characteristic, and not—I fear, of good omen for the comfort of your visit. There must be something wrong in herself as well as in her servants. I enclose another note which—taken in conjunction with the incident immediately preceding it—and with a long series of indications whose meaning I scarce ventured hitherto to interpret to myself—much less hint to any other— has left on my mind a feeling of deep concern. This note—you will see—is from Mr. *Nicholls.1 I know not whether you have ever observed him specially—when staying here—: your perception in these matters is generally quick enough—too quick—I have sometimes thought—yet as you never said anything—I restrained my own dim misgivings—which could not claim the sure guide of vision. What Papa has seen or

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guessed—I will not inquire—though I may conjecture. He has minutely noticed all Mr. *Nicholl’s low spirits—all his threats of expatriation2—all his symptoms of impaired health—noticed them with little sympathy and much indirect sarcasm. On Monday evening3—Mr. N—was here to tea. I vaguely felt—without clearly seeing—as without seeing, I have felt for some time—the meaning of his constant looks—and strange, feverish restraint. After tea—I withdrew to the dining-room as usual. As usual—Mr. N. sat with Papa till between eight & nine o’clock. I then heard him open the parlour door as if going. I expected the clash of the front-door—He stopped in the passage: he tapped: like lightning it Xashed on me what was coming. He entered—he stood before me. What his words were—you can guess; his manner—you can hardly realize—nor can I forget it—Shaking from hea[d] to foot,4 looking deadly pale, speaking low, vehemently yet with diYculty—he made me for the Wrst time feel what it costs a man to declare aVection where he doubts response. The spectacle of one ordinarily so statue-like—thus trembling, stirred, and overcome gave me a kind of <shock> strange shock. He spoke of suVerings he had borne for months—of suVerings he could endure no longer—and craved leave for some hope. I could only entreat him to leave me then and promise a reply on the morrow. I asked if he had spoken to Papa. He said—he dared not—I think I half-led, half put him out of the room. When he was gone I immediately went to Papa—and told him what had taken place. Agitation and Anger disproportionate to the occasion ensued—if I had loved Mr. N—— and had heard such epithets applied to him as were used—it would have transported me past my patience—as it was—my blood boiled with a sense of injustice—but Papa worked himself into a state not to be triXed with—the veins on his temples started up like whip-cord—and his eyes became suddenly blood-shot5—I made haste to promise that Mr. *Nicholls should on the morrow have a distinct refusal. I wrote yesterday and got this note. There is no need to add to this statement any comment—Papa’s vehement antipathy to the bare thought of any one thinking of me as a wife6—and Mr. *Nicholls’ distress—both give me pain. Attachment to Mr. N——you are aware I never entertained—but the poignant pity inspired by his state on Monday evening—by the hurried revelation of his suVerings for many months—is something galling and irksome. That he cared something for me—and wanted me to care for him—I have long suspected—but I did not know the degree or strength of his feelings Dear Nell—good-bye Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ I have letters from Sir J.K.S.7 & Miss Martineau, but I cannot talk of them now.

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MS Berg. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/58. W & S 807. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j DE 15 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j DE 15 j 1852 j H Annotation by EN in pencil (i) on the letter: ?286 Mr N’s oVer (ii) on the envelope: Dec 15 52 j of Mr. N’s propos[al] 1. The note CB enclosed has not been located. CB’s attitude to Mr Nicholls had changed from a cool appraisal of his ‘narrowness of mind’ (EN ?15.10.1847) to amusement at his delighted reaction to Shirley (EN ?28.1.1850), and then (from about mid-1851) to a kindly civility. Four of her Wve letters to her father in May–June 1851 included her good wishes to Nicholls. In July 1851 she noted that at tea in the Parsonage ‘he comported himself somewhat peculiarly for him— being extremely good—mild and uncontentious’ (EN [?28.7 1851). See the biographical note on ABN, pp. [xxxv]–xxxix. 2. Probably a more distant ‘expatriation’ than to his native Ireland. Mr Bronte¨’s hostile reaction to Nicholls’s proposal eventually drove him to apply to become a missionary in Australia. See his letter to the SPG, 28.1.1853, quoted in EN 2.1.1853 n. 5. 3. 13 Dec. 4. CB wrote ‘heat to foot’. 5. The symptoms resembled those of Mr Bronte¨’s dangerous apoplectic seizure in July. See EN 26.7.1852. 6. Mr Bronte¨’s attitude had apparently changed. On 5 May 1851, after James Taylor’s visit to Haworth, CB wrote to EN: ‘I believe he thinks a prospective union, deferred for 5 years, with such a decorous reliable personage [as Taylor] would be a very proper and advisable aVair— However I ask no questions . . . ’ (CBL ii. 611). 7. On 11 Jan. 1853 CB told Ellen Nussey that Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth had written two or three times before she left Haworth ‘and made [her] promise to let him know when I should be in Town’. She had been reluctant to let him know that she was in London in June 1851, but a letter from Mrs Gaskell to Lady Kay-Shuttleworth had revealed her presence there. See ECG [?14.6.1851] n. 5 and EN[19.6.1851] (CBL ii. 639, 642).

To Ellen Nussey, 18 December, 1852 Haworth Dear Nell You may well ask, how is it? for I am sure I don’t know. This business would seem to me like a dream—did not my reason tell me it has been long brewing. It puzzles me to comprehend how and whence comes this turbulence of feeling. You ask how Papa demeans himself to Mr. N[icholls]. I only wish you were here to see Papa in his present mood: you would know something of him. He just treats him with a hardness not to be bent—and a contempt not to be propitiated. The two have had no interview as yet: all has been done by letter. Papa wrote—I must say—a most cruel note to Mr. *Nicholls, on Wednesday. In his state of mind and health (for the poor man is horrifying his landlady—Martha’s Mother1—by entirely rejecting his meals) I felt that the blow must be parried, and I thought it right to accompany the pitiless despatch by a line to the eVect that—while Mr. N. must never expect me to reciprocate the feeling he had

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expressed—yet at the same time—I wished to disclaim participation in sentiments calculated to give him pain; and I exhorted him to maintain his courage and spirits. On receiving the two letters, he set oV from home.2 Yesterday came the enclosed brief epistle. You must understand that a good share of Papa’s anger arises from the idea— not altogether groundless—that Mr. N. has behaved with disingenuousness in so long concealing his aims—forging that Irish Wction &c.3 I am afraid also that Papa thinks a little too much about his want of money; he says the match would be a degradation—that I should be throwing myself away—that he expects me, if I marry at all—to do very diVerently; in short—his manner of viewing the subject—is—on the whole, far from being one in which I can sympathize—My own objections arise from a sense of incongruity and uncongeniality in feelings, tastes—principles. How are you getting on—dear Nell—and how are all at Brookroyd? Remember me kindly to everybody—Yours—wishing devoutly that Papa would resume his tranquillity—and Mr. *Nicholls his beef and pudding C Bronte¨ I am glad to say that the incipient inXammation in Papa’s eye is disappearing MS Berg. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/59. W & S 808. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j DE 18 j 1852 (iii) LEEDS j DE 18 j 1852 j H Annotation by EN (i) on letter: 287 CB & Mr N (ii) on envelope: Dec 18—52 j of Mr. Bronte & j Mr. N 1. Mrs John Brown, the sexton’s wife. 2. Either on Wednesday 15th, when the notes were written, or on Thursday 16th. Perhaps Mr Nicholls stayed with his friend Joseph Brett Grant (?1820–79; ‘Mr Donne’) at Marshlands, near Oxenhope, or with SutcliVe Sowden. Sowden (1816–61, BA Magdalene College Cambridge 1839; licensed to a curacy at Cross Stone 5 Jan. 1840, ordained priest 9 Jan. 1841) was the perpetual curate of St James’s, Mytholm, Yorks., 1841–52, and then of Hebden Bridge, 1853–61. He was a close friend of Mr Nicholls, sharing his enjoyment of walking and providing a reference for him when he applied to the SPG in 1853. He was to take the wedding service for Charlotte and Mr Nicholls, and her funeral service. Nicholls was greatly distressed by Sowden’s tragic death by drowning on 8 Aug. 1861. He wrote to the Revd Thomas SutcliVe of Heptonstall: ‘It will be hard work for me to read the Service over one, whose intimate friendship I have enjoyed for many years, & whom I have looked upon more as a relation than a friend’ (a.l.s. BPM, S.B. 1210.) Nicholls remained near enough to Haworth to baptize James Hartley on 16 Dec. and oYciate at the funeral of Susey Binns on 22 Dec. He was perhaps not available again until the marriage of James Boocock on 28 Dec. The Revd J. Smith took two funerals on 23 Dec., SutcliVe Sowden took three baptisms on 25 Dec. and another on 26 Dec. 3. Unexplained. Though Mr Nicholls eventually married his cousin, Mary Anna Bell (1830–1915), whom he had known from her childhood in the Irish home at Banagher where he too was brought up, there is no evidence that he had any other potential wife than CB in mind at this period. Juliet Barker notes that Mr Bronte¨ was angered by his curate’s ‘presumption’ and his ‘subterfuge’ in proposing to CB without Wrst asking her father’s permission (Barker 712).

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To W. S. Williams, [?c.23 December 1852] [?Haworth] My dear Sir I rec’d the last proof sheet1 on Tuesday—There is one missing which has not reached me between this and the former sheet. Wishing a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you & yours I am my dear Sir Yours sincerely C. Bronte¨ MS G. A. Yablon. No publication traced. Address (integral): W. S. Williams Esqre. PM: not in MS. Date: CB’s Christmas wishes indicate that she was writing about Villette, the only one of her major novels which was proof-read, in part, in December. Either 23 or 24 Dec., very near Christmas, seems the most likely date for the letter. If it was from Haworth, it must have been written between Wednesday 8 and Friday 24 Dec., and the Tuesday mentioned in the letter would be 14th or 21st. 1. ‘Last’ means the ‘most recent’, not the Wnal sheet of the Villette proofs. On 2 Jan. 1853 CB commented that George Smith seemed to be delaying the printing until she visited London. She had ‘only recd. 3 proof sheets since [she] was at Brookroyd’.

To Mrs Elizabeth Smith, 30 December 1852 [Haworth] My dear Mrs. Smith I can now name Wednesday the 5th. Jany. as the day when I hope to see you if all be well. Should there be any objection to this day—you will kindly let me know. My Father is, thus far, passing the winter so well that I can look forward to leaving home for a little while with a comparatively easy mind: he seems also pleased that I should have a little change. I should leave Leeds at 25 m. past 10 in the morning, and, if I understand ‘‘Bradshaw’’1 aright—should arrive in Euston Square at 15 m. past 4 in the afternoon. It grieved me to see that the ‘‘Times’’ has shewn its teeth at ‘‘Esmond’’ with a courteously malignant grin which seems to say that it never forgets a grudge.2 I want to know what Mr. Smith thinks about ‘‘Villette’’ coming out so nearly at the same time with Mrs. Gaskell’s new work ‘‘Ruth.’’3 I am afraid he will not regard the coincidence as auspicious; but I hope soon to be able to hear his verbal opinion.

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Trusting that all in ‘‘Gloucester Terrace’’ have spent a merry Christmas—and wishing to each and every one, by anticipation, a happy New Year < . . . > dear Mrs. Smith [Signature cut oV] MS BPM SG 78: 16b. W & S 810. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The map-engraver and printer George Bradshaw (1801–53) Wrst published railway timetables in 1839. ‘These developed into Bradshaw’s Monthly Railway Guide in 1841’ (OCEL). 2. The ‘grudge’ had been intensiWed in 1851, when Thackeray wrote a brilliant riposte to Charles Lamb Kenney’s malignant review in The Times for 3 Jan. 1851 of The Kickleburys on the Rhine. Kenney had sneered that Christmas books suggested ‘by their feeble Xavour the rinsings of a void brain’; they were written merely to Wll up ‘the vacuity of the writer’s exchequer’, and were comparable to the verses annually left ‘at our doors’ by the postman or dust-collector ‘as a provocative of the expected annual gratuity’ (3, col. 3). Thackeray’s response was his ‘Essay on Thunder and Small Beer’, published as a preface to the second edition of The Kickleburys. Admitting that ‘when a man has been abused in the Times, he can’t hide it’, Thackeray oVers gloating ‘friends’, at the same time, a reprint of Kenney’s article, and a letter from Smith, Elder of 4 Jan. 1851: ‘Having this day sold the last copy of the Wrst edition . . . of the ‘Kickleburys Abroad,’ and having orders for more, had we not better proceed to a second edition?’ Thackeray proceeds to mock the ‘consummate rhetoric’ of his critic as cheap Billingsgate abuse from a Xunkey adopting the ‘Thunderer’s’ manner ‘and trying to dazzle and roar like his awful employer’. The ‘courteously malignant’ grin of the critic of Esmond was that of Thackeray’s old enemy Samuel Phillips in The Times for 22 Dec. He had previously belittled Pendennis, and he proceeded to damn with skilfully mingled faint praise and lofty condemnation almost every aspect of Esmond: it is an unnecessary proof of Thackeray’s imitative skill; the Queen Anne disguise is cumbrous, and marred by anachronistic oversights. Divested of its antique style, the book might apply equally well to 1852 as to 1702; it is a sham curiosity unworthy of the author. The characters replicate his previous creations, for Esmond is another Dobbin, and Beatrix is ‘precisely’ like Blanche Amory. Phillips patronizingly concludes that if Thackeray will ‘survey mankind in the spirit of trust, aVection, and belief ’ he may yet ‘make a permanent impression upon the literary character of his times’. Thackeray later complained that Phillips’s review ‘absolutely stopped’ the sale of Esmond, which, as Gordon Ray observes, had previously ‘seemed destined as a popular success’ as well as a succe`s d’estime (Ray Wisdom 101, 190–4). But Peter L. Shillingsburg, using the Smith, Elder ledgers, notes that a ‘second edition’ of 1,000 copies was produced and promoted in Dec. 1852, and that 668 copies of this edition had been sold by 30 June 1853 (Pegasus in Harness 196). 3. Mrs Gaskell’s Ruth was to have been published c.20 Jan. 1853, according to Edward Chapman’s agreement to publish ‘within a month’ of his ‘receiving the completed MS’; but the publication date was brought forward to c.10 Jan. See ECG 12.1.1853 and J. G. Sharps, Mrs. Gaskell’s Observation and Invention (1970), 147 n. 3.

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January–December 1853

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To Ellen Nussey, 2 January 1853 [Haworth] Dear Nell I thought of you on New Year’s night and hope you got ’well’ over your formidable tea-making: I trust that Tuesday & Wednesday will also pass pleasantly.1 I am busy too in my little way—preparing to go to London this week—a matter which necessitates some little application to the needle. I Wnd it is quite necessary that I should go to superintend the press2 as Mr. S[mith] seems quite determined not to let the printing get on till I come. I have actually only recd. 3 proof sheets since I was at Brookroyd. Papa wants me to go too—to be out of the way—I suppose—but I am sorry for one other person3 whom nobody pities but me. Martha is bitter against him: John Brown says he should like to shoot him.4 They don’t understand the nature of his feelings—but I see now what they are. Mr. N[icholls] is one of those who attach themselves to very few, whose sensations are close and deep—like an underground stream, running strong but in a narrow channel. He continues restless and ill—he carefully performs the occasional duty—but does not come near the Church procuring a substitute every Sunday. A few days since he wrote to Papa requesting permission to withdraw his resignation.5 Papa answered that he should only do so on condition of giving his written promise never again to broach the obnoxious subject either to him or to me. This he has evaded doing, so the matter remains unsettled. I feel persuaded the termination will be—his departure for Australia. Dear Nell—without loving him 6 I don’t like to think of him, suVering in solitude, and wish him anywhere so that he were happier. He and Papa have never met or spoken yet I am very glad to hear that your Mother is pretty well—and also that the shirts are progressing I hope you will not be called away to Norfolk7 before I come home: I should like you to pay a visit to Haworth Wrst. Write again soon Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS Law-Dixon. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/60. W & S 811. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEI——Y j [i.w.] (iii) LEEDS j JA 3 j 1853 j H Annotation (i) by EN on letter: 288 j [possibly by EN]: Mr. Nicholls—No 2 (ii) by EN on envelope: Jan 2—53 j Mr. N’s suVer [——] 21 1. CB was writing on Sunday. 2. i.e. read the proofs of Villette. 3. A. B. Nicholls. See EN 15.12.1852, 18.12.1852.

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4. Martha Brown and her father John Brown were protectively loyal to Charlotte and Mr Bronte¨. After their deaths, Martha Brown became much more friendly towards Mr Nicholls, and helped with the housekeeping at the Hill House, Banagher, from time to time after he removed to Ireland in 1861. He in turn gave her some mementoes of CB, wrote friendly letters to her, and advised her on matters about which she consulted him. 5. In his statement to the secretary of the Society for Propagation of the Gospel dated 28 Jan. 1853 Nicholls said that his present engagement as curate lasted until the end of May. He applied to go as a missionary ‘to the colonies of Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide’, and declared: ‘I have for some time felt a strong inclination to assist in ministering to the thousands of of [sic] our fellow-countrymen, who by Emigration have been in a great measure deprived of the means of grace.’ During CB’s absence in London, he and Mr Bronte¨ existed in a state of smouldering mutual resentment. Nevertheless Mr Bronte¨ insisted that he wished Nicholls ‘no ill—but rather good’—in another situation than Haworth. As one of six referees for his missionary application, Mr Bronte¨ wrote that he had ‘behaved himself, wisely, soberly, and piously—He has greatly promoted the interest of the National, and Sunday Schools; he is a man of good abilities . . . In principles, he is sound and orthodox—and would I think, under Providence, make an excellent Missionary’ (PB to the Revd W. J. Bullock, SPG, 31.1.1853). Nicholls’s other referees were all ministers of religion: Dr John Burnett, Vicar of Bradford, Dr William Cartman of Skipton, J. B. Grant, William G. Mayne of Ingrow near Keighley, and SutcliVe Sowden. See Barker 716–17, Cochrane 35–6, and LD 456–60. 6. The deleted words after ‘loving him’ are illegible in the photostat. Professor Christian, who saw the original MS, suggested ‘yet I pity’. 7. i.e. to visit the Upjohns of Gorleston, which was technically in SuVolk, but was included in White’s Norfolk Directory for 1854.

To Ellen Nussey, 11 January 1853 112. Gloucester Terrace Hyde Park. Dear Nell, I came here last Wednesday1—I had a delightful day for my journey and was kindly received at the close. My time has passed pleasantly enough since I came—yet I have not much to tell you—nor is it likely I shall have—I do not mean to go out much or see many people. Sir J. K.S[huttleworth] wrote to me two or three times before I left home—and made me promise to let him know when I should be in Town but I reserved to myself the right of deferring the communication till the latter part of my stay.2 I really so much dread the sort of excited fuss into which he puts himself—that I only wish to see just as much of him as civility exacts. All in this house appear to be pretty much as usual and yet I see some changes—Mrs. S[mith] and her daughters look well enough—but on Mr. S[mith] hard work is telling early—both his complexion, his countenance3 and the very lines of his features are altered—it is rather the remembrance of what he was than the fact of what he is which can warrant the picture I have

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been accustomed to give of him. One feels pained to see a physical alteration of this kind—yet I feel glad and thankful that it is merely physical: as far as I can judge mind and manners have undergone no deterioration—rather, I think, the contrary. His Mother’s account of the weight of work bearing upon him is really fearful.4 In some of his notes to me I half suspected exaggeration; it was no exaggeration—far otherwise. Mr. T[aylor] is said to be getting on well in India—but there are complaints of his temper and nerves being rendered dreadfully excitable by the hot climate; it seems he is bad to live with—I never catch a pleasant word about him; except that his probity and usefulness are held in esteem.5 No news yet from home—and I feel a little uneasy to hear how Papa is—I left him well—but at his age one specially feels the uncertainty of health. Remember me aVectionately to all at Brookroyd, Write again soon and believe me dear Nell Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ I hope you enjoyed yourself at Mrs. *Burnley’s:6 you must tell me how you got on. MS HM 26001. W & S 812. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation in pencil: Mr George Smith of Smith Elder & Co is here referred to and also Mr. James Taylor formerly a clerk of Smith Elder & co 1. To the home of George Smith, his mother, and three sisters, Eliza, Sarah, and Isabella, on 5 Jan. The family considered that CB was in better health and spirits than she had been on her previous visit to London. See the extract from George Smith’s letter to Harriet Martineau of 18 Mar. 1853, p. 136. 2. See EN 15.12.1852 n. 6. 3. CB probably means ‘his expression’. Cf. Jane Eyre, ch. 13, where Jane’s ‘features and countenance are . . . at variance’; and see Appendix I in R. W. Chapman’s edition of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (3rd edn., 1933), 396, where examples of this meaning are given from MansWeld Park and Pride and Prejudice. 4. Leonard Huxley describes 1853 as a ‘pivotal point alike in the history of Smith, Elder and in the personal history of George Smith’ (Huxley 82). For the ‘heavy strain’ upon him at this period see GS 19.8.1852 n. 3, and for his business partner, see GS 26.3.1853 n. 1 and 3.7.1853 n. 4. 5. Smith, Taylor and Company, which James Taylor had set up in Bombay, was not very successful, and was abolished by the end of 1856. His obituaries reveal that he could be highhanded in the various jobs that followed. As a journalist he was ‘perhaps . . . too independent to be successful’, and as secretary to the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society he ‘was so fond of doing things in his own way, that he almost ignored the existence of the Managing Committee’. See CBL ii, p. lv and its sources, esp. The Times of India 30.4.1874, 2. 6. The Nusseys were close friends of Mr and Mrs Thomas Burnley of Pollard Hall, Gomersal. In her 1844 Diary Ellen refers to ‘Aunt Burnley’. The wealthy Burnleys had been in the worsted trade for Wve generations, and they owned much property in the Gomersal–Birstall area.

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To Mrs Gaskell, 12 January 1853 112, Gloucester Terrace Hyde Park Gardens [London] My dear Mrs. Gaskell It is with you the ball rests; I have not heard from you since I returned Meta’s letters which you so kindly sent me,1 and which I read with such pleasure; but I thought I knew the reason of your silence—viz. application to work—and therefore I accepted it—not merely with resignation—but with satisfaction. I am now in London—as the date2 above will shew—staying very quietly at my Publisher’s, and correcting proofs &c—Before receiving yours—I had felt and expressed to Mr. Smith—reluctance to come in the way of ‘‘Ruth’’.3 Not that I think she—(bless her very sweet face! I have already devoured vol. 1st.) would suVer from contact with ‘‘Villette’’; we know not but that the damage might be the other way; but I have ever held comparisons to be odious, and would fain that neither I nor my friends should be made subjects of the same. Mr. Smith proposes accordingly to defer the publication of my book till the 24th. inst.: he says that will give ‘‘Ruth’’ the start in all the papers daily and weekly— and also will leave free to her all the Feby. Magazines. Should this delay appear to you insuYcient—speak—and it shall be protracted. I daresay—arrange as we may—we shall not be able wholly to prevent comparisons; it is the nature of some critics to be invidious: but we need not care: we can set them at deWance: they shall not make us foes: they shall not mingle with our mutual feelings one taint of jealousy: there is my hand on that: I know you will give clasp for clasp. ‘‘Villette’’ has indeed no right to push itself before ‘‘Ruth’’. There is a goodness, a philanthropic purpose4—a social use in the latter, to which the former cannot for an instant pretend; nor can it claim precedence on the ground of surpassing power: I think it much quieter than ‘‘Jane Eyre’’. As far as I have got in ‘‘Ruth’’—I think it excels ‘‘Mary Barton’’ for beauty, whatever it does for strength. The descriptions are peculiarly Wne.5 As to the style— I Wnd it such as my soul welcomes. Of the delineation of character I shall be better able to judge when I get to the end, but may say in passing—that Sally, the old servant seems to me ‘‘an apple of gold’’ deserving to be ‘‘set in a picture of silver’’6 I wish to see you7 probably at least as much as you can wish to see me,8 and therefore shall consider your ‘invitat[ion’] for March9 as an engagement; about the close of that month then—I hope to <see> pay you a brief visit With kindest remembrances to Mr. Gaskell and all your precious circle— I am [Signature lacking]10

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MS Rylands. W & S 813. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. On 22 May 1852. 2. The address, not the calendar date. 3. Mrs Gaskell had written ‘so pitifully to beg that [Villette] should not clash with her ‘‘Ruth’’ ’ that Villette was postponed, Wrst until 24 Jan., and then, possibly at Mrs Gaskell’s request, until 28 Jan., when it was advertised in The Times as published ‘This day’ (11, col. 5). See Mrs Smith 30.12.1852 and EN 19.1.1853. Ruth: A Novel was listed in the Publisher’s Circular as a new work published between 15 and 30 Jan. 1853, but Chapman and Hall must have brought it forward to ?10 Jan. It was perhaps sent on to CB from Haworth. 4. Ruth was designed to emphasize the need for society’s help in the redemption of ‘fallen women’ by enabling them to gain an honest and suYcient livelihood. Mrs Gaskell’s practical philanthropy included support for the emigration of seduced women so that they could start a new life. See e.g. CP letters 55, 61, 63. 5. CB would probably Wnd Mrs Gaskell’s moorland descriptions in ch. 8 especially attractive. Ruth climbs ‘wave above wave of the ever-rising hills’ up to the ‘bare table of moor, brown and purple’, with ‘a few wild, black-faced mountain sheep quietly grazing near the road’. 6. Sally is the Bensons’ gruV, good-hearted, loyal, dialect-speaking servant. Realistically portrayed, she is akin to Hannah in Jane Eyre and to the Bronte¨s’ servant, Tabitha Aykroyd. For the ‘apple of gold’ image see Proverbs 25: 11. 7. ‘you’ underlined in pencil, probably not by CB. 8. ‘me’ underlined in pencil, probably not by CB. 9. CB stayed with the Gaskells in Manchester 22–8 Apr. 1853. 10. There is no signature in the manuscript, and no indication that one has been cut oV. Shorter 606 and W & S 813 end ‘I am, etc., j C. BRONTE¨.’

The Revd Patrick Bronte¨ to Charlotte Bronte¨, January 1853 Fragment [Haworth] . . . a sin quite as great, and is derogatory, to the attributes of the author of every good and perfect gift—1 You may wish to know, how we have been getting on here especially in respect to <Man, and> Master, and Man,2 On yesterday, I preached twice, but my man, was every way, very queer—He shun’d me, as if I had been a Cobra de Capello3—turning his head from the quarter, where I was, and hustling away amongst the crowd, to avoid contact.—It required no Lavater4 to see, that his countena[n]ce was strongly indicative of MortiWed pride, and malevolent resentment—people have begun to notice these things, and various conjectures, are aXoat—You thought me too severe—but I was not candid enough— His conduct might have been excus’d by the world, in a conWrmed rake—or unprincipled army oYcer, but in a Clergyman, it is justly chargeable, with base design ’and’ inconsistency, —I earnestly wish that he had another and better situation—As I can never trust him any more, in things of importance—I wish him no ill—but rather good, and wish that every woman

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may avoid him, forever, unless she should be determined on her own misery— All the produce of the Australian ?Diggins5 would ’not’ make him and any wife he might have, happy—Mr. Grant6 has been here twice—and asked kindly after you, and about ‘‘Vil[l]ette’’—So that you see ‘‘Mr. Donne’’, has at least good policy— as he will not don the cap—shewing thus to the world that it does not Wt him— This, as far as he is concerned is wise and well—Tabby, is in her usual way—I give her your respects—Martha, is lively and brisk, looking at the best side of things, and, and [sic] busy with house-hold aVairs, and in spare time, in making frocks, petticoats, and pinafores—They both desire to be kindly, and respectfully remembered to you, and are very anxious to see ‘‘Vil[l]ette’’.—Ever your AVectionate Father P. Bronte`. MS BPM B.S. 196. BST 12. 63. 198–9, and facsimile. Address (integral): To Miss Bronte, 112— j Gloucester Terrace, j Hyde Park Gardens, j London. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: This was sent to me by poor C. when in London about the publication of ‘‘Villette’’ [This note is unlikely to be by Mrs Gaskell, despite the attribution to her in BST 12. 63. 198–9. The letter is almost certainly one of the two ‘portions’ of notes from her father sent by CB to Ellen on 19 Jan. 1853.] 1. Cf. the prayer for those to be admitted to Holy Orders, which begins ‘Almighty God, giver of all good things’ (BCP), and James 1: 17, ‘Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.’ 2. i.e. A. B. Nicholls, Mr Bronte¨’s curate. 3. A snake graphically described by CB as having ‘the eyes and face of a Wend’ in a letter to her father of 4 June 1850 (CBL ii. 411). 4. Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801), inXuential Swiss Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics. ‘His belief in the interaction of mind and body led him to seek the traces of the spirit upon the features’ (Encyclopædia Britannica (1982), vi. 85). For CB’s familiarity with and use of physiognomy in her writings, see Sally Shuttleworth, Charlotte Bronte¨ and Victorian Psychology (Cambridge, 1996). 5. i.e. ‘diggings’, a word applied especially to gold-Welds as early as 1538. For the spelling, cf. Thackeray’s letter to Dr John Brown of 24 May 1852: ‘Jeames is going to the Australian diggins’ (Harden i. 472). Mr Bronte¨ had in mind the Australian gold rush which followed the discovery of gold in Apr. 1851 at Ballarat, Victoria. 6. The Revd J. B. Grant of Oxenhope was the model for the curate ‘Mr Donne’ in Shirley.

The Revd Patrick Bronte¨ to Charlotte Bronte¨ before 19 January 1853 [Haworth] Flossy1 to his much respected and beloved Mistress, Miss Bronte`; My kind Mistress, as, having only paws, I cannot write, but, I can dictate— and my good Master, has undertaken to set down what I have to say—He well

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understands, the dog’s language, which is not very copious, but is nevertheless, signiWcant and quite suYcient for our purposes, and wants which are not many—I fear that my Master, will not do my simple language justice, but will write too much in his own style, which I consider quite out of character, and wrong—You have condescendingly sent your respects to me, for which I am very grateful, and in token of my gratitude, I struck the ground three times with my tail—But let me tell ’to you’ my aVairs, just as they stand at present, in my little world, little in your opinion, but great in mine. Being old now, my youthful amusements, have lost their former relish—I no longer enjoy as, formerly, following sheep, and cats, and birds, and I cannot gnaw bones, as I once did— Yet, I am still merry and in good health and spirits—As many things are done before me, which would not be done, if I could speak, (well for us dogs that we cannot speak) so, I see a good deal of human nature, that is hid from those who have the gift of language, I observe those manuoevres,2 and am permitted to observe many of them, which if I could speak, would never be done before me— I see people cheating one another, and yet appearing to be friends—many are the disagreeable discoveries, which I make, which ’you’ could hardly believe if I were to tell them—One thing I have lately seen, which I wish to mention—No one takes me out to walk now, the weather is too cold, or ’too’ wet for my master to walk in, and my former travelling companion,3 has lost all his apparent kindness, scolds me, and looks black upon me—I tell my master all this, by looking grave, and puzzled, hol[d]ing up one side of my head, and one lip, shewing my teeth then,4 looking full in his face and whining— Ah! my dear Mistress, trust dogs rather than men—They are very selWsh, and when they have the power, (which no wise person will readily give them) very tyrannical—That you should act wisely in regard to men, women, and dogs is the sincere wish, of yours most Sincer[e]ly—Old Flossy.—— MS BPM B.S. 193. BST 12. 63. 196–7 and facsimile, Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by ?EN: Written to C. in The Dog’s name—Mr. B. dare not encounter ?again face to face C’s sense of justice & Godly integrity—so he took this method of undermining Mr N [Unlikely to be a note by ECG, despite the ascription to her in BST 12. 63. 196.] Date precedes EN 19.1.1853, when CB sent to EN ‘portions of two notes’ from Mr Bronte¨, one purporting ‘to be written by Flossy!’ 1. The spaniel which had formerly belonged to Anne Bronte¨. In a letter to EN of 26 Jan. 1848 Anne had described him as ‘fatter than ever, but still active enough to relish a sheep hunt’ (CBL ii. 19– 20). CB must have ‘sent her respects’ to Flossy in a letter to Mr Bronte¨ which has not been located. 2. Thus in MS. 3. A. B. Nicholls, normally a lover of animals. 4. MS may read ‘there’.

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To Ellen Nussey, 19 January 1853 112. Gloucester Terrace Hyde Park Gardens Dear Nell, I return Mrs. *Hewitt’s1 letter which I read with pleasure; it is so truly kind and friendly. Thank you for your brief account of the party. I can hardly tell what to say about J. T[aylor] and Mr. < i. w. >2 in a letter: it is a subject rather to talk—than write about. I still continue to get on very comfortably and quietly in London—in the way I like—seeing rather things than persons—. Being allowed to have my own choice of sights this time—I selected rather the real than the decorative side of Life—I have been over two prisons ancient & modern—Newgate3 and Pentonville4—also the Bank,5 the Exchange6 ’the Foundling Hospital,7’—and to-day if all be well—I go with Dr. Forbes8 to see Bethlehem Hospital.9 Mrs. S[mith] and her daughters are—I believe—a little amazed at my gloomy tastes, but I take no notice. Papa—I am glad to say—continues well—I enclose portions of two notes10 of his which will shew you—better than anything I can say—how he treats a certain subject—one of the notes purports to be written by Flossy! I think of staying here till next Wednesday. What are your present plans with regard to Mrs. *Upjohn? You must if possible come to Haworth before you go into Norfolk My book is to appear at the close of this month. Mrs. Gaskell wrote *so ?pitifully11 to beg that it should not clash with her ‘‘Ruth’’ that it was impossible to refuse to defer the publication a week or two. I hope your Mother continues pretty well and also *Anne, *Mercy & Mr *Clapham.12 Give my best love to all. Are the shirts getting on?13 Write very soon and believe me Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ You may burn Papa’s notes when read. MS HM 26002. W & S 814. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation at the end by EN: There was a little wager arising out of some nonsense about this work as the possibility of doing such an amount in a certain time Mr C[lapham]. thinking E. was incapable of such close plain work—C knew better & challenged him 1. Ellen’s friend Mary Hewitt, ne´e Gorham.

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2. Surnames scraped out by EN. The Wrst reference could be to Joseph Taylor or to one of his brothers, John or Joshua. The initial of the second name could be ‘N’ rather than ‘R’; but W & S 814 supplies ‘R[ingrose]’, which may be right. Joseph Taylor had married Amelia Ringrose of Tranby, near Hull. See CBL i. 396–7. 3. ‘Newgate is a massy building, with an extensive front of rustic work, possessing all the appearance of strength and security’ (Dugdale 1145). Begun in the twelfth century, the prison was destroyed in the Fire of London in 1666, rebuilt, and again damaged by Wre in the No Popery riots of 1780, about which CB had probably read in Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge. Dickens had also described it in Sketches by Boz and Oliver Twist, both illustrated by Cruikshank—most memorably in his engraving of ‘Fagin in the condemned cell’ for Oliver. George Smith recalled that ‘At Newgate [Charlotte Bronte¨] rapidly Wxed her attention on an individual prisoner. There was a poor girl with an interesting face, and an expression of the deepest misery. She had, I believe, killed her illegitimate child. Miss Bronte¨ walked up to her, took her hand, and began to talk to her. She was, of course, quickly interrupted by the prison warder with the formula, ‘‘Visitors are not allowed to speak to the prisoners’’ ’ (Cornhill Magazine (Dec. 1900), 785). 4. This so-called model prison was built 1840–2, with Wve wings radiating from a centre block, in the conviction that separate conWnement was of moral value. The cells, ‘each with its stone water-closet’ and metal wash-basin, had 18’’-thick walls designed to minimize sound. Prisoners could be compelled to turn an iron drum (‘the crank’) in their cells ‘for over eight hours a day’. The draconian conditions of separation, silence, and surveillance were mitigated only by the provision of books ‘at the discretion of the chaplain’, instruction in trades such as shoe-making and weaving, and arrangements for dealing with prisoners’ complaints about ‘any misconduct of inferior oYcers’. See Francis Sheppard, London 1808–1870: The Infernal Wen (1971), 376–7, and the detailed descriptions and illustrations in the Illustrated London News, vol. 2 for the week ending 7 Feb. 1843, 4–5. Cf. CB’s reference to the ‘silent system’ in The Professor, ch. 19 (160). 5. The original building of 1732 had been extended in 1765 and 1782–8, and was further enlarged by Sir John Soane 1788–1808. Dugdale praises the grand front, noble gateway, and great Rotunda (1132). 6. The third Royal Exchange on the site between Cornhill and Threadneedle Street, not far from Smith, Elder’s premises at 65 Cornhill. The second Exchange had been destroyed by Wre in 1838, and CB would visit the new building opened by Queen Victoria in 1844, with its statues in the interior court, and outside, to the west, Chantrey’s equestrian statue of Wellington. 7. Opened in Guilford Street in 1745 by Captain Thomas Coram for the care of illegitimate children. The tradition of holding concerts in aid of the hospital was inaugurated by Handel. A ‘noble institution’, it ‘Xourishes under the patronage of the great and the aZuent . . . The chapels of this, and the [Female Orphan Asylum, Lambeth] are much frequented . . . the psalmody, at the Foundling, is a great attraction’ (Dugdale 1117). 8. The distinguished physician Dr John Forbes was knighted in 1853. He had been a schoolfellow of George Smith’s father, and was a trusted friend of both the Smiths and CB. She had asked for his advice on the treatment of Anne Bronte¨ in Jan. 1849, and he later sent her copies of two of his books. See CBL ii. 151 n., 382–3 n., 594 n. In turn CB gave him a copy of Villette, inscribed in her own hand: ‘John Forbes Esqre. M.D. from the author, in acknowledgement of kindness Jany. 28th. 1853’ (Berg Collection, NYPL). 9. The Wrst asylum for the insane, founded in 1247. It had moved by 1675 to MoorWelds, and in 1815 transferred to a new building in St George’s Fields, Lambeth. A ‘huge but comely ediWce’, with ‘an elegant frontage of 300 feet’, it was ‘muniWcently endowed’. ‘The celebrated reclining statues of raging and melancholy madness . . . are now [c.1840] sheltered in the hall of the hospital’ (Dugdale 1117). Before 1852 the wards were bare, clean, and whitewashed, like those of a model workhouse, and patients were mainly of the ‘lower classes’. In 1851 the Lunacy Commissioners recommended improvements in line with more humane ideas, and a broader range of classes. Carpeting, comfortable seats, and (by 1860) pictures and Xowers had been introduced in the female ward F2, though the windows still had prison-like iron guards. See the illustrations in Edward GeoVrey O’Donoghue, The Story of Bethlehem Hospital from its Foundation in 1247 (1914), esp. 302, 308, 351. The former chapel survives as the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth Road, Southwark. See also Sally Shuttleworth’s comments on places embodying ‘institutional power’ in Charlotte Bronte¨ and Victorian Psychology (Cambridge, 1996), 222.

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10. The two preceding letters. Pencilled annotations on the MS, probably not by EN, read (above ‘by Flossy!’) ‘(her dog)’ and (above ‘My book’) ‘ ‘‘Villette’’ ’ 11. The original words have been scraped out, and ‘so pittifully’ [sic] has been written in pencil by someone to replace them. 12. Names scraped out, no doubt by EN; ‘Mary’ written over ‘Mercy’ by another hand. 13. Ellen Nussey’s edited version of this letter in Nussey 297 reads ‘Is the work getting on?*’, and has a printed footnote which she must have provided: ‘*There was a little wager arising out of some nonsense about the possibility of doing some sewing in a certain time.’

To Harriet Martineau, 21 January 1853 Extract [London] 1

I know. . . that you will give me your thoughts upon my book, —as frankly as if you spoke to some near relative whose good you preferred to her gratiWcation. I wince under the pain of condemnation—like any other weak structure of Xesh & blood; but I love, I honour, I kneel to Truth. Let her smite me on one cheek— good! the tears may spring to the eyes; but courage! There is the other side—hit again—right sharply!2 MS untraced. W & S 815. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: Copy MS by Harriet Martineau, BUL Martineau Collection, MS 1418 (Autobiography) fo. 170. Cf. the printed Autobiography (1877), ii. 327–8. 1. Martineau leads up to this quotation from CB’s letter by recalling their Wrst meeting, on 9 Dec. 1849, when Charlotte ‘consulted’ her about ‘certain strictures of the reviewers’ of Jane Eyre, ‘which she did not understand, and had every desire to proWt by. I did not approve the spirit of those strictures [e.g. the accusations that JE was coarse, or anti-Christian]; but I thought them not entirely ’unjustiWable.’ She besought me then, and repeatedly afterwards, to tell her, at whatever cost of pain to herself, if I saw her aVord any justiWcation of them. I believed her, (and I now believe her to have been) perfectly sincere: but when the time came (on the publication of Villette, in regard to which she had expressly claimed my promise a week before the book arrived) she could not bear it. . . . she had exacted Wrst the promise, & then the performance in this particular instance; & I had no choice’ (MS Autobiography fos. 169–70). See the extract from Martineau’s letter of ?early February about Villette, below, p. 117. 2. Cf. Luke 6: 29.

To Margaret Wooler, 27 January 1853 112. Gloucester Terrace [London] My dear Miss Wooler I received your letter here in London where I have been staying about ’3 weeks’—and shall probably remain a few days longer ‘‘Villette’’ is to be published to-morrow—its appearance has been purposely delayed

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hitherto—to avoid discourteous clashing with Mrs. Gaskell’s new work ‘‘Ruth’’. Your name was one of the Wrst on the list of presentees—and consequently your copy will be sent oV immediately directed to the Parsonage Heckmondwike1— where I shall also send this letter—as you mention that you are to leave Halifax at the close of this week I will bear in mind what you say about Mrs. Moore,2 and should I ever have an opportunity of serving her—will not omit to do so. I only wish my chance of being useful were greater. Schools [seem]3 to be considered almost obsolete in London: Ladies Colleges, with Professors for every branch of instruction are superseding the old-fashioned Seminary.4 How this system will work, I can’t tell: I think the College classes might be very useful for Wnishing the education of ladies intended to go out as Governesses; but what progress little girls will make in them—seems to me another question.5 My dear Miss Wooler—I read attentively all you say about Miss Martineau; the sincerity and constancy of your solicitude touch<es> me very much; I should grieve to neglect or oppose your advice, and yet I do not feel that it would be right to give Miss Martineau up entirely. There is, in her nature, much that is very noble; hundreds have forsaken her6—more—I fear—in the apprehension that their fair names may suVer if seen in connection with hers—than from any pure convictions such as you suggest—of harm consequent on her fatal tenets. With these fair-weather friends I cannot bear to rank—and for her sin—is it not one of those which God and not Man must judge? To speak the truth—my dear Miss Wooler—I believe if you were in my place, and knew Miss *Martineau as I do—if you had shared with me the proofs of her rough but genuine kindliness, and had seen how she secretly suVers from abandonment,7 you would be the last to give her up; you would separate the sinner from the Sin, and feel as if the right lay rather in quietly adhering to her in her strait—while that adherence is unfashionable and unpopular—than in turning on her your back when the world sets the example. I believe she is one of those whom opposition and desertion make obstinate in error; while patience and tolerance touch her deeply and keenly, and incline her to ask of her own heart whether the course she has been pursuing may not possibly be a faulty course. However—I have time to think of this subject—and I shall think of it seriously. As to what I have seen in London during my present visit—I hope one day to tell you all about it by our Wreside at home. When you write again will you name a time when it would suit you to come and see me—everybody in the house would be glad of your presence—your last visit is pleasurably remembered by all. With kindest regards to Mr. and Mrs. Carter and all their circle—I am always aVectionately & respectfully yours C. Bronte¨

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MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 816. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation in pencil by ?EN: C did eventually give up Miss M. from sincere conviction 1. The home of Miss Wooler’s sister Susanna and her husband the Revd E. N. Carter. 2. A relative of Miss Wooler who had hoped to set up a girls’ school. See MW 21.10.1851 n. 2 (CBL ii. 705) and MW 17.2.1852. 3. CB wrote ‘seemed’. 4. For Queen’s College, Harley Street, opened in 1848, see CBL ii. 227–8. An article by Caroline and Mary Hullah in The First College Open to Women . . . 1848–98, ed. Mrs Alec Tweedie (1898), begins, ‘I was the very Wrst pupil of Queen’s College School. The School be it remembered being for younger girls than the College’ (67). The Ladies’ College at 47 Bedford Square (opened in Sept. 1849 and later enlarged, re-sited, and renamed Bedford College) was, like Queen’s, established ‘for ladies over the age of twelve’ (Elaine Kaye, A History of Queen’s College, London 1848–1972 (1972), 38). But the Wrst college prospectus, which included classes in ‘Moral Philosophy’ and ‘Physical and Political Geography’, pointed out that ‘several of the subjects’ required ‘a maturer age’. CB had probably seen an announcement by the Bedford Square college: ‘the ladies’ college . . . The classes will be resumed on thursday, the 13th of January, 1853’, followed by a list of subjects and professors. These included the Revd. J. Barnes, MA, for Biblical Literature, Professor Hullah, of King’s College, London, for Vocal Music, and William Sterndale Bennett, Esq., for Harmony. The list was followed by information about a new development: ‘a junior school will be opened on monday, the 10th of January, for Pupils of Nine years of age and upwards’ (The Examiner 1.1.1853, 4). A ‘City College’ (founded 1849), the North London Collegiate School (1850), Hyde Park College, and other institutions also provided education for women and girls. CB had read Alexander Scott’s inaugural lectures given at the Ladies’ College: see CBL ii. 363, 365–6 n. 5. On 24 Aug. 1852 Henry Crabb Robinson, a founder-member of University College, London, commented that ‘female education’ was ‘neglected in England disgracefully’ and that the Ladies’ College was ‘struggling against unpopularity’ (The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford as Recorded in Letters . . . , ed. A. G. L’Estrange, 2 vols. (1882), ii. 98–9. 6. Following the publication of the Atkinson Letters Martineau was considered to be an atheist, though she might more fairly have been called an agnostic—a term not in use until 1869. See CBL ii. 550 n., 571–2 n., and GS 6.12.1852 n. 6. Opposite ‘hundreds have forsaken her’, quoted by Mrs Gaskell in Life ii. 282, Martineau wrote in her copy of the second edition, now at Harvard, ‘Hallucination’, and on p. 283, opposite ‘for her sin’, she wrote ‘We!’. See also CBL ii. 695–7 for the alleged loss of friends. 7. Martineau wrote opposite this phrase, ‘Hallucination’; opposite ‘strait’, an exclamation mark; opposite ‘example’, ‘libel on the world’. The paragraph ending ‘faulty course’ elicited the comment, ‘H.M did not lose a single friend’. She also objected to Mrs Gaskell’s attempt to smooth over the disagreement in the paragraph following the quotation. Opposite the word ‘friends’ in the sentence ‘In spite of their short, sorrowful misunderstanding, they were a pair of noble women and faithful friends’, Martineau wrote ‘That word was never attained’ (Harvard Life ii. 283).

To Ellen Nussey, 28 January [1853] 112. Gloucester Terrace Hyde Park— Dear Nell I have been longing to write to you every day this week and have not once been able—my time is much taken up—In the three hours of leisure aVorded me this morning—I have four letters to write and therefore must be brief.

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2

I have got the parcel of books for you—Edward & Georgiana brought it in propria persona—and I saw them—They behaved very nicely—Georgiana has certainly a striking appearance—but I believe her brother (with, no doubt some faults and weaknesses)—has the better heart of the two—the ?most of the *Nussey goodness—for there is a goodness I like in the **?better members of your family.**3 The next day Madame4 herself thought Wtting to call, very stately in her carriage—I was not in—but she left her card—and the next day came a note asking me to dine a[t] 4. **Cleveland Row** on Tuesday next—I declined dinner—but promised to call to-morrow morning which D.V. I hope to do. Don’t you think you have been shamefully impatient about ‘‘Villette’’? To-day is the Wrst day of publication—but the gift-copies were sent oV yesterday—yours among the number—and I hope you have got it by this timeIf all be well I go home on Wednesday next without fail—I shall reach Keighley at 44 m. past 3 o’clock—afternoon—and I want you to meet me there and then we can go home together—You must be so kind, dear Nell, as to write directly and tell me whether this arrangement will ’suit’—as I earnestly hope—it will—as I should wish to write a line of notiWcation to Martha that she may be prepared with a comfortable welcome.5 My visit has on the whole passed pleasantly enough with some sorrowful impressions—I have seen a good deal of Sir J. K. S6—he has been very kind—So has Dr. Forbes7—and indeed every body But I must stop—Be sure to write immediately—Give my kind love to all and believe me Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS Law-Dixon. W & S 817. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Annotation (i) by EN in ink: 291 (ii) by EN in pencil: Jan 28–53 j London j a call from Cleveland Road 1. Edward Richard Nussey (18 May 1828–5 July 1911, BA Oriel College Oxford 1851) eldest son of John Nussey (1794–1862), EN’s eldest brother. Edward Nussey appears in the Clergy List for 1853 as curate to his uncle Joshua Nussey at Oundle, Northants. He had curacies at Whiston, Yorks., 1853–8, Euston with Barnham, SuVolk, 1858–60, and Ware, Herts., from 1860 until 1865, when he became Vicar of Longney, Glos., until his retirement to Chislehurst in 1904. He died unmarried. It is possible that CB had met him when he was a pupil for ‘one half ’ [year] at Healds Hall, Liversedge. See Oxon. and Whitehead 75, 207, 211, 236. 2. Georgiana Mary Nussey (11 July 1829–81), John Nussey’s eldest daughter. See CBL ii. 132 n. 7. 3. ‘?better . . . family’ heavily deleted in ink, presumably by EN. 4. For Mary Walker Nussey (?1799–1868), wife of John Nussey, see EN 9.9.1852 n. 3. The Nusseys’ London house in Cleveland Row was in the upper-class area near the Earl of Ellesmere’s Bridgewater House (formerly Cleveland House) for which see CBL ii. 651 n. 1. 5. CB did not wait for Ellen’s reply: see the next letter. ‘Wednesday next’ was 2 Feb. 6. CB saw both Sir James and Janet, Lady Kay-Shuttleworth, for whose ‘peculiar’ state see ECG 24.2.1853. ‘On 30 January. . . Ebenezer [Kay, brother of Sir James] reported that his brother was very busy and important, but was not getting on well with Janet’ (Selleck 284). On 13 May 1853

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Frederick North, Janet’s stepfather, noted in his diary that she ‘had not put foot to ground for nearly a year’ (Selleck 282). 7. See EN 19.1.1853 n. 8.

To Martha Brown, 28 January 1853 Gloucester Terrace, London, Dear Martha, If all be well I hope to come home next Wednesday. I have asked Miss [Nussey]1 to come with me. We shall reach Haworth about half past four o’clock in the afternoon, and I know I can trust you to have things comfortable and in readiness.—The tablecloths had better be put on the dining-room tables; you will have something prepared that will do for supper,—perhaps a nice piece of cold boiled ham would be as well as anything, as it would come in for breakfast in the morning. The weather has been very changeable here in London.—I have often wondered how you and Papa stood it at home; I felt the changes in some degree; but not half so much as I should have done at Haworth, and have only had one really bad day of headache and sickness since I came. I hope you and Tabby have agreed pretty well, and that you have got help in your work whenever you have wanted it. Remember me kindly to Tabby, and believe me, dear Martha, Your sincere friend C. Bronte¨ MS untraced. W & S 818. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: copy of letter in Rylands MS Life, bound in vol. i between fos. 278 and 279, for insertion in third edn. of Life. Not in Wrst or second edns. Shorter 613 and W & S 818 probably base their text on Haworth edn. of Life 593–4 (ch. 26). 1. Source reads ‘asked Miss——’.

To ?Mrs Gaskell, ?late January 1853 Fragment 1 [?London] I was kept waiting longer than usual for Mr. Smith’s opinion of the book, and I was rather uneasy for I was afraid he had found me out, and was oVended.1

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MS untraced. Cornhill Magazine (Dec. 1900), 793. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: probably near or on the publication date of Villette, 28 Jan. 1853. Text: from George Smith’s typescript ‘Recollections’ i. 116. 1. George Smith describes the sentence as part of a letter from CB to Mrs Gaskell, introducing it as follows: ‘In ‘‘Villette’’ my mother is the original of ‘‘Mrs Bretton’’; several of her expressions are given literally verbatim. I myself, as I discovered, stood for ‘‘Dr. John’’ in ‘‘Villette’’. Charlotte Bronte admitted this to Mrs. Gaskell, to whom she wrote: ‘‘I was . . . oVended.’’ ’ See GS 3.11.1852 n. 1 for the possibility that Smith’s ‘recollection’ of this letter’s existence might have been mistaken.

To ?Mrs Gaskell,1 ?late January 1853 Fragment 2 [?London] The <3rd. Vol> ’third volume’2 seemed to me to possess the most sparkle, impetus, and interest. Of the <1st & 2nd> ’Wrst and second’ my judgment was, that parts of them were admirable; but there was the fault of containing too much History—too little Story. I hold that a work of Wction ought to be a work of creation[:] that the real should be sparingly introduced in pages dedicated to the ideal. Plain household bread is a far more wholesome and necessary thing than cake, yet who would like to see the brown loaf placed on the table for dessert? In the 2nd vol the author gives us an ample supply of excellent brown bread; in his third[,] only such a portion as gives substance, like the crumbs of bread in a well-made, not too rich plum-pudding. MS untraced. W & S 796 as to George Smith, n.d. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: the food images at the end of this fragment suggest a connection with the following fragmentary letter which refers to the author’s ‘digestion’ of a ‘moderate slice’. Possibly the two were parts of the same letter. If so, it must have been written after CB had read Mrs Gaskell’s Ruth (published c.10 Jan. 1853). Text based on Rylands MS Life fo. 595v, where it follows illegible heavily deleted words. 1. The letter was probably to Mrs Gaskell. Shorter 594 and W & S 796 place it, without a date, between letters of 3 and 6 Nov. 1852, and name the recipient as George Smith, but their text is based on Mrs Gaskell’s quotation in Life ii. 263. There it is described as ‘another letter, referring to ‘‘Esmond’’ ’; but it is distinguished from CB’s letter to Smith of 30 Oct. 1852, which Gaskell had previously quoted. She writes: ‘Her letter to Mr. Smith, containing the allusion to ‘‘Esmond,’’ which reminded me of the quotation just given, continues:—‘‘You will see that ‘Villette’ touches on no matter of public interest. . . . ’’ ’ CB gave her opinion of the third volume of Esmond at some length in her letter to Smith of 10 Nov., and would be unlikely to do so twice. W & S mistakenly name the recipient of the 10 Nov. letter as W. S. Williams. 2. Of Henry Esmond, which had not reached the Gaskell household by about 20 Nov., and was unlikely to be seen by them ‘this long time’ (Further Letters 74).

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To Mrs Gaskell, ?late January 1853 Fragment 3 [?London] [cir]cumstances I really think Conscience ought to be summarily silenced—if she attempts to interrupt the enjoyment or disturb the digestion—of the author over his moderate slice. The beauty of ‘‘Ruth’’ seems to me very great. Your style never rose higher nor—I think—have you ever excelled the power of certain passages. The brutal dismissal of ‘‘Ruth’’ by Mr. Bradshaw, the disclosure of her secret to her son, his grief and humiliation—the Mother’s sacriWces, eVorts, death—these—I think— are passages which must pierce every heart I anticipate that a certain class of critics will Wx upon the Mistake of the good Mr. Benson & his Sister—in passing oV ‘‘Ruth’’ as a widow—as the weak point of the book—Wx—and cling there.1 In vain is it explicitly shewn that this step was regarded by the author as an error, and that she unXinchingly follows it up to its natural and fatal consequences—there—I doubt not—some critics will stick, like Xies caught in treacle. These—however—let us hope, will be few in number; and clearer-sighted commentators will not be wanting to do justice I will not forget March.2 With kind regards to Mr. Gaskell I am yours sincerely & aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS Rylands. W & S 830 (part). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: probably soon after CB had Wnished reading Ruth, of which she had already ‘devoured’ the Wrst volume by 12 Jan., and before many reviews of it had come to CB’s notice. It is unlikely to be late Feb. 1853, the date implied by the placing of W & S 830. Text: the MS is incomplete. The image of the author’s ‘moderate slice’ suggests that it might have formed part of the same letter as the preceding Fragment 2. 1. The clergyman Mr Benson suggests that Ruth should be introduced as a widow, and colludes with his sister’s pretence that she is a ‘distant relation’. Though there were eventually to be appreciative reviews and other warmly approving letters from friends, Mrs Gaskell was distressed by bad early notices such as that in Sharpe’s London Magazine for 15 Jan., which ‘cautioned against Ruth’s introduction to the family hearth’, and the Literary Gazette which voiced the ‘deep regret that we and all admirers of Mary Barton must feel at the author’s loss of reputation’ (CP letter 151; and see Elizabeth Gaskell: The Critical Heritage, ed. Angus Easson (1991) ). 2. i.e. Mrs Gaskell’s invitation to CB to visit her then—a visit postponed until 21 Apr.

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Harriet Martineau to Charlotte Bronte¨, ?early February 1853 Extract What faults there are [in Villette], I think grave: but the merits are downright wonderful—As for the faults—I do deeply regret the reasons given to suppose your mind full of the subject of one passion—love—I think there is unconscionably too much of it (giving an untrue picture of life) &, speaking with the frankness you desire, I do not like its kind—I anticipate a renewal of the sort of objection which you mentioned to me as inexplicable to you, the Wrst evening we met; & this time, I think it will not be wholly unfounded.1 Copy MS by A. B. Nicholls, BUL Martineau Collection. W & S 819 (variant text). Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from content. Text: A. B. Nicholls’s copy MS, one of several versions of the letter. W & S 819 is based on Life, 3rd edn. See n. 1. 1. A variant form of the letter appears in Life, 3rd edn. (end Aug. 1857), ii. 286. In the Wrst two editions (Mar. and Apr. or May 1857) Mrs Gaskell’s account of Martineau’s reaction to Villette included the words: ‘Miss Martineau . . . both in an article on ‘‘Villette’’ in the ‘‘Daily News,’’ and in a private letter to Miss Bronte¨, wounded her to the quick by expressions of censure which she believed to be unjust and unfounded, . . . Miss Bronte¨ writhed under what she felt to be injustice’ (Life, 2nd edn., ii. 279–80). In her copy of the second edition, Martineau wrote opposite ‘in a private letter’, ‘Written only on demand,—in answer to a vehement adjuration to say the worst. ‘‘I worship truth . . . spare me no pain &c &c’. Opposite ‘expressions’, Martineau wrote ‘one only’ (Harvard Life 279). She then sent ‘sheet upon sheet’ to Mrs Gaskell ‘regarding the quarrel? misunderstanding? between her & Miss Bronte¨’ (CP letter 352, June 16th 1857). In the third edition of the Life Mrs Gaskell expanded her account by inserting a footnote: ‘It is but due to Miss Martineau to give some of the particulars of this misunderstanding, as she has written them down for me. It appears that on Miss Bronte¨’s Wrst interview with Miss Martineau, in December 1849, she had expressed pleasure at being able to consult a friend about certain strictures of the reviewers, which she did not understand, and by which she had every desire to proWt. ‘‘She said that the reviews sometimes puzzled her, and that some imputed to her what made her think she must be very unlike other people, or cause herself to be misunderstood. She could not make it out at all, and wished that I could explain it. I had not seen that sort of criticism then, I think, but I had heard ‘Jane Eyre’ called ‘coarse.’ I told her that love was treated with unusual breadth, and that the kind of intercourse was uncommon, and uncommonly described, but that I did not consider the book a coarse one, though I could not answer for it that there were no traits which, on a second leisurely reading, I might not dislike on that ground. She begged me to give that second reading, and I did on condition that she would regard my criticisms as made through the eyes of her reviewers’’ ’ (Life, 3rd edn., ii. 285 n.). Mrs Gaskell then added to the text an excerpt from CB’s letter to Martineau of 21 Jan. 1853, and Martineau’s reply to it, as Martineau recalled it from memory: ‘As for the other side of the question which you so desire to know, I have but one thing to say; but it is not a small one. I do not like the love, either the kind or the degree of it; and its prevalence in the book, and eVect on the action of it, help to explain the passages in the reviews [of Jane Eyre] which you consulted me about, and seem to aVord some foundation for the criticisms they oVered’ (Life, 3rd edn, ii. 286). Mr Nicholls, who still possessed Martineau’s original letter on 10 Nov. 1857, complained that it had been inaccurately reproduced in the Life, and provided the transcript used here as the

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copy-text (Correspondence in Martineau Collection, Birmingham University Library). See the next letter for CB’s response to Martineau, BST 18. 95. 392–7 for Nicholls’s ‘warlike correspondence’ with her, and Arbuckle 151 for yet another version of part of the present letter.

To Harriet Martineau [?February 1853] [Haworth] (a) My dear Miss Martineau1 I think I best shew my sense of the tone & feeling of your last by immediate compliance with the wish you expressed, that I shd. send you your letter. I enclose it & have marked with red ink the passage, wh. struck me dumb— All the rest is fair, right, worthy of you—but I protest against this passage, & were I brought up before the bar of all the critics in England to such a charge I shd. respond ‘‘not guilty.’’—2 I know what love is as I understand it—& if man or woman shd. feel ashamed of feeling such love—then is there nothing right, noble, faithful, truthful, unselWsh on this earth as I comprehend rectitude, nobleness, Wdelity, truth & disinterestedness. Yours sincerely [Signed] C. Bronte¨. (b) To diVer from you gives me keen pain. MSS untraced. W & S 820. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from content. CB is replying to the previous letter, containing Martineau’s criticism of her preoccupation with ‘one passion—love’ in Villette. Text: (a) copy MS in Martineau collection, Birmingham University Library. (b) footnote given in Haworth edition of Life (1900), 598. 1. Part (a) is included in correspondence between H. Martineau, A. B. Nicholls, Mr Bronte¨, and Mrs Gaskell, provoked by Martineau’s public statements in the Daily News (24 Aug. 1857) and in the additional remarks she caused Mrs Gaskell to insert in the third edition of the Life. Mr Nicholls was angered by Martineau’s allegation that CB had made statements, ‘scarcely one of which was altogether true’. See BST 18. 95. 392–7. 2. See note on date, above.

To George Smith, 7 February 1853 Haworth My dear Sir I have received and read the Reviews. I think I ought to be—and feel that I am—very thankful. That in the ‘‘Examiner’’1 is better than I expected, and that in the ‘‘Literary Gazette’’2 is as good as any author can look for. Somebody also sent me the ‘‘Nonconformist’’3 with a favourable review.

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4

The notice in the ‘‘Daily News’’ was undoubtedly written by Miss Martineau—(to this paper she contributed her Irish letters5) I have received a letter from her precisely to the same eVect, marking6 the same points and urging the same objections, similarly suggesting too a likeness to ‘‘Balzac’’, whose works I have not read.7 Her letter only diVers from the review in being severe to the point of injustice—her eulogy is also more highly wrought. On the whole—if Cornhill is content thus far—so am I Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 79. W & S 821. Address (integral): George Smith Esqre. PM: not in MS. 1. Miriam Allott suggests that the unsigned review of Villette in the Examiner for 5 Feb. 1853, 84–5, may be by the radical journalist Albany William Fonblanque (1793–1872), the paper’s former editor and the writer of discerning reviews of Jane Eyre and Shirley; or by John Forster (1812–76), the current editor, whom CB had met in London on 13 Dec. 1849. See CBL ii. 278–9, 309–10, 313. The Examiner considered Villette original and powerful, with well-observed, picturesque characters, often portrayed with humour. Its defects of morbidity, occasional harsh irony, and wailing against destiny perhaps arose from the author’s own experience. The reviewer recommends ‘exertion’ as the indispensable condition of health and the antidote to despondency such as Lucy Snowe’s; but he admits that people are painted rather better than they really are, and detects good in all the characters except the Parisian teacher. ‘The bold, sanguine, cheerful Dr John’ marries a ‘spiritual little creature’, the elWn Paulina, and we are given an admirable view of the interior of a pensionnat. M. Paul is perhaps the ‘best and most interesting character’ in the story. Yet the narrator spoils her picture of Wnal happiness ‘for no artistic purpose’ by daubing her brush across it in her needless ‘tragical apostrophes’, which should be expunged from the next edition. The reviewer also thinks it a pity that the dialogue ‘is interlarded with so much French’, despite its frequently ‘piquant and racy eVect’ (Allott 175–7, part). 2. The Literary Gazette for 5 Feb. 1853, regretting that Mrs Gaskell should ‘peril her reputation’ with the commonplace Ruth, was relieved to Wnd that Villette conWrmed its author’s genius and retrieved the ground lost in Shirley. Villette had a delightful freshness, forceful sentiments, and characters so individualized that the reader sees them, and does not regret the lack of very striking incidents and rather obvious plot. ‘Brain and heart are both held in suspense by the fascinating power of the writer.’ Lucy Snowe is like Jane Eyre in her sensibility, lovingness, and independence; both are plain and subject to the emotions of love ‘in an unusual degree’; but their circumstances are diVerent. All the characters are of ‘mingled yarn’, and depicted in a masterly way; yet ‘we can scarcely forgive the authoress that we are left in doubt whether [M. Paul] returns in safety from Guadaloupe.’ A few of the vivid descriptions of nature are ‘as good as Turner to the mind’s eye’. Minor faults are the phantom nun, some improbable incidents, overstrained feelings, and traces of coarseness, but ‘as a whole’ the novel is admirable for its ‘advance in reWnement without loss of power’ (Allott 178–81, part). 3. The Nonconformist had been founded in 1841 by the independent minister and politician Edward Miall (1809–81) a Chartist supporter and an opponent of the ‘national establishment of religion’. Its review of Villette did not appear until March. CB had presumably seen the journal’s unsigned notice of the one-volume edition of Shirley on 15 Dec. 1852. As Miriam Allott observes, it ‘enthusiastically welcomed the cheap edition of ‘‘the series of noble novels by the Bells’’, spoke sympathetically of ‘‘the author of Wuthering Heights’’, and found her novel to be ‘‘nearly as wonderful in its way as Jane Eyre’’ ’ (Allott 16). On 16 Mar. 1853 the Nonconformist gave

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a lukewarm welcome to Villette, acknowledging Currer Bell’s originality, but Wnding the novel inferior to Jane Eyre or even Shirley in some points. Its power was ‘wilful and eccentric’, repellent in its morbidity, tinges of superstition, improbabilities, and almost caricature-like moods and actions; yet there were redeeming beauties and surges of passion. M. Emanuel, distinct and vivid in his mingling of passionate impetuosities and secret kindness, was the character of the book—a triumph, unlike Currer Bell’s usually poor and unreal ‘men-creations’. Paulina was disagreeably precocious, Lucy Snowe queerer than Jane Eyre and unpleasantly self-conscious. The incredible coincidences of her story were merely bad melodrama, suited to the Surrey or Victoria theatres. The reviewer quotes with appreciation the descriptions of Vashti and Monsieur Paul’s feˆte-day, but concludes that Villette lacks the moral purpose of the highest works of art (pp. 224–5). CB had previously ‘sickened’ over an unsigned review of Shirley in the Daily News for 31 Oct. 1849 (see CBL ii 273 n., 280). Harriet Martineau’s letter about Villette, followed by her unsigned review on 3 Feb. 1853, made Charlotte angry and hurt. The break in their friendship was never healed, though Martineau was to give generous praise to her genius in an obituary in the Daily News for 6 Apr. 1855. Martineau had also found much to praise in Villette: it was better constructed than Jane Eyre and Shirley, and was crowded with beauties—clear sight, deep feeling, humour, charming description, and a freshness comparable to the ‘sharp distinction’ (‘sharp distinctness’ in Martineau’s MS) of Balzac’s pictures of life. Lucy acts admirably, and Paulina and her father are perhaps the best drawn of all the well-depicted characters. But Martineau criticizes passages of ‘over-wrought feeling’ as neither congenial nor very intelligible, Wnds the novel intolerably and unrealistically painful, and detects one tendency throughout: all the female characters are ‘full of one thing, or are regarded by the reader in the light of that one thought—love’. ‘It is not thus in real life. There are substantial, heartfelt interests for women of all ages . . . quite apart from love.’ Lucy lacks Jane’s ‘charm of mental and moral health’; and the ‘passionate hatred of Romanism’ is unfortunate at a time ‘when catholics and protestants hate each other quite suYciently’ (Daily News 3.2.1853, Allott 172–4, part). Martineau’s holograph manuscript of the review, Birmingham University Library MS HM 1403, has a few substantive variants from the printed text in Allott, the more signiWcant being ‘Of her three novels’ for ‘Of . . . books’, ‘Abstraction made’ for ‘Abstractions made’, ‘distinctness’ for ‘distinction’, and ‘pain which compels’ for ‘pain which impels’. For Martineau’s condemnation of religious intolerance, see esp. her letter to G. H. Lewes of 10 Dec. 1850, CBL ii 527–8. In 1852 Martineau visited Ireland, where she wrote eight articles, including ‘ ‘‘Peatal Aggression’’,—the Peat Works near Athy’, ‘ ‘‘The Irish Union,’’ a workhouse picture; and ‘‘Faminetime,’’ a true picture of one of the worst districts’ (Martineau Autobiography ii. 388). Letters dated 10 Aug. to 10 Oct. 1852 were published in the Daily News, and reprinted in volume form in the same year, as Letters from Ireland. See Arbuckle 126 n. Thus in MS. CB had apparently forgotten that G. H. Lewes lent her Balzac’s Modeste Mignon and Illusions Perdues in the autumn of 1850. On 17 Oct. 1850 she thanked Lewes for ‘some hours of pleasant reading’ in the books (CBL ii. 416 n. 5, 484–6 n.).

The Revd P. Bronte¨ to George Smith, 7 February 1853 Haworth Nr. Keighley, My Dear Sir, I know not whether you are in the habit of canvassing for your publications— the suVrages of the provincial press; there is, however, one provincial Editor, to whom it might be advisable to send a copy of my daughter’s work, ‘‘Vilette’’1— viz, Mr. Baines,2 Editor of the ‘‘Leeds Mercury’’, His paper enjoys a wide

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circulation, and considerable inXuence in the North of England—and as I am an old subscriber, and occasional contributor to the ‘‘Mercury’’, a fair notice, I think of ‘‘Vilette’’, might be ?hoped [for].3 OVer my kind regards to Mrs. Smith, and also my acknowledgements, for her late friendly hospitality to my daughter. I am Yours, faithfully, P. Bronte`. George Smith, Esqr. 65, Cornhill, London. MS Murray. W & S 822. Address (integral): George Smith, Esqr. j 65, Cornhill, j London. PM: not in MS. 1. Thus in MS. The Leeds Mercury no longer reviewed Wction, but the Tory Leeds Intelligencer gave Villette a long and on the whole appreciative notice on 19 Feb. 1853. See EN [?22.3.1853] n. 3. Many other provincial papers had reviewed CB’s previous novels: see for example notes on the reviews in the Bradford Observer, Oxford Chronicle, and Manchester Examiner (CBL i. 573, ii. 6 n., 393–4 n.). George Smith probably found it unnecessary to canvass them. 2. Edward Baines (1800–90; knighted 1881; DNB); editor of the Mercury since 1818. An enlightened liberal of great integrity. Mr Bronte¨ had contributed several articles or letters to the Mercury, and CB had borrowed Wles of the paper as a source of information for the Luddite risings when she was preparing to write Shirley. See Barker 158, 167–8, 519, and the Clarendon edn. of Shirley, Appendix A. 3. The two words are diYcult to read. W & S 822 gives ‘counted upon’. The second word looks like ‘upon’, but the Wrst is not ‘counted’. Possibly PB wrote ‘upon’ in error, and tried to change it to ‘for’.

The Revd P. Bronte¨ to Edward Baines, 7 February 1853 Haworth, Nr. Keighley, Dear Sir, I have, this day, written to the publisher of ‘‘Vil[le]tte,’’ My Daughter’s last work, requesting him to send you a copy, in order, that if you thought proper it might be noticed in the ‘‘Mercury’’—Already, several, able, and just reviews, have appeared in the London papers—but from what I know of your critical taste and talents, I have a strong desire to ’learn’ your opinion—1 Yours, very respectfully, & truly, P. Bronte¨. MS formerly Mrs J. B. Light. LD 458. Address (integral): To Edward Baines Esqr., j Editor of the ‘‘Mercury’’, j Mercury OYce, j Leeds— PM: not in MS. 1. For Mr Baines’s response, see GS 16.2.1853 below.

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To Margaret Wooler, 11 February 1853 Haworth My dear Miss Wooler Excuse a very brief note—for I have time only to thank you for your last kind and welcome letter—and to say that in obedience to your wishes, I send you by to-day’s post two reviews—the Examiner and the Morning Advertiser1—which perhaps you will kindly return at your leisure. E. Nussey has a third—the Literary Gazette which she will likewise send. The reception of the book has been favourable thus far—for which I am thankful—less, I trust, on my own account—than for the sake of those few real friends who take so sincere an interest in my welfare as to be happy in my happiness.2 Remember me very kindly to all at *Heckmondwike—and believe me Yours aVectionately and respectfully C Bronte¨ MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 823. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. For the reviews in the Examiner and Literary Gazette see GS 7.2.1853 and notes. For the Morning Advertiser, a popular Liberal newspaper with a large circulation, see CBL i. 555 n. 9. The eVusive reviewer in the number for 4 Feb. 1853 praises Villette for its breadth, depth, height, strength of true feeling and human nature, robust common sense, and glowing language, and concludes with ‘the warmest recommendation’ of the novel’s ‘moral lessons, lofty ethics, and unsurpassed vigour of language and thought’. Mrs Bretton is Wnely sketched, Polly is ‘a Fenella-like creature’ with a loving nature, and the Marchmont chapter Wnely depicts the ‘inward life of a willing dependant’. In the London chapter there are ‘perfect mental and material daguerreotypes’. The review is careless in detail, describing Lucy as a ‘governess’ to Ginevra Fanshawe, and referring to the ‘great scenes’ in a ‘French seminary’; but the writer appreciates the Wne qualities of M. Paul, the ‘exciting’ confessional scene, and Currer Bell’s departure from the hackneyed commonplace of novelists who would have made Dr Bretton marry Lucy Snowe after the rediscovery at La Terrasse. The conclusion is seen as a conventional happy ending, in which ‘poor Lucy’ ‘after many trials . . . is united to the worthy Frenchman’ (6). On the same page CB might notice a report of a fund-raising lecture for a proposed memorial to Thomas Hood, at which Francis Bennoch had presided. Bennoch was to visit her at the Parsonage on 19 Sept. 1853. 2. Perhaps an echo of Keats’s ‘Ode to a Nightingale’, stanza 1, ‘ . . . being too happy in thine happiness’.

To Ellen Nussey, 15 February 1853 Haworth. Dear Ellen I am very glad to hear that you got home all right1 and that you managed to execute your commissions in Leeds so satisfactorily—you do not say whether you remembered to order the Bishop’s2 dessert—I shall know however

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by to-morrow morning. You had a very tolerable day after all for your journey. I got a budget of no less than 7 papers yesterday and to-day3—the import of all the notices is such as to make my heart swell with thankfulness to Him who takes note both of suVering and work and motives—Papa is pleased too. As to friends in general—I believe I can love them still without expecting them to take any large share in this sort of gratiWcation. The longer I live—the more plainly I see that gentle must be the strain on fragile human nature—it will not bear much. Give my kind regards to your Mother, Sisters and Mr. C[lapham] and believe me Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ Papa continues to improve. He came down to breakfast this Morning. MS HM 26003. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/61. W & S 824. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j FE 15 j 1853 (iii) LEEDS j FE 15 j 1853 j H Annotation on envelope by EN: Feb 15—53 j 15 & 21 Notices of j her work j of friends in j general 1. After Ellen’s visit to Haworth, from 2 Feb. See EN 28.1.1853 and n. 5. 2. Charles Thomas Longley (1794–1868; DNB), headmaster of Harrow 1829–36, Bishop of Ripon 1836–56, Bishop of Durham 1856–60, Archbishop of York 1860–2, Archbishop of Canterbury 1862–8. Juliet Barker notes that in a letter to the Leeds Intelligencer for 20 Sept. 1847 Mr Bronte¨ had supported the Bishop’s initiative ‘in appointing subdeacons to assist in performing all the clerical duties except administering the sacrament’ (Barker 519). Haworth was in Bishop Longley’s diocese, and his visit would be pastoral, probably including inspection of the National School, meetings with other parochial clergy, and an assessment of the church’s provision for and care of the parish. Perhaps CB wanted to obtain hothouse fruit, not available locally, for his dessert. 3. By this date CB had received the Athenæum for 12 Feb., for which see the next letter. She could also have seen reviews of Villette in the Globe (7.2.1853, 1), Bells’ Weekly Messenger (12.2.1853, 6), and the Weekly Chronicle (12.2.1853, 105–6), as well as those mentioned in previous letters. Smith, Elder were able to advertise Villette as a ‘New Work’ in the Critic for 15 Feb. 1853 (vol. xii, no. 285) with accompanying quotations from reviews in the Examiner, Literary Gazette, Daily News, Globe, and Morning Chronicle. They were to use a Morning Chronicle excerpt again in advertising Villette as a volume in their ‘Uniform Edition of the Works of Currer Bell’, 1857: ‘ ‘‘Villette’’ is not only a very able, but a very pleasant book. It is a tale which, though here and there it is dashed with wonder and melancholy, is as a whole cheerful and piquant; abundant in clear, clean-cut, strongly-drawn etchings, presenting so pleasant and eVective a transcript of manners, English and Continental, that its success cannot fail to be remarkable.’

To George Smith, 16 February 1853 Haworth. My dear Sir I do not, of course, expect to have a letter from you at present, because I know that this is the busy time at Cornhill; but after the weary Mail is gone out1—I should like much to hear what you think of the general tone of the

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notices—whether you regard them as reasonably satisfactory. My Father seems pleased with them, and so am I, as an evidence that the book is pretty well received. I must not tell you what I think of such reviews as that in the ‘‘Athenæum’’,2 lest you should pronounce me fastidious and exacting. On the whole the critique I like best yet is the one I got at an early stage of the work, before it had undergone the ‘‘Old Bailey’’;3 being the observations of a respected amateur critic—one A. Frazer Esqre.4 I am bound to admit however that this gentleman conWned his approving remarks to the 2 Wrst vols., tacitly condemning the 3rd. by the severity of a prolonged silence. It becomes me now to wait dutifully for the great Mr. Phillips5 of the ‘‘Times’’—there is the man who will pay oV Currer Bell in the coin he merits. Mr. Baines has written to my Father6 to say that he does not review books, but he speaks courteously and favourably of ‘‘Villette’’: and proposes to give extracts in his columns. I cannot say that I have myself any fancy for Wguring in the Leeds papers—as—however—my Father inclines to view the matter in a diVerent light—I make no demur. You will write to me after the 25th. when the Mail shall be quite gone; Till then believe me Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ Will you tell your Mother I received the letter she forwarded, and give my kind remembrances to her and your sisters. MS BPM SG 80. W & S 825 (part). Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. In his memoirs George Smith recalled that he ‘had to take in hand the Indian and Colonial correspondence, of which my partner had previously been in charge. . . . It was a common thing for me with many of the clerks to work till three or four o’clock in the morning, and occasionally, when there was but a short interval between the arrival and departure of the Indian mails, I used to start work at nine o’clock in the morning and did not leave my room, or cease dictating [to the clerks], until seven o’clock the next evening, when the mail was dispatched’ (Huxley 44). 2. The Athenæum for 12 Feb. 1953 Wnds Villette curious, and less exciting than Jane Eyre, but approves of CB’s avoidance of the ‘nonsense and narrowness’ of religious controversy and ‘supernatural . . . terror’ she might have exploited in a novel with a Protestant heroine and Catholic hero. Though Villette is occasionally tedious and trivial, ‘A burning heart glows throughout it, and one brilliantly distinct character keeps it alive’: M. Paul, ‘the snappish, choleric, vain, child-like, and noble-hearted arbiter’ of Lucy Snowe’s destiny. Mme Beck, Graham Bretton, and Paulina are also well portrayed. The novel’s faults are the change of focus from Paulina to Lucy, and a concentration on the ‘Fever, discontent, distress’ of a conscientious woman. Neither this nor the unreal ‘fae¨ry imagery’ of Lucy’s solitary wandering through the illuminated town helps the cause of women. Nevertheless the reviewer chooses extracts to show that the novel is ‘a work of Art and of power’. Despite some ‘superXuity of rhetoric’ and ‘one or two rhapsodies’, Villette is ‘much better written than Shirley’ (Allott 187–90, part).

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3. i.e. judgement and ‘execution’ by reviewers. The Old Bailey, now the site of the Central Criminal Courts in London, was formerly the street fronting Newgate prison, and containing the gallows used for public execution. CB had recently visited Newgate: see EN 19.1.1853. 4. ‘Frazer’ or ‘Fraser’ was the surname assumed by George Smith and CB when they visited the phrenologist Dr J. P. Browne in June 1851. See GS 2.7.1851, Browne’s ‘Phrenological Estimate’, and the name ‘Alexander Frazer Murray’ which CB suggested as a pseudonym for Harriet Martineau (CBL ii. 656–62, 729). 5. Samuel Phillips (1814–54), novelist and journalist on the staV of The Times. He had slaughtered Shirley on 7 Dec. 1849. See CBL ii. 307 n., 310 n. See also CB’s letter to Mrs Smith of 30 Dec. 1852 for his attack on Henry Esmond. 6. See Mr Bronte¨’s letters to Mr Baines and George Smith of 7 Feb.

To Ellen Nussey, [?16 or 17 February 1853] [Haworth] Dear Ellen, The parcel is come, and the contents seem good and all right. I enclose 6s. 6d. in postage stamps. Mrs U[pjohn] is really too trying. I do hope before this time you have heard from her. What weather for you to travel so far! Your crotchet about Papa, dear Nell, made me angry, never was fancy more groundless.1 I have heard from Mrs Gaskell, very kind, panegyrical and so on.2 Mr Smith tells me he has ascertained that Miss Martineau did write the notice in the ‘Daily News.’3 J[oe] Taylor oVers to give me a regular blowing up and setting-down for £5; but I tell him the ‘Times’ will probably let me have the same gratis.4 I write in haste this morning. I shall be anxious to hear from you again, to know what is decided. This suspense, and this constant change of plan is very wearisome and wearing. Love to all.— Yours faithfully, C. Bronte¨. MS untraced. W & S 826. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: February 1853, the date given in W & S 826, is probably right. CB frequently comments on Mrs Upjohn at this period, and her letter to EN of 15 Feb. shows that she was expecting goods purchased in preparation for Bishop Longley’s visitation. Text: Nussey 299 with two names completed from Shorter 617. Both Shorter and W & S 826 are based on Nussey; the names they give were probably supplied by EN. 1. Unexplained. 2. Mrs Gaskell must have read Villette before she sent it to Geraldine Jewsbury c.14 February. See Gaskell Further Letters 82–3. In a later letter to Lady Kay-Shuttleworth, Gaskell praises Villette highly, conjecturing rightly that CB was looking back on ‘all the passions & suVering, & deep despondency of that old time’, associated with ‘that visit to Brussels; . . . the book is wonderfully clever; . . . it reveals depths in her mind, aye, and in her heart too which I doubt if ever any one has fathomed. What would have been her transcendent grandeur if she had been brought up in a healthy & happy atmosphere no one can tell’ (CP letter 154, 7 Apr. [1853]).

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3. See GS 7.2.1853 n. 4. 4. No review appeared in The Times.

To Ellen Nussey, [?21 February 1853] [Haworth] Dear Nell, The accompanying letter was brought here this morning with the explanation that it had been left last Tuesday1 at Hainworth Vicarage,2 near Keighley, and kept there till this day, for which Mrs. Mayne deserves the ducking stool.3 She must have known that Miss E. Nussey was not one of her acquaintance. I do trust no serious injury will accrue from the delay. Yours in haste, C. Bronte¨. MS untraced. W & S 827. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. The date in Nussey 300 was presumably provided by EN. Text: Nussey 300, which is probably closer to the manuscript text than the longer versions in Shorter 618 and its derivative, W & S 827. Both these later texts may incorporate editorial glosses which would be useful for a later reader, but unnecessary for the original recipient. 1. Shorter and W & S read: ‘last Tuesday, February 15th,’. The ‘accompanying letter’, directed to EN, has not been located. 2. Shorter and W & S read: ‘Hainworth Vicarage (the church between Keighley and Haworth)’. Hainworth is a hamlet about 2 miles from Keighley and about half a mile from Ing Row. 3. Shorter and W & S read: ‘and that Mrs. Mayne, the clergyman’s wife, kept it there till this day, for which she deserves the ducking-stool.’ The ‘clergyman’ was the Revd William G. Mayne, b. ?1804; BA 1826, MA 1832 Trinity College Dublin, MA Oxon. June 1867 ‘comitatis causa’; incumbent of St John’s, Ing Row. He occasionally helped Mr Bronte¨, and was well known to A. B. Nicholls. According to LD 270, he had married Mary Elizabeth Fennell, eldest daughter of the Revd John Fennell of Cross-Stone’s second marriage (1830). If so, there was a tenuous connection with the Bronte¨ family, since Fennell’s Wrst wife was Mrs Bronte¨’s Aunt Jane, ne´e Branwell, who had died on 26 May 1829.

To Mrs Gaskell, 24 February 1853 Haworth My dear Mrs. Gaskell The wish to know how you are urges me to write a line.1 I fear the cold weather we have had and are still having—will scarcely have conduced to rapid convalescence. For my part—I have thus far borne it well; I have taken long walks on the crackling snow, and felt the frost air bracing.2 This winter has, for me, not been like last winter. Decr. Jany. Feby. 1851–2 passed like a long stormy night conscious of one painful dream all solitary grief and sickness. The

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corresponding Months in –52–3 have gone over my head quietly and not uncheerfully. Thank God for the change and the repose! How welcome it has been—He only knows. My Father too has borne the season well, and my book and its reception have—thus far—pleased and cheered him. As you know—I spent Jany. in London—very quietly;3 seeing scarcely anybody indeed but the Kay Shuttleworths who—as usual—were very kind. I gave Sir James a copy of ‘‘Villette’’ as an acknowledgment of his friendliness. I believe the gift perplexed him a little; it seemed to imply that of course he would read the book. He took great pains to put into words a neat apology for not immediately giving himself that specially congenial pleasure. I hope some kind-hearted domestic has long ere this ‘‘sided’’4 the volumes out of his reach—thus enabling him to sink into oblivion of their existence. Poor Lady S—— seems in a peculiar state. She looks almost robust—much stouter and with a higher colour than when in health, yet she is too weak to walk, or even stand unsupported.5 Her spirits however seemed good and even. I cannot yet Wx a time for my visit to Manchester, but I will be sure to write a week beforehand and if the day I select should chance to be unsuitable—you will, of course, unhesitatingly postpone it. I shall be anxious to hear how you are—also how Meta gets on at school6—it seems to me that in sending her, you acted for her best welfare—I felt so sure that the constant shelter of your wing and support of your arm—would ill prepare her for the trials life must bring Neither she, nor any of your daughters will meet with a duplicate of their Mother—it cannot but be right to accustom them betimes to something diVerent—something in whose eyes they will be the second—third—fourth object of interest and love; anything but the Wrst With kind regards to Mr. Gaskell and all your dear circle I am yours sincerely & aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS Rylands. W & S 829 (part of Wrst paragraph only). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Mrs Gaskell had been very ill after the publication of Ruth. Before 14 Feb. she had written to Eliza Fox: ‘I have been so ill; I do believe it has been a ‘Ruth’ fever. . . . oh! I was so poorly! I cd not get over the hard things people said of Ruth. I mean I was just in that feverish way when I cd not put them out of my head by thinking of anything else . . . ’. But she had ‘perked up, & this cold weather braces me’ (Gaskell Further Letters 81). 2. Mayhall notes that newspapers of 19 Feb. ‘record a very heavy snow storm, accompanied with loss of life, which had continued for nearly a week with great severity’. There were drifts ‘to the extent of some twenty feet’ (i. 626). 3. See ECG 12.1.1853. 4. Cleared awayy. Wright gives several examples from West Yorkshire, including ‘Side away the dinner-pots’. Mrs Gaskell would understand the word, since she had used it in Ruth, ch. 2, where Mrs Mason, the dressmaker, calls sharply: ‘Whenever things are mislaid, I know it has been Miss Hilton’s evening for siding away!’

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5. Cf. the opinion of Lady Kay-Shuttleworth’s stepfather, quoted in EN 28.1.1853 n. 6. 6. Since 27 Jan. Mrs Gaskell’s second daughter, Margaret Emily, had attended a school in Liverpool run by Harriet Martineau’s younger sister Rachel Ann (1800–78). Slater’s Lancashire directories for 1848 and 1850 give the address of her ‘Boarding Academy’ as 36 Upper Parliament Street. Rachel Martineau took a ‘great fancy to Meta’, the liking was mutual, and the Gaskells heard ‘capital accounts’ of Meta in early Feb. 1853 (CP letters 142 and 151).

To George Smith, 26 February 1853 Haworth. My dear Sir At a late hour yesterday evening—I had the honour of receiving, at Haworth Parsonage a distinguished guest—none other than W. M. Thackeray Esqre.1 Mindful of the rites of hospitality—I hung him in state this morning. He looks superb in his beautiful, tasteful gilded gibbet. For companion he has the Duke of Wellington; (do you remember giving me that picture?) and for contrast and foil—Richmond’s portrait of an unworthy individual who—in such Society— must be nameless. Thackeray looks away from this latter character with a grand scorn edifying to witness. I wonder if the giver of these gifts will ever see them on the walls where they now hang: it pleases me to fancy that one day he may. My Father stood for a quarter of an hour this morning examining the great man’s picture. The conclusion of his survey was—that he thought it a puzzling head: if he had known nothing previously of the original’s character—he could not have read it in his features. I wonder at this. To me—the broad brow seems to express intellect; certain lines about the nose and cheek betray the satirist and the cynic; the mouth indicates a childlike simplicity, perhaps even a degree of irresoluteness, inconsistency—weakness—in short; but a weakness not unamiable. The engraving seems to me very good. A certain not quite Christian expression—‘‘not to put too Wne a point upon it’’2—an expression of spite—most vividly marked in the original—is here softened—and perhaps—a little—a very little of the power has escaped in that ameliorating process. Did it strike you thus? I have not quite settled it yet whether thanks or remonstrance is the due meed of the prompt reply I received to my last. I had concluded that Monday the 28th. would be the earliest day when an answer could reasonably be expected—whereas one arrived Sat[ur]d[a]y, 19th. It must have been written in the very crisis of the cruel ‘‘Mail’’.3 Well—I won’t say anything. ‘‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’’ The letter was very welcome that is certain Believe me Sincerely yours C. Bronte

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MS BPM SG 80/17B. W & S 828. Address (integral): George Smith Esqre. PM: not in MS. 1. George Smith had commissioned a chalk drawing of Thackeray by Samuel Laurence (1812–84) in 1852. See the reproduction in Ray Wisdom opp. 144. Engraver’s proofs of the portrait, ready on 1 Feb. 1853, cost two guineas, and prints one guinea (Harden i. 563). Leonard Huxley reports that when CB received the engraved portrait ‘she exclaimed, ‘‘And so a lion came out of Judah.’’ Thackeray, being told of this, remarked, ‘‘I never could see the lion’’ ’ (Huxley 63). For George Smith’s gift of a portrait of Wellington, see GS [1.8.1850]. Both portraits, along with George Richmond’s chalk drawing of CB, hang in the dining-room at the BPM. See CBL ii. 433–6. 2. Mr Snagsby’s ‘favourite apology for plain-speaking’ in ch. 11 of Dickens’s Bleak House, a novel which CB had been reading in its original parts since Mar. 1852. The last number would appear in Sept. 1853. See GS 11.3.1852. 3. See GS 16.2.1853 n. 1.

To Ellen Nussey, 4 March 1853 [Haworth] Dear Ellen I return Mrs. *Upjohn’s letter. She is really a most inconclusive person to have to do with: have you come to any decision yet? The Bishop1 has been and is gone. He is certainly a most charming little Bishop—the most benignant little gentleman that ever put on lawn sleeves—yet stately too, and quite competent to check encroachments—His visit passed capitally well—and at its close, as he was going away, he expressed himself thoroughly gratiWed with all he had seen. The inspector2 has been also in the course of the past week—so that I have had a somewhat busy time of it—If you could have been at Haworth to share the pleasure of the company without being inconvenienced by the little bustle of preparation—I should have been very glad—but the house was a good deal put out of its way as you may suppose—All passed however orderly, quietly and well. Martha waited very nicely and I had a person to help her in the kitchen. Papa kept up too full as well as I expected—though I doubt whether he could have borne another day of it. My penalty came on in a strong headache and a bilious attack as soon as the Bishop was fairly gone. How thankful I was that it had politely waited his departure—I continue mighty stupid to-day—of course it is the reaction consequent on several days of extra exertion and excitement. It is very well to talk of receiving a Bishop without trouble, but you must prepare for him. We had the parsons3 to supper as well as to tea. Mr. *Nicholls demeaned himself not quite pleasantly—I thought he made no eVort to struggle with his dejection but gave way to it in a manner to draw notice; the Bishop was obviously puzzled by it.4 Mr. N—— also shewed temper once or twice in speaking to Papa. Martha was beginning to tell me of certain ‘‘Xaysome’’5 looks also—but I desired not to hear of them. The fact is I shall be most

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thankful when he is well away—I pity him—but I don’t like that dark gloom of his—He dogged me up the lane after the evening service in no pleasant manner—he stopped also in the passage after the Bishop and the other clergy were gone into the room—and it was because I drew away and went upstairs that he gave that look which Wlled Martha’s soul with horror She—it seems—meantime, was making it her business to watch him from the kitchen door—If Mr. N—— be a good man at bottom—it is a sad thing that Nature has not given him the faculty to put goodness into a more attractive form—Into the bargain of all the rest he managed to get up a most pertinacious and needless dispute with the Inspector6—in listening to which all my old unfavourable impressions revived so strongly—I fear my countenance could not but shew them. Dear Nell—I consider that on the whole it is a mercy you have been at home and not a[t] Norfolk during the late cold weather. Love to all at Brookroyd Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS BPM Grolier E 23. W & S 831. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: 296 about the bishop: Dr Longley by EN at the end of the letter: Mar 4—53 j of the Bishop’s ?visit 1. Bishop Longley. See EN 15.2.1853 n. 2. ‘Lewis Carroll’s’ father, Archdeacon of Ripon when Dr Longley was there, also found him charming. Carroll’s nephew, S. D. Collingwood, wrote that Longley’s face was ‘beautiful; it was a veil through which a soul, all gentleness and truth, shone brightly’ (The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (1898 edn.), 57). 2. All schools applying for school grants had to be inspected regularly by inspectors appointed by the Privy Council Committee on Education. The Church of England National Society which had set up schools such as that in Haworth ‘had a right to veto an Inspector thought to be hostile to their schools’ religious approach’ (Michael Baumber, ‘Patrick Bronte¨ and Primary Education in Haworth’, BST 24. 1. 78). 3. The local clergy would probably include J. B. Grant of Oxenhope and John Smith of Oakworth as well as Mr Nicholls. In the Life, Mrs Gaskell records that some of the ‘ ‘‘curates’’ began merrily to upbraid Miss Bronte¨ with ‘‘putting them into a book;’’ and she, shrinking from thus having her character as authoress thrust upon her . . . in the presence of a stranger, pleasantly appealed to the bishop as to whether it was quite fair thus to drive her into a corner. His Lordship . . . was agreeably impressed with the gentle unassuming manners of his hostess’ (Life ii. 285–6). 4. During this visit Bishop Longley detected the reason for Mr Nicholls’s disturbed state of mind, and felt sympathy for him. See CB’s letter to Margaret Wooler of 12 Apr. 1854. 5. Fearsome, terrifyingy. Cf. ‘Xay’, to frighten, as in Shirley, ch. 5, where Southerners look ‘like as they’re Xayed wi’ bogards [ghosts]’. 6. Mr Nicholls had some responsibility for the National School, and according to his friend SutcliVe Sowden in a letter of ?early Feb. 1853, had greatly improved it. ‘The National School which [in 1845] did not number above 60 scholars now numbers between two and three hundred.’ See EN 2.1.1853 n. 5 for the testimonials supporting Nicholls’s application to be a missionary, and LD 457. Nicholls had written again to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel on 23 Feb. 1853, and on 24 Feb. had been invited to an interview in London with the

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Committee; but, ‘owing to the Solicitations of friends’, he wrote on 26 Feb. to say that he now had doubts about ‘the desirableness of leaving the Country at present’. Later, on 1 Apr., he wrote to the secretary of the SPG alleging that a persistent ‘Rheumatic aZiction’ had caused him to relinquish ‘for the present [his] intention of going abroad’, but that he might ‘wish to renew the subject’ (LD 459–60).

To ?W. S. Williams,1 7 March 1853 Fragment Haworth. My dear Sir Since I doubt not you are busy as usual—I feel reluctant to give any additional trouble, but of late so many allusions have reached me from one quarter and another to some notices of ‘‘Villette’’ in papers I have not seen that I feel a little curiosity to follow the progress of the work. ‘‘The Guardian’’2 ‘‘The Critic’’3 ‘‘The Atlas’’4 have been especially named—none of which papers have I received. Possibly my correspondents may have MS Beinecke, Yale. No publication traced. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Text: the letter is incomplete and lacks a signature. The rest of the text, presumably written on the now missing fo. 2r, may have included the words ‘and yours. j I am, my dear Sir j Yours sincerely j C Bronte¨’ (in a fragment owned by Kent Bicknell). For the phrasing, cf. the valediction in WSW 1.1.1851, ‘Trusting that you and yours are well . . . I am—my dear Sir j Yours sincerely j C. Bronte¨’ (CBL ii. 542). 1. The addressee is likely to be Mr Williams, who is thanked on 9 Mar. for sending the Eclectic Review and the Guardian. 2. See the next letter, n. 2. 3. An unsigned review of Villette appeared in the Critic, xii (Feb. 1853), 94–5. Noting that Jane Eyre owed its ‘great popularity’ to its story, the critic remarks that CB’s other novels, which were not exciting tales, would probably not have succeeded had they appeared Wrst. But ‘Miss Bronte¨ . . . made popularity by a plot, and she maintains her fame by good writing’, evident in her character portrayal, powerful descriptions, wholesome sentiment, spirit, vigour, and ‘the charm of a style that never grows tame and never permits the attention of the reader to Xag’. Shirley and Villette are works of art, not material for ‘circulating-library popularity’; ‘the oVspring of an original and inventive mind’, full of ideas, not verbiage. In Villette, Paulina is ‘the character of the story. . . she is drawn with exquisite delicacy, and her shy, strange manner is brought out with exceeding skill’. In addition to characters ‘nicely conceived and powerfully depicted’, the reviewer Wnds ‘quiet humour, a lively wit, brilliant dialogue, vivid description, reXections that are both new and true, sentiment wholesomely free from cant and conventionality, and bursts of eloquence and poetry Xashing here and there’ (Allott 190–2, part). 4. An enthusiastic review of Villette appeared in the Atlas for 12 Feb. 1853: ‘Original and often grand in her delineation of character, dramatic in a high degree, powerful in the management of her plot, with a strong sense of the meaning of Life and an earnest striving ‘‘upwards and onwards,’’ the authoress of Jane Eyre has secured a warm reception for Villette.’ The characters are developed in minute detail, and ‘Every feature is worked up with the careful accuracy of Van Eyck, but with a poetry and depth of feeling peculiarly the author’s own.’ The reviewer quotes the description of Mme Beck’s ‘wonderful system of espionage’, and notes the ‘almost painful suspense’ with which the reader watches the gradual unfolding of M. Paul’s complicated motives: ‘Few characters in modern Wction are pourtrayed with such subtle power’, for

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Paul’s high intellect and intense emotion, ‘continually crushed and thwarted by Jesuit training’, work their way through by ‘heroic devotion to truth’. ‘The system of intrigue is properly denounced, but without any bigotry or ranting against Catholicism.’ M. Paul’s character is demonstrated by a long quotation from ch. 33, and the ‘charming little ‘‘person’’ ’, Paulina, is introduced in an even longer quotation from ch. 2. The reviewer concludes: ‘The interest of the tale is metaphysical and subjective rather than external, and evinces a clear perception of the causes of mental suVering in a highly sensitive and conscientious mind. . . . As the ‘‘Ancient Mariner’’ held the ‘‘wedding guest,’’ with his glistening eye, who ‘‘could not choose but hear,’’ so are we enchained by every page of this remarkable book’ (106).

To W. S. Williams, 9 March 1853 Haworth. My dear Sir I thank you for the ‘‘Eclectic Review’’1 and the ‘‘Guardian’’2 which I have duly received and read. And now I can only say—surely few authors would be so weak as to be shaken by reviews like these! My dear Sir—were a Review to appear inspired with treble their animus— pray do not withold it from me. I like to see the satisfactory notices—especially I like to carry them to my Father—but I must see such as are unsatisfactory and hostile—these are for my own especial ediWcation—it is in these I best read public feeling and opinion. To shun examination into the dangerous and disagreeable seems to me cowardly—I long always to know what really is, and am only unnerved when kept in the dark. And now I smile at my friends with their little notes of condolence, with their hints about ‘‘unmanly insult’’. Surely the poor Guardian Critic has a right to lisp his opinion that Currer Bell’s female characters [do]3 not realize his notion of ladyhood—and even ‘‘respectfully to decline’’ the honour of an acquaintance with ‘‘Jane Eyre’’ and ‘‘Lucy Snowe’’ without meriting on that account to be charged with having oVered an ‘‘unmanly insult.’’ Ah! I forgive the worthy critic very freely—his acquaintance and his standard of reWnement are two points that will not trouble me much: perhaps ere tomorrow I shall even have forgiven my ‘‘Kyind friends’’ their false alarm. I received Miss Lupton’s4 letter, and felt at once on reading it that it formed an exception to the general rule of complimentary eVusions—that delicacy of feeling you speak of—appeared to me perceptible throughout. I answered her a few days ago. From what she said I conclude she is an authoress—what works has she written? I have tried to read ‘‘Daisy Burns’’;5 at the close of the 1st. Vol. I stopped. I must not give an opinion of it, for I should seem severe. Miss Kavanagh’s intentions are thoroughly good—her execution in this case seems to me disastrous. ‘‘Madeleine’’6 her Wrst quiet, unpretending book—is worth a

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hundred such tawdry deformities as ‘‘Daisy Burns’’—I Wnd in it no real blood or life; it is painted and cold. With kind regards to Mrs. W[illiams] and your family I am my dear Sir Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS HM 26009. W & S 832. Address (integral): W. S. Williams Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. For this Nonconformist journal see CBL ii. 620 n. 3. The Eclectic had previously reviewed Poems 1848 (xxv. 394), Shirley (xxvi. 739–49), and the 1850 edition of Wuthering Heights—‘one of the most repellent books we ever read’, despite its ‘considerable merit’ (ns i. 222–7; Allott 296–8). The somewhat obtuse reviewer of Villette in the number for Mar. 1853 acknowledges the ‘powerful and original’ genius of CB, whose works have a ‘tamarind-like piquancy’ unlike ordinary novels. Her ‘casual and delicate’ portrayal of the young Bretton and Polly Home is a striking aspect of her ‘peculiar genius’; yet the reviewer Wnds that the novel, like the characters, fails to interest the ‘sympathies and heart.’ Lucy Snowe ‘lacks enthusiasm and deep womanly love’, and M. Paul is ‘a Jesuit, and of course a spy’. There is scarcely ‘one instance of attractive virtue’. Changing tack again, and Wnding some talent in the characters, the reviewer now alleges that the ‘plot alone . . . is defective’, lacking incident, and vapid because it is ‘chieXy transacted in a girls’ boarding school’. The dialogue has vivacity, yet tires by its sameness; CB has distinguished talents and ‘female delicacy of touch’, but ‘the plan of her Wctions is not equal to their execution’ (Eclectic Review ns v. 305–20). 2. This high church paper had praised Jane Eyre on 1 Dec. 1847, though it criticized Helen Burns’s creed as capable of doing ‘much mischief ’ (CBL i. 573 n.). Balancing each merit against an alleged fault, the reviewer of Villette Wnds that CB’s individual and eloquent style is ‘often declamatory and exaggerated’, her feelings deep, but stern and masculine. Her vocation is in depicting ‘suppressed emotion and unreturned aVection’, yet her tales, conceived in a ‘somewhat cynical and bitter spirit’, have an ‘unpleasant mannerism’. Possibly true to life, they are ‘too uniformly painful’ to be acceptable ‘as unmingled truth’. She lacks reWnement, and her supposedly pure women are no ladies, for they behave in a way ‘no really high-minded and virtuous person would consent to’. The supposedly innocent Paulina ‘corresponds with a young man clandestinely for months’. Worst of all, diVerences in religion are treated as immaterial, and Christianity is degraded ‘to a loose sentiment or feeling’. Yet CB’s description of characters is capital, and M. Paul is ‘painted with the hand of a master’: ‘We cannot help feeling he deserved a better fate than to become engaged to Lucy Snowe, and to be drowned at sea . . . before he could be married to her’ (Guardian 23.2.1853, 128–9; Allott 193–4, part). 3. MS reads ‘to’. 4. Probably Mary Anne Lupton, afterwards Needell, author of Ada Gresham: An Autobiography, 3 vols., published by Hurst and Blackett, 1853. The British Library catalogue lists eleven other novels, among which T. C Newby published Catherine Irving in 1855, and Smith, Elder published Julian Karslake’s Secret in 1881. 5. Julia Kavanagh, Daisy Burns, published by Bentley in Jan. 1853. Echoes of Jane Eyre abound. The narrator of this ‘autobiographical’ novel is Margaret Burns, later called ‘Daisy’ by her friends. Orphaned as a child, she is rude and recalcitrant to servants, but passionately devoted to the kind and handsome young Cornelius, who takes her to her unknown grandfather’s dark old mansion. There she is coldly received by her grandfather and a hostile housekeeper, who observes that she is a ‘puny thing’ who won’t live. Lonely, silent, and friendless, she is soon cast oV by her grandfather, but is pitied by Cornelius, who takes her to the house where he lives with his sister Kate. Though the happy ending is already obvious, the complicated and illmotivated plot winds its way through the remainder of the three volumes until in the last chapter the hero and heroine reveal the love for each other which they have restrained until

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then—Cornelius having concealed ‘the secret wrath which trembled in every Wbre’ of his being when other suitors ‘attempted to woo and win . . . the only girl for whom [he] cared’. CB probably agreed with the reviewer in Sharpe’s London Magazine ns ii. 189, where Kavanagh’s work is contrasted with that of the ‘matured author of Villette’, who ‘stands forth brave, but not desperate, the chronicler of a true and earnest woman’s pilgrimage’: Daisy Burns belongs to the ‘eau sucre´e school’, exemplifying the ‘sickly silly sensibility, which has taken possession of several of our young lady novelists’. 6. Kavanagh’s Madeleine was published in Oct. 1848. Her Wrst published book was The Three Paths, a ‘tale for children’, Jan. 1848. See CBL ii. 135 n., 144 n.

To Ellen Nussey, 10 March 1853 Haworth. Dear Ellen I only got the ‘‘Guardian’’1 Newspaper yesterday morning and have not yet seen either the ‘‘Critic’’2 or ‘‘Sharpe’s Mag-e.’’3 The ‘‘Guardian’’ does not wound me much—I see the motive—which indeed there is no attempt to disguise—still I think it is a choice little morsel for foes— (Mr. Grant4 was the Wrst person to bring the news of the review to Papa) and a still choicer for ‘‘friends’’ who—bless them! while they would not perhaps positively do one an injury—still take a dear delight in dashing with bitterness the too sweet cup of success. Is Sharpe’s small article like a bit of sugarcandy too Ellen? Or has it the proper wholesome wormwood Xavour? Of course I guess it will be like the ‘‘Guardian’’. It matters precious little My dear ‘‘friends’’ will weary of waiting for the ‘‘Times’’ ‘‘O Sisera!—why tarry the wheels of thy chariot so long!’’5 How is your sister Ann? In a note I had from Miss Wooler lately she mentions that <she> ’Mrs. C[lapham]’ had lately been ill—conWned to her bed—As your last makes no special mention of her illness—I trust she is now better. I hope Mercy is also convalescent and that your Mother is pretty well. Give my love to them all. Mrs. *Upjohn6 is really a strange person—but I begin to think that when you actually go to Gorleston, you will Wnd her better than expectation—she cannot be much worse. I am dear Ellen Yrs faithfully C Bronte¨ MS Law-Dixon. W & S 833. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: from beginning to ‘who—bless’, based on MGC’s transcript of original MS; remainder based on incomplete photostat of original MS. Both sources are in BPM.

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1. See WSW 9.3.1853 n. 2. 2. See ?WSW 7.3.1853 n. 3. 3. In June 1850 Sharpe’s London Journal, as it then was, had criticized Shirley for its coarseness, unreality, and poor characterization. The review of Villette in Sharpe’s London Magazine ns ii (1853), 189–90, was comparatively favourable. Unlike the wilful and eccentric Currer Bell of the ‘rugged and dangerous’ Jane Eyre, the ‘matured author’ of Villette presents a heroine who ‘Wghts the battle of life with womanly, yet indestructible heroism. Her occasional hardness and unfeminine breadth of character are the results of circumstances, not of a violation of female nature.’ The love she Wnds is noble and elevated; and the presentation of the pension shows how genius ‘can stamp . . . the basest metal’; Madame Beck is ‘a masterly development of a character thoroughly. . . foreign’, controlling a school where espionage is essential to the safety of the pupils. English parents wishing to send their children to a foreign school should read this true tableau. ‘Engrossing’ Catholicism is fearlessly portrayed, without prejudice or bitterness. But there is little or no plot, the ghost mystery is clumsy, and though Villette is the ‘most delicate and reWned’ of Currer Bell’s novels, it lacks the ‘purely imaginative quality’ which ‘lends grace and tenderness’ to the strong mind. Yet the reader is kept spellbound, M. Paul develops from the initial ‘clever eccentric sketch’ to his eventual full glory, and the ‘spirit, and health, and energy of ‘‘Mees Lucie’’ is English’. The reviewer recommends this ‘deep-hearted book’ by ‘one who is gifted with a man’s head and a woman’s heart’. 4. As the prototype of ‘Mr Donne’ in Shirley, Mr Grant might relish bad reviews of CB’s work. 5. Judges 5: 28; part of the triumphant song of Deborah and Barak, who gloat over the defeat of the powerful enemy of Israel, Sisera, with his ‘nine hundred chariots of iron’. He had been killed as he slept, by a woman, Jael. The words quoted are spoken by the mother of Sisera, who ‘looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice’. But CB’s ‘powerful enemy’, The Times, did not review Villette. 6. For Mrs Upjohn, see EN 31.10.1852 and notes.

To Ellen Nussey [?16 March 1853] Wednesday Morn-g [Haworth] Dear Ellen I return Mrs. *Upjohns letter. I quite agree w[ith] Mr. *Clapham that ‘‘they [have raised] a certain gentleman1 [in that] [hou]se, and can’t or wo[n’t] [put] him down again.[’’] It seems to me that you ought to go if possible—you will at any rate see a new phase of life—but whether permanent good will result from the visit is more than doubtful. That idea of receiving a ?pi[ous 1]ady to board and lodge and ?[a]ct as an independent Sister struck me as very odd—after all Mrs. Upjohn has said to you. I [?thought you] were to be the [ . . . ] sister—the paying [ . . . ] seems a new notion, but perhaps she wants two people to keep her in countenance, [?an]d bear testimony to the iniquities of her domestics. Poor woman—what [incomplete] MS BPM B.S. 86.5. No publication traced. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: Mar 15—53

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Date: the year is likely to be 1853, when references to the Upjohns proliferate; but EN has probably dated the letter one day before a postmark date. The Wednesday nearest to her date was 16 Mar., between two other ‘Upjohn’ letters, on 10 and 22 Mar. Text: diYcult to establish, owing to the very dilapidated state of the MS. This conjectural reconstruction includes words (in square brackets without question marks) from an incomplete copy by EN in the Needham collection at BPM. For the Needham letters see T. J. Winnifrith, ‘Charlotte Bronte¨’s letters to Ellen Nussey’, Durham University Journal (Dec. 1970), 16–18, and Winnifrith Background Appendix B. 1. An evil spirit, or the devil? Cf. EN 19.5.1853, ‘unless the house be really haunted as Mr *Clapham supposed’.

George Smith to Harriet Martineau, 18 March 1853 Extract1 London. . . . I am happy to say that we all thought Miss Bronte¨ better than we had before seen her, last time she was in London2—in better health, and in much better spirits—one cannot wonder that with her weak health and delicate physical organization, the kind of life she leads should aVect her spirits. You will be glad to learn that ‘‘Villette’’ has had a very fair success and that it appears to be better liked by the Public than by the ‘‘Critics,’’ and the latter have on the whole been merciful— . . . MS BUL Martineau Collection HM 1206. No publication traced. 1. In the previous part of this letter GS refuses to publish a children’s book translated by a friend of Miss Martineau, but oVers to negotiate on her behalf with ‘any Publisher of children’s Books’. He also refuses to reprint Martineau’s Playfellow, but ‘As regards ‘‘Deerbrook’’ . . . I should be very glad to publish a cheap edition of a Book which has always been a favorite of mine’. In a letter of 21 Mar. 1853 he oVers £50 for the copyright of Deerbrook, which he hopes to include in a ‘series of choice books’ where it would ‘form a suitable neighbour to ‘‘Esmond’’ and ‘‘Jane Eyre’’ ’. 2. Smith compares CB’s health during her visit to London from 28 May to 27 June 1851 with her recent visit in Jan. 1853. See EN 11.1.1853 and notes. Miss Martineau had asked him for news of CB, who had been hurt and oVended by Martineau’s review of and private comments on Villette, and had ceased to communicate with her. See their correspondence of ?early Feb. 1853, and CB’s acknowledgement of the breach in her letter to Smith of 26 Mar. 1853.

To Ellen Nussey, [22 March 1853] [Haworth] Tuesday Morning Dear Ellen Mrs: *Upjohn really carries her protractions and vacillations a little too far— and I am truly sorry that ’your’ movements should thus inevitably be hampered by her Xuctuations. It is a trial of Job to be thus moved backward

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and forward by this most luckless of MiSstresses and her tribe of reprobate servants. Thank you for sending Amelia’s1 notes; though I have not alluded to them lately they always amuse me—I like to read them; one gets from them a clear enough idea of her sort of life. Joe’s attempts to improve his good partner’s mind make me smile. I think it all right enough and doubt not they are happy in their way—only the direction2 he gives his eVorts seems ’of ’ rather problematic wisdom—Algebra and Optics! Why not rather enlarge her views by a little wellchosen general reading? However—they do right to amuse themselves in their own way, The rather dark view you seem inclined to take of the general opinion about ‘‘Villette’’—surprizes me the less, dear Nell, as only the more unfavourable reviews3 seem to have come in your way. Some reports reach me of a diVerent tendency;4 but no matter—Time will shew. As to the character of ‘‘Lucy Snowe’’ my intention from the Wrst was that she should not occupy the pedestal to which ‘‘Jane Eyre’’ was raised by some injudicious admirers. She is where I meant her to be, and where no charge of self-laudation can touch her. I cannot accept your kind invitation. I must be at home at Easter on two or three accounts connected with Sermons to be preached, parsons to be entertained, Mechanic’s Institute Meetings and tea-drinkings to be solemnized—and erelong I have promised to go and see Mrs. Gaskell—but till this wintry weather is passed I would rather eschew visiting anywhere. I trust that bad cold of yours is quite well and that you will take good care of yourself in future. That nightwork is always perilous Yrs faithfully C Bronte¨ MS Law-Dixon. W & S 834. Address: not in sources. PM: not in sources. Annotation by EN in ink: 29 298 by EN in pencil: Mar 22—53 Date: from EN’s note. 22 Mar. was a Tuesday. Text: second paragraph based on MGC’s transcript of the original MS; remainder based on incomplete photostat of original MS. Both sources are in BPM. 1. Amelia Ringrose Taylor seems to have been unintellectual, whereas her husband Joseph Taylor was well travelled, and probably quite well educated, since he was a ‘clever practical & theoretical chemist’ (BST 15. 79. 309). Cf. the presentation of Martin Yorke, recognizably based on Joe Taylor, as a clever, imaginative schoolboy in Shirley. 2. M. G. Christian transcribes as ‘directions’. The W & S reading, ‘direction’, is preferable, since it is followed by the singular form of the verb, ‘seems’. 3. See e.g. WSW 9.3.1853 n. 2 and EN 10.3.1853. EN perhaps chose to emphasize criticism rather than praise, recalling for example the Leeds Intelligencer’s objection to CB’s ‘constant employment of scripture imagery and scripture language’, and its admission that there are ‘weary pages of sentiment’ and an ‘obstinate determination’ to be as wretched as possible, rather than its praise of the original, ‘real Xesh and blood’ characters, ‘sparkling narrative’, and genius in transforming slender materials into a ‘work of thrilling interest’ (Leeds Intelligencer 19.2.1853).

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4. G. H. Lewes had reviewed Villette favourably in the Leader for 12 Feb. 1853. See WSW 8.4.1853 n. 2. The Spectator also appreciated the abundance of ‘interesting scenes, and . . . well-drawn characters’, and the novel’s clearness, power, and honesty; Lucy never sacriWces truth, though her ‘morbid sensibility’ may not be quite consistent with her strength of will and other good qualities. The reviewer regrets the strained, highly Wgurative language depicting violent emotions when it leads to tediousness and obscurity, but sensitively detects the ‘genuine eVusion from an overstrained endurance’ elsewhere in the novel. (Spectator 12.2.1853, 155–6; Allott 181–4, part). In La Revue des Deux Mondes for Mar. 1853, 1084–96, Euge`ne Forc¸ade ranks both Currer Bell and Lady Georgiana Fullerton ‘au premier rang parmi celles qui e´crivent des romans’, reveals that the former is ‘miss Bronty’, and proceeds to contrast their styles of writing. CB’s ‘manie`re’ is ‘aˆpre, tourmente´e, un peu sauvage’; but, summing up after a long re´sume´ of the plot of Villette, Forc¸ade deWnes her unique skills: ‘Ce sont les sce`nes, de´taille´es avec minutie, qui donnent aux caracte`res une vivante et piquante re´alite´; . . . Ce sont ces ardeurs d’esprit et de plume qui e´clatent a` travers le prosaı¨sme syste´matiquement choisi des incidens et des situations’ (Allott 199–200, English trans. of part). Even the Catholic Dublin Review found matter for praise, despite its severe condemnation of CB’s anti-Catholic stance. Deploring the author’s ‘subtle tinge of fatalism’ which ‘strike[s] at the very root’ of responsibility and moral law, and her ‘silly caricature of catholic practice and discipline’, the reviewer still appreciated M. Paul’s religious faith and Lucy Snowe’s accessibility to ‘religious inXuences’. CB and three other contemporary novelists—Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, and Lady Georgiana Fullerton—were admitted to be of ‘undisputed pre-eminence’ (Dublin Review (Mar. 1853), 174–203).

To W. S. Williams, 23 March 1853 Haworth My dear Sir I lose no time in congratulating you on the favourable tidings received from your son.1 Both for his own sake and that of his parents—I earnestly hope Providence may prosper him in that new and remote region into which he has ventured; but I trust he will be careful, and be very sure of his own Wrm establishment before he holds out inducements to others to join him. He will naturally wish for the solace of kindred aVection, and perhaps may be tempted by that wish to overlook important diYculties. Will his kind father take care and not be too hasty on this point? A new career a new sphere, a new clime oVer temp[t]ations to sanguine minds; but let Prudence mingle her quiet word with the whispers of Inclination. The note you sent this morning from Lady Harriette St. Clair2 is precisely to the same purport as Miss Mulock’s3 request—an application for exact and authentic information respecting the fate of M. Paul Emanuel!! You see how much the ladies think of this little man whom you none of you like. I had a letter the other day announcing that a lady of some note who had always determined that whenever she married, her elect should be the counterpart of Mr. Knightley in Miss Austen’s ‘‘Emma’’4—had now changed her mind and vowed that she would either Wnd the duplicate of Professor Emanuel or remain forever single!!!

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I have sent Lady Harriette an answer so worded as to leave the matter pretty much where it was. Since the little puzzle amuses the ’ladies’ it would be a pity to spoil their sport by giving them the key. . It seems an old acquaintance of my Father’s—a Mr. Morgan,5 the good rector of Hulcoates lately found his way to Cornhill. He writes that he had a ‘‘long and interesting conversation’’ with one of my publishers, but does not say whether it was Mr. Williams or Mr. Smith—and that it was suggested that the ‘‘French phrases’’ in ‘‘Villette’’—about which the worthy old gentleman has already several times expressed himself a good deal disturbed) shall be translated in foot-notes in a new edition. I can’t say that <say that> this suggestion quite meets my ideas—but however as the New Edition is itself a thing in limbo—I need not discuss the point.6 Thanking you for Miss M’s note which I return I am, my dear Sir Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS Texas. W & S 836 (part). Address (integral): W. S. Williams Esqr. PM; not in MS. 1. Frank (William Francis) Williams, b. ?1831, eldest son of W. S. Williams; described as ‘Artist Decorator’ in the 1851 Census. He had emigrated to Australia in 1852. See CBL ii. 709 n., and ECG 6.2.1852. 2. Lady Harriet Elizabeth St Clair (d. 29 Nov. 1867), daughter of James Alexander St Clair Erskine, 3rd Earl of Rosslyn. She married Count Munster, German Ambassador to the court of St James’s, 2 Aug. 1865. Her brother Francis Robert, Lord Rosslyn from June 1866, was a minor poet. 3. Dinah Mary Mulock (1826–87; m. G. L. Craik 1864), novelist. See CBL ii. 707 n. 4. CB had a limited appreciation of Jane Austen’s work. See her letters to G. H. Lewes of 18 Jan. 1848 and to W. S. Williams of 12 Apr. 1850. Smith, Elder had sent her copies of Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Pride and Prejudice in Mar. 1850 (CBL ii. 361–2). 5. The Revd William Morgan (?1782–25 Mar. 1858), a good friend of Mr Bronte¨, whom he had Wrst met in Wellington, Shropshire, in 1809; perpetual curate at Christ Church, Bradford, from 1815 until 1851, when he became Rector of Hulcott, Bucks. See CBL i. 213 n. 6. The French phrases remained untranslated in the second edition of Villette, which was not published until Oct. 1855.

Catherine Winkworth1 to Emma Shaen,2 23 March 1853 Extract Alderley I made up my mind not to write to you again till I had read ‘‘Villette,’’ and now I have just Wnished it, and don’t wonder at all you say about it. It is a thorough enjoyment to read it, so powerful everywhere, no rant, as there were bits of in her other books, so deep and true in its appreciation of character. . . . I like him [Graham Bretton] so much, though he didn’t appreciate Lucy Snowe.

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To be sure she scarcely gave him a chance. Should you have fallen in love with the Wery little Professor for scolding so abominably? One can see very well how Lucy did it, when he alone had the power to see anything of her heart. . . . ‘‘Villette’’ makes one feel an extreme reverence for any one capable of so much deep feeling and brave endurance and truth, but it makes one feel ‘‘eerie,’’ too, to be brought face to face with a life so wanting in Verso¨hnung,3 as Germans would say. I wonder whether Miss B. is so, and I wonder, too, whether she ever was in love; surely she could never herself have made love to any one, as all her heroines, even Lucy Snowe, do. To be sure Paulina does not; how well she and Ginevra are contrasted; only it annoys one at last that that Nun, who really has frightened one all through the book, turns out a trick of such a stupid creature. How Wnely done—though very improbable, one can’t help fancying—is that feˆte-night when she wanders out;—just like a wild bad dream; but, as Selina4 says, ‘‘one wouldn’t for the sake of a stupid probability miss all that beautiful piece.’’ No, indeed! Yes: there are bits that go very deep into one’s heart; more especially with me all she says about facing and accepting some evil fate. And yet, yet, it never goes quite deep enough; it comes to an heroic Stoicism which is grand, but not the best. . . . Lily [Mrs Gaskell] herself has been rather ailing and low-spirited lately; she takes to heart very much all the evil that is said of ‘‘Ruth,’’ and, of course, a great deal is said; . . . But then she gets the very highest praise from Mr. Scott and Bunsen, and from Mr. Maurice and Archdeacon Hare, from Hallam5 and Monckton Milnes,6 besides many other less celebrated names, . . . MS untraced. W & S 835. Address not in source. PM: not in source. Text: Letters and Memorials i. 389–90. 1. Catherine Winkworth (1827–78), translator of German hymns and other works, and friend of the Gaskells. She was to meet CB at the Gaskells’ house in Apr. 1853, and to become her personal friend. See other references to her in CBL ii, and in the present volume. 2. Daughter of the Unitarian Samuel Shaen of Crix, Essex. Emma’s brother William had married Catherine Winkworth’s sister Emily on 2 Sept. 1851. Mrs Gaskell knew the family well, and the Shaens had invited CB to stay with them at Crix in Jan. 1851. See ECG 13.12.1850 and nn., CBL ii. 533. 3. Reconciliation, harmony. 4. Catherine Winkworth’s sister (1825–85), one of Mr Gaskell’s pupils. 5. Alexander John Scott (1805–66), Wrst principal of Owens College, Manchester, 1851–7; a friend of the Winkworths and Gaskells, who valued his opinions on literature. See references in Gaskell Further Letters. Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen (1791–1860), theologian and philologist, Prussian Ambassador in London until 1854, was a close friend of Catherine and Susanna Winkworth, who visited him, and travelled with him and his family in Germany. Susanna was for a time his literary secretary, and translated some of his works. The Winkworths and Gaskells, like CB, respected the views of Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–72) and Julius Charles Hare (1795–1855), Archdeacon of Lewes. See references to all the above in Letters and Memorials of Catherine Winkworth, and CBL ii. The historian Henry Hallam (1777–1859) was the father of Tennyson’s friend Arthur Hallam. 6. For Richard Monckton Milnes, see PB to Milnes, 16.1.1852 n. 1.

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Catherine Winkworth to Emily Shaen,1 25 March [1853] Extract Alderley, Good Friday . . . We have just Wnished ‘‘Villette’’; now you must write and tell us what you think about it. It is wonderfully powerful we think. I like that strong, easy, pointed way of writing thoroughly; and how Wne some of the descriptions are,—that chapter about Miss Marchmont and the night of the feˆte; and the theatre. But I wish there were an ending to the book. It is too bad to plunge her back again into utter misery after such a weak infusion of happiness; and besides, it gives the whole work somehow the air of a fragment. She comes out of utter darkness, and vanishes into it again, and there is no sort of solution to all the miserable riddles of her life. But, as you say, it tells one a great deal about Miss Bronte´ herself;—and what a sad story it tells! Her characters are so life-like that several of them strike me as being real portraits. Madame Beck and that St. Pierre and Ginevra Fanshawe.2 That last volume had not quite enough in it about Graham Bretton, and altogether it is rather uncomfortable to get up your interest thoroughly in one hero in the second volume, and then to let him drop, and have to do it over again for another in the third. Not but what M. Paul turns out quite worth taking an interest in. That’s one thing I like in Miss Bronte´, that her men are so much better than most women’s men. But, poor creature, how she must have suVered in that lonely Yorkshire life, and when she was a governess! MS untraced. Letters and Memorials i. 391–2. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: Letters and Memorials. 1. Catherine Winkworth’s sister, wife of William Shaen; a close friend and correspondent of Mrs Gaskell. See C. Winkworth to Emma Shaen 23.3.1853 and notes. 2. Portraits based on Mme Heger, Directress of the Brussels pensionnat, one of her underteachers (probably Mlle Blanche), and an English pupil, Maria Miller, for whom see LW ?16.6.1852 and notes.

To George Smith, 26 March 1853 Haworth. My dear Sir The ‘‘Mail’’ being now fairly gone out, (at least I hope so) I venture to write to you. I trust the negotiations to which you allude in your last, will be brought to an early and successful conclusion, and that their result will really be a division and

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consequent alleviation of labour.1 That you had too much to do, too much to think about—nobody of course can know so well as yourself; therefore it might seem superXuous to dwell on the subject; and yet a looker-on could not but experience a painful prescience of ill sooner or later ensuing from such exertions if continued. That week of over-work which occurred when I was in London was a thing not to be forgotten. Besides ‘‘cultivating the humanities’’—be resolved to turn to account some part of your leisure in getting fresh air and exercise. When people think too much and sit too closely—the circulation loses its balance, forsakes the extremities and bears with too strong a current on the brain; I suppose exercise is the best means of counteracting such a state of things. Pardon me if I speak too much like a doctor. You express surprise that Miss Martineau should apply to you for news of me. The fact is I have never written to her since a letter I received from her about eight weeks ago—just after she had read ‘‘Villette’’.2 What is more—I do not know when I can bring myself to write again. The diVerences of feeling between Miss M. and myself are very strong and marked; very wide and irreconcilable. Besides I fear language does not convey to her apprehension the same meaning as to mine. In short she has hurt me a good deal, and at present it appears very plain to me that she and I had better not try to be close friends; my wish indeed is that she should quietly forget me. Sundry notions that she considers right and grand—strike me as entirely monstrous.3 it is of no use telling her so: I don’t want to quarrel with her, but I want to be let alone. The sketch you enclose is indeed a gem; I suppose I may keep it? ‘‘Miss Eyre’’ is evidently trying to mesmerize ‘‘Pilot’’ by a stare of unique Wxity, and, I fear I must add—stolidity. The embodiment of ‘‘Mr. Rochester surpasses anticipation, and strikes panegyric dumb. With regard to that momentous point—M. Paul’s fate—in case any one in future should request to be enlightened thereon—they may be told that it was designed that every reader should settle the catastrophe for himself, according to the quality of his disposition, the tender or remorseless impulse of his nature. ’drowning and Matrimony are the fearful alternatives’ The Merciful—like Miss Mulock, Mr. Williams, Lady Harriet St. Clair and Mr. Alexander Frazer4—will of course choose the former and milder doom—drown him to put him out of pain. The cruel-hearted will on the contrary pitilessly impale him on the second horn of the dilemma—marrying him without ruth or compunction to that—person—that—that— individual—‘‘Lucy Snowe’’. The ‘‘Lectures’’5 arrived safely; I have read them through twice. They must be studied to be appreciated. I thought well of them when I heard them delivered, but now I see their real power, and it is great. The lecture on Swift6 was new to me; I thought it almost matchless. Not that, by any means, I always agree with Mr. Thackeray’s opinions, but his force, his

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penetration, his pithy simplicity, his eloquence—his manly sonorous eloquence command entire admiration. I deny, and must deny that Mr. Thackeray is very good or very amiable, but the Man is great. Great but mistaken, full of errors—against his errors I protest—were it treason to do so. I was present at the Fielding Lecture:7 the hour spent in listening to it was a painful hour. That Thackeray was wrong in his way of treating Fielding’s character and vices—my Conscience told me. After reading that lecture—I trebly feel that he was wrong—dangerously wrong. Had Thackeray owned a son grown or growing up:—a son brilliant but reckless—would he of [sic] spoken in that light way of courses that lead to disgrace and the grave? He speaks of it all as if he theorized; as if he had never been called on in the course of his life to witness the actual consequences of such failings; as if he had never stood by and seen the issue—the Wnal result of it all. I believe if only once the spectacle of a promising life blasted in the outset by wild ways—had passed close under his eyes—he never could have spoken with such levity of what led to its piteous destruction. Had I a brother yet living—I should tremble to let him read Thackeray’s lecture on Fielding; I should hide it away from him. If, in spite of precaution, it fell into his hands—I should earnestly pray him not to be misled by the voice of the charmer—let him charm never so wisely.8 Not that for a moment—I would have had Thackeray to abuse Fielding, or Pharisaically to condemn his life; but I do most deeply grieve that it never entered into his heart sadly and nearly to feel the evil and the peril of such a career—that he might have dedicated some of his great strength to a potent warning against its adoption by any young man. I believe temptation often assails the Wnest manly natures; as the pecking sparrow or destructive wasp attacks the sweetest and mellowest fruit— eschewing what is sour and crude. The true lover of his race ought to devote his vigour to guard and protect; he should sweep away every lure with a kind of rage at its treachery. You will think this all far too serious I daresay; but the subject is serious, and one cannot help feeling upon it earnestly Believe me sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 81. W & S 837 (part) and 848 (part, as to W. S. Williams). Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. For George Smith’s ‘heavy strain’ and overwork, see EN 11.1.1853 and notes. He was about to appoint a partner in the Wrm, Henry Samuel King (1817–78), formerly a bookseller in Brighton. Leonard Huxley describes him as ‘an able collaborator’ who ‘took part in the general supervision of the business and received a quarter-share of the proWts. The partnership lasted

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to the end of the year 1868. George Smith felt that it fettered his independence in some degree, but it lightened his labours and left him free to develop other business enterprises’ (Huxley 82). In 1868 King retained ‘the Indian agency and banking business in his own name’ and became the ‘proprietor of the Homeward Mail and the Overland Mail; published many works 1871–77; relinquished publishing and bookselling portion of his business. d. 45 Pall Mall, London 17 Nov. 1878’ (Boase ii. 223). See Harriet Martineau’s letter to CB of ?early Feb. 1853 (p. 117), CB’s response to it in the following letter, and GS to HM 18.3.1853. Martineau, however, was ‘as merry as a grig’ and ‘talked very nicely about Miss Bronte´’ when Susanna Winkworth met her in Mar. 1853 at the home of W. R. Greg, near Windermere. Susanna had ‘perfectly agreed’ with her about Villette. See Letters and Memorials i. 395. For Martineau’s ‘atheism’ as expounded in her joint work with H. G. Atkinson, Letters on the Laws of Man’s Social Nature and Development (1851) see esp. CBL ii. 550, 563, 571, 575 nn. CB probably knew that in Mar. 1853 Martineau was absorbed in her translation and condensation of Cours de Philosophie Positive (1830–42) by Auguste Comte, who maintained that human intellectual development had moved beyond theology and metaphysics to a modern positive stage ‘distinguished by an awareness of the limitations of human knowledge’ (Encyclopædia Britannica (1982), iv. 1060). Susanna Winkworth, during the visit mentioned above, talked with Martineau ‘about her translation of Comte, about which she is perfectly enthusiastic’. For ‘Alexander Frazer’ see GS 16.2.1853; for Miss Mulock and Lady Harriet, see WSW 23.3.1853 nn. 3 and 2. Thackeray’s Lectures on the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century, just published in one volume. CB had attended four of Thackeray’s lectures in London in 1851: see GS 11.3.1852 n. 3, and references in CBL ii. CB had missed this lecture on 22 May, the Wrst of the series. In his introductory remarks Thackeray points out that the humorous writer ‘professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, your kindness—your scorn for untruth, pretension, imposture—your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy’. He admits that Swift is a great writer, but gives a damning, biased account of Swift’s character as a bully, coward, and self-serving lackey to the great, prostituting his talents and intellect for the sake of self-advancement, bitterly conscious of his servitude in Temple’s household, and suVering from his own scepticism. Though Thackeray execrates Swift’s ‘grave and logical conduct of an absurd proposition’ in the Modest Proposal, he praises it in the ‘surprising humour’ and noble satire of the Wrst part of Gulliver’s Travels, and appreciates his ‘wise thrift and economy’ of style, and avoidance of extravagant rhetoric; but he condemns utterly the moral of the ‘Houyhnmnms’ fable as ‘horrible, shameful, unmanly, blasphemous’. Above all he emphasizes the ‘saeva indignatio’ which ‘breaks out from [Swift] in a thousand pages of his writing, and tears and rends him’. Thackeray also presents a hostile picture of Swift in Henry Esmond. In his lecture on Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding on 26 June 1851, Thackeray describes Fielding’s youthful ‘ardent spirits’, his ‘keen and healthy relish for life’, admirable ‘natural love of truth’, ‘antipathy to hypocrisy’, and his ‘spirit that never gave in’ during the disease that aZicted him in his last days. Though he admits Fielding’s weaknesses, his running into debt and readiness to borrow from his friends, Thackeray expresses a genial tolerance for that liking for ‘good wine . . . and good company’ which led to the debts: ‘Stained as you see him, and worn by care and dissipation, that man retains some of the most precious and splendid human qualities and endowments.’ He sides with Fielding, singing ‘the loudest in tavern choruses’, and reeling home afterwards, against the ‘puny cockney’ Richardson, pouring out ‘sentimental twaddle’, and nursed on ‘dishes of tea’. Thackeray Wnds fault only with Fielding’s assumption that the dubiously moral Tom Jones is an admirable hero: ‘Here, in Art and Ethics, there is a great error’. CB’s condemnation was fuelled by her agonizing recollection of the weaknesses and dissipation which contributed to Branwell Bronte¨’s degradation and death. George Smith was more liberal in his attitude to Fielding, and was impatient of those who found fault with Thackeray’s moral standards. In a letter to Harriet Martineau of 21 Mar. 1853 he wrote: ‘I wish some Friends of mine who lock ‘‘Esmond’’ with Fielding Smollett &c. in a book case protected

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from the young and innocent by one of Chubbs best seven guarded locks—could see your opinion regarding it’s morality—For my part I have left oV trying to understand what is moral ’as regards books,’ for I invariably Wnd that certain ‘‘detectives’’ in Society have so keen a scent after impurity that they Wnd it in every Book which is not composed of weak milk & water—’ (Birmingham University Library, MS HM 1207). 8. A distortion of the Psalmist’s meaning in Psalm 58: 3–5: ‘The ungodly. . . go astray, and speak lies. j They are . . . like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears, j Which refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer: charm he never so wisely’ (BCP).

To Ellen Nussey [on or before 29 March 1853] [Haworth] Dear Ellen, I have the pleasure of forwarding you a racy review in the ‘‘Morning Herald.’’1 When read, be so good as to send the paper to Hunsworth, whence it came. Yours faithfully, C. Bronte¨. MS untraced. W & S 839. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: placed, without a precise date, between EN 6.4.1853 and EN 18.4.1853 in Nussey; but it must precede 29 Mar. See the next letter. Text: Nussey 304, which is reproduced in Shorter 625 and W & S 839. 1. The Morning Herald reviewed Villette on 24 Mar. 1853, mingling moderate praise with sharp criticism and with observations on the real-life derivation of some of the characters which must have perturbed CB. Despite the author’s genius and originality, her ‘peculiar character’ of mind perpetually challenged criticism or contradiction. Currer Bell was a ‘decided mannerist’. Villette, though less powerful than Jane Eyre, used the same formula: a plain, young teacher with a Wne and subtle intellect, yearning for love, and an outwardly forbidding, strong-willed older hero, boundlessly truthful and capable of loving. The earnest, occasionally bitter and perverse Lucy Snowe, presented with no reWned or subtle art, surely indicated not only a ‘personally interested narrator’, but also feelings and incidents based on fact—most of them occurring entirely within a Brussels pensionnat, for the reviewer unhesitatingly so identiWed ‘Villette’. He commended Lucy’s ‘wisely-controlled partiality’ for Dr John, observed Mme Beck’s ‘stealthy’ cleverness, M. Emanuel’s Wne intellect and generous and noble feelings, and the catastrophe which, ‘dimly shadowed forth’, caused his death. But a large school was illchosen to display ‘narrative or dramatic genius’; accounts of the pupils were invariably ‘harsh and slighting’; there was little variety, movement, or geniality; the attachment between Lucy and M. Emanuel was ‘odd and . . . extravagant’, the hurried, vague catastrophe discordant with and detached from the rest of the narrative. French, some of it ungrammatical, was used in excess; and above all, the ‘wayward, abrupt’, discontented heroine Wnds nothing of note save feeling—especially love, the display of which she ‘unnecessarily and morbidly watches’. Nothing was calm or complete, no character was perfectly clear, the philosophy of life presented in the novel was neither wise nor noble, and Lucy’s eternal introspection was mere ‘reWned selWshness’, whereas our duty is to do our allotted work cheerfully without complaint. The eloquent and impressive Currer Bell is ‘impelled by the quickening instincts of an ardent and loving, though still struggling and erring nature’ (3).

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To ?W. S. Williams,1 29 March 1853 Haworth. My dear Sir Have you sent me a copy of the ‘‘Morning Herald’’?2 I have not received one. Perhaps it has been posted and missed, or perhaps it may have been overlooked, or perhaps you may have kept it back with the kind thought of sparing me pain. Whichever hypothesis be correct I do not now ask for a copy, and you need not be at the trouble to send one, for I have already seen the paper; but if I am right in the last conjecture—I would fain impress on you this fact—viz that your friendly precaution<s> (that it is friendly I sincerely feel) must necessarily prove unavailing. My dear Sir—no hostile review of any note can be put forth that the rumour of it will not speedily reach the author whose work is in question. Favourable reviews may pass very quietly without a whisper of comment, but those of a contrary nature are pretty sure to be read, discussed and passed rapidly from hand to hand. A French Philosopher3 has expressed the reason of this, and our own English Satirist4 has likewise given his <shred> shrewd key to the mystery For my own part I can only record this signiWcant fact. I am indebted to my publishers for all I know of the favourable notices of ‘‘Villette’’. The hostile notices have been the care of my friends. When I revolve this consideration it makes me smile. My friends are very good—very. I thank some of them for the pains they take to enlighten me. My publishers on the other hand are extremely vexatious—they excite a tendency to chiding and expostulation—but to speak truth—I like them no worse provoking as they are—I feel they mean kindly. But seriously—they must please to remember that I would far rather receive unpleasant news through their medium than that of any other The book is in one sense theirs as much as it is mine, and I know they are not glad to hear it cried down. I am not so sure of some others Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 87. BST 12. 65. 409. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. It is possible that George Smith was the addressee, as claimed in BST 12. 65. 409, but there is no evidence for this in the surviving manuscript. Reviews were usually sent to CB by Mr Williams: see e.g. WSW 9.3.1853, 8.4.1853, 6.12.1853. One would expect a letter to G. Smith to be among the Seton-Gordon manuscripts. 2. See the previous letter. 3. Probably a reference to Franc¸ois de la Rochefoucauld, ‘Dans l’adversite´ de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous de´plaıˆt pas’ (‘In the misfortune of our best

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friends, we always Wnd something which is not displeasing to us’) (Maximes no. 99; later withdrawn, and eventually placed in Maximes Supprime´es n. 583). 4. Swift, referring to La Rochefoucauld in ‘On the Death of Dr. Swift’, 5–10: ‘This Maxim more than all the rest j Is thought too base for human Breast; j ‘‘In all Distresses of our Friends j We Wrst consult our private Ends, j While Nature kindly bent to ease us, j Points out some circumstance to please us.’’ ’

To Dr W. M. Wooler,1 31 March 1853 Haworth. My dear Sir I will not let another day pass without acknowledging your kind letter. Indeed it would have been answered before, were it not that just now a somewhat voluminous correspondence divides my attention more than is always convenient. A cordial word from old friends is very pleasant, and though I have seen comparatively little of yourself personally—I seem justiWed in classing you amongst the number of my friends by the fact of your near relationship to one who has such titles to my esteem and aVection as your excellent Sister—sisters, I may write—for in varying degrees—I know and esteem them all.2 I thank you for your kind invitation; before Summer is over I hope to spend a day at West-House, but I could not possibly Wx a time—as I have already entered into more visiting engagements than I am likely to make good. You will readily understand, my dear Sir, that at my Father’s age (76) I feel great reluctance to leave ’him alone too’ frequently As to your M.S.S—you might of course oVer them to any Publishing Firm you chose.3 I doubt whether Messrs. Smith & Elder (my publishers) would be the most eligible for your purpose. Their House deals chieXy in Wction, and consequently they are very cautious in putting forth works of a graver character, as not suiting their business-connection which lies chieXy with the circulating libraries.4 Should you now or at any future time decide on publishing (rather a venturous step in these days) permit me to warn you against being induced to publish at your own risk. Make the disposal of the copyright an indispensable preliminary or you would be almost certain to come oV with loss. I am sure you will excuse this hint. Give my kindest regards to Mrs. Wooler—your daughters, your little boy,5 and such of your sisters as are within speaking distance—and believe me Sincerely yours C Bronte¨ W. M. Wooler Esqre.

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MS BPM B.S. 88. BST 16. 82. 110. Address (integral): W. M. Wooler Esqre. (envelope): W. M. Wooler Esqre. j West-House j Dewsbury PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KE[I]GHL[EY] j MR 31 j 185– (iii) BRADFORD YORKS j MR 31 j 1853 (iv) W[A]KEFIELD j AP 1 j —3 j (v) DEWSBURY \ AP 1 j — 1. Dr William Moore Wooler (1795–1873) of Dewsbury, brother of CB’s friend and former teacher Margaret Wooler (1792–1885). The Provincial Medical Directory for 1847 describes him as ‘Gen[eral] Prac[titioner]: LSA 1817. Author of ‘‘The Philosophy of Temperance, and the Physical Causes of Moral Sadness,’’ 1840’ (311). 2. Dr Wooler’s other sisters were Katherine (1796–1884), Sarah (b. 1798), Susan[na] (Carter; 1800–72), and Eliza (1808–84). 3. Dr Wooler’s The Physiology of Education would be published by Simpkin Marshall & Co. in 1859. See CBL i. 116 n. 7. Possibly he had written other works. 4. Perhaps CB was unaware of the full range of Smith, Elder’s publishing list. Their catalogue for Jan. 1851 had included, for example, nine works of Wction and more than seventy of non-Wction, as well as a series of ‘Books for the Use of the Blind’. The non-Wction list included miscellaneous essays, distinguished works by Ruskin, prestigious scientiWc works by Herschel and Darwin, a specialist ‘Oriental and Colonial’ list, many educational volumes, such as ‘Elementary Works on Social Science’, and some religious works. 5. Dr Wooler’s second wife, Anne, ne´e Medley (1812–84), and their children William Upton Wooler (1848–1938) and Annie (1850–1934). They were to have a second son, Walter Hernaman (30 Nov. 1853–1936). Dr Wooler’s two daughters by his Wrst wife were Margaret Ellenora, known as Ellen, and Maria Louisa (later Blakeley).

To Ellen Nussey, 6 April 1853 Haworth. Dear Ellen I return Mrs. Upjohn’s letter. She has indeed acted very strangely—but it is evident to me that there is something very wrong either in herself, her husband, or her domestic arrangements or (what is perhaps most probable) in all three— and it may be that on the whole—provoking as this conclusion appears—it is the best for you that could well be arrived at. The grounds for expecting permanent good some time ago assumed a very unsubstantial appearance—the hope of present pleasure—I fear—would have turned out equally fallacious Indeed I now feel little conWdence in either comfort or credit ensuing from the connection in any shape My visit to Manchester1 is for the present put oV by Mr. Morgan having written to say that since Papa will not go ’to Buckingham’2 to see him he will come to Yorkshire to see Papa—when I don’t yet know—and I trust in goodness he will not stay long—as Papa really cannot bear putting out of his way—I must wait however till the inXiction is over. You ask about Mr. N[icholls]. I hear he has got a curacy3—but do not yet know where—I trust the news is true. He & Papa never speak. He seems to pass a desolate life. He has allowed late circumstances so to act on him as to freeze up his manner and overcast his countenance not only to those immediately

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4

concerned but to everyone. He sits drearily in his rooms—If Mr. ?Cartman or Mr. *Grant or any other clergyman calls to see and as they think to cheer him— he scarcely speaks—I Wnd he tells them nothing—seeks no conWdant—rebuVs all attempts to penetrate his mind—I own I respect him for this—He still lets Flossy go to his rooms and takes him to walk5—He still goes over to see Mr. Sowden6 sometimes—and poor fellow—that is all. He looks ill and miserable. I think and trust in Heaven he will be better as soon as he fairly gets away from Haworth. I pity him inexpressibly. We never meet nor speak—nor dare I look at him—silent pity is just all I can give him—and as he knows nothing about that—it does not comfort. He is now7 grown so gloomy and reserved— that nobody seems to like him—his fellow-curates shun trouble in that shape— the lower orders dislike it—Papa has a perfect antipathy to him—and he—I fear—to papa—Martha hates him—I think he might almost be dying and they would not speak a friendly word to or of him. How much of all this he deserves I can’t tell—certainly he never was agreeable or amiable—and is less so now than ever—and alas! I do not know him well enough to be sure that there is truth and true aVection—or only rancour and corroding disappointment at the bottom of his chagrin. In this state of things I must be and I am—entirely passive. I may be losing the purest gem—and to me far the most precious—life can give—genuine attachment—or I may be escaping the yoke of a morose temper—In this doubt conscience will not suVer me to take one step in opposition to Papas will—blended as that will is with the most bitter and unreasonable prejudices. So I just leave the matter where we must leave all important matters. Remember me kindly to all at Brookroyd and believe me Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS BPM Grolier E 24. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/63. W & S 838. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGH—Y j AP— (iii) LEEDS j AP 6 j 1853 j H Annotation by EN on letter: 300 Ap 6—53 j Mr Nicholls by EN on envelope: Ap 3 [sic]—53 j of Mrs Upjohn & Mr. N 1. CB’s visit to Mrs Gaskell’s home, planned for March, did not take place until 21–8 Apr. 2. For the Revd William Morgan see WSW 23.3.1853 n. 5. ‘Hulcoates’ or Hulcott, Buckinghamshire, 3 miles from Aylesbury, had only sixteen inhabitants in c.1840, according to Dugdale 985. For CB’s attitude to him, cf. EN 17.3.1840, where the curate Mr Weightman endures ‘that fat Welchman’s prosing’ (CBL i. 211); but his ‘true sense’ of Shirley had impressed CB in May 1851. 3. Mr Nicholls obtained a curacy at the fourteenth-century St Mary’s church (restored in 1862 and re-dedicated to St Peter in 1944) in Kirk Smeaton, 6 miles from Pontefract. Many of its original features had been plastered over or whitewashed in the eighteenth century. The Rector was the Revd Thomas Cator (1790–1864), son of Joseph Cator ‘and Diana, reputed dau[ghter]’ of Lord Albemarle Bertie; BA Trinity College Cambridge 1815, MA 1818 (Venn). A pluralist clergyman, he had been Vicar of Womersley, Yorks., Woodbastwick with Panxworth, Norfolk, and Rector of Elmley, Yorks., and he retained the incumbency of Womersley when he became Rector of Kirk Smeaton (1829–64). He had married Lady Louisa Frances Lumley, daughter

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5. 6. 7.

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of the Earl of Scarborough, on 12 Oct. 1825. The Clergy Lists give his address as Skelbrooke Park, Doncaster. W & S 838 reads ‘Mr Croxton’, but the manuscript is reasonably clear. The Revd William Cartman was kindly disposed towards Mr Nicholls. Like Mr Grant, he had provided a testimonial for his application to the SPG. See EN 2.1.1853 n. 5 and EN 4.3.1853 n. 6. Cf. Mr Bronte¨’s letter purporting to be from the spaniel Flossy, complaining that ‘No one takes me out to walk now’ ( Jan. 1853, p. 107). See EN 18.12.1852, 2.1.1853 and notes. MS reads ‘nown’.

Mrs Gaskell to Lady Kay-Shuttleworth, 7 April [1853] Extract Plymouth Grove . . . I ought to thank Miss Paplowska1 for her kindness in writing twice to me last autumn to tell me how you were; will you give her my very kind regards and best true thanks. I like what she said about Ruth, and what she did about it too, Sunday as it was. The diVerence between Miss Bronte¨ and me is that she puts all her naughtiness into her books, and I put all my goodness. I am sure she works oV a great deal that is morbid into her writing, and out of her life; and my books are so far better than I am that I often feel ashamed of having written them and as if I were a hypocrite. However I was not going to write of myself but of Villette. I don’t agree with you that one cannot forget that it is a ‘written book’. My interpretation of it is this. I believe it to be a very correct account of one part of her life; which is very vivid & distinct in her remembrance, with all the feelings that were called out at that period, forcibly present in her mind whenever she recurs to the recollection of it. I imagine she could not describe it <with> in the manner in which she would pass through it now, as her present self; but in looking back upon it all the passions & suVering, & deep despondency of that old time come back upon her. Some of this notion of mine is founded entirely on imagination; but some of it rests on the fact that many times over I recognized incidents of which she had told me as connected with that visit to Brussels.2 Whatever truth there may be in this conjecture of mine there can be no doubt that the book is wonderfully clever; that it reveals depths in her mind, aye, and in her heart too which I doubt if ever any one has fathomed. What would have been her transcendent grandeur if she had been brought up in a healthy & happy atmosphere no one can tell; but her life sounds like the fulWlment of duties to her father, to the poor around her, to the old servants (I have heard incidentally of such delicate kindness ’of her’s’ towards them) that I can not help hoping that in time she may work round to peace,—if she can but give up her craving for keen enjoyment of life—which after all comes only in drams to anyone, leaving the spaces between most dreary &

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depressing. Still it is easy to talk & arrange another’s [sic] person’s life for them; and I am sure I could not have borne, (even with my inferior vehemence of power & nature) her life of monotony and privation of any one to love. I hope she is coming here soon; and when she comes and I get little viva voce glimpses into her daily life I know I shall look up to her strength and (outward if you will) patience with wonder & admiration. . . . MS formerly Lord Shuttleworth. Part of CP letter 154. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: MS date ‘April 7.’ in ECG’s hand; ‘1853’ added in another hand. 1. Thus in MS, for Rosa Poplawska, German-Polish governess in the Kay-Shuttleworth household. CB had liked her when they met in Aug. 1850. See CBL ii. 368 n. 7. 2. Possibly these included the confession CB made in Ste Gudule, resembling Lucy Snowe’s experience in Villette, though Mrs Gaskell did not mention the church in Life.

To W. S. Williams, 8 April 1853 Haworth. My dear Sir All the Reviews you mention duly reached me, and I have to thank you for your kind attention in forwarding them so promptly. By the way, there were two numbers of the ‘‘Edinburgh’’1—sent by mistake no doubt. I will take care that one shall be returned in a parcel of Cornhill-books I intend to despatch shortly. Mr. Lewes—without, as you say, entering into the matter very deeply, has really shewn himself very hearty and generous in his treatment of ‘‘Villette’’. Both in the ‘‘Leader’’2 and ‘‘Wes[t]minster Review’’3 notices is expressed an honest spontaneous pleasure one would be sorry not to appreciate. May I request that in case you should chance to see him—you would kindly convey to him my thanks; and, if it is not too much trouble, just beg him at the same time to have the very great goodness to point out that particular vol. chap. and page of ‘‘Villette’’ wherein is recorded that remarkable fact (on which Mr. Lewes comments with such superior sense) of Dr. John Bretton ‘‘improvising a translation of the Greek dramatists(!!!) for the beneWt of the domestic circle.’’4 In case Mr. Lewes can succeed in laying his Wnger on such passage I shall be happy to disburse by way of penalty or Wne—whatever sum may reasonably ’be’ considered within the compass of a poor author’s means. The ‘‘Edinburgh Review’’-Mention is likewise favourable—and from such a quarter will no doubt tend to produce a beneWcial eVect. But, my dear Sir, shall I tell you which is the cleverest of all the reviews— and—inimical as it is—the one best calculated to give satisfaction to an author who can make up his mind wholly to dismiss personal vanity—and to disregard the persevering attempt to jar his individual feelings?

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It is that in the ‘‘Christian Remembrancer.’’5 Probably you have not read this review, or if you have glanced at it—you think the above declaration paradoxical. As I see the matter it appears thus. A clever, hard headed high-church ecclesiastic of sinewy bigotry and genuine talent takes up a work of ‘‘Currer Bells’’—detesting in his soul that same ‘‘Currer Bell’’ for his loose theological latitudinarianism, as well as for a tone of feeling and structure of thought utterly antipathetic to those owned by the stern, proud, able priest—his judge. The critic falls to work in bitter mood; he hates ‘‘Currer Bell’’ and if he can— he will grind the life out of him. He reads—cynically, contemptuously; he snarls, but still he reads. The book gets hold of him, he curls his lip, he shews his teeth, he would fain anathematize; excommunicate the author; but he reads on, yes— and as he reads—he is forced both to feel and to like some portion of what is driven into his hostile iron nature. Nor can he—in writing his critique— altogether hide the involuntary partiality; he does his best; he still speaks big and harsh, trying to inXict on the author personal pain, striking at hazard, guessing at weak points, but hoping always to hit home. And that author reads him with composure, and lays down the review content and thankful—feeling that when an enemy is so inXuenced—he has not written in vain. Permit me—in conclusion to acknowledge the letter I received from you last week—If I do not comment copiously on its contents—be assured that they have not the less power over my sympathy. Sorry should I be to dim or weaken any hope which may cheer your path: some guiding star we all need—some onward and opening prospect—and provided we only take heed that anticipations for the Future do not enervate eVorts in the Present—surely we are justiWed in cherishing such. I wish to your best expectations a full realization—and with kind regards to Mrs. W—— & her family I am my dear Sir Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM Grolier F 2. BST 17. 90. 364–5. Address (integral): W. S. Williams Esqre. PM: not in MS. 1. For the Edinburgh Review see CBL i. 583 n. 6, and ii. 328–9 on G. H. Lewes’s ‘brutal and savage’ review of Shirley. William Rathbone Greg reviewed Villette favourably in the number for Apr. 1853, 387–90, Wnding in it ‘Fulness and vigour of thought’ and masterly, consistent characters. He saw the novel as clearly autobiographical, betraying the individuality of an author who looks on the shady side of life and is painfully aware of her disadvantages. Her strong aVections have been ‘injured by too habitual repression’, but she is a keen, shrewd, sagacious sarcastic observer of life, intuitively reading character, and Wghting sternly and gallantly life’s ‘gloomy battle’. Greg gives three long extracts to illustrate the varied styles of writing, and concludes with a tribute to the author’s ‘very wonderful endowments’. 2. In the Leader for 12 Feb. 1853 G. H. Lewes was much more generous than he had been towards Shirley. Declaring that ‘In Passion and Power’ Currer Bell has ‘no living rival, except George

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Sand’, he Wnds that her many faults lie on the surface. Her heroes and heroines outrage good taste, but they fascinate, for they have ‘what is essential to human worth’: Paul Emanuel, imperious, coarse, ill-tempered, and ill-featured, is nevertheless noble, generous, loving, and powerful and Polly Home is charming, showing the depth of childish love, though one could wish for more childlike nonsense and whimsicality. Villette lacks the ‘unity and progression of interest’ of Jane Eyre, but Currer Bell’s original genius still holds one spellbound. Lewes gives extracts from Villette, exemplifying ‘scenes . . . presented with wonderful distinctness,’ characters that ‘live and move’, and the ‘poetry scattered through these volumes’ (Allott 184–6, part, with some inaccuracies). 3. In the Westminster Review for Apr. 1853, Lewes compares Ruth and Villette and asks, ‘Should a work of Art have a moral?’ He points out that a narrative may be an ‘exhortation’, not a ‘demonstration’, appealing to our moral sense, and satisfying it by the story’s conclusion. Ruth’s moral lies in its story, Villette’s in the healthful inXuence of truth that issues from its pages. Though some elements, like the Miss Marchmont story, are unnecessary to the plot, Villette has originality, power of imagination, and deep capacity for passionate emotions. If Currer Bell lacks Mrs Gaskell’s strong, genial humour, if she has no grace, her Villette is nevertheless as sunlight to moonlight in comparison to Ruth. There are some faults: Polly’s language is not always realistically childish, and M. Paul’s readings are a feeble way of demonstrating his ‘vigour of intellect’; Mme Beck is melodramatic and becomes unreal, John Bretton is occasionally indistinct. CB sometimes runs metaphors to death, and her fondness for ‘the allegorical expression of emotions’ can make passages ‘mechanical and forced’; yet her power is marvellous, and she can write prose poetry ‘of the very highest order’ (Westminster Review ns iii. 485–91). Other comments are mainly variations on those in the Leader review. 4. Currer Bell usually pays ‘attention to reality’, and therefore Lewes is surprised to Wnd her saying ‘that John Bretton was accustomed to take up the Greek dramatists, and read oV a translation of them for the beneWt of the family circle. To any one who has ever read a Greek dramatist, the supposition of this feat will be extremely amusing. . . . the idea of ‘‘improvising’’ a translation is preposterous’ (Westminster Review ns iii. 486). Possibly Lewes recalled M. Paul’s (not Bretton’s) reading aloud ‘some tragedy made grand by grand reading’ and his expunging from his readings anything unsuitable for the ‘jeunes Wlles’, when ‘he could, and did, improvise whole paragraphs’ to replace those he had pruned away (ch. 28). 5. For the high church Christian Remembrancer and its condemnation of Jane Eyre’s coarseness and ‘moral Jacobinism’, see CBL ii. 49–50 n. and Allott 88–92. The reviewer of Villette in the number for Apr. 1853 was Anne Mozley, sister of Thomas Mozley, who was a friend and prote´ge´ of Pusey, and the husband of J. H. Newman’s sister Harriet. Anne’s brother James Bowling Mozley co-edited the Remembrancer with the Revd William Scott of Hoxton until 1855. She considered that Villette was ‘in many important moral points’ ‘an improvement on its predecessors. The author has gained both in amiability and propriety since she Wrst presented herself to the world,—soured, coarse, and grumbling; an alien, it might seem, from society, and amenable to none of its laws.’ Her ‘clear, forcible, picturesque style gives life’ to what we imagined was the ‘vegetating’ existence of the scholastic world, for she perceives in it scope for the mind and ‘free play’ for the emotions, and therefore provides for the reader ‘interest and excitement’. Mozley sees the novel as autobiographical, and discerns the ‘arrow-like penetration’ beneath the outward demure air and the intellect held in check. M. Paul, who is quite unlike a standard hero, is ‘in the highest degree fresh and original’. The plot lacks continuity, but a more serious fault is that CB, or her persona Lucy, is not a good representative of Protestantism, for her religion is ‘without awe’, she despises in Catholicism ‘every form and distinction’ she cannot understand, and she quotes irreverently from the Bible which she believes to be the sole guide for the Christian. Mozley rejects what seems CB’s moral demand to sympathize with characters like Lucy Snowe, whose ‘unscrupulous and self-dependent intellect’ makes her ‘unWt for the home she yearns for’: ‘We want a woman at our hearth.’ Are women writers like CB consulting the ‘interests of the sex . . . by betraying . . . that women give away their hearts unsought as often as they would have us believe?’ (Christian Remembrancer ns xxv. 423–43). See CB’s letter to the editor of the Remembrancer, 18 July 1853.

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To Margaret Wooler, 13 April 1853 Haworth My dear Miss Wooler Your last kind letter ought to have been answered long since, and would have been—did I Wnd it practicable to proportion the promptitude of the response to the value I place upon my correspondents and their communications: You will easily understand, however, that the contrary rule often holds good, and that the epistle which importunes often takes precedence of that which interests. My Publishers express entire satisfaction with the reception which has been accorded to ‘‘Villette.’’ And indeed the majority of the reviews ’has’ been favourable enough: you will be aware however that there is a minority— small in number but inXuential in character which views the work with no favourable eye. Currer Bell’s remarks on Romanism1 have drawn down on him the condign displeasure of the High Church Party—which displeasure has been unequivocally expressed through their principal organs the ‘‘Guardian’’, the ‘‘English Churchman’’ and ‘‘The Christian Remembrancer.’’ I can well understand that some of the charges launched against me by these publications will tell heavily to my prejudice in the minds of most readers—but this must be borne, and for my part—I can suVer no accusation to oppress me much which is not supported by the inward evidence of Conscience and Reason. ‘‘Extremes meet’’ says the proverb; in proof whereof I would mention that Miss Martineau Wnds with ‘‘Villette’’ nearly the same fault as the Puseyites2— She accuses me of attacking Popery ‘‘with virulence’’—of going out of my way to assault it ‘‘passionately’’ In other respects she has shewn with reference to the work a spirit so strangely and unexpectedly acrimonious—that I have gathered courage to tell her that the gulf of mutual diVerence ’between her and me’ is so wide and deep—the bridge of union so slight and uncertain—I have come to the conclusion that frequent intercourse would be most perilous and unadvisable—and have begged to adjourn sine die my long projected visit to her.3 Of course she is now very angry—and I know her bitterness will not be short-lived, but it cannot be helped. Two or three weeks since I received a long and kind letter from Mr. *Wm. * Wooler—which I answered a short time ago.4 I believe Mr. *Wooler thinks me a much hotter advocate for change and what is called ‘‘political progress’’ than I am. However—in my reply—I did not touch on these subjects. He intimated a wish to publish some of his own M.SS. I fear he would hardly like the somewhat

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dissuasive tendency of my answer—but really—in these days of headlong competition—it is a great risk to publish. If all be well—I purpose going to Manchester next week5 to spend a few days with Mrs. Gaskell. *Ellen *Nussey’s visit to Yarmouth6 seems for the present given up—and really—all things considered—I think the circumstance is scarcely to be regretted—it seemed a doubtful kind of prospect. Do you not think—my dear Miss *Wooler, that you could come to Haworth before you go to the Coast—?7 I am afraid that when you once get settled at the seaside, your stay will not be brief. I must repeat that a visit from you would be anticipated with pleasure—not only by me, but by every inmate of Haworth Parsonage. Papa has given me a general commission to send his respects to you whenever I write—accept them therefore and Believe me Yours aVectionately and sincerely C Bronte¨ MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 840. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation in pencil by ?Thomas CliVord Allbutt, Margaret Wooler’s nephew, explaining the reference to William Wooler’s ‘long and kind letter’: Mr. W Wooler—a physician in Derby till he retired in middle life—Miss W’s eldest brother 1. Many of the Catholics in Villette are presented as devious and manipulative. Mme Beck and Pe`re Silas collude in the service of Mammon to exile M. Paul, but his own pure religious faith allows him to accept Lucy’s Protestantism as being right for her. For the Guardian see WSW 9.3.1853 n. 2; and for the Christian Remembrancer WSW 8.4.1853 n. 5. The English Churchman, a high church weekly, reprinted on 7 Apr. 1853 Wve lengthy extracts from the Christian Remembrancer’s review, including its criticism of CB’s exclusively Bible-based Protestantism, her irreverent biblical quotations, her leniency to the weaknesses of her heroes, her apparent alienation from society in her earlier work, and her implication that women often ‘give away their hearts’ unsought. Deeply hurt by much of this criticism, CB responded to it in a letter to the editor of the Christian Remembrancer on 18 July 1853. See pp. 186–7 below. 2. The ‘high church’ party originated in the Oxford Movement which began in 1833. Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800–82), unlike Newman, did not ‘go over to Rome’, but sought to restore the English church to an awareness of its divine mission. Pusey insisted on the real presence of God in the sacraments, and advocated frequent services and the establishment of celibate monastic orders; but he deprecated innovations in the conduct of services. Anglicans like the Bronte¨s distrusted Puseyites as the insidious forerunners of conversion to Catholicism and subjection to Rome. See CBL ii. 493 n., 502 n. 1, 518 nn. 4 and 7. Harriet Martineau, as a selfstyled ‘impartial spectator of theological Wghts’, deplored sectarian intolerance. See her letter to G. H. Lewes of 10 Dec. 1850, CBL ii. 527. 3. Margaret Wooler did not approve of CB’s friendship with the inWdel Martineau. See MW 27.1.1853 and notes. 4. On 31 Mar. 5. On Thursday 21 Apr. 6. To the Upjohns at Gorleston near Yarmouth. 7. Miss Wooler went to Hornsea on the East Yorkshire coast. See CB’s letters to her of 30 Aug. and 18 Oct. 1853.

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To Mrs Gaskell, 14 April 1853 Haworth. My dear Mrs. Gaskell Would it suit you if I were to come next Thursday—the 21st.—?1 If that day tallies with your convenience, and if my Father continues as well as he is now—I know of no engagement on my part which need compel me longer to defer the pleasure of seeing you. I should arrive by the train which reaches Manchester at 7 o’clock p.m.2 That—I think—would be about your tea-time—and, of course, I should dine before leaving home. I always like evening for an arrival; it seems more cozy and pleasant tha[n]3 coming in about the busy middle of the day. I think if I stay a week—that will be a very long visit; it will give you time to get well tired of me. Remember me very kindly to Mr. Gaskell and Marianne.4 As to Mesdames Flossy and Julia—those venerable ladies are requested beforehand to make due allowance for the awe with which they will be sure to impress a diYdent admirer. I am sorry I shall not see Meta Believe me my dear Mrs. Gaskell Yours aVectionately & sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 89. W & S 841. Address: not in MS, PM: not in MS. 1. CB stayed with the Gaskells 21–8 Apr. 2. Possibly travelling from Keighley to Manchester via Skipton, Colne, and Burnley, as she planned to do in May 1854. See ECG 26.4.1854. The line from Skipton to Colne had been open since 2 Oct. 1848. 3. MS reads ‘pleasant that’. 4. Marianne Gaskell (1834–1920). Florence Elizabeth (‘Flossy’, 1842–81), and Julia Bradford Gaskell (1846–1908) were at home, having lessons from Marianne. CB had been especially charmed by Julia during her previous visit in June 1851. See ECG 6.8.1851, CBL ii. 676–9. Meta was away at school in Liverpool: see ECG 24.2.1853 n. 6.

To Ellen Nussey, 18 April 1853 Haworth Dear Ellen It seems they are in great trouble again at Hunsworth; I have had two or three notes from Amelia giving sad accounts of little Tim.1 Do you know anything certain on the subject? A’s communications as usual seem a good deal coloured

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by alarm—natural enough no doubt under the circumstances—but still involving inconsistencies of statement which leave one somewhat in the dark. Symptoms seem attributed to the poor child which would indicate scarlet fever, brain fever and croup all in one. The Parents watch all night, the Doctor stays till 12 o’clock. Still I hope Tim will get through it. You seem quite gay at *Birstall. I hope you continue well and hearty through all your visiting—and indeed I think the variety quite advisable, provided you keep ’duly’ on your guard against the night-air If all be well—I think of going to Manchester2 about the close of this week. I only intend staying a few days—but I can say nothing about coming back by way of Brookroyd, do not expect me; I would rather see you at Haworth by and by. Two or three weeks since Miss Martineau wrote to ask why she did not hear from me3—and to press me to go to Ambleside. Explanations ensued—the notes on each side were quite civil—but having deliberately formed my resolution on substantial grounds—I adhered to it. I have declined being her visitor—and bid her good-bye. Of course some bitterness remains in her heart. It is best so, however; the antagonism of our natures and principles was too serious a thing to be triXed with. I have no news for you: things at Haworth are as they were. Remember me kindly to all at Brookroyd and believe me Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ Mr. *Morgan4 did not come; and if he had, the subject you mention would not have been touched on. Papa alludes to it to nobody; he calls it ‘‘degrading’’ and would not have it hinted at or known. This circumstance serves as a tolerably pointed illustration of his painful way of viewing the matter Mrs: Gaskell’s address is Plymouth Grove Manchester MS Law-Dixon. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/63.5. W & S 842. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j AP 19 j 1853 (iii) LEEDS j AP 19 j 1853 j H Annotation (i) by EN on the letter: 301 Miss Martineau j No 2 M . . . Mr N’s proposal (ii) in unknown hand: Mr Nichool’s proposal degrading (iii) by EN on envelope: Ap 19–53 j of Tims illness j of Miss Martineau j declining her acquaintance 1. Emily Martha Taylor. 2. For extracts from Mrs Gaskell’s account of this visit in Life ii. 288–93, see Appendix IV. See also the extracts from Gaskell’s letter to John Forster of 3 May 1853, below, pp. 159–60. 3. For the reasons, see GS 26.3.1853. 4. The Revd William Morgan. See EN 6.4.1853. The ‘subject’ was Mr Nicholls’s proposal and its aftermath.

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To Ellen Nussey, [?22 April 1853] Plymouth Grove, Manchester Dear Ellen, I came here yesterday, and found your letter.1 There is something in its tone which makes me apprehend that you are rather low spirited, so that I shall manage to do as you wish and return by Birstall. I expect to leave here next Thursday, and return home on Saturday, but I will write again, D.V., before Thursday. I only scratch this hasty line now to give you an idea of my movements.2 With kind regards to all at Brookroyd, and best birthday wishes to yourself, I am, dear Ellen, yours faithfully, C. Bronte¨ MS untraced. W & S 843. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. The approximate date is conWrmed by the reference to EN’s birthday, 20 Apr. Nussey 306 dates 23 Apr., no doubt on EN’s authority, but CB had told Mrs Gaskell on 14 Apr. that she would arrive on Thursday 21 Apr.–the ‘yesterday’ of this letter. Text: Shorter 630, which is reproduced in W & S 843. Nussey 306 omits ‘before Thursday’, but is otherwise the same. 1. On 22 Apr. CB had a ‘severe headache’ after meeting a guest of the Gaskells on the day of her arrival, when she had expected to Wnd them alone. 2. On 22 or 23 Apr. Mrs Gaskell wrote to Miss Maggie Bell: ‘I Wnd that Miss Bronte´ would rather enjoy going to the Amateur Performance.’ See Gaskell Further Letters 85–6. She refers to Twelfth Night, performed by the Manchester Shakespearian Society on Monday 25 Apr.; see ECG 9.7.1853 n. 8 and Barker 726–8. Gaskell’s letter to Miss Bell continues: ‘I think it is most likely that the ‘‘songs and sketches’’ will be a strong temptation for us to call on you on Monday or Tuesday.’ See also Appendix IV, p. 351.

To Ellen Nussey, [?26 April 1853] [Plymouth Grove, Manchester] Dear Ellen, I hope to reach Birstall on Thursday at 5 o’clock, if all be well, and stay till Saturday or Monday, as we shall decide when we meet. I have had a very pleasant visit here, but we can chat about it anon. I have only just time to pen this notiWcation. Kind regards, I am, Yours faithfully, C. Bronte¨.

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MS untraced. W & S 844. Address: not in source. PM: not in source, Date from source. See also the description of the original MS in Sotheby’s London sale catalogue for 24 June 1975, lot 283. 26 Apr. 1853 was a Tuesday. Text: Nussey 306, which is reproduced in Shorter 631 and W & S 844 with minor variants in accidentals.

To Mrs Gaskell, April 1853 Fragment [Haworth] The week I spent in Manchester has impressed me as the very brightest and healthiest I have known for these Wve years past. . . . MS untraced. W & S 845. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Text: quoted by J. E. C. Welldon in BST (1910), 4.20.149 from a letter then owned by Meta Gaskell. W & S 845 adds the date [Apr. 1853] and the greeting, ‘My dear Mrs Gaskell’.

Mrs Gaskell to John Forster,1 3 May 1853 Extracts Plymouth Grove. (a)

. . . I do not know how large a vol [Cranford] would make, nor in the very least do I know how much would be a fair price for it. . . . I would rather any one else had it than Mr. Chapman. You never say what you thought of the Railway Library suggestion?2 Mr. Gaskell is so excessively against any change of any kind that I have not liked to reply to a kind of message I had through Miss Bronte¨; and that reminds me of her warm message back to you.3,4 I gave yours to her—, and She said ‘Tell Mr. Forster, he is not so easily forgotten, as he seems to imagine,—I thank him for his remembrances & send him mine’. She staid with us a week; from Thursday to Thursday. She did not care for Manchester sights, which was a great relief; I like her more & (b) more. She is so true, she wins respect, deep respect, from the very Wrst,—and then comes hearty liking,—and last of all comes love. I thoroughly loved her before she left,—and I was so sorry for her! She has had so little kindness & aVection shown to her. She said that she was afraid of loving me as much as she could, because she had never been able to inspire the kind of love she felt.—She has had an uncomfortable kind of coolness with Miss Martineau, on account of some very disagreeable remarks Miss M—— made on Villette, and this had been preying on Miss Bronte¨’s mind

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as she says everything does prey on it, in the solitude in which she lives. She gave Mr. Thackeray the beneWt of some of her piercingly keen observation.5 My word! he had reason when he said he was afraid of her. But she was very angry indeed with that part of the Examiner review of Esmond (I had forgotten it) which said his works would not live; and asked me if I knew if you had written it.6 I wish you could have heard how I backed away from the veiled prophet, and how vehemently I disclaimed ever even having conjectured any thing about any article in the Examiner. . . . She seems to have a great idea of Thackeray as a worshipper of ‘Dutchesses & Countesses’, and to have disliked the tone of some of his lectures (that on Steele) exceedingly.7 She is not going to write again for some time.8 She is thoroughly good; only made bitter by some deep mortiWcations,—and feeling her plainness as ‘‘something almost repulsive’’.9 I am going to see her at Haworth, at her father’s particular desire. Mr. Smith has got her 100£ for a ’French’ translation of Villette (500£ for the copyright,)—) but Tauchnitz, or his agent Williams, have never applied to her about Leipsic re-publication. . . . 10 MSS (a) HM 52514. Dorothy W. Collin, ‘The Composition and Publication of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester, 69 (1986), 94–5. (b) National Library of Scotland MS 2262 fos. 133–4v. CP letter 155. 1. See GS 7.2.1853 n. 1. 2. Cranford was being published as a series of separate sketches in Dickens’s periodical Household Words, where the last instalment was due to appear on 21 May. John Chapple and Alan Shelston note that Cranford did not appear as a volume in Routledge’s Railway Library, but in Chapman and Hall’s ‘Select Library of Fiction’, 1855 (Gaskell Further Letters 88 n. 4). 3. Forster may have been the author of the generally favourable review of Villette in the Examiner for 5 Feb. 1853. See GS 7.2.1853 n. 1. 4. See GS 7.2.1853, Harriet Martineau’s letter of ?early Feb. 1853, and CB’s response to it (pp. 117 and 118). 5. For CB’s confrontations with Thackeray see e.g. EN ?12.6.1850, EN 2.6.1851 and notes. (CBL ii. 414–16 n., 627–9 n.). 6. See GS 20.11.1852 n. 4. 7. CB’s disapproval of Thackeray’s lecture on Richard Steele on 12 June 1851 seems not to be recorded elsewhere, but it is understandable. Thackeray bears very lightly on ‘poor Dick Steele’s’ drinking, extravagance, debts, and ‘wild and chequered life’, regarding him as a charming, irresponsible person whose enjoyment resembled that of gleeful children at a pantomime. Steele has to be hidden from the bailiVs, and Thackeray exclaims: ‘Oh! that a Christian hero . . . should be afraid of a dirty sheriV’s oYcer!’ Such episodes, described ruefully but not seriously condemned, must have reminded CB painfully of her brother’s degradation. See e.g. EN 13.12.1846, CBL i. 507–8 n. 8. In fact CB began to write again in May. The three fragments now known as ‘The Story of Willie Ellin’ (May–June 1853; BST 9. 46. 4–22) show CB returning to the ‘two brothers’ theme she had already used in her juvenilia, in the still-unpublished The Professor (1846), and in the chapters called ‘The Moores’, or ‘John Henry’ (c.Nov. 1847; printed in the Clarendon Shirley as Appendix D). Having abandoned ‘Willie Ellin’, she was to begin her last story, ‘Emma’, on 27 Nov. 1853, but wrote only a much-altered pencil draft of two chapters. See the Clarendon Professor, Appendix VI. 9. Cf. Life ii. 290: ‘ . . . her personal ugliness . . . had been strongly impressed upon her imagination early in life . . . ‘‘I notice,’’ said she, ‘‘that after a stranger has once looked at my face, he is careful not to let his eyes wander to that part of the room again!’’ A more untrue idea never entered into anyone’s head.’

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10. Williams and Norgate were the English agents for the Wrm of Bernhard Tauchnitz of Leipzig. All Charlotte’s novels were published by Tauchnitz after their publication by Smith, Elder. Tauchnitz also published Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey, with a selection of their poems, in 1851, following Charlotte’s edition of 1850. There is no reference to the Bronte¨s in [Curt Otto], Der Verlag Bernhard Tauchnitz 1837–1912 (Leipzig, 1912). The Wrm of Smith, Elder is mentioned only in extracts from letters by authors who corresponded directly with Tauchnitz. See, for example, Thackeray’s reference to ‘my publishers’ on p. 122. See also GS 18.4.1854 n. 2.

To Ellen Nussey, [?c. 5 May 1853] Haworth Thursday Morn-g. Dear Ellen I duly and safely reached home with my purchases at about 5 o’clock yesterday, afternoon. I found Papa &c. very well.1 The Mops, carpet and rug all give satisfaction—the crockery and glass I kept out of sight—but they will be appreciated I daresay when they appear in their proper time and place.2 I hope you also reached home all right—but I fear the fatigue you underwent will leave its eVects to-day—it was not a very good preparation for the long walk to Scholes.3 Write [a l]ine soon and tell me how you ar[e]. I have some headach[e]4 to-day but not violent—a general jaded, weary feeling was to be expected. With love to your Mother and Mercy and kind regards to Mr. C[lapham]5 I am, dear Ellen Yours fag[ged] but faithfully C Bronte¨ MS BPM Bon: 248. W & S 870 as [October 6th, 1853]. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: a date before the end of May 1853 is suggested by (i) the paper: 2 conjoint leaves of cream laid paper, each 112 mm.  176 mm. This kind of paper was frequently though not always used from late 1852 to May 1853. From June 1853 a larger size, c. 113 mm.  183 mm., was commonly used. (ii) CB’s friendly tone. There is no suggestion of the estrangement which apparently began after Ellen’s visit to Haworth at the end of June 1853 and lasted until Feb. 1854. See EN 23.6.1853 and Mary Hewitt to EN 21.2.1854 and notes. The date ‘October 6th, 1853’ given in W & S 870 is not based on the MS. (iii) Mr Bronte¨ is said to be ‘very well’. It was his good health in Apr. 1853 which enabled CB to visit the Gaskells 21–8 April, and to visit the Nusseys at Birstall for a few days on her way back from Manchester. See EN [?26.4.1853]. 1. See note (iii) above. If the approximate date is correct, CB had stayed at Birstall longer than she planned, returning on Wednesday 4 May instead of Monday 2 May. 2. CB hoped for a return visit from Mrs Gaskell in June 1853. This would be suYcient reason for her shopping expedition, presumably in Leeds, with EN. In the event Mrs Gaskell did not visit Haworth until September. 3. A hamlet c.4 miles from Birstall, and 2 miles from the Taylors’ home. If the suggested date for this letter is correct, EN probably left Scholes before 10 May, when ‘A copious shower of snow fell in Leeds and the neighbourhood’ (Mayhall i. 628). See the next letter, note on date. 4. Missing text decipherable from blotted letters in reverse form on the facing page. 5. MS reads ‘C——’.

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To Ellen Nussey, [?11 May 1853] Wednesday Morn-g. [Haworth] Dear Ellen I return Mrs. Upjohn’s letters. Poor woman! One cannot but feel that some allowance ought to be made for her in her weak crippled state. It se[ems] to me that it is certainly desirable you should go to Gorlestone— were it only by way of experiment. Surely you will this time get oV without further impediment. There will at least be the advantage of change both of air, scene and Society—and if at present there seems no great promise of enjoyment—even this may in the end turn out for the best—the cloudy morning often clears. I am glad you enjoyed your few days at Scholes—and that the Hunsworth worthies1 were duly courteous—Wishing you all happiness dear Ellen and with regards to every one at Brookroyd I am yrs. faithfully C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 86. No publication traced. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: no Wrm evidence, but likely to be a Wednesday soon after EN [?c.5.5.1853] when EN had ‘a long walk to Scholes’ either just achieved or about to take place. The reference to Ellen’s proposed visit to the Upjohns at Gorleston as an ‘experiment’ recurs in EN 27.5.1853 when Ellen has just arrived there. But the paper used (a single sheet c.112 mm.  c.185 mm., cream laid) diVers in size from that of ?5 May. 1. The Taylors.

Mary Taylor to Ellen Nussey, May–July 1853 [Wellington, New Zealand] 1

My Dear Mr. Clergyman & Mrs. Clergyman I have received your letter expressing a wish to have my services as companion. Your terms are so indeWnite & so low that I had rather have nothing to do with you. As I understand your proposal you oVer me board & lodging but no clothes or means of getting any. If you intend providing my dress I shd like to know what liberty I shd have in the choice & make & who had worn the things before me, tho I must say this wd not alter my refusal of yr oVer as I shd. still not be so well oV as a servant girl. The pecuniary advantages you oVer at some future time I consider worth nothing. They are quite indeWnite; the time when I am to receive them is too far oV, & the condition that you make,—that you must be dead before I can proWt by them, decides me to refuse them altogether.

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Your letter is as indeWnite abt. the services you require as abt. the wages you oVer. As to the companionship, aVection &c I have very little to oVer to a stranger & it strikes me I shd never have much for you. Your coarseness of feeling that allows you to [?pay] me2 the greater part of my wages only after your death, your evident dishonesty in leaving the engagement so indeWnite that I might do two women’s work for twenty years to come & then have no ’legal’ claim either on you or your heirs, yr evident notion that an expensive dress & diet is to compensate for the absence of money wages, all make me think that your feelings, principles & pleasures are very diVerent to mine, & there could be no companionship in the case. As to my services I wd not give them without certain money wages paid quarterly, & certain time to be at my own disposal. These are what every servant gets, & I shd want something more. Yours. May3 D[ea]r Ellen there’s my opinion on the impudent proposal you mention in yr letter, which I received this morning along with one from Amelia. All yr news is very interesting, particularly that concerning Joe Amelia, & Charlotte. My last letters told quite a contrary tale. They were none of them well & that was proved, more by their low spirits than their complaints. I’ve no doubt Tim is a little ?pest ’as Joe says’4 but that is no reason why it shd not be brought up healthy if possible. I am sorry to hear its intellect is so forward, it ought to look stupid & get fat. June 26 I have kept my letter back because I had not said all I had to say, & now it’s gone out of my head. Since then I have received a letter fm you dated 7 Oct 52. It came along with some fm Hunsworth of 20 & 23 Feb / 53, & one fm John, dated 20 Oct / 52.5 You mention Mr Bronte¨’s illness & C. Bronte’s liver complaint, I had heard of them both but not from her. I did not know her liver complaint still continued, & since the date of yours I hear fm Amelia that you & she have been at ?Hun [sworth] & CB. was very well indeed—How are you all now I wonder?6 I hear—I mean read that there is a box full of treasures on the way to me Per Maori, now at Nelson.7 All the sailors have ?run away—very sensible of them when they are probably8 for £2 a month & by keeping out of sight till the Maori is gone—can hire themselves here for £7.—They—(I don’t mean the sailors—have got some Maories to land the cargo, but as they can’t persuade them to go up aloft there is no knowing when the ship can come on here. Well, in the said box is a pair of lace cuVs from you for me to wear ‘‘when I go to a dance’’. Do you think I go once a week to a dance? I am very curious to see them & particularly to know if the fashion of them is still unknown here—in which case they will certainly set me up for a twelvemonth. It is a great mercy & a particular favour of Providence that they were not sent in the Mahomet Shah.9

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I go to a dance now & then. I get an invitation from somebody in the name of some ‘‘party’’ or parties unknown We dance at the Hall of the Athenaeum hired & decorated with Xags & green stuV for the occasion—10 we muster about 25 couple dance with great gravity & call ourselves very select. The thing is managed by some second & third rate bachelors who don’t know how to give their invites properly in a body, & individually had rather not ‘‘come forward’’ My best amusement is, to put on a hood—such as children wear & very common here for grown people—I go after I’ve shut up at night & gossip with a neighbour & I have 4 or Wve houses where I do this & talk more real talk in an hour than in all the ev[enin]g at a dance. July 2 I have just found out it was not you but Amelia that sent me the lace cuVs, & you & C.B. concocted the rest of the box, I have no doubt I shall approve of yr choice as A. says. Were you all together in the little room at Hunsworth? Giving her yr advice—Mind if the dress is scarlet or pale green I’ll never forgive you. I folded this letter once without putting my name to [it]. Wellington July 21/53 Don’t go & live with Mrs. Clergyman. M. Taylor MS Berg. W & S 856. Address: Miss E. Nussey. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: dress Mantle not very heavy j The dress must have sleeves j cuVs ?habits ?skirts & whatever else is needed j neck ribbon j length under arm 48 1/2 in j round the Bust 34 1/2 in j waist 24 in j arm hole 14 1/2 in j length arm 18 in j wrist round 6 in [See Mary Taylor’s letter to EN, 24 Feb. to 3 Mar. 1854, where she thanks Ellen for her ‘trouble concerning my dress and bonnet’, p. 228.] 1. The Revd and Mrs Francis Upjohn of Gorleston, SuVolk, Wrst mentioned in CB’s letters in EN 31.10.1852, q.v. A letter from EN written in late Oct. or early Nov. 1852 could have reached Mary Taylor in New Zealand by May 1853. 2. MS reads ‘to me the’. 3. The date for the preceding part of the letter. 4. Contrast CB’s comments on Joe Taylor as a ‘devoted father and husband’ in MW 30.8.1853; but see also CBL ii. 445 n. 3. 5. From Amelia and Joe Taylor, and from Mary’s brother John. 6. Mr Bronte¨’s apoplectic symptoms had recurred in Aug. 1852. CB had been ‘liverish’ again when she wrote to EN on ?24 Sept. 1852, but ‘much better’ by 10 Dec. 1852. 7. Stevens notes that the ‘Maori arrived at Nelson from London on 8 June, and at Wellington on 21 July, but the local papers make no mention of these troubles’ (117 n. 4). 8. Thus in MS. W & S 856 supplies ‘[working]’. 9. ‘Destroyed by Wre oV the Australian coast on 19 April 1853’ (Stevens 118 n. 5). See The Times 20.8.1853, 12, col. 5, under ‘Ship News’ from Liverpool dated 19 Aug.: ‘Hobart Town, May 9.— The Mahomet Schah [sic], from London, for New Zealand, was fallen in with on Wre, and in a sinking state, oV Cape Lewin, and the crew and passengers taken oV and landed, by the Ellen Paddon, arrived at this port from Mauritius.’ 10. A Mechanics’ Institute launched in May 1842 had lapsed, but ‘revived again in 1848. . . . In April 1850 . . . now entitled the Wellington Athenæum and Mechanics’ Institute, [it] moved into its own hall in Lambton Quay. It was opened on Thursday 11 April.’ See Stevens 90 n. 7.

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To George Smith, 13 May 1853 Haworth My dear Sir I am sorry to have to trouble you about my dividend,1 and, indeed, wish I could devise some method of obtaining it which should relieve you of the task of transmission: I am too well aware of the multiplicity of your occupations not to feel uneasiness in adding to them even in a slight degree. As it is, however, I have no alternative but to request that you will kindly send it as soon as possible. Believe me Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 82. BST 18. 92. 112. Address (integral): G. Smith Esqre. PM: not in MS. 1. Dividends on the investments George Smith had made on CB’s behalf on the greater part of her earnings from Shirley and Villette. See GS 23.11.1852, 6.12.1852 and notes.

To Ellen Nussey, 16 May 1853 [Haworth] Dear Ellen Habituated by this time to Mrs. *Upjohn’s Xuctuations—I received the news of this fresh put-oV without the slightest Sentiment of wonder. Indeed I keep all my powers of surprise for the intelligence that you are safely arrived at * Gorleston—and still more for the desired but very-moderately-expected tidings that you are happy there. The east-winds about which you inquire have spared me wonderfully till today, when I feel somewhat sick physically, and not very blithe morally. I am not sure that the east winds are entirely to blame for this ailment—yesterday was a strange sort of day at church. It seems as if I were to be punished for my doubts about the nature and truth of poor Mr. N[icholls’] regard. Having ventured on Whitsunday1 to stay the sacrament—I got a lesson not to be repeated. He struggled—faltered—then lost command over himself—stood before my eyes and in the sight of all the communicants white, shaking, voiceless—Papa was not there—thank God! Joseph Redman2 spoke some words to him—he made a great eVort—but could only with diYculty whisper and falter through the service. I suppose he thought; this would be the last time; he goes either this week or the next. I heard the women sobbing round—and I could not quite check my own tears.

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What had happened was reported to Papa either by Joseph Redman or John Brown3—it excited only anger—and such expressions as ‘‘unmanly driveller’’. Compassion or relenting is no more to be looked for than sap from Wrewood. I never saw a battle more sternly fought with the feelings than Mr. N—— Wghts with his—and when he yields momentarily—you are almost sickened by the sense of the strain upon him. However he is to go4—and I cannot speak to him or look at him or comfort him a whit—and I must submit. Providence is over all—that is the only consolation Yrs faithfully C Bronte¨ MS Princeton, W & S 846. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation (i) by EN at the beginning: 304 Mr Nicholls (ii) by EN at the end: May 16—53 (iii) in unknown hand: altogether omitted 1. 15 May. In 1896 Mr Nicholls was to be most distressed when he discovered that this letter, obtained from EN by T. J. Wise, was in Sotheby’s Sale Catalogue for 28 Feb. 1896. He asked C. K. Shorter to secure the letter on his behalf. Shorter not only failed to do so, but went on to publish the paragraphs about Mr Nicholls in CBCircle 479–80 (1896) and the complete letter as number 632 in his 1908 edition of the Bronte¨ letters. See CBL i. 52–63. 2. Joseph Redman (1796–1862) was appointed parish clerk by Mr Bronte¨ in 1826. Active, literate, and loyal, he had been the architect for the installation of Haworth’s new church bells in 1846, and was the secretary to the local Board of Health from 1851. 3. The stonemason John Brown (1804–55) was the Haworth sexton. 4. Mr Nicholls left Haworth on 27 May to spend some time in the south of England before taking up his curacy in Kirk Smeaton. See EN 6.4.1853, 27.5.1853.

To Ellen Nussey, 19 May 1853 Haworth. Dear Ellen It is almost a relief to hear that you only think of staying at *Gorleston a month—though of course one must not be selW[sh]1 in wishing you to come home soon—and you will be guided in your Wnal decision by the state of things as you Wnd it at Mrs. *Upjohn’s. There cannot I think be any disappointment in the business—&2 I really do hope causes may be discovered of agreeable surprise. At any rate for a month you surely may be made comfortable—unless the house be really haunted as Mr. *Clapham supposed.3 You do not mention how you got on on Whit Tuesday4—tell me when you write again.

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I cannot help feeling a certain satisfaction in Wnding that the people here are getting up a subscription to oVer a testimonial of respect to Mr. N[icholls] on his leaving the place.5 Many are expressing both their commiseration and esteem for him. The Churchwardens recently put the question to him plainly Why was he going? Was it Mr. Bronte¨’s fault or his own? His own—he answered. Did he blame Mr. Bronte¨? ‘‘No: he did not: if anybody was wrong it was himself.’’ Was he willing to go? ‘‘No: it gave him great pain.’’ Yet he is not always right. I must be just. He shews a curious mixture of honour and obstinacy; feeling and sullenness. Papa addressed him at the school tea-drinking—with constrained civility, but still with civility. He did not reply civilly: he cut short further words. This sort of treatment oVered in public is what Papa never will forget or forgive—it inspires him with a silent bitterness not to be expressed. I am afraid both are unchristian in their mutual feelings: Nor do I know which of them is least accessible to reason or least likely to forgive. It is a dismal state of things. The weather is Wne now dear Nell—We will take these sunny days as a good omen for your visit to Yarmouth. With kind regards to all at Brookroyd and best wishes to yourself I am yours sincerely C Bronte¨ If you have time before you go—I wish you would get me 1lb of plain biscuits like those you had at Brookroyd—and 21 lb of invalid biscuits6-and send them per rail I can pay for them in postage stamps, They are things I cannot get here—nor good—at Keighley. MS Berg. W & S 847. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN is now very faint and illegible. Date: CB Wrst wrote ‘April 10th’, then changed it to ‘May 19th.’ Text: the manuscript has apparently been crumpled up, then rescued and Xattened. Parts of the surface are scraped and rubbed. 1. Letters missing where the paper has been rubbed. In this sentence W & S 847 reads ‘Yarmouth’ instead of the partially deleted ‘Gorleston’, probably to tally with the place-name in para. 5. Gorleston is 2 miles south of Great Yarmouth. 2. MS may read ‘business & I’ or ‘business— I’. 3. See EN [?16.3.1853] and notes. 4. Possibly EN assisted at one of the Sunday School processions and teas which traditionally took place on Whit Tuesday (17 May). Cf. the reference to the Haworth ‘tea-drinking’ in para. 4, and the descriptions in Shirley, ch. 17. 5. See EN 27.5.1853 and notes. 6. Perhaps these resembled ‘Du Barry’s Tonic Revalenta Biscuits’ which were said to ‘repair the lining membranes’ of invalids and delicate children, and to cure ‘dyspepsia, Indigestion, Constipation, Consumption, Cough . . . Nervous Debility, Typhus . . . and all inXammatory and wasting diseases’ (advertisement in the Graphic for 2 Jan. 1886, 16).

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To Ellen Nussey, 27 May 1853 Haworth. Dear Ellen I was right glad to get your letter this morning and to Wnd that you really were safely arrived at last. How strange it seems though that there should have been a sort of miscalculation up to the very last! I am afraid you would feel a little damped on your arrival to Wnd Mrs. U. from home. However I do think it is well you are gone—the experiment was worth trying—and according to present appearances really promises very fairly. If tempers &c are only right—there seem to be many other appliances and means for enjoyment—I do not much like to hear of that supposed aVection of the brain—if there be anything wrong there—it is to be feared that with time it will rather increase than diminish—however let us hope for the best. I trust Mr. U. may prove a pleasant well-informed companion.1 The biscuits came all right—but I believe you have sent about twice the quantity I ordered—you must tell me how much they cost dear Nell—or I shall never be able to ask you to render me a similar service again.2 I send by this post the Examiner and French paper.3 I suppose I had better suppress the Leader while you are at *Gorleston. I don’t think it would suit Mr. *Upjohn. You will want to know about the leave-taking—the whole matter is but a painful subject but I must treat it brieXy. The testimonial4 was presented in a public meeting. Mr. *Fawcett5 and Mr. *Grant were there—Papa was not very well and I advised him to stay away which he did. As to the last Sunday—it was a cruel struggle. Mr. N[icholls] ought not to have had to take any duty.6 He left Haworth this morning at 6 o’clock. Yesterday evening he called to render into Papa’s hands the deeds of the National School—and to say good bye. They were busy cleaning—washing the paint &c. in the dining-room so he did not Wnd me there. I would not go into the parlour to speak to him in Papa’s presence. He went out thinking he was not to see me—And indeed till the very last moment—I thought it best not—But perceiving that he stayed long before going out at the gate—and remembering his long grief I took courage and went out trembling and miserable. I found him leaning again[st] the garden-door in a paroxysm of anguish—sobbing as women never sob. Of course I went straight to him. Very few words were interchanged—those few barely articulate: several things I should have liked to ask him were swept entirely from my memory. Poor fellow! but he wanted such hope and such encouragement as I could not

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7

give him. Still I trust he must know now tha[t] I am not cruelly blind and indiVerent to his constancy and grief. For a few weeks he goes to the south of England—afterwards he takes a curacy somewhere in Yorkshire but I don’t know where. Papa has been far from strong lately—I dare not mention Mr. N’s name to him—He speaks of him quietly and without opprobrium to others—but to me he is implacable on the matter. However he is gone—gone—and there’s an end of it. I see no chance of hearing a word about him in future—unless some stray shred of intelligence comes through Mr. *Grant or some other second hand source. In all this it is not I who am to be pitied at all and of course nobody pities me—they all think in Haworth that I have disdainfully refu[sed]8 him &c. if pity would do Mr. N—— any good—he ought to have and I believe has it. They may abuse me, if they will—whether they do or not—I can’t tell. Write soon and say how your prospects proceed—I trust they will daily brighten— Yrs. faithfully C Bronte¨ MS BPM Grolier E25. Envelope BPM B.S. 63.7. W & S 849. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j The Revd. F Upjohn j Gorleston j Yarmouth j Norfolk PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIG— —EY j MY 7 j 1853 (iii) LEEDS j MY 27 j 1853 j H (iv)—1853 Annotation by EN: (i) at the beginning: 306 much omitted (ii) at the end: Yarmouth j May 27–53 (iii) on envelope: May 27–53 j Mr N’s departure from Haworth 1. See EN ?4.6.1853. By that date Ellen had already decided to leave the Upjohns and go to her brother Joshua’s parsonage at Oundle. 2. See EN 19.5.1853 n. 6. 3. CB never identiWes the French papers sent to her by the Taylors of Hunsworth since at least 1844. She had also withheld the radical Leader when Ellen stayed with the Gorhams in Sussex. See EN 16.6.1852. The Upjohns would be unlikely to appreciate the Leader’s support for workers’ co-operative movements, or the satirical article in the number for 21 May 1853 entitled ‘A Guillotine Hunt for Louis Napoleon’, observing ‘a beautiful illustration of the delights of Royalty. . . [in France] the crime of high treason is once more possible. . . . This is the new view of restoration; with the dignity, the scaVold.’ 4. C. K. Shorter commented on this testimonial: ‘It took the form of a gold watch, which Mr. Nicholls showed me with natural pride, forty years later, while walking over his farm at Banagher’ (Shorter letter 633 n.). The handsome fob watch is now in the BPM, the ‘gift of Miss F. Bell, the niece of the second Mrs [Mary Anna] Nicholls’ in 1941. See the illustration and description of item 4 in Sixty Treasures. The engraved inscription reads: ‘Presented to the Revd A. B. Nicholls B.A. by the teachers, scholars and congregation of St Michael’s Haworth Yorkshire May 25th 1853.’ 5. The Revd William Fawcett (1815–76), third son of Richard Fawcett of Bradford; BA Lincoln College Oxford 1838, MA 1875; Vicar of Morton with Riddlesden, near Keighley, Yorks., 1845–76; chaplain of St Mary, Warwick, 1875. Mr Fawcett helped Mr Bronte¨ by taking occasional services at Haworth. W & S 849 mistakenly reads ‘Mr T’, and Sixty Treasures no. 4 expands this to ‘Mr Truscott’.

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6. Mr Bronte¨’s new assistant, the Revd George Binks de Renzy, did not take over Mr Nicholls’s duties until 29 May. He was the son of a doctor, Thomas Derenzy, in County Wicklow, and had entered Trinity College Dublin as a pensioner on 2 July 1839, aged 18. He graduated BA in 1844 (Alumni Dublinenses). On 19 Jan. 1854 he was to marry ‘Emily only daughter of Thos Mackley Esq. of Wilsden’ (a village 4 miles from Keighley). See the Leeds Intelligencer 21.1.1854; information by courtesy of Mrs Louise Barnard. The Clergy Lists name him as the Chaplain of the Borough Gaol, Leeds: see for example the lists for 1852–6. He was appointed stipendiary curate to the Vicar of Leeds after he left Haworth in summer 1854. See EN 7.6.1854 n. 1. 7. MS reads ‘than’. 8. MS torn, with loss of text.

To W. S. Williams, 28 May 1853 Haworth My dear Sir The box of books arrived safely yesterday evening, and I feel especially obliged for the Selection as it includes several that will be acceptable and interesting to my Father.1 I despatch to-day a box of return-books: among them will be found two or three of those just sent, being such as I had read before—i.e. Moore’s Life & Correspondence2 1st. 2nd. Vols. Lamartines Restoration of the Monarchy3 &c. I have thought of you more than once during the late bright weather knowing how genial you Wnd warmth and sunshine. I trust it has brought this season its usual cheering and beneWcial eVect. Remember me kindly to Mrs. Williams and her daughters—and believe me Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS HM 24402. W & S 850. Address (integral): W. S. Williams Esqr. PM: not in MS, 1. The selection included Dr John Forbes’s Memorandums Made in Ireland in the Autumn of 1852, 2 vols. (1853). See GS 14.7.1853. 2. Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore, edited [in a bowdlerized form] by the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, MP, published by Longmans, 8 vols. (1852–6). CB would have enjoyed reading memoirs which recalled her early enthusiasm for Moore and his contemporaries, especially Byron, Campbell, and Wordsworth. 3. Alphonse de Lamartine, Histoire de la Restauration (Paris, 1851–2), transl. Lamartine and Captain Rafter as History of the Restoration of Monarchy in France (1851–3). On Lamartine and on CB’s interest in the French Revolution of 1848, see CBL ii. 35–47. Lamartine had been in eVect the head of the Provisional Government in France from 24 Feb. to Apr. 1848, when he was formally elected to the National Assembly, where he proved himself to be ‘the spokesman of the working class. On June 24, 1848, he was thrown out of oYce and the revolt crushed’ (Encyclopædia Britannica (1982), x. 619). See Sue LonoV, The Belgian Essays, for CB’s knowledge of Lamartine’s Les Harmonies poe´tiques et religieuses (Paris, 1830).

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To Mrs Holland,1 28 May 1853 [?Haworth] My dear Madam Your note touched me deeply—. Authors often receive letters commenting on their works; but—in my own share of such communications—I must say it has been rare to recognize the spirit I seem to have felt in yours. One assurance that we have done good; one testimony that we have assuaged pain—one kind genial recognition of the secretly and deeply felt wish to be something more than a mere self-seeker—comes more healingly to the heart than all the eulogiums on intellect that ever were uttered. And if indeed to grief like yours—grief real, poignant and bitter—I have brought any sense of consolation—it seems graciously proved that my work has not been all wasted. This hope sustained me while I wrote—that while many of the prosperous or very young might turn distastefully from the rather sad page—some—tested by what you well term ‘‘the pitiless trials of life’’—might hear in it no harsh and unsympathetic voice. Accept my earnest good wishes, as well as my grateful regard—and believe me—my dear Madam Yours very sincerely C Bronte¨ MS Borough of TraVord Library, on loan to BPM (B.S. 89.2). BST 17. 87. 122–3. Address (integral): Mrs. Holland PM: not in MS. Annotation (i) on a small contemporary (mid-nineteenth century) envelope accompanying the letter, in an unknown hand: Letter from Charlotte Bronte´ j Haworth j May 28th. 1853—in answer to a criticism on Villette (ii) on the same envelope, possibly in a diVerent hand: Charlotte Bronte’s letter— To be given to Mrs. Roberts at my death (iii) on a modern, larger envelope accompanying the above, in an unknown hand: Charlotte Bronte´ letter to Aunt Lucy Holland received by me at the winding up of Bessie’s aVairs, June 26, 1943 1. The recipient has not been identiWed. See the discussions in the Times Literary Supplement 25.3.1977 and subsequent weeks, and BST 17. 87. 122–3. The location of the MS and the name Lucy Holland may suggest that she was one of the many Hollands of Cheshire, possibly Mrs Gaskell’s cousin [Miss] Lucy Holland (1800–83) the daughter of Dr Peter Holland of Knutsford and his Wrst wife Mary, ne´e Willetts. Lucy Holland was said to be the original of Matty Jenkyns in Cranford. ‘Mrs’ could be used as a courtesy title for a single woman of mature age, as it sometimes was for Harriet Martineau, with her approval. Alan Shelston notes that the concluding number of Cranford had appeared ‘seven days before Charlotte Bronte¨’s reply’ to Mrs Holland, and that ‘Miss Matty’ ‘lives out her life in the shadow of a broken love-aVair’ (TLS 25.3.1977, 344). For the Hollands of Cheshire see John Chapple, Elizabeth Gaskell . . . The Early Years (Manchester, 1997), Appendix B, 439–44.

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To Mrs Gaskell, 1 June 1853 Haworth June is come, and now I want to know if you can come, on Thursday the 9th inst. Ever since I was at Manchester,1 I have been anticipating your visit. Not that I attempt to justify myself in asking you; the place has no attractions, as I told you, here in this house. Papa too takes great interest in the matter. I only pray that the weather may be Wne, and that a cold, by which I am now stupiWed, may be gone before the 9th, so that I may have no let and hindrance in taking you on to the Moors,—the sole, but, with one who loves nature as you do, not despicable resource. When you take leave of the domestic circle and turn your back on Plymouth Grove to come to Haworth, you must do it in the spirit which might sustain you in case you were setting out on a brief trip to the back woods of America. Leaving behind your husband, children and civilisation, you must come out to barbarism, loneliness, and liberty.2 The change will perhaps do good, if not too prolonged. . . . Please, when you write, to mention by what train you will come, and at what hour you will arrive at Keighley; for I must take measures to have a conveyance waiting for you at the station, otherwise, as there is no cab stand, you might be inconvenienced and hindered. MS untraced; formerly George Clive, Esq. W & S 851. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: Life 3rd edn. ii, ch. 13. 1. 21–8 Apr. 1853. See Appendix IV for Mrs Gaskell’s account of CB’s visit to Manchester. In the Wrst edition of the Life, the second paragraph of vol. ii, ch. 13 begins ‘I had promised to pay her a visit on my return from London in June . . . ’ (Life ii. 294). In the third edition a new second paragraph introduces the present letter with the words: ‘Early in June I received the following letter from Miss Bronte¨.’ After the letter, Mrs Gaskell writes: ‘In consequence of this invitation, I promised to pay her . . . London; but, after the day was Wxed, a letter came from Mr Bronte¨ . . . ’ See his letter, written on 5 or 6 June, below (pp. 173–4). 2. See Gaskell Further Letters 90–1 for Mrs Gaskell’s intention to accept the invitation, and her description of CB’s ‘wild sad life,—and her utter want of any companionship . . . for she lives alone, (although in the house with an old blind father); . . . She puts all her naughtiness into her books; when the suVering that falls so keenly on one of her passionate nature, pierces her too deeply ‘‘sits by her bed & stabs her when she awakes’’ (to use her own words,) . . . her only way of relieving herself is by writing out what she feels, & so getting quit of it. . . . she does cling to God, as to a father, in her life & in herself—but somehow she only writes at her morbid times. I am going to stay with her on Thursday.’ (To John M. F. Ludlow, from 39 Hyde Park Square, London, [?7 June 1853]; MS Cambridge University Library.)

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To Ellen Nussey, [?4 June 1853] [Haworth] Satdy. Dear Nell At present I will comment on nothing you have told me.1 I am so unlucky as to have got a very bad inXuenza cold—and to-day I am so miserably sick I cannot bear out of bed.2 Write to me again when you get to your brother’s.3 I restrain every remark. [Yours faithfully C Bronte] Mrs. Gaskell has written to say she will come on Thursday to stay till Monday. unless I alter very much & very rapidly I shall be constrained to send her back— word. MS Beinecke, Yale. Envelope Kirklees. W & S 852 (part) as 6 June 1853. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j The Revd Fr Upjohn j Gorleston j Yarmouth j Norfolk PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j JU 4 18–3 j H (iii) LEEDS j JU 4 j 18–3 j H (iv) YARMOUTH NORFOLK j JU 6 j 1853 j A Annotation by EN: (i) on letter: 307 June 6—53 (ii) on envelope: Ju 6—53 Date: from CB’s ‘Sat[urday]’ and earliest postmark. Ellen’s date, 6 June, was a Monday. Text: the manuscript has been mutilated for the sake of the signature. Shorter 638 and W & S supply ‘Yours faithfully, C. BRONTE¨.’ There is no writing on the verso of this single sheet, and no manuscript evidence for the words ‘not to come’ added by Shorter and W & S after ‘back—word’. 1. Presumably Ellen’s account of the situation at the Upjohns’ house which led to her leaving them less than a month after her arrival at some date between 19 and 26 May. 2. Thus in MS. 3. The Revd Joshua Nussey (1798–1871), Vicar of Oundle, Northants, 1845–71. See CBL i. 181 n. CB regarded Ellen’s brothers as ‘worldly’ (EN ?31.1.1850, CBL ii. 338–9 n).

The Revd P. Bronte¨ to Mrs Gaskell, [?5 or 6 June 1853] Haworth, Nr. Keighley, My Dear Madam, I am obliged to act as amanuensis for My Daughter, who is at present, conWned for the most part, to her bed, with inXuenza, and frequent sharp attacks of ‘‘Tic Douloureux’’, ’in the head,’ which have rendered her utterly unable to entertain you as she could wish—and besides this, she is afraid of

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communicating the complaints by contagion, which would be cause for sad reXection should you have to suVer from your intended kind visit—I can assure you, that your not visiting us, as we wished and expected, will be a great disappointment both to My Daughter and me—From what I have heard My Daughter say respecting you, and from the perusal of your literary works,1 I shall give you a most hearty welcome, whenever you may come As soon as my Daughter shall have got well—which I trust in God, will be ere long—She will let you know, and we hope then, to see you, at your earliest convenient opportunity— With our united kindest regards, I remain, My Dear Madam, Very respectfully, And truly Yours, P. Bronte¨ MS Rylands. LD 462–3 as June [7] 53. Address (integral): To j Mrs. Gaskel, j 47—Wimpole Street, j London2 PM: not in MS. Date: Mr Bronte¨’s letter would postdate CB’s note of ‘Saturday’ [4 June]. LD’s date was probably arrived at as a result of the erroneous date for the ‘Saturday’ note in W & S 852. 1. Mrs Gaskell remarked on Mr Bronte¨’s courtesy to her when she did eventually visit Haworth in Sept. 1853. He could have read Ruth as well as Mary Barton by the date of the present letter, but had perhaps not read the Cranford instalments in Household Words. CB was to read it to him when she received it in volume form as a gift from Mrs Gaskell in early July. See ECG 9.7.1853. 2. 47 Wimpole Street was the address of the barrister William Milbourne James (1807–81) and his wife Maria, ne´e Otter, ‘such a charming person’, as Mrs Gaskell told her daughter Marianne in a letter of 29 May 1853. See CP letter 158 and CBL ii. 706–7.

To George Smith, 12 June 1853 [Haworth] My dear Sir I must write one line lest my silence should be misunderstood. The cause is simply ill- . . . the commence- . . . fever, and a severe peculiar pain in the head, recurring daily and for a time resisting every remedy: it quite incapacitated me from occupation. At present I begin to feel relief—for which I am indeed thankful. My Father too has been far from well, but he too I trust is now better.1 You will understand that I did not like to write while I had only bad news to give I hope your own health continues to improve. Remember me kindly to your Mother and Sisters and believe me [Signature cut out] George Smith Esqr.

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MS BPM SG 83. BST 18. 92. 112, with an unrelated postscript. Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. Text: the lacunae were caused by the removal of the signature on MS fo. 1v. The letter has no postscript. The paragraph printed in BST beginning ‘I return Mr. Thackeray’s little illustrated note’, and ending ‘easily and rapidly’, written on a separate leaf, is a postscript to MS BPM SG 70, GS 11.3.1852, q.v. 1. Mr Bronte¨’s illness had alarmed CB, because ‘a sudden seizure . . . brought on for a time total blindness’. See GS 14.7.1853, EN ?13 and 16.6.1853, ECG 18.6.1853.

To Ellen Nussey, [?13 June 1853] [Haworth] Dear Ellen, You must still excuse a few scant lines. I have been suVering most severely for ten days with continued pain in the head, on the nerves it is said to be; blistering1 at last seems to have done it some good, but I am yet weak and bewildered. Of course I could not receive Mrs. Gaskell; it was a great disappointment. I now long to be better, to get her visit over if possible, and then to ask you; but I must wait awhile yet. Papa has not been well either, but I hope he is better now. You have had a hard time of it and some rough experience.2 Good-bye for the present. I wish much to talk with you about these strange, unhappy people at G[orleston].3— Yours faithfully, C. Bronte¨. MS untraced. W & S 853. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: based on Shorter 639. W & S 853 derives from Shorter, but completes the place-name ‘Gorleston’. 1. The relief of pain by the application of irritant plasters; a palliative widely used, as for example in the treatment of Anne Bronte¨. See EN 10.1.1849, CBL ii. 166–7 n. 2. Ellen’s ‘rough experience’ took place at the Upjohns’ house in Gorleston, but this letter was sent to Oundle, where EN was staying at her brother Joshua’s vicarage. 3. Nussey 310–11 prints a more discreet version of this sentence, no doubt supplied by EN: ‘I wish much to talk with you about your visit.’

To Ellen Nussey, 16 June 1853 [Haworth] Dear Ellen I am better now—as usual the reduction of strength was rapid—and the convalescence equally so. The very dreadful pain in my head is almost gone and so is the inXuenza. Papa too is better—but I was frightened about him—not that

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he has in the least lost appetite or thought himself ill in body—but the eyes &c. betrayed those symptoms that Wll me with alarm—1 I have written to Mrs. Gaskell to ask her for next week—I do not know however whether she will now be at liberty before August or Septbr.2 but when I get her answer I will tell you what is its purport—and your coming can be arranged accordingly. I am glad—dear Nell, you are having a little enjoyment. Stay at *Oundle if you can till you hear from me again—as if Mrs. Gaskell does not come—you had better come direct here—but we shall see Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS BPM Bon 247. W & S 854. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: (i) ?309. (ii) in unknown hand: not in S j 86 1. Eye inXammation had been one of Mr Bronte¨’s symptoms when his violent reaction to Mr Nicholls’s proposal seemed to herald apoplexy. See EN 15.12.1852, 18.12.1852. 2. Mrs Gaskell had returned from London to Manchester by c.16 June, but she planned to accept her friend Julia (Mrs Salis) Schwabe’s invitation to stay at Glyn Garth, Anglesey, 2–7 July, and then to stay with the Duckworth family near Southampton for a few days before ‘making a little tour in Normandy’ from c.19 July. With her husband and her two elder daughters, she hoped to make a circuit from Le Havre, visiting Rouen and Bayeux. See Jenny Uglow, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories (1993). 350–1. They had returned home by early September.

To Mrs Gaskell, 18 June 1853 Haworth My dear Mrs. Gaskell I lay no Xattering unction to my soul1 that you can come, for I see most plainly that you can’t.2 It is best to face facts and make up one’s mind to them; besides I would not have your visit to be breathless, hurried and wholly inconvenient to yourself; so I will suVer the prospect to recede; I will look forward to ‘‘purple Autumn’’3 You and the bright heath and ripe corn shall all be classed together in my expectations—nor am I entirely unhappy in the delay—it is only the protraction of a thought in which I Wnd both a stay and a pleasure. But neither—meantime—can I come to Manchester; my place is at home just now. I told you Papa had been indisposed—but I did not like to enter into particulars—the symptoms were such as—though not greatly aVecting his general health—which is good—gave me heartfelt uneasiness—

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One night—while I was ill—I heard him pause on the staircase in coming up to bed—he delayed some time: I listened—he pronounced my name—I hastily rose—and threw something round me, I went to him—there he stood with his candle in his hand—strangely arrested—My dear Mrs. Gaskell—his sight had become suddenly extinct—he was in total darkness.4 Medical aid was immediately summoned—but nothing could be done—it was feared that a slight stroke of paralysis had occurred and had fallen on the optic nerve. I believed he would never see more; his own anguish was great. Thank God! the light began to return to him next day—he said it seemed as if a thick curtain was gradually drawn up—he can now once more read a little and Wnd his way, but the vision is impaired— his spirits often much depressed—and of course—you feel that I cannot leave him. I shall now ask an old school-fellow to come and stay with me for a few days5—and I shall look forward with fond hope to you and Autumn. God bless you and yours and good by’e Yours aVectionately, C Bronte¨ MS untraced. Horace Hird, Bradford Remembrancer (Bradford, 1972), 14. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Text: based on photocopy of holograph MS, BPM copy documents. The original, for sale at Christie’s in London on 18 Dec. 1964, is described as ‘A. L. S. dated Haworth June 18th—1853— Mrs Gaskell, 2pp 8vo.’ 1. Cf. Hamlet iii. iv. 142. 2. Mrs Gaskell had originally planned to go to Haworth on 9 June, beginning the journey by the Great Northern railway from King’s Cross, London. See CP letter 158. 3. Cf. James Thomson, The Seasons, ‘Autumn’, 1. 674, ‘Where Autumn basks, with fruit empurpled deep’, and Horace, Odes 2. 5. 11: ‘autumnus varius purpureo colore’. 4. In her letter to Laetitia Wheelwright of 8 Mar. 1854 CB describes this loss of sight and its aftermath. 5. See the next two letters and EN 23. 6. [1853].

To Ellen Nussey, [?18 June 1853] Fragment [Haworth] The enclosed is from Amelia to you. I have not read it, though it was sent to me open. It takes two posts from O[undle] to Haworth.1 I shall expect you by next Thursday.2 MS untraced. Part of W & S 855. Address: not in source.

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PM: not in source. Date derived from CB’s reference in EN 20.6.1853 to a letter written by her on Saturday 18 June, of which there is no extant holograph MS, and from her reference to ‘two posts from Oundle’ recalled in the letter of 20 June. Text: based on the part of W & S 855 which does not derive from MS BPM B.S. 90, the original source, via a copy like that in the Needham collection, for the garbled version of the remainder of the letter of 20 June. The underlining in the last sentence derives from the Needham copy. 1. Cf. the dates on the envelope for EN [?4.6.1853]: Keighley and Leeds June 4, Yarmouth June 6. 2. 23 June.

To Ellen Nussey, 20 June 1853 [Haworth] Dear Ellen I have been very much vexed to Wnd that Martha forgot to post my letter of Saturday 18th till too late—consequently as we have no post on Sunday, it will not go till to-day and you cannot receive it till Tuesday at the earliest—not till Wednesday—if I am right about the 2 posts to *Oundle1—which would be altogether too late. I now write a line to tell you to be sure and arrange your departure from *Oundle according to your own convenience—my health &c. has nothing to do with the question—as I am now about in my usual condition—only thin— as I always am after illness. Be sure however to let me know the day and time of your arrival at Keighley that I may arrange to send for you. I faintly hope that I may be wrong about the 2 posts—remembering that I wrote to you Monday the 13th. you got my letter the 14th.; but then your answer was also dated the 14th. and I did not receive it till the 16th. so the matter is uncertain. If however one post suYces to convey a letter—you will receive this Tuesday—and if you write and post on that day—I may hear from you on Wednesday and all will be right.2 I do trust it may be Wne healthy weather while you are here. Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 90. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/63.9. W & S 855 (part). Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j The Vicarage j Oundle j Northamptonshire PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) —?E— (iii) LEEDS j JU 20 j 1853 j H Annotation on envelope by EN: Ju 20—53 j of going to Haworth j from Oundle 1. See EN 18.6.1853. 2. CB must have heard from EN by Thursday 23 June, when she replied.

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To Miss Mary Holmes, 21 June 1853 [Haworth] My dear Miss Holmes1 I was glad to get your last letter, for I was glad to hear where you are, and how—prospering. When you wrote to me before in July 1852—all my thoughts and cares were so engaged in attendance on my Father, then very ill—that I could not at the time answer your letter; and when I had leisure to do so—it was too late to use the address you gave me. This summer I have been ill myself; but now—thank God! I am better, and able to acknowledge your letter. You always write to me frankly and sincerely, I agree with some of your strictures,2 and with others I am a good deal amused. Sometimes you are right, and again strangely wrong. I should say yours was a somewhat unequal character and judgment—as indeed is proved by the single fact of your conversion to Romanism. That is a most naı¨ve confession of yours about ‘‘the pious Catholic’’ living with a Protestant friend or partner in constant horror of his or her errors, and dread of his misery in a future life. All the essence of Popish bigotry—the whole secret and spirit of persecution lies in that admission. Under such circumstances proselytism becomes a duty—persecution even to the death—a virtue. Slay the body to save the soul. I was interested in your account of yourself—and most sincerely glad that you had escaped from that pretentious family—and have at last found something like a haven—rude and imperfectly she[l]tered though it be. I quite understand how the sense of freedom gives a relish to the coarse fare, softens the hard couch—and covers the sanded Xoor with a carpet. I wish you may continue happy so long as you remain at Boulogne—and when you change—that the change may be for the better. Believe me Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS Berg. No publication traced. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation on 2v in unknown, probably nineteenth-century hand: AuthoreSs of Jane Eyre 1. For Mary Holmes, see CB’s letter to her of 22 Apr. 1852 and notes. Thackeray’s letters to Miss Holmes show that she had moved from Gargrave, near Skipton, to London, where she still was on 10 Aug. 1852; but by 29 Oct. that year she had moved to 2 Rue St Jean, Boulogne. Thackeray refers to her as friendless, alone, and courageous. However, he refused to wear an image of the Virgin that she had given him, and he soon became tired of her.

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2. Since Miss Holmes did not know CB personally, perhaps her ‘strictures’ were on the harsh criticism of aspects of Catholicism in Villette, where Pe`re Silas’s proselytism is allied with persecution of Lucy. CB had approved of Charles Kingsley’s dramatic exposure of the monk Conrad’s inquisitorial tyranny in The Saint’s Tragedy. See ECG 6.8.1851, CBL ii. 676–9.

To Ellen Nussey, 23 June [1853] [Haworth] Dear Ellen What you say is reasonable and therefore I Wx next Thursday the 30th. for your coming to Haworth1—when you write again say the time you will reach Keighley. I wanted to decide on Monday or Tuesday—but I Wnd Thursday is the only day on which I can have the gig—I trust you will come all right—leaving your mother &c. well at home—Write soon—yours faithfully MS Beinecke, Yale. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/64. No publication traced. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i)—W—— (ii) LEEDS j JU 23 j 1853 j H Annotation by EN (i) on letter: 311 53 (ii) on envelope: Ju 23—53 Text: the signature has been cut oV. Information apparently deriving from this letter is used in the corrupt text of W & S 855. 1. This is the last located letter from CB to EN before their long estrangement. The length of her stay at Haworth is not known, but during her visit Ellen discovered that Mr Nicholls’s courtship was being taken seriously and not unkindly by CB. The friendship was not resumed until CB wrote to Ellen shortly before 21 Feb. 1854. The Wrst extant letter after the break is dated 1 Mar. [1854]. W & S 870, dated ‘[October 6th, 1853]’, was almost certainly written before the estrangement, and has been redated to ?c.5 May 1853 in the present edition.

To George Smith, 3 July 1853 Haworth. My dear Sir Nobody could read your last note without experiencing a sense of concern. Such a feeling indeed was inspired by a former letter of yours received in May;1 but you then spoke of being better; the concluding lines were hopeful. Better— it seems—you are not; at least your spirits are not improved, and I write a line because whoever wishes you well can hardly rest satisWed without making some little eVort to cheer you.2 Permit me to say that it is wise to anticipate better days with even sanguine conWdence. I do not think your health is undermined; but your nerves have been so frequently overstrained with too much work that now they are relaxed, and both time and repose are absolutely necessary to the recovery of a healthy tone.

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I suppose a very phlegmatic, heavy nature would never feel the evils from which you are now suVering; but where the nervous system is delicately constructed, and either from over-work or other causes has to undergo an amount of wear and tear beyond the average—the period of reaction necessarily arrives. What you now feel is always I believe felt at some time of life or other by those [who] have3 much to do or suVer—whose lot it is to bear heavy responsibilities, or undergo severe anxieties, and ’in’ whose moral constitution there is that degree of elaborateness which will result in sensitive feeling. Notwithstanding your aged sensations—you are far too young to despair for a moment. You will be better: I know you will be better, but in care, in mental rest and moderate physical exercise lie the means of cure. Let no inXuence, let no exigency, if possible, impose <no> on you the spur or the goad: I am sure you do not need these, nor ever did in your life; not even when you turn with distaste from the task of answering a friendly letter; and let me just say, though I say it not without pain, a correspondence which has not interest enough in itself to sustain life—ought to die. Thank you for your kind inquiries about my Father: there is no change for the worse in his sight since I wrote last; rather—I think—a tendency to improvement. He says the sort of veil between him and the light appears thinner; his general health has however been lately a good deal aVected—and desirable as it might appear in some points of view to adopt your suggestion with reference to seeking ’the best’ Medical advice—I fear that at present there would ’be’ a serious hazard in undertaking a long journey by rail. He must become stronger than he appears to be just now—less liable to sudden sickness and swimming in the head, before such a step could be thought of. Your kind oVer of attention in case he should ever come to Town merits and has my best acknowledgments. I know however that my Father’s Wrst and last thought would be to give trouble nowhere, and especially to infringe on no precious time. He would, of course take private lodgings. As for me—I am and have been for some weeks—pretty much as usual again: That is to say—no object for solicitude whatever. You do not mention whether your Mother and Sisters are well but I hope they are, and beg always to be kindly remembered to them. I hope too your partner—Mr. King4—will soon acquire a working faculty—and leave you some leisure and opportunity eVectually to cultivate health. Believe me Sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 84. W & S 857 (part). Address (integral): George Smith Esqre. PM: not in MS.

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1. A letter to which CB did not reply until 12 June, owing to her illness at that period. 2. Though it is probably true that George Smith was depressed through overwork, he had found a hope of happiness in his personal life, for he Wrst met his future wife, Elizabeth Blakeway (?1831–1914) at a ball at Clapham Common ‘on April 5th, 1853 . . . It was, with me, a clear case of ‘‘love at Wrst sight’’!’ (quoted in Jenifer Glynn, Prince of Publishers (1986), 77). He determined that this was the woman he was going to marry; but, despite his ‘habits of quick decision’ and the ‘warmth of the feeling’ which made delay intolerable, he did not propose until Nov. 1853. 3. MS reads ‘those have’. 4. Henry Samuel King, 1817–78, the new partner in the Wrm. See GS 26.3.1853 n. 1.

To Mrs Gaskell, 9 July 1853 Haworth My dear Mrs. Gaskell Thank you for your letter—: it was as pleasant as a quiet chat, as welcome as spring-showers, as reviving as a friend’s visit; in short it was very like a page of ‘‘Cranford.’’ That book duly reached me—coming on the very morning1 you should have come in person—had Fate been propitious. I have read it over twice; once to myself, and once aloud to my Father. I Wnd it pleasurable reading—graphic, pithy, penetrating, shrewd, yet kind and indulgent. A thought occurs to me. Do you—who have so many friends, so large a circle of acquaintance—Wnd it easy, when you sit down to write—to isolate yourself from all those ties and their sweet associations—[so] as to be2 quite your own woman—uninXuenced, unswayed by the consciousness of how your work may aVect other minds—what blame, what sympathy it may call forth?3 Does no luminous cloud ever come between you and the severe Truth—as you know it in your own secret and clear-seeing Soul? In a word, <does the> are you never tempted to make your characters more amiable than the life—by the inclination to assimilate your thoughts to the thoughts of those who always feel kindly, but sometimes fail to see justly? Don’t answer the question. It is not intended to be answered. Thackeray seems to be just now one of the happiest of men.4 I wish one could feel more conWdence in the continuance of his bliss and in his prudence. But I am afraid you will be hearing erelong of more horses and broughams purchased in the dearest market and sold in the cheapest. I apprehend him to be rather in the mood of that sage mariner who, having entered into the possession of a sum of prize-money—and conscientiously desiring to spend the same like a rational being—forthwith projected a tour—and in order to accomplish it worthily—hired 3 post-chaises—one for himself, a second for his hat—and a third for his cane.5 Your account of Mrs. Stowe was stimulatingly interesting—I long to see you, to get you [to] say it6 and many other things—all over again.

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My Father continues better. I am better too, but to-day I have a head-ache again which will hardly let me write coherently. Give my kind love to Marianne and Meta—dear, happy girls as they are! Remember me too to Mr. Gaskell. You cannot now transmit any message to Flossy and Julia. I prized the little wildXower—not that I think the sender cares for me—she does not and cannot—for she does not know me—but no matter—in my reminiscences—she is a person of a certain distinction—I think hers a Wne little nature—frank and of genuine promise.7 I often see her as she appeared stepping supreme from the portico towards the carriage that evening we went to see ‘‘Twelfth-Night’’.8 I believe in Julia’s future: I like what speaks in her movements and what is written upon her face Yours with true attachment C Bronte¨ MS Rylands. W & S 859 (part). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Thursday 9 June. For Cranford see ECG [26.4.1852] n. 1. Mr Bronte¨’s sight was still poor at this date. 2. MS reads ‘associations—as as to be’. 3. Mrs Gaskell had been acutely conscious of, and perhaps swayed by, the way in which Ruth might ‘aVect other minds’. See ECG [26.4.1852] n. 2, and her letters of this period, especially those to Mary Green of ?20 Nov. 1852 and c.25 Jan. 1853 in Gaskell Further Letters 73–5, 79–80. 4. Mrs Gaskell had recently met Thackeray in London, Wrst ‘at the Milmans’ (the Dean of St Paul’s) and again when he dined at the home of her hostess, Maria James, in June 1853, following his successful American lecture tour. This had brought him £2,500, to be invested for his daughters’ beneWt, and had helped to make him ‘one of the happiest of men’. ‘You can’t think how gentle & kind & happy he is—he won’t hear a word, or a joke against the Americans . . . ’ (ECG to unknown, ?June 1853, CP letter 161). In fact he had looked askance at the ‘splendaciousness’ of some American nouveaux-riches: see Harden i. 526. 5. Anecdote untraced. ‘Prize-money’ was ‘money realized by the sale of a prize [a ship or property captured at sea], and distributed among the captors’ (OED). 6. MS reads ‘get you say it’. For CB’s attitude to Harriet Beecher Stowe see EN 24.9.1852, GS 30.10.1852 and notes. On 19 June 1853, after her return from London, Mrs Gaskell wrote to Mrs Schwabe: ‘Oh! and I saw Mrs Stowe after all; I saw her twice; but only once to have a good long talk to her; then I was 4 or 5 hours with her, and liked her very much indeed. She is short and American in her manner, but very true & simple & thoroughly unspoiled & unspoilable’ (CP letter 162). Mrs Stowe stayed with the Gaskells later in the year, and again for one night on 3 June 1857. She also visited Leeds on 3 Sept. 1853, and was presented with £100 from ‘the ladies of Leeds’ and an address from the Leeds Anti-Slavery Association (Mayhall i. 638–9). 7. Mrs Gaskell had left Florence and Julia at the Schwabes’ house when she returned to Manchester on 7 July. Writing eleven years later, she also thought Julia was ‘full of promise,—the merriest grig, the most unselWsh girl by nature, that I ever knew; with a deep sense of religion in her . . . ’ (to Charles Eliot Norton, 4.7.1864; CP letter 551). Like Meta, Julia was to become involved in community work, Wghting for women’s higher education, and ploughing back her mother’s royalties into Manchester charities ( Jenny Uglow, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories (1993), 613). 8. During CB’s recent visit to the Gaskells she had accompanied them to the ‘Manchester Shaksperian Society’s’ performance of Twelfth Night, given at the Theatre Royal in Peter Street on 25 Apr. to raise funds for the Manchester Free Library. See Appendix IV, Barker 727–8, and Brian Kay and James Knowles, ‘The ‘‘Twelfth Night’’ Charlotte saw’, in BST 15. 78. 241–3,

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where an unnamed newspaper critic is quoted on Orsino (‘Often too boisterous and loud’), an inaudible Antonio, and an Olivia who ‘merely walked through her part’, though Sir Toby, Andrew Aguecheek, and Viola earned ‘a modicum of praise’. CB knew the play well, and quoted from it in her writings. See the Clarendon Professor, Appendix VII. The concluding item for the evening was a popular farce, ‘Raising the Wind’, by James Kenney (1780–1849), in which ‘Jeremy Diddler’ carries oV ‘a series of impostures . . . with an engaging swagger’ though ‘Neither plot, dialogue, nor subsidiary characters have any substance’ (George Rowell, The Victorian Theatre: A Survey (1956), 64–5). For CB’s views on the ‘whole stage-system’ see her letter to Margaret Wooler of 14 Feb. 1850, CBL ii. 344, 346 n.

To George Smith, 14 July 1853 Haworth. My dear Sir Mr. Ruskin’s beautiful book1 reached me safely this morning; its arrival was a pleasant surprise, as I was far from expecting to see it so soon after publication. Of course I have not yet read it, but a mere glance over the pages suYces to excite anticipation and to give a foretaste of excellence. Acknowledgement is also due for the great pleasure I derived from reading Dr. Forbes ‘‘Memorandum’’2 (sent in the last Cornhill-parcel). Without according with every opinion broached, or accepting as infallible every inference drawn or every conclusion arrived at—one cannot but like the book and sincerely respect the author—on account of the good sense, good feeling, good nature and good humour everywhere obvious in these ‘‘Memorandum’’. About a fortnight since—I observed in the ‘‘Examiner’’ an intimation that Mr. Thackeray is about to issue a new serial.3 Is this good news true?—and if so—do you at all know the subject—and are you to publish it? I hope so. Mrs. Gaskell was in Town a few weeks ago, and gave a most propitious account of the great man’s present mood and spirits, but I am afraid after all his feˆting in America—he will Wnd it rather a dull change to sit down again to his desk—especially when he is in some sense bound to refrain from the very subject which must still be uppermost in his thoughts.4 My Father’s half-formed project of visiting London this summer for a few days—has been rather painfully frustrated. In June he had a sudden seizure— which without seeming greatly to aVect his general health—brought on for a time total blindness. He could not discern between day and night. I feared the optic nerve was paralyzed, and that he would never see more. Vision has however been partially restored, but it is now very imperfect. He sometimes utters a wish that he could see the camp at Chobham,5 but that would not be possible under present circumstances. I think him very patient with the apprehension of what, to him would be the greatest of privations, hanging over his head. I can but earnestly hope that what remains of sight may be spared him to the end.6

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I trust your Mother and sisters are well—and that you have ere now secured assistance and are relieved from some part of your hard work—and consequently that your health and Spirits are improved. Believe me—my dear Sir Yours very sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 85. W & S 860. Address (integral): George Smith Esqre. PM: not in MS. 1. Probably vol. ii of Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice: ‘The Sea-Stories’, with 20 plates and numerous woodcuts ‘drawn by the Author’; a handsome volume published in July 1853 by Smith, Elder at two guineas. It contained Ruskin’s famous chapter on ‘The Nature of Gothic’. Vol. iii, ‘The Fall’, was to follow in October. See CB’s comments on the Wrst volume ( Jan. 1851) in CBL ii. 615. 2. Thus in MS, for Memorandums made in Ireland in the Autumn of 1852. By John Forbes, M.D, F.R.S. With a map and illustrations . . . 2 vols. (Smith, Elder & Co. 1853). The volume is of particular interest because it contains descriptions, and in some cases illustrations, of several places which CB was to visit on her honeymoon tour: Dublin, Cork, Killarney, Tralee, and Tarbert are among those described or mentioned. Charlotte might well wish to see GlengariV if she recalled the Memorandums’ Wne frontispiece view of its spectacular peaks and islets, and the enthusiastic description of its ‘most exquisite beauty’. Dr Forbes, who admits the ‘scrap-like character’ of his book, adds to his travel notes some oYcial statistics on population and occupations, gives an account of the ‘Failure of the potato’, discusses Catholic and Protestant churches and missions (with special praise for the ‘extremely creditable’ reputation of the Catholic priests in the districts through which he travelled), and provides diagrams of the structure of the Giant’s Causeway. 3. George Smith had wished to publish Thackeray’s next book, but he was outbid by Bradbury and Evans. They agreed to publish 24 monthly numbers of The Newcomes: Memoirs of a most respectable Family, edited by A. Pendennis Esqre., illustrated by Richard Doyle, for the price of £3,600 plus £500 from Harpers and Tauchnitz. See Ray Letters iii. 280. The Wrst number appeared on 1 Oct. 1853, the last in Aug. 1855. See CB’s references to The Newcomes in MW 18.10.1853, ECG 27.12.1853. 4. Thackeray deplored the anti-American prejudice which had been intensiWed in Britain by the publication of Mrs Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In a letter to an American friend, William Bradford Reed, Thackeray recalled the kindness of his hosts, and wished he could ‘ding into the ears of the great stupid virtue-proud English public . . . that there are folks as good as they in America’ (21 July 1853, Ray Letters iii. 293). Though he condemned enslavement, he considered that the negro was ‘not my man & my brother’ but an inferior being, and that writers like ‘Dickens, Captain Marryat, Harriet Martineau, Mrs. Trollope, and the rest’ had exaggerated American ‘barbarism, eccentricities’ and cruelties to negroes. Having ‘had no leisure to see anything of the country’ he felt it would be ‘impudent to write a book’ about the States, even though he ‘had half promised’ one to George Smith (Ray Wisdom 216, 219–21). 5. Until June 1853 opportunities for British military training had been totally inadequate: ‘There had been but one quarter in the British Isles—Dublin—where troops enough were stationed even for a brigade Weld-day’ (EVE i. 360). An ‘experimental military camp’ at Chobham Common in Surrey was therefore established ‘for the purpose of practising sham-Wghting. The camp took the place in the season of ’53 that had been held by the Great Exhibition in ’51, and young men of rank who were braving the perils of mimic warfare . . . were the idols of the hour. On the 21st of June serious operations began in the presence of the Queen. She rode to the ground on a superb black charger . . . The moving incidents of the Weld, the noise of the Wring, the shifting panorama of colour, delighted the fashionable crowds.’ ‘On the 14th of July the camp was broken up, and other contingents took the places of the regiments which had formed

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it.’ The camp Wnally broke up on 28 Aug., some 10,000 men having been sent there during the summer (Wilson Victoria ii. 567–9). The exercises revealed many defects, which were not fully remedied, and ‘a large piece of ground at Aldershot was purchased for future manoeuvres’. In 1854 this had to be used for the urgent training needed for the Crimean war (EVE i. 360–1). 6. See EN 16.6.1853 n. 1. Mr Bronte¨’s sight was suYciently restored for him to write a legible hand and to read as late as Oct. 1860 at the age of 83, and there is no reliable evidence of his being blind before his death on 5 June 1861.

To the Editor1 of the ‘Christian Remembrancer’, 18 July 1853 Haworth, near Keighley, Yorkshire Sir, I think I cannot be doing wrong in addressing you a few remarks respecting an article which appeared in the ‘‘Christian Remembrancer’’ for last April. I mean an article noticing ‘‘Villette.’’ When Wrst I read that article I thought only of its ability, which seemed to me considerable, of its acumen, which I felt to be penetrating; an occasional misconception passed scarce noticed, and I smiled at certain passages from which evils have since risen so heavy as to oblige me to revert seriously to their origin. Conscious myself that the import of these insinuations was far indeed from truth, I forgot to calculate how they might appear to that great Public which personally did not know me. The passage to which I particularly allude characterises me by a strong expression. I am spoken of as an alien,—it might seem from society, and amenable to none of its laws. The ‘‘G——’’ newspaper gave a notice in the same spirit.2 The ‘‘E——’’3 culled isolated extracts from your review, and presented them in a concentrated form as one paragraph of unqualiWed condemnation. The result of these combined attacks, all to one eVect—all insinuating some disadvantageous occult motive for a retired life—has been such, that at length I feel it advisable to speak a few words of temperate explanation in the quarter that seems to me most worthy to be thus addressed, and the most likely to understand rightly my intention. Who my reviewer may be I know not, but I am convinced he is no narrow-minded or naturally unjust thinker.4 To him I would say no cause of seclusion such as he would imply has ever come near my thoughts, deeds, or life. It has not entered my experience. It has not crossed my observation. Providence so regulated my destiny that I was born and have been reared in the seclusion of a country parsonage. I have never been rich enough to go out into the world as a participator in its gaieties,5 though it early became my duty

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to leave home in order partly to diminish the many calls on a limited income. That income is lightened of claims in another sense now, for of a family of six I am the only survivor. My father is now in his seventy-seventh year; his mind is clear as it ever was, and he is not inWrm, but he suVers from partial privation and threatened loss of sight; as his general health is also delicate, he cannot be left often or long: my place consequently is at home. These are reasons which make retirement a plain duty; but were no such reasons in existence, were I bound by no such ties, it is very possible that seclusion might still appear to me, on the whole, more congenial than publicity; the brief and rare glimpses I have had of the world do not incline me to think I should seek its circles with very keen zest—nor can I consider such disinclination a just subject for reproach. This is the truth. The careless, rather than malevolent insinuations of reviewers have, it seems, widely spread another impression. It would be weak to complain, but I feel that it is only right to place the real in opposition to the unreal. Will you kindly show this note to my reviewer? Perhaps he cannot now Wnd an antidote for the poison in which he dipped that shaft he shot at ‘‘Currer Bell,’’ but when again tempted to take aim at other prey—let him refrain his hand a moment till he has considered consequences to the wounded, and recalled the ‘‘golden rule.’’6 I am, Sir, yours respectfully, C. BRONTE¨. MS untraced. W & S 861 (part). Address: given in source as: ‘TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER’. PM: not in source. Date from source. Text: as printed in The Christian Remembrancer, 34 (Oct. 1857), 135–6, where it forms part of a review of Mrs Gaskell’s Life, and is introduced as follows: ‘She was very sensitive of criticism on moral points, and indeed showed a general soreness and susceptibility for which we respect her, though we think it inconsistent with her own method of impaling living persons, obnoxious to her feelings or taste, in her own works. How she could have the face to resent anything, after her behaviour to so many of her own neighbours and acquaintance, we do not see. It proceeds from the same shortsightedness which allowed her to be sensitively nervous in concealing her authorship, while she betrayed herself in every chapter by her portraits from the life. It was this custom of hers of writing from the life—a practice evident from the style (though the circumstances and persons were all, we are assured, unknown, down to the author herself )—which, we believe, led the writer of an article on ‘Villette,’ which appeared in this Review, to use the oVensive word ‘alien’ as applied to her. No person, living on friendly, cordial terms with those about her, could, it was assumed, have adopted such a style of writing. And reserve did alienate her. No person living out of her exceedingly narrow circle had the slightest hold on her tenderness or sympathy; it is the tendency of all reserve. But the word alien might have another meaning, and as such, she complains of it in the following pathetic letter, which we are sure will interest our readers. Anyone taking the trouble to refer to the article in question, will see that no such interpretation as she says some persons (not herself ) drew from the words, could fairly be given, but that it was so understood by any, and thus caused her undesigned pain, is subject of regret.’

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1. James Bowling Mozley (1813–78), brother of Anne Mozley. She had reviewed Villette in the number for Apr. 1853. See WSW 8.4.1853 nn. and Allott 203, where the sentence about CB’s alleged ‘alienation’ from society is quoted. For the Remembrancer’s review of Jane Eyre which Wnds in the novel ‘moral Jacobinism’ and unfeminine ‘coarseness’, see the Remembrancer for Apr. 1848, xv. 396–409, Allott 88–92, and CBL ii. 50 n. Cf. Elizabeth Rigby’s hurtful surmise in the Quarterly Review for Dec. 1848 that if Jane Eyre was by a woman, it must be by one who had ‘long forfeited the society of her own sex’ (Allott 105–12, CBL ii. 165–6, 178 n. 8). 2. See the Guardian for 23 Feb. 1853 (viii. 128), Allott 193–4, and WSW 9.3.1853 n. 2. The reviewer suggests that the ‘somewhat cynical and bitter spirit’ of CB’s novel may arise from her personal circumstances. ‘It may be that the world has dealt hardly with her; it may be that in her writings we gather the honest and truthful impression of a powerful but ill-used nature; that they are the result of aVections thrown back on themselves, and harshly denied their proper scope and objects.’ The Guardian’s review had in fact preceded that in the Christian Remembrancer, as had that in the Eclectic Review for Mar. 1853. See WSW 9.3.1853 n. 1. 3. The English Churchman for 7 Apr. 1853. See MW 13.4.1853 n. 1. 4. Cf. CB’s perception of the reviewer’s cleverness and involuntary liking for ‘some portion’ of Villette, despite her condemnation of CB’s ‘latitudinarianism’ (WSW 8.4.1853). Anne Mozley was respected for her intelligence and integrity by J. H. Newman. She ‘disclaimed the interpretation’ CB had ‘put upon her words, and, writing about the biography of charlotte brontE¨ and the animadversions made upon her by critics, says: ‘‘Which among them, if he would rewrite his criticism, would not now and then erase an epithet, spare a sarcasm, modify a sweeping condemnation?’’ ’ (quoted in The British Weekly, 13.3.1919, 417, from W. Robertson Nicoll’s address to the Bronte¨ Society on 8 Mar. 1919). 5. CB somewhat unfairly omits to mention the eVorts of her publishers, the Kay-Shuttleworths, Mrs Gaskell, and others, to enable her to participate in various social events, if not precisely ‘gaieties’, during her visits to London or Manchester. 6. Matthew 7: 12: ‘Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.’ As Juliet Barker observes, ‘The October issue of the periodical carried a notice from the editor acknowledging Charlotte’s letter ‘‘which claims at once our respect and sympathy’’. ‘‘We wrote in entire ignorance of the author’s private history, and with no wish to pry into it . . . We now learn with pleasure, but not with surprise, that the main motive for this seclusion is devotion to the purest and most sacred of domestic ties’’ ’ (Barker 734).

To Margaret Wooler, 30 August 1853 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler I was from home when your kind letter1 came, and as it was not forwarded—I did not get it till my return. All the summer I have felt the wish and cherished the intention to join you for a brief period at the seaside; nor do I yet entirely relinquish this purpose, though its fulWlment must depend on my father’s health. At present he complains so much of weakness and depressed spirits— no thoughts of leaving him can be entertained. Should he improve however—I would fain come to you before Autumn is quite gone. My late absence was but for a week, when I accompanied Mr & Mrs. Joe Taylor ’and baby’ on a trip to Scotland.2 They went with the intention of taking

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up their quarters at Kirkcudbright or some watering-place on the Solway Frith.3 We barely reached that locality, and had stayed but one night—when the baby (that rather despotic member of modern households) exhibited some symptoms of indisposition. To my unskilled perception its ailments appeared very slight— nowise interfering with its appetite or spirits, but parental eyes saw the matter in a diVerent light: the air of Scotland was pronounced unpropitious to the child— and consequently we had to retrace our steps. I own ’I’ felt some little reluctance to leave ‘‘bonnie Scotland’’4 so soon and so abruptly, but of course I could not say a word, since however strong on my own mind ’the impression’ that the ailment in question was very trivial and temporary (an impression conWrmed by the issue—as the slight diarrhoea disappeared in a few hours) I could not be absolutely certain that such was the case—and had any evil consequences followed a prolonged stay—I should never have forgiven myself. Ilkley5 was the next place thought of. We went there, but I only remained three days—for in the hurry of changing trains at one of the stations—my box was lost and without clothes, I could not stay. I have heard of it since—but have not yet regained it. In all probability it is now lying at Kirkcudbright where it was directed. Notwithstanding some minor trials—I greatly enjoyed this little excursion— the scenery through which we travelled from Dumfries to Kirkcudbright (a distance of 30 miles performed outside a stage-coach) was beautiful, though not at all of a peculiarly Scottish character, being richly cultivated, and wellwooded. I liked Ilkley too exceedingly, and shall long to revisit the place. On the whole—I thought it for the best that circumstances obliged me to return home so soon, for I found Papa far from well: he is something better now, yet I shall not feel it right to leave him again till I see a more thorough re-establishment of health and strength. With some things to regret and smile at—I saw many things to admire in the small family party with which I travelled. Mr. *Joe makes a most devoted father and husband. I admired his great kindness to his wife—**an amiable—though not a clever or cultivated woman,** but I rather groaned (inwardly) over the unbounded indulgence of both parents towards their only child. The world does not revolve round the Sun—that is a mistake; certain babies—I plainly perceive—are the important centre of all things. The Papa and Mamma could only take their meals, rest and exercise at such times and in such measure as the despotic infant permitted. While Mrs J. eat6 her dinner, Mr J——relieved guard as nurse. A nominal nurse indeed accompanied the party, but her place was a sort of anxious, waiting sinecure, as the child did not fancy her attendance. Tenderness to oVspring is a virtue, yet I think I have seen Mothers—the late

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7

Mrs AIlbutt for instance—who were most tender and thoughtful—yet in very love for their children—would not permit them to become tyrants either over themselves or others. I shall be glad and grateful—my dear Miss *Wooler, to hear from you again whenever you have time or inclination to write—though—as I told you before—there is no fear of my misunderstanding silence. Should you leave Hornsea8 before Winter sets in—I trust you will just come straight to Haworth, and pay your long-anticipated visit there before you go elsewhere. Papa and the servants send their respects. I always duly deliver your kind messages of remembrance because they give pleasure. Believe me always Yours aVectionately & respectfully C Bronte¨ MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 863. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation in pencil by T. C. Allbutt: Mrs Allbutt—wife of Rev. T. A. Vicar of Dewsbury & my mother 1. This kind letter must have reassured CB that Miss Wooler did not intend to withdraw her friendship, as Ellen Nussey had done. CB had apparently not written to EN since 23 June, when she was expecting her to visit Haworth. By 12 Aug. Ellen had learnt that CB was contemplating marriage with A. B. Nicholls: in jealous indignation she wrote a letter of ‘wonderful nonsense’ to Mary Taylor, alleging that CB ‘would be inconsistent with herself ’ if she married. See EN 23.6.1853, EN 11.4.1854, Mary’s letter of 24 Feb. 1854 and notes. 2. The travellers could use the railway for much of their journey. By 1 June 1850 the line from Skipton via Clapham (near Ingleton) to Lancaster was complete, and through trains were then ‘introduced from Leeds and Bradford to Lancaster’. The Lancaster and Carlisle railway via Penrith had been formally opened on 15 Dec. 1847 (David Joy, Regional History, xiv. The Lake Counties, 26, 41.) 3. Thus in MS: a metathetic form of ‘Firth’, an arm of the sea. Kirkcudbright is the ancient royal burgh near the mouth of the river Dee, which Xows into the Irish Sea. The ruins of its sixteenth-century castle dominate the harbour. 4. Despite CB’s love of all things Scottish, she had previously spent only two days there, in George Smith’s company, in July 1850. See CBL ii. 420–3, 427–32. She would be eager to see an area associated with Carlyle and more especially Burns, who is buried in St Michael’s churchyard, Dumfriess, the setting for Wordsworth’s poem ‘At the grave of Burns, 1803, seven years after his death’. 5. ‘Ilklely’ in MS. An attractive and Xourishing spa town, 16 miles north-west of Leeds; well known to Margaret Wooler, who had visited it several times. See MW 14.7.1851, 20.1.1852. 6. Thus in MS. 7. Marianne or Mary Ann, ne´e Wooler (28 Oct. 1801–28 May 1843), sister of Margaret Wooler, and Wrst wife of the Revd Thomas Allbutt (1800–67), whom she had married on 9 July 1835. She was the mother of Thomas CliVord Allbutt (1836–1925, KCB 1907). Mr Allbutt had been the curate of Dewsbury 1832–5, and was its Vicar 1835–62. Marianne had taught at Roe Head school for a time when CB was there. 8. A pleasant seaside market town on a low-lying part of the East Yorkshire coast, about 15 miles south of Bridlington. A large freshwater lake, Hornsea Mere, lies on its western boundary. CB was to stay there in Oct. 1853. See MW 18.10.1853 and notes.

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To Mrs Gaskell, 31 August 1853 Haworth. My dear Mrs. Gaskell, I was glad to get your little note—glad to hear you were at home again.1 Not that practically it makes much diVerence to me whether you are in Normandy or Manchester—the shorter distance separates perhaps as eVectually as the longer—yet there is a mental comfort in thinking that but thirty miles intervene. Come to Haworth as soon as you can: the heath is in bloom now—I have waited and watched for its purple signal as the forerunner of your coming. It will not be quite faded before the 16th. but after that—it will soon grow sere. Be sure to mention the day and hour of your arrival at Keighley. My Father has passed the summer—not well—yet better than I expected. His chief complaint is of weakness and depressed spirits: the prospect of your visit still aVords him pleasure. I am surprised to see how he looks forward to it. My own health has been much better lately. I suppose Meta is ere this returned to school again.2 This summer’s tour will no doubt furnish a life-long remembrance of pleasure to her and Marianne. Great would be the joy of the little ones3 at seeing you all home again. I saw in the papers the death of Mr. Schwabe of scarlet fever at his residence in Wales.4 Was it not there you left Flossy and Julia? This thought recurred to me—with some chilling fears of what might happen—but I trust all is safe now—How is poor Mrs. Schwabe? Remember me very kindly to Mr. Gaskell and the whole circle—Write when you have time—come at the earliest day and believe me Yours very truthfully C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 90.5 W & S 864 as September—, 1853. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation in unknown hand: Charlotte Bronte´, authoress. 1. The Gaskells and their elder daughters, Marianne and Meta, had set out for Normandy c.19 July. See EN 16.6.1853 n. 2. 2. To Rachel Martineau’s school in Liverpool. 3. Flossy (Florence) and Julia, who had stayed behind in the care of the Schwabes at Glyn Garth on the Anglesey shore of the Menai Strait when the rest of the Gaskells left to begin their travels. 4. CB had met the Schwabes in Manchester. Salis Schwabe (1800–53) died at Glyn Garth. A German-Jewish convert to Unitarianism, he was an enlightened factory owner and patron of the arts who had made ‘numberless arrangements’ at his calico-printing works at Rhodes, about 5 miles north of Manchester, ‘for the comfort and intellectual furtherance’ of his workpeople. See Uglow Elizabeth Gaskell; A Habit of Stories (1993) 160–1, 344–5 and Gaskell

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Further Letters 307. The Schwabes’ son, Salis Arthur, one of a family of young children, had been christened at the Upper Brook Street Unitarian church in Manchester on 16 Mar. 1853. The widow, a close friend of Mrs Gaskell, was Mrs Julia (or Julie) Schwabe (1819–96). On 10 Aug. 1845 the Gaskells’ 10-month-old baby son William had died of scarlet fever in Portmadoc, Wales, to their great and lasting grief.

To Margaret Wooler, 8 September 1853 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler Your letter was truly kind and made me warmly wish to join you.1 My prospects however of being able to leave home continue very unsettled. I am expecting Mrs. Gaskell next week or the week after—the day being yet undetermined. She was to have come in June—but then my severe attack of inXuenza rendered it impossible that I should receive or entertain her; since that time she has been absent on the continent with her husband and 2 eldest girls—and just before I received yours I had a letter from her volunteering a visit at a vague date which I requested her to Wx as soon as possible.1 My Father has been much better during the last three or four days. When I know anything certain I will write to you again Believe me my dear Miss Wooler Yours respectfully & aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 866. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. In Hornsea. See MW 30.8.1853. 2. Mrs Gaskell probably arrived in Haworth on Monday 19 Sept.

The Revd P. Bronte¨ to Mrs Gaskell, 15 September 1853 Haworth, Nr. Keighley, My Dear Madam, My Daughter, having gone from home,1 for only two or three days—When your letter arrived—I deem’d it best to open it, lest it should have required an immediate answer—She will return on Saturday—next—Therefore, she will be here to receive you, on the Monday after—As I have given her the requisite information by post—you may probably have a letter from herself, on the day, on which you will receive this—As far as I am able to discover from what my

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Daughter has told me, and from my perusal of your able, moral, and interesting literary works2—I think that you, and she are congenial spirits, and that a little intercourse between you, might, under the strange vicissitudes, and frequent trials of this mortal life3— —under providence—be productive of pleasure and proWt to you both—We are gregarious beings, and cannot always be comfortable, if alone—and a faithful, and intellectual friend—when such an one can be found—is often productive of pleasure and proWt—and needed by us, next to that Greatest, and Best of All Friends—who sticketh closer than a brother4—We can promise you nothing here but a hearty welcome, and peaceful seclusion—nevertheless, this may not be without its use—for a season—With my kind, and respectful regards, I, Remain My Dear Madam, Yours, very Sincerely, P. Bronte¨ MS Rylands, with envelope. BST 8. 43. 85. W & S 865 (part) as [7th]. Address (integral): To j Mrs. Gaskell, j Plymouth Grove j Manchester (envelope): Mrs Gaskell j Plymouth Grove, j Manchester PM: (i) ?HAWORTH j (ii) KEIGHLEY j SP 15 j 1853 (iii) BRADFORD YORKS j SP 15 j 1853 j K (iv) MANCHESTER j SP 15 j 1853 j S 1. To Ilkley, for which see MW 20.1.1852, 30.8.1853 and notes: CB had ‘longed to revisit the place’. Mr Bronte¨ was writing on Thursday; CB was back in Haworth on Friday 16 Sept. 2. See Mr Bronte¨’s letter to Mrs Gaskell of ?5 or 6 June 1853, n. 1. 3. Cf. the Collect after the OVertory, Holy Communion, ‘The changes and chances of this mortal life’ (BCP). 4. Cf. Proverbs 18: 24: ‘There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’

To Mrs Gaskell, 16 [September 1853] Haworth Friday My dear Mrs. Gaskell I was from home—staying two or three days at Ilkley when your note came—I have just returned, received and read it—and now I only say come— come—On Monday the 19th. at 2h. 26m. a Cab shall be in waiting at Keighley station to bring you on. Yours with pleasure & regard C Bronte¨ MS Rylands. BST 8. 43. 86. Address: not in MS PM: not in MS.

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To Francis Bennoch,1 19 September [1853] Haworth. Dear Sir A prior engagement which I cannot defer would prevent my being at home to receive you on Tuesday, but if you could come on Wednesday2 I should be happy to see you. Though not personally acquainted with Miss Mitford3 I, of course, know some of her writings and hold her name as a suYcient introduction. I am Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 90.75. Bronte¨ Studies 27. 3. 255. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation, possibly by Bennoch: Miss Bronte´ 1. Francis Bennoch (1812–90; FSA 25 Jan. 1855), merchant and minor poet, born in Drumcrool, Durrisden, Dumfriesshire, was a clerk in a merchant’s oYce in London 1828–37. He became a common councilman for the city of London, and was the head of Bennoch, Twentyman, and Rigg, wholesale silk traders in Wood Street, London, 1848–74. He died in Kempen, Prussia, on his way to Berlin (Boase i. 364–5, and notes on a letter in the Swain Collection, Manchester Central Library). Wordsworth praised the volume of poems Bennoch sent to him in 1837, but advised him not to take authorship as a profession. Mary Russell Mitford, describing Bennoch as ‘a most brilliant young man’ and ‘a very Wne speaker’ in a letter to Emily Jephson of 6 Nov. 1852, sent on to her his poem ‘Small Things’, a sub-Wordsworthian eVort (‘I dare not scan the precious things, j The humblest weed that grows’)—praising it lavishly for ‘delicious rhythm . . . truth, and . . . healthiness’ (A. G. L’Estrange, The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford, 2 vols. (1882), ii. 231–4). Bennoch’s obituary in the Athenæum for 5 July 1890, 37, describes him as ‘a most amiable and benevolent’ man, ‘who had in an unostentatious way helped many a struggling artist, and man of letters’. 2. If Mrs Gaskell arrived on Monday 19 Sept., Bennoch must have visited the Parsonage on the same day, not on Wednesday. See CB’s letter to him of 29 Sept. 1853. 3. Mary Russell Mitford (1787–1855), author of poems, essays, plays, sketches, and stories; friend and correspondent of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and other writers. Best known for her sketches of country life in Our Village, Wrst published in the Lady’s Magazine in 1819, collected into a volume in 1832; and for her Recollections of a Literary Life (1852). See the excerpt from her letter to E. B. Browning of 10 Nov. 1853, below (p. 205). The Huntington Library has a large collection of letters from Mitford to Bennoch.

To Mrs Gaskell, 25 September 1853 Fragment [Haworth] . . . After you left, the house felt very much as if the shutters had been suddenly closed and the blinds let down. One was sensible during the remainder of the day of a depressing silence, shadow, loss, and want.1 However, if the going away

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was sad, the stay was very pleasant and did permanent good. Papa, I am sure, derived real beneWt from your visit; he has been better ever since. . . . MS untraced. W & S 869. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: quoted by J. E. C. Welldon in BST 4. 20. 148 as from a letter owned by Meta Gaskell in 1910. 1. Apart from her loss of Mrs Gaskell’s company, CB was perhaps depressed because although Mr Nicholls had been in the neighbourhood of Haworth again in September, she saw little of him, no doubt owing to her other engagements. See EN 11.4.1854. But he continued to write to her. 2. Meta Gaskell kept among other mementoes a gift to Julia Gaskell which CB had entrusted to Mrs Gaskell on her departure from Haworth: ‘a book called New Friends or A Fortnight at the Rectory by Mrs. Alfred Barnard, in which Charlotte wrote: ‘‘To Julia with my love C. B. September 1853’’—which Julia kept all her life and which only left Plymouth Grove in 1914 at the Gaskells’ sale’ (Ge´rin CB 529).

To F. Bennoch,1 29 September 1853 Haworth My dear Sir I have to thank you for your note, and can only say in answer to your kind expression of gratiWcation—that I sincerely think any pleasure experienced during your brief visit was more than counterbalanced by what you imparted. Both my Father and myself enjoyed the interview much, and I only regretted that you could not add another hour or two to your stay, and thus have made the acquaintance of Mrs. Gaskell. You are right in conjecturing that she was the lady who arrived just as you were departing. She stayed with me but one week,2 so that I have not yet had the opportunity of enquiring whether she is acquainted with Mrs. Crossland3 and Charles Swaine,4 but I will not fail to do so when I write. I could not help smiling at what you say respecting your preconceived expectations of Currer Bell, anticipating in him or her a somewhat positive and overbearing personage. I am afraid my books must be at fault in a way of which I am totally unconscious, for you are by no means singular in your idea; on the contrary I Wnd it shared by almost all strangers. However I cannot help it, and if others consent to look upon the defect as kindly as you do—I fear I shall scarce trouble myself to regret it. If ever I come to London—though at present I see little prospect of events calling me there—I should like much to call on you. I could not indeed accept your invitation on the generous scale on which it is oVered, but to be your guest and Mrs. Bennoch’s for a few hours would give me real pleasure5

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My Father joins me in kindest regards Believe me Sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 91. BST 13. 67. 142. Address (integral): F. Bennoch Esqr. PM: not in MS. Annotation (i) in pencil in unknown hand: C Bronte´ 1753?A (ii) in ink in a diVerent hand: Miss Bronte 1. See F. Bennoch [19.9.1853] n. 1, and ECG to ?John Forster Sept. 1853 below. 2. In her September letter to ?John Forster, Mrs Gaskell writes that she stayed four days at the Parsonage: probably from Monday 19 to Friday 23 Sept. 3. Camilla Dufour Crosland, ne´e Toulmin (1812–95), wife of Newton Crosland; writer of poems, novels, translations, and other works. Poems by Mrs Crosland had been reviewed in the Dublin University Magazine for Oct. 1846 in the same article as the ‘Bells’’ Poems 1846. An edition of her Lays and Legends Illustrative of English Life, Wrst published in 1845, had appeared in 1852, when she also published Lydia . . . A Woman’s Book. 4. Mrs Gaskell probably knew Charles Swain (4 Jan. 1801–22 Sept. 1874), who became a clerk in the Manchester Wrm of Lockett & Co., engravers and lithographers, purchased part of their business, and carried it on until his death. In the 1840s he had contributed anodyne verses to annuals like the Forget-me-not, and volumes of his poems had appeared in 1827, 1831, 1847, 1849, and 1853. Some of his songs, set to music, became very popular, and he was appointed an Hon. Professor of Poetry at the Manchester Royal Institution. See Boase, Graphic (1874), x. 367, and DNB. Both he and Mr Gaskell had contributed poems to Manchester Poetry: with an Introductory Essay, ed. James Wheeler (1838) (Gaskell Further Letters 104 n. 5). Manchester Central Library has a Swain collection, including a note from Bennoch to Swain. 5. Mary Russell Mitford praised Bennoch in her letter to Emily Jephson of 6 Nov. 1852 as ‘the head of a great Manchester house, a man with a very large fortune, with a sweet wife [Margaret Bennoch], and no children . . . his residence is at Blackheath, where he exercises an almost boundless hospitality, and does more good than anybody I know.’ A ‘Manchester house’ was a Wrm dealing in textiles (‘Manchester goods’)—in Bennoch’s case, silks, not cottons. See CB to F. Bennoch 19.9.[1853] n. 1. For CB’s abortive plans to visit London, see her letters to Emily Shaen of 21 and 24 Nov. 1853.

Mrs Gaskell to ?John Forster,1 [?after 29 September 1853] We turned up a narrow bye lane near the church—past the curate’s, the schools, & skirting the pestiferous church yard we arrived at the door into the Parsonage yard.2 In I went,—half-blown back by the wild vehemence of the wind which swept along the narrow gravel walk—round the corner of the house into a small plot of grass, enclosed within a low stone wall, over which the more ambitious grave-stones towered all round. There are two windows on each side the door, & steps up to it. On these steps I encountered a ruddy kind-looking man3 of no great reWnement,—but I had no time to think of him; in at the door into an exquisitely clean passage, to the left into a square parlour looking out on the grass plot, the tall head-stones beyond, the tower end of the church, the village houses, & the brown distant moors. Miss Bronte¨ gave me the kindest welcome,

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& the room looked the perfection of warmth snugness & comfort, crimson predominating in the furniture, whh. did well with the bleak cold colours without. Every thing in her department has been new within the last few years;4 and every thing, furniture, appointments &c. is admirable for it’s consistency. all simple, good, suYcient for every possible reasonable want, & of the most delicate & scrupulous cleanliness. She is so neat herself I got quite ashamed of any touches of untidiness. a chair out of its place,—work5 left on the table were all of them, I could see, annoyances to her habitual sense of order; not annoyances to her temper in the least; you understand the diVerence. There was her likeness by Richmond, given to her father by Mr. Smith & Elder, the ’later’ print of Thackeray, & a good likeness of the Duke of Wellington, hanging up6—My room was above this parlour, & looking on the same view, which was really beautiful in certain lights moon-light especially. Mr. Bronte¨ lives almost entirely in the room on the opposite (right hand side) of the front door: behind his room is the kitchen, behind the parlour a store room kind of pantry.7 Mr. Bronte¨’s bedroom is over his sitting room, Miss Bronte¨’s over the kitchen, the servants over the pantry. Where the rest of the household slept when they were all one large family, I can’t imagine. The wind goes piping & wailing and sobbing round the square unsheltered house8 in a very strange unearthly way. We dined—she & I together—Mr. Bronte¨ having his dinner sent to him in his sitting room according to his invariable custom; (fancy it! only they two left,) and then she told me that the man whom I met on the steps was a Mr. Francis Bennoch, something Park, Black Heath, who had written the previous day to say he was coming to call on her on his way from Hull where he had been reading a paper on Currency. His claim for coming to call on Miss Bronte¨ was ‘‘that he was a patron of authors and literature’’—I hope he belongs to your Guild;9 Miss Bronte¨ sent to the address he gave to say she had rather not see him, but he came all the same, captivated Mr. Bronte¨ who would make his daughter come in; & abused us both for ‘‘a couple of proud minxes’’ when we said we would rather be without individual patronage if it was to subject us to individual impertinence (Oh, please burn this letter as soon as you have read it.) This Mr. Bennoch produced a MS dedication of some forthcoming work of Miss Mitford’s to himself,10 as a sort of portable certiWcate of his merits, & sounded altogether very funny—but still a good natured person evidently, & really doing a good deal of kindness I have no doubt—Mrs. Toulmin or Crosland, & Mr. Charles Swain11 of our town, were two authors to whom he hoped to introduce Miss Bronte¨ at some future time. Mr. Bronte¨ came in at tea,—an honour to me I believe.12 Before tea we had a long, delicious walk, right against the wind on Penistone Moor which stretches directly behind the Parsonage going over the hill in brown & purple sweeps and falling softly down into a little upland valley through which a ‘‘beck’’ ran;13 & beyond again was another great waving hill,—and in the dip of that might be seen another yet more distant,

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& beyond that she said Lancashire came; but the sinuous hills seemed to girdle the world like the great Norse serpent,14 & for my part I don’t know if they don’t stretch up to the North Pole. On the moors we met no one.—Here and there in the gloom of the distant hollows she pointed out a dark grey dwelling—with Scotch Wrs growing near them often,—& told me such wild tales of the ungovernable families, who lived or had lived therein that Wuthering Heights even seemed tame comparatively. Such dare-devil people,—men especially, & women so stony & cruel in some of their feelings & so passionately fond in others.—They are a queer people up there. Small landed proprietors—dwelling on one spot since Q. Eliz,—& lately adding marvellously to their incomes by using the water power of the becks in the woollen manufacture which has sprung up during the last 50 years:—uneducated—unrestrained by public opinion—for their equals in position are as bad as themselves, & the poor, besides being densely ignorant, are all dependant on their employers.15 Miss Bronte¨ does not what we should call ‘‘visit’’ with any of them—She goes to see the poor— teaches at the Schools most gently & constantly.—but the richer sort of people despise her for her poverty,—& they would have nothing in common if they did meet. These people build grand houses, & live in the kitchens, own hundreds of thousands of pounds & yet bring up their sons with only just enough learning to qualify them for over-lookers during their father’s life-time, & greedy grasping money-hunters after his death. Here & there from the high moorland summit we saw newly built Churches,—which her Irish curates see after—every one of ?those16 being literal copies of diVerent curates in the neighbourhood, whose amusement has been ever since to call each other by the names she gave them in Shirley. In the evening Mr. Bronte¨ went to his room & smoked a pipe,—a regular clay—& we sat over the Wre & talked,—talked of long ago when that very same room was full of children; & how one by one they had dropped oV into the church yard17 close to the windows. At 21 past 8 we went in to prayers,—soon after nine every one was in bed but we two;—in general there she sits quite alone thinking over the past; for her eyesight prevents her reading or writing by candlelight, & knitting is but very mechanical, & does not keep the thoughts from wandering. Each day—I was 4 there—was the same in outward arrangement—breakfast at 9, in Mr. Bronte¨’s room,—which we left immediately after What he does with himself through the day I cannot imagine! He is a tall Wne looking old man, with silver bristles all over his head; nearly blind; speaking with a strong Scotch accent (he comes from the North of Ireland, raised himself from the rank of a poor farmer’s son,—& was rather intimate with Lord Palmerston at Cambridge, a pleasant soothing recollection now, in his shut out life.18 There was not a sign of engraving map writing materials &c ’beyond a desk’ no books but those contained on two hanging shelves between the windows,—his two pipes & a spittoon, if you know what that is). He was

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very polite & agreeable to me; paying rather elaborate old-fashioned compliments, but I was sadly afraid of him in my inmost soul; for I caught a glare of his stern eyes over his spectacles at Miss Bronte¨ once or twice which made me know my man;19 and he talked at her sometimes; He is very fearless; has taken the part of the men against the masters,—or vice versa just as he thought Wt & right;20 & is consequently much respected & to be respected. But he ought never to have married. He did not like children: & they had six in six years; & the consequent pinching & family disorder—(which can’t be helped, and noise &c made him shut himself up & want no companionship—nay be positively annoyed by it. He won’t let Miss Bronte¨ accompany him in his walks, although he is so nearly blind; goes out in deWance of her gentle attempts to restrain him, ’speaking’ as if she thought him in his second childhood; & comes home moaning & tired,—having lost his way. ‘‘Where is my strength gone?’’ is his cry then. ‘‘I used to walk 40 miles a day &c.’’ There are little bits of picturesque aVection about him,—for his old dogs for instance,—when very ill some years ago in Manchester, whither he had come to be operated upon for cataract, his wail was ‘I shall never feel Keeper’s paws on my knees again!’ Moreover to account for my fear—rather an admiring fear after all—of Mr. Bronte¨, please to take into account that though I like the beautiful glittering of bright Xashing steel I don’t fancy Wre-arms at all, at all; and Miss Bronte¨ never remembers her father dressing himself in the morning without putting a loaded pistol in his pocket, just as regularly as he puts on his watch. There was this little deadly pistol sitting down to breakfast with us, kneeling down to prayers at night—to say nothing of a loaded gun hanging up on high ready to pop oV on the slightest emergency.21 Mr. Bronte¨ has a great fancy for arms of all kinds. He begged Miss Bronte¨ (Oh I can’t condense it more than I do, & yet here’s my 4th. sheet!) to go & see Prince Albert’s armoury at Windsor;22 & when he is unusually out of spirits she tells him over again & again of the diVerent weapons &c there. But all this time I wander from the course of our day, which is the course of her usual days. Breakfast over, the letters come; not many, sometimes for days none at all. About 12 we went out to walk. At 2 we dined, about 4 we went out again; at 6 we had tea; by nine every one was in bed but ourselves. Monotonous enough in sound, but not a bit in reality. There are some people, whose stock of facts & anecdotes are soon exhausted; but Miss B. is none of these. She has the wild strange facts of her own & her sister’s lives,—and beyond & above these she has most original & suggestive thoughts of her own; so that, like the moors, I felt on the last day as if our talk might be extended in any direction without getting to the end of any subject. There are 2 servants, one, Tabby, aged upwards of 90: sitting in an arm-chair by the kitchen Wre,—and Martha the real active serving maiden, who has lived with them 10 years.23 I asked this last one day to take me into the Church, & show me the Bronte¨ graves; so when Miss Bronte¨ was engaged, we stole out. There is a tablet put up in the communion railing. Maria

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Bronte¨, wife of the revd. Patrick B died 1821 aged 39. Maria Bronte¨—May 1825 aged 12 (the original of Helen Burns in Jane Eyre. She & the next sister died of the fever at the Clergy School.) Elizabeth Bronte¨ died June 1825, aged 11. Patrick Branwell Bronte¨ died Sep 24, 1848, aged 30. Emily Jane Bronte¨ died Decr. 18. 1848 aged 29—Anne Bronte¨ May 28, 1849, aged 27.24 ‘‘Yes!’’ said Martha. ‘They were all well when Mr. Branwell was buried; but Miss Emily broke down the next week. We saw she was ill, but she never would own it; never would have a doctor near her, never would breakfast in bed,—the last morning she got up,— and she dying all the time—the rattle in her throat while she would dress herself; & neither Miss Bronte¨ nor I dared oVer to help her.—She died just before Xmas—you’ll see the date there,—and we all went to her funeral, Master & Keeper, her dog, walking Wrst side by side, & then Miss Bronte¨ & Miss Anne, & then Tabby & me.—Next day Miss Anne took ill just in the same way—& it was ‘‘Oh, if it was but Spring and I could go to the sea,—Oh if it was but Spring’’—And at last Spring came and Miss Bronte¨ took her to Scarborough,— they got there on the Saturday & on the Monday she died. She is buried in the old Church at Scarbro’.25 For as long as I can remember—Tabby says since they were little bairns Miss Bronte¨ & Miss Emily & Miss Anne used to put away their sewing after prayers, & walk all three one after the other round the table in the parlour till near eleven o’clock. Miss Emily walked as long as she could; & when she died Miss Anne & Miss Bronte¨ took it up,—and now my heart aches to hear Miss Bronte¨ walking, walking on alone.’’ And on enquiring I found that after Miss Bronte¨ had seen me to my room, she did come down every night, & begin that slow monotonous incessant walk in which I am sure I should fancy I heard the steps of the dead following me. She says she could not sleep without it—that she & her sisters talked over the plans & projects of their whole lives at such times. about Mr. Branwell Bronte¨ the less said the better—poor fellow. He never knew Jane Eyre was written although he lived for a year afterwards; but that year was passed in the shadow of the coming death, with the consciousness of his wasted life. But Emily,—poor Emily—the pangs of disappointment as review after review came out about Wuthering Heights were terrible26—Miss B said she had no recollection of pleasure or gladness about Jane Eyre, every such feeling was lost in seeing Emily’s resolute endurance, yet knowing what she felt. MS Brotherton. W & S 868. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: possibly after 29 Sept., when CB wrote to F. Bennoch saying she had not yet asked ECG if she knew C. Toulmin or C. Swain. 1. For John Forster see GS 7.2.1853 n. 1 and CBL ii. 279, 310 n. He had met CB on 13 Dec. 1849. ECG’s reference to ‘your Guild’—the Guild of Literature and Art of which Forster was a founder-member in Apr. 1851—helps to conWrm the identity of her correspondent. See CBL ii. 617 n. 6.

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2. If Mrs Gaskell arrived in Haworth on Monday 19 Sept. (the date mentioned in CB’s note to her of 16 Sept.) she perhaps left on Friday 23 Sept. See her reference in the present letter to a visit of four days. She had certainly left before Sunday 25 Sept., when CB wrote to her. For a fuller account of the visit, see Appendix V. The curate’s house was that of John Brown, with whom A. B. Nicholls and possibly at this date his successor G. de Renzy lodged. De Renzy lived elsewhere after his marriage to Emily Mackley on 19 Jan. 1854. In Slater’s Directory for 1854 his address is given as ‘Providence, near Haworth’. 3. Francis Bennoch. See the previous letter. His London address was Blackheath Park, a wide, tree-lined road of spacious and handsome houses dating from about 1825. 4. CB probably used her dividends to make such purchases. The Parsonage sale catalogues of 1–2 Oct. 1861 list mahogany chairs and dining-table, and many carpets and rugs. CB refers to a ‘parlour reformation’ in PB 7.6.1851 (CBL ii. 630). Her liking for crimson is evident in the juvenilia, and in (for example) the ‘very pretty’ crimson and white de´cor of the ThornWeld drawing-room and boudoir in Jane Eyre, ch. 11. She ordered ‘crimson and drab’ curtains for the Parsonage dining-room in 1851 (EN 8.12.1851, CBL ii. 726). 5. i.e. needlework. 6. George Richmond’s chalk drawing of CB, made in June 1850, a print from Samuel Laurence’s engraved portrait of Thackeray, and an engraving of a daguerreotype of the Duke of Wellington. See CBL ii. 430–1, 433–4, and GS 26.2.1853 and notes. 7. Before her marriage to A. B. Nicholls CB had the storeroom converted into a study for him. See her description of ‘the little new room’ in EN 21.5.1854. 8. Trees were not planted in Haworth churchyard until 1864, following its closure in 1856. (See Barker 98.) 9. See n. 1 above, and for more information about the Guild, designed to assist authors and artists, see Dickens Letters vi, Appendix D. 10. Bennoch was a close friend of Miss Mitford, for whom see the previous letter. In 1852 he was visiting her at least once a month, and she ‘assigned to him the arrangement’ of her Dramatic Works (2 vols., 1854). See A. G. L’Estrange, The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford ii. 234. On 18 Aug. 1853 Miss Mitford had written to Digby Starkey: ‘Mr. Bennoch . . . is a splendid person, full of talent and intelligence and genial pleasantry, but with a certain calm dignity, the fruit, I suppose, of constant right-doing’ (ii. 265). 11. See CB’s letter to Bennoch, 29.9.1853 nn. 3 and 4. 12. Not so: Mr Bronte¨’s custom was to join CB in the dining-room at teatime. 13. The Sladen beck. The Bronte¨ sisters loved to walk to the Sladen valley waterfall. 14. ‘Mi@gar@sormr’, the world serpent of Norse myth, thrown by Odin into the sea, where it lies coiled round the circular ‘mi@gar@’ or middle earth. 15. Mrs Gaskell refers to the uneducated adult poor. By this date there had been improvements in the provision of education, but it remained very limited for poor children. The Sunday School established by Mr Bronte¨ in 1832 probably gave reading lessons based on the Bible. The Haworth National day school (a church school) established in 1844, provided daytime education at a cost of 2d. a week, and special evening classes for factory children. The First Factory Act of 1833 had prohibited the employment of children under the age of 9 in the textile mills, and stipulated that children under 13 should attend school for at least two hours per day. Haworth’s Free Grammar School provided a very rudimentary education. 16. MS may read ‘them’. The Revd J. B. Grant (‘Mr Donne’) raised much of the money for building the new church of St Mary the Virgin at Oxenhope, consecrated on 11 Oct. 1849. The Revd James Chesterton Bradley (‘Mr Sweeting’), perpetual curate of the new parish of Oakworth from Oct. 1844, ‘worked assiduously’ to build Christ’s Church in Colne Road, founded 28 July 1845, but had to resign in 1847 owing to ill health. A third curate, the Irishman J. W. Smith (‘Mr Malone’) had been appointed to the newly created district of Eastwood (in Keighley) in 1846 but had left the area in disgrace by Feb. 1848. The Irish Mr Nicholls (‘Mr Macarthey’) usually cared for the parishioners of Stanbury, where he had taken the lead in ‘getting a schoolroom built . . . which could be used as a chapel of ease on Sundays’, and he had been active in securing gifts and grants. See Cochrane 14. Only Mr Grant, who was not Irish, remained permanently in the Haworth area.

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17. In fact all the Bronte¨s except Anne, who was buried at Scarborough, were buried in a vault under the church, not in the churchyard. 18. Mr Bronte¨ was hardly intimate with Palmerston, but in 1803–4 he had taken part in military drill as a member of the fourth division of the Cambridge University Volunteer Corps, of which Palmerston was the Commander. (See Barker 12.) Mr Bronte¨’s public-spirited action in the case of the unjustly accused and imprisoned youth William Nowell in 1810 was recognized when Palmerston wrote directly to him, promising to indemnify Nowell’s parents for their expenses if their indictment against the boy’s accuser was successful. (See Palmerston’s letter of 5 Dec. 1810, LD 74.) 19. CB had told Mrs Gaskell about her father’s objections to Mr Nicholls. See ECG’s letter to R. M. Milnes of 29 Oct. 1853, below. 20. Mr Bronte¨ had objected, for example, to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, and had addressed a special meeting on 22 Feb. 1837, pleading ‘the cause of the poor’, who would be at risk of starvation in ‘dear times and general distress’ and ‘deprived of relief, would break into open rebellion’ (Barker 266). 21. This habit may have begun in 1811–12, when lives were threatened by surprise attacks such as those of the Luddites. Mr Bronte¨ had also shot game, with a ‘quick and steady aim’ in his ‘youthful days’, as he told W. B. Ferrand in a letter of 23 Aug. 1853 (W & S 862). 22. Possibly this was one of the visits CB made in Jan. 1853, when she amazed her hostess Mrs Smith by choosing to see the ‘real [rather] than the decorative side of Life’ (EN 19.1.1853). 23. Tabitha Aykroyd (‘Tabby’) was 82, Martha Brown 25. Martha had probably started running errands for the Bronte¨s as early as 1839, and had been their servant since 1841. 24. Mrs Bronte¨ died aged 38, Maria 11 or 12, Elizabeth 10, Branwell 31, Emily 30, and Anne 29. 25. In the churchyard of St Mary’s, the parish church of Scarborough. 26. Wuthering Heights was often found baZing, and was accused of coarseness, gloom, and violence, but there were also tributes to its force and energy, and its indications of great potential in the author. See for example the review in Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper, 15.1.1848, 77; Allott 227–8.

To Margaret Wooler, 18 October 1853 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler I wished much to write to you immediately on my return home,1 but I found several little matters demanding attention, and have been kept busy till now. Mr. Cartman could not come to preach the sermons and consequently Mr. Fawcett was applied to in his stead; he arrived on Saturday and remained till yesterday.2 My journey home would have been pleasant enough had it not been somewhat spoilt in the commencement by one slight incident—About half way between Hull and Hornsea a respectable looking woman and her little girl were admitted into the coach.3 The child took her place opposite me: she had not sat long before—without any previous warning or the slightest complaint of nausea—sickness seized her and the contents of her little stomach—consisting apparently of a milk breakfast—were unceremoniously deposited in my lap! Of course I alighted from the coach in a pretty mess, but succeeded in procuring water and a towel at the station with which I managed to make my dress and cloak once more presentable.

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I reached home about 5 o’clock in the afternoon and the anxiety which is inseparable from a return after absence was pleasantly relieved by Wnding Papa well and cheerful. He inquired after you with interest. I gave him your kind regards and he specially charged me whenever I wrote to present his ’in’ return, and to say also that he hoped to see you at Haworth at the earliest date which shall be convenient to you. The week I spent at Hornsea was a happy and a pleasant week. Thank you, my dear Miss Wooler—for the true kindness which gave it its chief charm. I shall think of you often especially when I walk out—and during the long evenings. I believe the weather has at length taken a turn: to-day is beautifully Wne. I wish I were at Hornsea and just now preparing to go out with you to walk on the sands or along the lake. I would not have you to fatigue yourself with writing to me when you are not inclined, but yet I should be glad to hear from you some day erelong. When you do write tell me how you liked ‘‘The Experience of Life’’4 and whether you have read ‘‘the Newcomes’’5 and what you think of it Believe me always Yours with true aVection & respect C Bronte¨ MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 871, as ‘Octbr 8th, 1853’. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. From Hornsea, for which see MW 30.8.1853 n. 8. Kevin Berry notes that ‘It enjoyed some fame as a spa town before the railway link was completed in 1864, and was popular with well-to-do Hull families. A Hull doctor described the town’s spring waters as an ‘‘excellent tonic’’, and Dr Granville, in his Spas of England, praised the quality of the sea water’ (Kevin Berry, Charlotte Bronte¨: The Novelist’s Visits to Bridlington, Scarborough, Filey and Hornsea (Beverley, 1990), 35). An advertisement of 1848 shows that ‘hot sea-water showers’ could be taken in a cowshed behind the Burn family’s farm (now a museum) in Newbegin, on the other side of the road from Miss Wooler’s pleasant lodgings at 4 Swiss Terrace, now 94 Newbegin (see Hornsea Museum: The North Holderness Museum of Village Life (1994) ). CB could travel from Keighley as far as Hull by train. The precise dates of her visit are unknown, but possibly Thursday 6–Thursday 13 Oct., because a gig was often available to or from Keighley on Thursdays. 2. The Revd Dr William Cartman of Skipton, a good friend of Mr Bronte¨, who preached at Haworth on many occasions. For the Revd William Fawcett of Morton near Keighley see EN 27.5.1853 n. 5. J. Barker notes that he preached at Haworth on Sunday (16 Oct.) ‘baptizing four infants during the service’ (Barker 962 n. 79, giving the date of Fawcett’s departure as 18 Oct. If this is correct, CB must have misdated her letter, for she says Fawcett departed ‘yesterday’. But Mr Bronte¨ himself oYciated at a wedding on 17 Oct., probably after Mr Fawcett had left). 3. i.e. the stagecoach from Hornsea to Hull, where CB would need to go to the railway station. 4. The Experience of Life (1853). A religious novel ‘By the author of ‘‘Amy Herbert,’’ etc.’—i.e. Elizabeth Missing Sewell (1815–1906), ‘daughter of a solicitor on the Isle of Wight, [who] dealt with the family’s Wnancial diYculties by the proceeds of her writing and interested herself in female education, especially in the school she founded, 1866, St Boniface Diocesan School, Ventnor’. The heroine of this novel is tormented by ‘impious doubts’, which she seeks to satisfy by her own reasoning (Alan Horsman, The Victorian Novel (Oxford, 1990) 243–4).

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Margaret Maison describes Miss Sewell as ‘pre-eminently the novelist of conscience’ (Search your Soul, Eustace (1961), 43). 5. For Thackeray’s new serial, The Newcomes, see GS 14.7.1853. Only the Wrst part (of 24 ) had appeared by this date, on 1 Oct. The BPM owns A. B. Nicholls’s copies of The Newcomes (2 vols., 1854) and of Thackeray’s later novel, The Virginians (2 vols., 1858). Both books have Nicholls’s signature on each Xyleaf.

Mrs Gaskell to R. Monckton Milnes,1 29 October [1853] Plymouth Grove Manchester My dear Sir, With skilful diplomacy, for which I admire myself extremely, I have obtained the address we want. The revd A. B. Nicholls Kirksmeaton2 near Pontefract, Yorkshire The only word I am uncertain about is Kirksmeaton, 4 letters of which are rather illegible in the Haworth postmaster’s handwriting. I felt sure you would keep the story secret,—if my well-meant treachery becomes known to her I shall lose her friendship, which I prize most highly. I have been thinking over little bits of the conversation we had relating to a pension. I do not think she would take it; and I am quite sure that one hundred a year given as acknowledgement of his merits, as a good faithful clergyman would give her ten times the pleasure that two hundred a year would do, if bestowed upon her in ’her’ capacity as a writer.3 I am sure he is a thoroughly good hard-working, self-denying curate Dr. Hook4 has unluckily just Wlled up his staV of curates. (Excuse me, if, being a dissenter, I use wrong words; ‘‘staV’’ does look military.) Her father’s only reason for his violent & virulent opposition is Mr. Nicholls’s utter want of money, or friends to help him to any professional advancement. And now I won’t weary you any more. May I send my kind regards to Mrs. Milnes?5 Yours very truly E. C. Gaskell MS Trinity College Cambridge. Thomas Wemyss Reid, The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, First Lord Houghton, 2 vols. (1890), i. 476. Date: as in CP letter 168. The editors observe that Wemyss Reid ‘dates it 1852, but Nicholls did not propose to Charlotte Bronte¨ until the December of that year’ (CP 252 n. 2). 1. See Mr Bronte¨ to Milnes 16.1.1852 and notes. 2. See EN 6.4.1853 n. 3.

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3. In Jan. 1854 Milnes visited Nicholls at Kirk Smeaton, giving him the choice of ‘two cures, which Dr Hook enabled’ Milnes to oVer him; but Nicholls accepted neither. See the extract from Milnes’s letter to ECG, 30.1.[1854] below, p. 223. Possibly Milnes arranged some Wnancial help for him instead, for in ?early June 1854 Mrs Gaskell thanked Milnes ‘most truly about Mr Nicholls. I am sure you will keep the secret; and if you want a steam-engine or 1000 yards of calico pray employ me in Manchester’ (CP letter 204). 4. Walter Farquhar Hook, DD (1798–1875, Vicar of Leeds 1837–59; DNB). 5. Milnes had married the Hon. Annabel Crewe, youngest sister of Lord Crewe, on 31 July 1851 (Gentleman’s Magazine for Oct. 1851, 424).

Mary Russell Mitford1 to Elizabeth Barrett Browning,2 10 November 1853: Extract [SwallowWeld]3 I have had a most interesting account of Miss Bronte´ and a charming letter from her.4 She is a little, quiet, gentle person; the upper part of the face good, but something amiss in the formation of the mouth; her conversation full of power and charm. She lives with her father—the only child remaining out of six—in a most secluded Yorkshire village amongst the moors. He is a gentlemanly and amiable man. I suppose the living is very small, for Miss Bronte´ went to France for two years;5 and the debuˆt of Lucy Snowe (vide ‘Villette’), in Brussels, was literally her own. She also speaks to me of coming to London without necessity, as a thing hardly warrantable; and seems to me exceedingly unaVected and unspoilt. I like both ‘Shirley’ and ‘Villette.’ Remember me to your dear Robert and Mrs. Trollope.6 Ever most aVectionately yours, M. R. Mitford MS untraced. A. G. L’Estrange (ed.), The Life of Mary Russell Mitford, Authoress of ‘‘Our Village,’’ etc., 3 vols. (1870), iii. 277–8. Address: Florence, according to the letter’s editor, A. G. L’Estrange. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: from L’Estrange, Life of Mitford iii. 277–8. 1. For Mary Russell Mitford see CB to F. Bennoch 19.9.[1853] n. 3. She would be eager to hear details of Bennoch’s meeting with ‘Currer Bell’, for the critic Henry Chorley had told her that ‘ ‘‘Villette’’ is the actual experience of Miss Bronte´. She went over to Brussels . . . and encountered most of the persons she describes. Strange persons they are—wonderful in these smooth days, and yet men and women after all’ (Mitford to Digby Starkey, July 1853, in A. G. L’Estrange, The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford, 2 vols. (1882), ii. 263). 2. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) was with her husband Robert in Florence. A friend and correspondent of Mitford since 1836, she had taken an eager interest in CB since Mitford’s account of Jane Eyre in early 1848 had made her long to see it. In Sept. 1853 she had advised Mitford to read Villette, which she considered ‘a strong book’ (Allott 299). 3. Mitford had moved to SwallowWeld near Reading in 1851. 4. Not located.

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5. Untrue; CB visited Belgium, not France. (An inscription supposedly written by CB while in Paris is a forgery. See Appendix VIII.) 6. Frances Trollope (1780–1863), proliWc writer, and mother of Anthony, had shared a house with her elder son Thomas Adolphus (1810–92) in Florence since June 1850.

To Mrs Gaskell, 15 November 1853 Haworth. My dear Mrs. Gaskell The letters were excellent reading; Mr. 1 especially; petulant, testy, unjust, but delightful notwithstanding. It seems to me that honest, porcupine sensitiveness is worth millions more than the smoothest and most polished ice of apathy over which the foot of friendship ever slid to its downfall. Poor Mr. ’s2 epistle is interesting also in another way Papa was pleased that you recollected Robert Robinson’s3 letter, and thanks you. I had not read many lines of it to him before Memory was awakened, and he proceeded to forestal me in each paragraph: it seems he had read that very letter Wfty years ago at Cambridge Martha says I am to remember to thank you very respectfully for the lampdirections. I gave the paper into her keeping, and she preserves it as a precious autograph. A day or two since I had a kind note from Miss Shaen4 telling me that they have taken a house for a month or six weeks in Town—asking whether I am likely to come Southwards this winter and, if so, expressing a wish that we should make acquaintance Now—I believe—it will be necessary for me to go up to London erelong on a little matter of business5 (nothing relating to literature or publishing, as I hardly need say—but wholly and solely touching my small income) and I want to know if you could suggest to me where I could get quiet and respectable lodgings for a few days. I remember your speaking of some apartments which you and Mr. Gaskell once occupied6—but I do not know the address or situation. If you could give me a word of information I should be very glad. I might of course apply to Mr. Smith—but then he would ask me to stay at his Mother’s which I would rather avoid.7 I merely wish to go quietly—to get my business done and to come home. Remember me very kindly to Mr. Gaskell—to all your dear and happy circle—I always think yours a very happy household—and believe me AVectionately & faithfully yours C Bronte¨

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MS BPM B.S. 91.5. BST 12. 65. 428/9 (facsimile). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Name scraped out, but the initial may be ‘F’. John Forster, a correspondent of Mrs Gaskell, could well be described in the terms CB uses here. Percy Fitzgerald compared him to Dr Johnson in his ‘social intolerance’ and ‘dispersion of humbug’, and Arthur Waugh pointed out that despite Forster’s ‘bluV and self-assertive’ manner ‘he had a most sympathetic way of putting himself into another man’s place’ (A Hundred Years of Publishing (1930), 28). 2. Name scraped out and totally illegible. 3. Robert Robinson (1735–90), Baptist minister, writer of hymns and other works. He had seceded from the Calvinists and formed an independent church in Norwich, then in 1761 he became the pastor of Stone Yard Baptist Chapel, Cambridge. He published many religious works, some of them controversial. The letter referred to here was perhaps one of the Two Original Letters, by the late Mr Robert Robinson of Cambridge (London, 1802), i.e. in the year when Mr Bronte¨ entered St John’s College, Cambridge. The Wrst letter, responding to tracts on the ‘Innocency of Error’ and the ‘Impersonality of the Holy Ghost’, agrees that ‘mere mental errors’ cannot be ‘objects of blame and punishment among men’, but this does not throw the ‘doors of our churches wide open to all erroneous persons’. It is likely that both Charlotte and Mr Bronte¨ would heartily agree with Robinson’s insistence on the individual conscience: ‘I love a man who thinks for himself, think what he will. I honor the virtue of every one who dares to be free, and to shake oV the petty tyranny of ecclesiastics, who bind the grievous burdens of tyrannical systems upon the consciences of another man’s disciples. . . . priestcraft is at the bottom of all this burlesque upon religion’ (4–5). In a charming evocation of his life in Chesterton, near Cambridge, Robinson describes how he Wlls his soul ‘with ideas of the Great Supreme’ as he tends his garden, ‘plough[s] the silver stream’, and is awakened, rejoiced, and sung to sleep by the birds: ‘These are thy works, Parent of Good’ (6). 4. Thus in MS, probably for Annie Shaen, an unmarried sister-in-law of Emily Shaen, ne´e Winkworth. For Mrs Gaskell’s friends the Shaens of Crix, Essex, see CBL ii. 533 n. Annie Shaen had invited CB to stay at Crix in Dec. 1850 (ECG 13.12.1850). Mrs Emily Shaen lived in London: see the next letter. 5. Possibly George Smith had not sent CB’s half-yearly dividend. In 1851 this had reached her before 7 Nov. (CBL ii. 712–13) and in 1850 she had received two postal orders, presumably for her dividends, by 31 Oct. 1850 (CBL ii. 492). CB had probably received what was due to her by 24 Nov. 1853, when ‘circumstances’ prevented her intended journey to London. See her letter of that date to Emily Shaen. Though she does not mention any Wnancial matter in her reference to a note she received from Smith on 21 Nov., the dividend was always sent by Smith himself. See CB’s letter to Mrs Elizabeth Smith of 21 Nov. 1853 and to Charles Carr of 22 May 1854. 6. At Mrs Dove’s, 36 Bloomsbury Square, where the Gaskells had stayed in May 1853. See CP letter 158. Mrs Dove was ‘under great obligations’ to the Gaskells, and would no doubt have welcomed CB for their sake. See Gaskell Further Letters 123. 7. CB knew of George Smith’s preoccupation with business, and the resulting overwork, but she did not yet know of his courtship of Elizabeth Blakeway. His letters had become infrequent, making her reluctant to ask him for her dividends (GS 13.5.1853), and she wished she ‘could devise some method’ which would relieve him of the task of transmission. In July 1853 she realized with pain that he turned ‘with distaste from the task of writing a friendly letter’ (GS 3.7.1853). If her projected business in London was, as Juliet Barker suggests, ‘to discover how much she was worth and whether she had enough money to enable’ her to marry Mr Nicholls ‘in deWance of her father . . . she would not wish to conWde in George Smith’ (Barker 743) In this case, a Wnancial statement received before 24 Nov. might have satisWed her. The suggestion that CB might have wished to end Smith’s power of attorney at this date seems less likely, though the transfer may have taken place before her marriage. See her letter to the solicitor Charles Carr of 22 May 1854.

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To Emily Shaen1 (ne´e Winkworth), 21 November 1853 Haworth. My dear Mrs. Shaen Thank you cordially for your very kind note—I should have answered it by return—had I not previously written for lodgings at Mrs. Gaskells recommendation (Mrs. Dove 36. Bloomsbury Sqr.)2 and been expecting a reply—No answer comes however—and as I have little time to lose—I think it better at once to avail myself of the information you have so kindly collected for me. I am quite sure I can trust your opinion better than my own, and shall therefore be truly obliged if you will engage for me the front sitting room and bedroom at 30s. a week at Mrs. Joyce’s 37 Bedford Place, for next Thursday. I should probably want them a week. If these cannot now be had—I should like the airy and clean but old-fashioned rooms at Mrs. Wetherall’s, 41. Gt. Ormond St.3 Should these be engaged I must then beg you to decide on any others you think suitable and of which the terms would not exceed 30s. per week. I too feel as if I knew you th[r]ough Mrs. Gaskell—and I look forward with sincere pleasure to the prospect of soon seeing you. Were my business in town more engrossing than it is at all likely to be I should still have contrived to make room for that gratiWcation If you could write to me by return of post—I should get your letter on Wednesday Morning. Perhaps it would be better to mention at the lodgings that I could not arrive earlier than 10 o’clock on Thursday Evening Believe me my dear Mrs. Shaen Very sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS Brotherton. W & S 872. Address (envelope): Mrs. Shaen j 8. Bedford Row j London PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j NO 21 j 1853 (iii) LEEDS j j NO 21 j 1853 j H (iv) S P j 22 NO 22 j 1853 1. Emily Winkworth, a former pupil of Mr Gaskell, had married the barrister William Shaen (son of Samuel Shaen (d. 1854) of Crix, Essex) on 2 Sept. 1851. William Shaen was an ‘agent for some protection Society which Mrs Shaen says makes him well acquainted with what snares to avoid in London &c.’ (ECG to Miss Kay, [15].3.[1854], CP letter 184). 2. See the previous letter n. 6. ‘Next Thursday’ would be 24 Nov., the date on which CB found she had to cancel her visit. Evidently Mrs Dove’s lodgings had been booked for her after all. Mrs Gaskell stayed there in summer 1853 and Feb. 1855. 3. All the lodgings CB mentions are in or near Bloomsbury, and therefore near Bedford Row, so that Emily Shaen would have some idea of their quality and suitability.

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To Mrs Elizabeth Smith, 21 November 1853 Haworth. My dear Mrs. Smith I had not heard from your Son for a long time—and this Morning I had a note from him which though brief and not explicit seemed indicative of a good deal of uneasiness and disturbance of mind. The cover was edged and sealed with black but he does not say what relative he has lost. As it is not deep mourning I trust no harm has befallen any one very near to him, but I cannot resist writing to you for a word of explanation. What ails him? Do you feel uneasy about him, or do you think he will soon be better? If he is going to take any important step in life—as some of his expressions would seem to imply—is it one likely to conduce to his happiness and welfare?1 I hope your daughters and yourself are well. My Father’s health was very inWrm throughout the Summer, but I am thankful to say he is better now. Remember me kindly to your circle, and believe me Sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 86. Lyndall Gordon, Charlotte Bronte¨: A Passionate Life (1994), 297 (part). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. For Mrs Smith’s answers to these questions, see the following draft letter and notes.

Mrs Elizabeth Smith to Charlotte Bronte¨, [?22 November 1853] Draft [London] My dear Miss Brontee´— I was very glad indeed to ’receive’ a letter from you this morn[in]g—only I wish you had told me more about yourself—how you have been this long time for it is ’an’ age since I have heard of you1—I am happy to hear your Father is better George told me you were uneasy about him I hope now his ?Heal[t]h will continue to improve—I shall answer you[r] kind enquiries about my Son with a great deal of pleasure—he is quite well and very happy— ’he is thinking’ of taking a very important step in Life the most important and ’I ’?

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know’ ’ with every prospect of happiness2 I am very thankful and pleased about it—I am sure he will as soon as it is quite settled enter into all the particulars with you—it is not so yet tho’ I have no doubt in my own mind all will be as his best friends could wish and you will ’soon’ hear <soon> from him again— He has been very much occupied till lately for his Partner at Wrst rather increased than diminished his work. Now he is releiving3 him of the detail and George does not require to work so late They close earlier at Cornhill than they used to do so altogether he is more comfortable—and tho’ he has ’still’ quite enough to do—he is not such a slave as formerly— We are in mourning for my Mother in Law4—who died last Sep[temb]er— very old and sadly aZicted, so much so—that we felt it a mercy when she was released from her suVering We had a delightful trip this ’?Aug[us]t—’ ’round’ the Isle of Wight and enjoyed ourselves very much—We ?enticed George down for a few days and sent him back all the better for the change— We are all well and my Daughters5 unite with me in kind Love and with best respect to MS BPM SG 87. No publication traced. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation in pencil in unknown hand: G.s. engagement—Mrs. Smith to CB. 1. CB’s most recent extant letter to George Smith was written on 14 July 1853 after her father’s ‘sudden seizure’ in June. Smith might have replied to it, since CB asked about Thackeray’s promised new serial. Perhaps there had been no communication since then. 2. See GS 3.7.1853 n. 2. Smith had Wrst seen his future wife, Elizabeth Blakeway, in Apr. 1853, but did not propose until November, when he ‘got into a cab and drove oV to the house . . . I frankly proposed, but did not succeed in winning, at Wrst, a deWnite answer. I next went to see her father . . . at last, he said, ‘‘Well! Come and dine with us next Sunday.’’ I went, and got permission to call every day. This probationary period lasted for ten days—and ten long days they were to me!—and then my suit was accepted. Three months after that [on 11 Feb. 1854] we were married, and that marriage has given me life-long happiness’ (‘Recollections’, quoted in Jenifer Glynn, Prince of Publishers: A Biography of George Smith (1986), 78). Thus the letter CB received from George Smith on 21 Nov. had probably been written during or at the beginning of the ten days of tension before he was Wnally accepted and things were ‘quite settled’. In his ‘Recollections’ Smith observed of himself: ‘But although I had this faculty of swift and courageous decision I was yet aZicted with great shyness. I often suVered greatly from what is vulgarly called ‘‘a blue funk’’ before making a speech, or doing anything important’ (‘Recollections’ i. 68). 3. Thus in MS. For the partner, Henry King, see EN 11.1.1853, GS 26.3.1853 nn. 4. Mrs Smith’s husband, George Smith of Elgin, founder of the Smith, Elder Wrm, had died at the age of 57 in a state of senility, on 21 Aug. 1846. His mother must have been very old. 5. Eliza, Sarah, and Isabella. See GS 19.8.1852 n. 6 and CBL ii. 85 n. 2.

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To Emily Shaen (ne´e Winkworth), 24 November 1853 Haworth Thursday Morning My dear Mrs. Shaen Man proposes but Another disposes. At the last moment when my portmanteau was packed and all ready—circumstances have taken a turn which will prevent my intended journey to London.1 I had pleased myself much with the thought of seeing you, but it cannot be at present. I can only trust that the pleasure is but deferred. I have written to Mrs. Dove,2 and have told her of course that I shall trans-mit at once anycharge she may choose to make for the apartments taken in my name. I feel very sorry for the useless trouble you have had. Forgive it and believe me Sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS Brotherton. W & S 873. Address (envelope): Mrs. Shaen j 8. Bedford Row j London PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j NO 24 j 1853 j (iii) LEEDS j NO 24 j 1853 j H (iv) S— j 25 NO 25 j 1853 1. See ECG 15.11.1853 n. 5, but note also the reference to the ‘death of a little child’ in ECG 25.11.1853. 2. See Emily Shaen 21.11. 1853 n. 2.

To Mrs Gaskell, 25 November 1853 Haworth Unlocated autograph letter, pages 8vo. ‘about the death of a little child’ and her regrets that she is unable to go to London—signed ‘C Bronte¨’. Noted by M. G. Christian among papers at BPM as for sale for £88 by Walter T. Spencer, Feb. 1932, at 27 New Oxford Street, WC 1, with two autograph letters from Mrs Gaskell regarding CB’s letter. The ‘little child’ has not been identiWed. A newborn child named Pickles Brown, perhaps related to Martha Brown since that Christian name was used in the Haworth sexton’s family, was buried at Haworth on 26 Nov. 1853, George de Renzi oYciating. A remote possibility is R. M. Milnes’s dead child, referred to in his letter to Mrs Gaskell of 30 Jan. 1854, q.v. The death is unlikely to have been the main reason for CB’s failure to go to London, for in her letter to ECG of 27 Dec. 1853 she attributes it to ‘commonplace causes’. 3 21

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To ?W. S. Williams,1 6 December 1853 [Haworth] 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’’2 for which I thank you. Do not trouble yourself to select or send any more books.3 These courtesies must cease some day—and I would rather give them up than wear them out Believe me yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM Grolier F 12. W & S 874. Address: not in MS. MS: not in MS. 1. The recipient is not identiWed in the MS, but is likely to be Mr Williams, who usually sent books and reviews to CB. 2. The reviewer of Villette in the Edinburgh Guardian for 3 Dec. 1853, 4–5, who used the nom de plume ‘Shirley’, quoted the North British Review’s judgement that the novel was unequal, imperfect, ‘constantly untrue to itself ’ and to the author’s great powers (NBR (May 1853), xix. 169 n.) ‘Shirley’s’ perceptive review condemned this arrogant assertion. Villette, though painful, was not morbid or unhealthy; the North British mistook a ‘Wne and peculiar insight into the heart of man’ for ‘rudeness, indelicacy, and masculine directness’. The novel was an ‘elaborate psychological investigation . . . of a powerful but pained intellect, of exuberant emotions . . . vigilantly curbed’. Lucy refuses to be cajoled into seeing the world as other than it is; her character, drawn in a masterly fashion, is strong, composed, self-reliant, apparently cold and reserved, but ‘not without imagination,—rich even, and aZuent as a poet’s’. Thus her cheerless routine, penetrated by the creative intellect, acquires ‘a subtle and sensitive energy to hurt, to aZict, and to annoy’. But though Lucy has a curious charm, the reviewer prefers the ‘piquant ferocity’ of the heroine of Shirley. CB treats the weak and insuYcient with unChristian irony and impatience, and admires only the strong, ‘tried in Wre’; even Graham Bretton is treated with a certain implied contempt. Yet Currer Bell’s artistic skill is shown in the ruthless dissection of character, and in the power with which she makes the reader understand the change of interest from Bretton to M. Paul. Paul Emanuel is a rich, genuine character, who, though he inspires deep love, is depicted in a spirit of ‘joyous and mellow ridicule’, full of aVection, and at times closely akin to tears. Finally, praising Currer Bell’s ‘exquisite critical and descriptive observations,’ the reviewer quotes four of her descriptions of Labassecour and its inhabitants, and decides that she is ‘our most remarkable romance writer’ as, ‘on the other side of the Atlantic, Nathaniel Hawthorne is as yet, without any formidable rival’ (4). 3. CB’s cool tone indicates a belief that her personal relationship with her publishers had ended, or was about to do so. Mrs Smith’s letter to her of c.22 Nov. had given clear enough hints about her son’s imminent engagement or marriage, and these had been conWrmed on or before 10 Dec. See the next letter. Yet CB had not abandoned the idea of writing more Wction, for she had begun a new work, ‘Emma’, on 27 Nov. It opens in an apparently optimistic tone with the narrator Mrs Chalfont’s belief that after ‘certain dim years entirely tranquil and inexpectant . . . something was hovering round my hearth which pleased me wonderfully’ (‘Emma’ in the Clarendon The Professor, 306). But the fragment ends abruptly at the end of the second chapter, after the father of a supposedly rich new pupil at the ‘Miss Fetherheds’ ’ school has failed to pay for her, and has left a false address. Unlike the harsh and mercenary teachers, their friend Mr William Ellin seems aware of the need for justice and compassion. CB had previously used the name ‘Willie Ellin’ in the stories she began in May–June 1853. See ECG to John Forster 3.5.1853 n. 8 and EN 26.12.[1854] n. 2.

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To George Smith, 10 December 1853 [Haworth] My dear Sir In great happiness, as in great grief—words of sympathy should be few.1 Accept my meed2 of congratulation—and believe me Sincerely yours C. Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 88. BST 18. 92. 113. Address (integral): George Smith Esqre. PM: not in MS. Annotation in unknown hand: Miss Bronte 1. George Smith recalled that he wrote to inform CB of his engagement. He quoted this ungracious response, adding: ‘She afterwards wrote more at length on the same subject when informing me of her engagement to Mr. Nicholls’ (‘Recollections’ i. 118–19). See GS 25.4.1854. Her Wrst response contrasts markedly with Thackeray’s warm congratulations on Smith’s marriage: ‘I am very glad indeed to hear of your settlement in life: and hope at a very early day you will be so kind as to introduce me to Mrs. Smith, and that she will like your old friends . . . ’ (Harden i. 630–1). 2. Possibly in the sense of ‘tribute’, rather than ‘reward’, as in Milton, Lycidas, ‘He must not Xote upon his watry bear [bier] . . . Without the meed of some melodious tear’ (II. 12, 14).

To Margaret Wooler, 12 December 1853 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler I wonder how you are spending these long winter evenings. Alone— probably—like me. The thought often crosses me, as I sit by myself—how pleasant it would be if you lived within a walking distance, and I could go to you sometimes, or have you to come and spend a day and night with me. Yes; I did enjoy that week at Hornsea.1 I remember it with pleasure and I look forward to Spring as the period when you will fulWl your promise of coming to visit me. I fear you must be very solitary at Hornsea. How hard to some people of the world it would seem to live your life—how utterly impossible to live it with a serene spirit and an unsoured disposition! It seems wonderful to me— because you are not like Mrs. RuV2—phlegmatic and impenetrable—but received from nature feelings of the very Wnest edge. Such feelings when they are locked up—sometimes damage the mind and temper. They don’t with you. It must be partly principle—partly self-discipline which keep<s> you as you are.

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Do not think that your kind wish respecting *E. *Nussey3 and myself does not touch or inXuence me; it does both; yet I hardly know how to take the step you recommend. My heart4 [Letter incomplete] MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 875. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. See MW 30.8.1853 n. 8. 2. Probably the landlady of Miss Wooler’s Hornsea lodgings. Slater’s Yorkshire Directory for 1848 lists a James RuV among both the ‘gentry’ of Hornsea and its ‘Lodging and Boarding House’ keepers (141). 3. Miss Wooler knew of the apparently total rift between CB and Ellen Nussey since July 1853. Ellen had written to Mary Taylor on 12 Aug., opining that CB should ‘endure to the end’, unmarried. By 21 Feb. 1854 Ellen had at last heard from CB. See Mary Hewitt to EN 21.2.[1854]. 4. In response to Mrs Gaskell’s request to see CB’s letters for use in the Life, Margaret Wooler permitted her to see most of them, but destroyed letters or parts of letters containing sensitive material. On 30 Apr. 1855 she assured Mr Nicholls that she would retain no letter which might give pain. See CBL i. 29 n. 12.

To Mrs Gaskell, 27 December 1853 Haworth My dear Mrs. Gaskell If ever it should befal you to live a very still lonely life (which I believe it never will, for you are too genial to sink to the obscure lot) you will Wnd once and again that the Post shall bring you a letter which you shall receive eagerly, read with keen interest, mark in it facts you wish further elucidated— points of information on which you incline to dwell and ask the further development—you shall feel in it perhaps a friendly feeling breathed throughout which warms you and makes you grateful to the heart’s core; in short you shall Wnd in this letter everything to stimulate to an immediate answer on your part. You put it away, saying in about three days I shall reply. The three days pass; you happen to be a little downcast;1 it seems to you that you have nothing to say worth saying. It may be very pleasant to you to receive letters, but what can you write worth imparting? You let this impression prevail, and it grows, and for a time masters you. This predicament is often mine, and I stand thus with regard to your last letter. One motive only has inXuence to make me write now—but for that I should wait—stupidly silent—till I heard from you again—or till next Christmas: you were not well when you wrote;2 I want to know how you now are—Is Meta come home? Are you all happy and well—and am I right in fancying you, as it pleases me to do—enjoying a thoroughly happy Christmas—?

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Yes—I read ’what’ the papers said about Mr. Maurice’s dismissal. The circumstance itself gave me a shock. The Church of England has faults—but I love her—and when such men as Frederick Maurice are thrust from her bosom—who that loves her can help trembling at the fearful sign? To what fate is she then hastening—that she must rid herself of this faithful son and true champion to continue her course unimpeded. When Men—calling themselves Churchmen condemn teaching like Maurice’s, what are their own tenets? Such as for my part—it would seem to me equivalent to raving madness to hold. Who that seriously anticipates an Eternity of Torment for half his race—can keep sane? The subject hardly bears dwelling on. Are you reading the Newcomes4—and do you Wnd much zest in it as yet? My dear Mrs. Gaskell—I deeply felt the kindness and delicacy which marked a certain paragraph in your last—but circumstances give me no present warrant to dwell on the point to which it refers.5 The change of plan with regard to my London journey was regulated only by commonplace causes6 My Father has lately been suVering from a renewal of his bronchial complaint but he is better now. He often speaks of you—always with regard and [Letter incomplete] 3

MS Rylands. BST 12. 62. 121–2. Address (envelope): Mrs Gaskell j Plymouth-Grove j Manchester PM: [MANCHESTER 27 DEC 1853] according to Sotheby’s London sale catalogue for 4 Oct. 1977, lot 256. 1. Mr Nicholls had been corresponding with CB. They had also met, unknown to her father, when he stayed with the Grants at Oxenhope in early December, but Mr Bronte¨’s attitude had not changed. Ellen Nussey’s estrangement and George Smith’s announcement of his future marriage must have contributed to CB’s depression. For Mrs Gaskell’s eVorts to help Mr Nicholls’s cause, see her letter to Monckton Milnes of 29 Oct. 1853, above; and for Milnes’s visit to Nicholls at Kirk Smeaton, see the extracts from his letter to Mrs Gaskell of 30 Jan. 1854. 2. On 3 Dec. 1853 Mrs Gaskell told F. J. Furnivall that she ‘had been very ill with inXuenza for the last ten days’. By late December Meta Gaskell had come home from her school at Liverpool, but on one occasion had been too tired to go to a ‘large, dull party’. Mrs Gaskell’s younger daughters had evidently been more energetic, for their father had taken them ‘to walk with him in the Park, & make snow-balls’ (CP letters 172, 175). 3. CB admired the Revd Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–72), and had heard him preach in London, possibly on 22 June 1851. On 15 Nov. 1851 she wrote to James Taylor that of the three preachers she had recently heard there, Maurice seemed ‘the most in earnest; had I the choice—it is Maurice whose ministry I should frequent’ (CBL ii. 718–19 n.) A liberal theologian and a universalist, he had rejected the belief that sinners were doomed to eternal punishment in the afterlife, claiming that it was contrary to the Christian aYrmation of a loving God. In his Theological Essays (2nd edn., Cambridge, 1853) he expressed his belief in universal salvation and his sympathy with Unitarians who were also universalist, though the work was designed to controvert Unitarianism. Anne Bronte¨ had been sympathetic towards universalism, as her letter to the Revd D. Thom of 30 Dec. 1848 shows. Charlotte put similar beliefs into the mouth of Helen Burns in Jane Eyre, and defended them robustly in a letter to Margaret Wooler of 14 Feb. 1850. See CBL ii. 160–61 n., 343, 345 n. On 27 Oct. 1853 Maurice had been dismissed from his professorship in theology at King’s College London. On 15 Nov. he resigned from his oYces as

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chaplain to Lincoln’s Inn and chairman of the Committee at Queen’s College London but in both cases he was requested to withdraw his resignation. A preliminary draft of an ‘Address from the Clergy’ to Maurice proved unsatisfactory, but by early January an improved ‘address of The Clergy & the working-people’, supporting Maurice, won Mrs Gaskell’s approval. See her letters to F. J. Furnivall, esp. CP letters 171, 172, 176, and the many references to Maurice in Letters and Memorials of Catherine Winkworth, edited by her sister [Susanna Winkworth] 2 vols., privately printed (Clifton, 1883). From late 1853 to early 1854 the controversy over Maurice’s dismissal took a prominent place in both national and local newspapers. 4. The third instalment of Thackeray’s novel, published on 1 Dec. 1853: chs. 7–9, culminating in the arrival of Lady Ann Newcome, her spoilt son, and her daughter Ethel at Miss Honeyman’s genteel lodging-house in ‘Steyne Gardens, Brighton’. Writing from Berne on 7 Aug. 1853, while he was writing the early chapters of The Newcomes, Thackeray had been in low spirits about the novel: ‘It’s not good. It’s stupid. It haunts me like a great stupid ghost’ (Harden i. 587). Ch. 1, part of the Wrst instalment on 1 Oct., had opened with a heavy-handed reworking of La Fontaine’s animal fables, but Thackeray’s subsequent introduction of Colonel Newcome, just back from India, in the incongruous surroundings of the convivial ‘Cave of Harmony’, was more engaging. His honest character was generally appreciated as proof that Thackeray’s residual cynicism had been Wnally abandoned. See Ray Wisdom 247. 5. An oblique reference to Mr Nicholls’s proposal and its consequences. Though CB could not say so, at some time in late December or early January she experienced such ‘sheer pain’ through keeping her correspondence with him a secret from her father that she gathered courage to tell him, and with great diYculty obtained leave to continue the communication. Mr Nicholls came to the Haworth area in January for ten days, when she ‘saw much of him’. See EN 11.4.1854. 6. For possible ‘commonplace causes’ see ECG 15.11.1853 and E. Shaen 24.11.1853 and notes.

Mrs Gaskell to Lady Hatherton,1 27 December 1853 Extract . . . my Morton Hall2 was Morton, not Moreton . . . I had utterly forgot that there was a Moreton in Cheshire, never having seen it, and not knowing its exact situation to this day. And about the ‘‘poor starving people’’ the whole story originated in two little graphic sentences from the old Servant (aged 93)3 at Mr. Bronte¨’s at Haworth; I asked her why a certain Weld was called the Balco¯ny4 Field (put a strong & long accent on co¯ny) and she told me that when she was a girl ‘‘while the Farmers were still about the country & before they had begun to plague the land with their Mills &c’’ there had been a grand House with Balco¯nies in that Weld, that she remembered seeing Miss——(I forget the name) get into the Carriage with her hair all taken up over a cushion, and in a blue sattin open gown, but Oh! she came to sore want, for her Nephew gambled away the property and then she lent him money, and at last he & she had nowhere to hide their heads but an old tumbledown Cottage (shewn to me) where folk do say she was clemmed5 to death, and many a one in Haworth remembered him going to Squire (name forgotten again) to oVer a bit of old plate for sale to bury his Aunt rather than that the Parish should do it The ‘‘Blue sattin Gown’’ and the ‘‘clemming to death’’ were a striking contrast, were they not? . . .

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Copy MS Brotherton. BST 20. 1. 47–8. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: copy in a notebook kept by Jane Adeane of Llanfawr, an acquaintance of Lady Hatherton. See n. 1, and the texts given by John Chapple in BST 20. 1. 47–8 and Gaskell Further Letters 105. 1. Caroline Anne Davenport, ne´e Hurt, a friend of ECG, had married Edward John Littleton, 1st Baron Hatherton (1791–1863) on 11 Feb. 1852. CB had met her in London in June 1851. See CBL ii. 645–6. The extract is included because it illuminates CB’s comments on ‘Morton Hall’ in her letter to Mrs Gaskell of ?early Jan. 1854, q.v. Like Mrs Gaskell, the Bronte¨s could have heard the story of the family at the ‘grand house’ from Tabitha Aykroyd. 2. ECG’s ‘Morton Hall’ is a trilogy of episodes narrated by ‘Miss Bridget Sidebotham’, a gossip in the Cranfordian mould, Wrst published in Dickens’s magazine Household Words for 19 and 26 Nov. 1853. In the Wrst story the Puritan Alice Carr of Morton Hall marries a Catholic husband, and the gruesome consequences exemplify the self-defeating folly of sectarian fanaticism. The second episode, referred to in the present letter, deals with a more recent ‘Squire Morton’, his 10-year-old son, and 17-year-old sister Phillis, recalled by the narrator as they went ‘tearing through the village on their pretty Arabian horses’. The luxurious beauty of the blue gown ‘open in front’ and the ‘quilted white silk skirt’ Phillis wears for the great ball is described. But the ‘young squire’ wastes all the family’s money, and their entailed lands come into the power of a grasping lawyer. As adults the nephew and his aunt are reduced to extreme poverty and Wnally to the starvation of which Phillis dies. She is found lying dead in their cottage. The nephew begs from a neighbouring squire for money ‘on the pledge of his gold shirt-buttons’, so that he can pay for his aunt’s burial, and then make his fortune once again; but he is found ‘stark and stiV’ on the moor-side. The narrator and her sister retain a strong feudal loyalty to their ‘betters’, pitying them in their fall, and thinking it a privilege to help them; but Mrs Gaskell enables her readers to make their own judgement on the moral and social values implicit in the story. A third, and less eVective, story deals with the incompatible educational systems inXicted on their niece by three sisters. 3. Tabitha Aykroyd, aged 82 when Mrs Gaskell met her at Haworth Parsonage in Sept. 1853. Tabby’s reminiscences about the days before mills ‘plagued’ the countryside are echoed in the last chapter of Shirley, where Martha recalls Fieldhead Hollow as a ‘lonesome . . . and a bonnie spot—full of oak trees and nut trees’. 4. OED gives ‘balco¯ny’ as the usual pronunciation before 1825. ‘Balcony, a farmstead near [Haworth] Church, has been rebuilt. The Horsfalls had it some time. It also bore the name Nopp, because of two ornamental stone globes at the gables’ ( J. Horsfall Turner, Haworth— Past and Present (1879, repr. 1999), 130). I am indebted to Robin Greenwood, who notes that the Jonas Horsfall who lived at Balcony from c.1835–52 had been a drinking companion of Branwell Bronte¨. Horsfall emigrated to Australia when he had exhausted his Wnancial resources. Robin Greenwood suggests that the Morton Hall story may be based on the Gaukrogers of Balcony, or the Horsfalls, or a combination of the two. 5. Starved. y

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January–December 1854

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To Mrs Gaskell, [early January 1854] [Haworth] My dear Mrs. Gaskell Thank you, thank you for your letter. I return the address signed with heartfelt sincerity.1 I am well enough: the frequent head-aches which often haunt sedentary people are my chief cross as far as regards health. I get on. When you return from Paris2 and have once more got settled at home—you will write me a line again and I shall be able to tell you better then whether I can come to Manchester for a day or two. I have just read ‘‘Morton-Hall’’3 Of course I knew whose it was as well as if I had seen the hand, writing it. Capitally and spiritedly told. I was not so sure about the two shorter papers the ‘‘Saddleworth Exhibition’’, & ‘‘NorthCount[r]y Courtesies’’4—still I thought they were from the same pen. I never see the Lit. Gaz.5 and had not heard what you tell me. I wish I could care more for such things—I wish they did not all fall on me dead, cold and heavy Remember me to Mrs. Shaen.6 I wonder when I shall see her. Give my love to Marianne. I like the ‘‘blots’’7—there is a curious kind of poetry about ’them’—Caen—especially—May I keep them? I wish you a pleasant and prosperous journey Yours aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS Princeton. Brief quotation in Gaskell Further Letters 106 n. 2. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation on 2v in ink: Frederick Locker Date: certainly after 7 Jan. 1854 (see n. 5 below), and probably soon after Mrs Gaskell’s letter to F. J. Furnivall of c.9 Jan. 1854, thanking him for an enclosure: ‘To that I will willingly, heartily try & get signatures,—but I am oV to Paris for a fortnight, so it won’t be directly’ (CP letter 176). CB’s letter implies that Mrs Gaskell has not yet set out for Paris. The enclosure would be an ‘address’ protesting against the dismissal of F. D. Maurice. See ECG 27.12.1853 n. 3. 1. See note on date. 2. The exact dates of Mrs Gaskell’s visit to Paris are unknown, but she had perhaps returned by 12 Feb. (if CP letter 178 was written in 1854) and was certainly back in Manchester by 4 Mar., when she wrote to Lady Kay-Shuttleworth: ‘Marianne was with me in Paris’ (CP letter 181). CB stayed with the Gaskells 1–4 May 1854. 3. See ECG to Lady Hatherton 27.12.1853 n. 2. 4. These pieces were not, apparently, by Mrs Gaskell. See Anne Lo¨hrli, Household Words (Toronto, 1973), parts 1 and 2, where Mrs Gaskell’s contributions are listed, with their dates and the amount paid for them. ‘The Great Saddleworth Exhibition’ appeared in Household Words, 184 (1 Oct. 1853), 109–12, where the style and moorland descriptions make CB’s guess understandable. See e.g. on p. 112, ‘We . . . prepared to retrace our steps over the rocky moor. That strange

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wild district seems to lie apart from all the world, but in some of the scattered cottages there are histories going on, beside which the incidents in a French novel are tame.’ The evocation of the manners and fashions of the ‘Ladies’ Assembly in Derby’ in the essay on ‘North Country Courtesies’ (22 Oct. 1853, 191–2) might have reminded CB of Cranford. 5. The Literary Gazette for 7 Jan. 1854 published a ‘Retrospect of the Past Year’, declaring that ‘Amongst novels, ‘‘Villette,’’ by the author of ‘‘Jane Eyre,’’ is the only one of decided merit’ (17, col. 3). CB had probably seen only copies of the Gazette sent to her by her publishers because they contained reviews of her work, or articles on writers in whom she was interested. See e.g. Smith, Elder 26.10.1847, GS 8.7.1851, GS 7.2.1853. 6. Emily Shaen, ne´e Winkworth, of 8 Bedford Row, London, whom Mrs Gaskell could visit on her way to or from Paris. See CB’s letters to her of 21 and 24 Nov. 1853. 7. The younger Gaskells had probably amused themselves by dropping random ink blots on to paper and developing them into recognizable landscapes. The Gaskells, Meta, and Marianne had visited Caen in Normandy in summer 1853. See EN 16.6.1853. ‘Blot drawing’ was a ‘technique evolved by [the artist] Alexander Cozens’ and described in A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape (c.1785). ‘He prescribed the use of an accidental stain or ‘‘blot’’ on the paper as a basis for an imaginative landscape composition’ (The Oxford Companion to Art, ed. Harold Osborne (Oxford, 1970, repr. 1992), 141–2 and 288). Marianne and Meta Gaskell ‘studied drawing at the [Manchester] School of Design’ ( Jenny Uglow, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories (1993), 158).

To Francis Bennoch, 27 January 1854 Haworth. My dear Sir Thank you for your kind note and allow me to return with interest the good wishes it expresses. I trust that many happy new years yet lie before you in which to do that good and communicate that happiness which are your pleasure.1 In the two little notes I have had from Miss Mitford2—she speaks of you in terms which do honour both to the writer and her subject. I do not often accept invitations—yet if all be well—and my Father’s health be such at that time as to permit my absence, it will give me real pleasure to spend a few days with you in May at Blackheath. I will trust you for not ‘‘lionizing’’ me—indeed I should suppose I am now too far out of date to make an eligible ‘‘lion’’ or ‘‘lioness’’—but at any rate—you will I know spare me that vulgarizing process to which I have ever felt an insurmountable repugnance. It would not answer with me, for I could not ’always’ ‘‘roar’’ when I was bid—I am afraid I should sometimes disappoint my shew-men. However I may trust you on that point. And yet at the same time— any friends of yours whom you might wish me to see quietly—I should not of course decline to meet. My very still, secluded life in the country and the absence of strong health must be my plea for shun[n]ing bustle or gaiety. Let me congratulate you on your late well-appreciated public exertions.3 Of course I read Mr. Bennoch’s evidence in the papers. I thought perhaps it might be you, but was not sure—till Miss Mitford’s note made conWrmatory mention

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of the fact. My Father joins me in these congratulations and likewise in kindest regards to yourself and—though yet unknown—Mrs. Bennoch. Believe me Sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 92. BST 13. 67.143. Address (integral): Francis Bennoch Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. Bennoch had visited Haworth Parsonage on ?19 Sept. 1853. See CB’s letters to him of that date and of 29 Sept. 1853. The Huntington Library has 291 letters to Bennoch, most of them from Miss Mitford and other literary friends. 2. Miss Mitford’s notes to CB have not been located. 3. Bennoch, representing the ward of Cripplegate Within as a Common Councilman for the City of London, had been a member of the Royal Commission on the City of London, established in 1852. The Commissioners recommended ‘internal reforms for the City, and an entirely new system of government for the whole of London’ (K. Young and P. L. Garside, Metropolitan London (1982), 24–5). The Times for 22 Dec. 1853, reporting on the civic elections for Cripplegate Within, recorded the regret of the wardmote at Bennoch’s retirement from the Common Council, oVering sympathy with him for the (unspeciWed) circumstances leading to it. The speaker paid tribute to Bennoch’s ‘upright, consistent, and earnest advocacy of all measures calculated to promote, not only the reform, economy, and improvement of the corporation of London, but also the happiness and well-being of his fellow-men’ (7).

Richard Monckton Milnes to Mrs Gaskell, 30 January [1854] Extract Weymouth Dear Mrs. Gaskell I must tell you that I made Mr Nicholl’s acquaintance in Yorkshire.1 He is a strong-built, somewhat hard-featured man, with a good deal of Celtic ?sentiment about his manner & voice—quite of the type of the Northern Irishmen. He seemed sadly broken in health & spirits & declined two cures, which Dr. Hook2 enabled me to oVer him—one in Lancashire of considerable interest, but requiring much energy;—another in Scotland, requiring none at all. He gave me the impression of a man whose ardour was burnt out. I was amused at his surprise ?over the interest I took in him & I carefully avoided any mention of you. He spoke with great respect of Mr. Bronte’s abilities & character & of her simply & unreservedly. You may have heard that my poor wife had a dead child:3 her cheerful temper has done all possible to console both me & herself, but yet the disappointment was severe. . . . Yr & Mr Gaskell’s very truly Rrd. M. Milnes.

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MS Harvard fMS Am 1943.1 fo. 223. Barker 746 (part). 1. On 29 Oct. 1853 Mrs Gaskell had asked Milnes if he could help Mr Nicholls to gain more money, or professional advancement, so that Mr Bronte¨ would look kindly on his wish to marry CB. See her letter (p. 204). 2. The Revd Dr Walter Farquhar Hook (1798–1875), Vicar of Leeds 1837–59. 3. Milnes’s Wrst child, Amicia, was born in the summer of 1852. A second daughter, Florence, was born in 1855.

To Sydney Dobell,1 3 February 1854 Haworth, near Keighley My dear Sir, I can hardly tell you how glad I am to have an opportunity of explaining that taciturnity to which you allude. Your letter came at a period of danger and care, when my father was very, very ill:2 and I could not leave his bedside. I answered no letters at that time, and yours was one of three or four that—when leisure returned to me and I came to consider their purport—it seemed to me such that the time was past for answering them—and I laid them Wnally aside. If you remember, you asked me to go to London: it was too late either to go or to decline. I was sure you had left London. One circumstance you mentioned, your wife’s illness, which I have thought of many a time—and wondered whether she is better: in your present note you do not refer to her, but I trust her health has long ere now been quite restored.3 ‘Balder’4 arrived safely. I looked at him, before cutting his leaves, with singular pleasure. Remembering well his elder brother—the potent ‘Roman,’ it was natural to give a cordial welcome to a fresh scion of the same house and race. I have read him. He impressed me thus. He teems with power. I found in him even a wild wealth of life; but I thought this favourite and favoured child would bring his sire trouble; would make his heart ache. It seemed to me that his strength and beauty were not so much those of Joseph—the pillar of Jacob’s age,5 as of the Prodigal Son6 who troubled his father, though he always kept his love. How is it that—while the Wrst-born of genius often brings honour—the second, almost as often, proves a source rather of depression and care? I could almost prophesy that your third will atone for any anxiety inXicted by this his immediate predecessor. There is power in that character of ‘Balder’ and, to me, a certain horror. Did you mean it to embody, along with force, many of the special defects of the artistic character? It seems to me that those defects were never thrown out in stronger lines. I did not and could not think you meant to oVer him as your cherished ideal of the true great poet. I regarded him as a vividly coloured picture of inXated

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self-esteem, almost frantic aspiration—of a nature that has made a Moloch7 of the intellect—oVered up in pagan Wres the natural aVections, sacriWced the heart to the brain. Do we not all know that true greatness is simple, self-oblivious, prone to unambitious, unselWsh attachments? I am certain you feel this truth in your heart of hearts. But if the critics err now (as yet I have seen none of their lucubrations) you shall one day set them right in the Second Part of ‘Balder.’ You shall show them that you know—better perhaps than they—that the truly great man is too sincere in his aVections to grudge a sacriWce—too much absorbed in his work to talk loudly about it—too intent on Wnding the best way to accomplish what he undertakes to think great things of himself—the instrument. And if God places seeming impediments in his way; if his duties seem sometimes to hamper his powers—he feels keenly—perhaps writhes under the slow torture of hindrance and delay; but if that be a true man’s heart in his breast, he can bear, submit, wait patiently. Whoever speaks to me of ‘Balder’—though I live too retired a life to come often in the way of comment—shall be answered according to your own suggestion and my own impression. Equity demands that you should be your own interpreter. Good-bye for the present, and believe me, Faithfully and gratefully yours, Charlotte Bronte¨. MS untraced. W & S 877. Address (envelope sold at Phillips, London, 30 June 2000): Sydney Dobell Esqr. j No. 5. Forres Street j Edinburgh j N[orth] B[ritain] PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j 3 FE j 1854 (iii) LEEDS j FE 4 Annotation on envelope by ?Dobell: Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte¨) Text: Life and Letters of Sydney Dobell, ed. E[mily] J[olly], 2 vols. (1878), i. 328–30. This is a fuller text, probably closer to CB’s original punctuation, than that given by Mrs Gaskell in Life ii. 306–8. Shorter 653 and W & S 877 are based on Life. 1. Sydney Thompson Dobell (1824–74), author of The Roman (1850), Balder (1854), sonnets on the Crimean War (1855), and other verse. He had endeared himself to CB by writing a perceptive review of Wuthering Heights in the Palladium for Sept. 1850, and he had sent her a copy of The Roman in 1850, inscribed ‘Currer Bell, with the author’s sincere admiration and esteem’ (BPM Bon 50). See CBL ii. 460–2 n., and letters to and from Dobell. 2. Probably either in Dec. 1852 or in June 1853, when Mr Bronte¨ seemed to be in danger of apoplexy. See EN 15 and 18.12.1852, 16.6.1853. 3. The Dobells had formerly lived in Gloucestershire, but Mrs Dobell’s health was a source of constant anxiety. Balder: Part the First was completed and ‘half-way through the press’ by 23 Nov. 1853 when the Dobells moved to Edinburgh so that they could have advice and treatment from the eminent physician Professor James Young Simpson, created a baronet in 1866. See Jolly ii. 299 and CB’s letter to J. Alexander Simpson [13]4.1854 n. 1. 4. Balder; a Poem j Part the First. By the Author of ‘The Roman’ was published by Smith, Elder on 24 Dec. 1853. Dobell had sent a copy to CB with the inscription ‘Miss Bronte¨, with the author’s sincere admiration and regard’ (BPM Bon 51). The poem was intended as the Wrst part of a trilogy charting ‘the Progress of a Human Being from Doubt to Faith, from Chaos to Order’.

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According to Dobell’s brother Clarence, it inaugurated an ‘individual, personal, spiritual campaign on Dobell’s part, distinct from the public propaganda’ of the Roman, for which see CBL ii. 597 n., 606 n. Unfortunately the result was several thousand lines of overblown, pseudoShelleyan grandiosity, bewildering in its digressions, and fairly enough characterized in the Athenæum for 14 Jan. 1854 as ‘repugnant in story, ponderous in style, false in philosophy. . . For the greater part . . . unintelligible in its far-sought fancies and strained analogies’, despite some ‘novel and beautiful’ tropes and ‘picturesque and powerful’ lines (49). Balder, a poet living in a ruined tower, composes his ‘great’ epic, his self-absorbed musings interrupted by the sound of his wife Amy, singing gloomy lullabies to their child as she ‘bends blighted, the fair young willow’. She goes mad, and, perfecting his ‘mortal knowledge’ by seeing the ‘face of Death’, he kills her. The fashion for ‘spasmodic’ verse, of which Balder and Philip James Bailey’s Festus (1839) were prime examples, was expertly and enjoyably ridiculed by the publication in Blackwood’s Magazine for May 1854 of an anonymous review of a forthcoming work to be published by Blackwood, Firmilian; or, the Student of Badajoz. A Spasmodic Tragedy. By ‘T. Percy Jones’, alleging that ‘though no recent poem . . . ‘‘had so many symptoms of unmistakable lunacy,’’ there is a method in the madness of Firmilian . . . which contrasts very favourably with the tedious drivellings of some other writers of the same school’. The author of both the ‘review’ and the work, a brilliant parody of the spasmodic mode, was William Edmondstoune Aytoun, whose ‘heroic’ poet Firmilian ‘murders his mistress, his uncle, and several of his friends’, and, having blown up ‘a church with all its communicants . . . seems to think he has qualiWed himself to begin his tragedy’ (Athenæum 30.9.1854, 1165). See Jerome Hamilton Buckley, The Victorian Temper (1951; repr. Cambridge, 1981), ch. 3, and Lori A. Paige, ‘Charlotte Bronte¨ and the Spasmodic School’, BST 21.3.63–9. 5. See Genesis 45: 23, 47: 11–12, 49: 22–6. 6. Luke 15: 11–32. 7. A heathen god to whom the errant Israelites made sacriWces. See Amos 5: 26, Acts 7: 43, and Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 392–6: ‘ . . . Moloch, horrid King besmear’d with blood j Of human sacriWce, and parents tears, j Though for the noyse of Drums and Timbrels loud j Their childrens cries unheard, that past through Wre j To his grim Idol.’ Cf. James Taylor 22.3.1851 n. 4, CBL ii. 588.

Mary Hewitt1 to Ellen Nussey, 21 February 1854 East Marden2 My dear Ellen, I was glad to receive your second letter telling me you had heard from Miss Bronte¨—glad for her as well as you—for it seemed unnatural that she could so throw oV all her old friendship that she did not evince some little return of it when you were ill—I was very glad she did—it must have comforted you very much and you had suVered so much pain about her evidently.3 Now you are ready to forget all I can see—and that is kind and right—but she will not quite forget I hope—but will remember enough to see how your true friendship was shown in it—and be guided by you—her thoughts—and aVections must really need control. It is an example of the dangerous gift such a mind as hers must be, and I trust it will overcome temptations, and shine out brightly at last—That will be a happiness to you indeed. Your third note too I must thank you for, I am glad of any thing that gives you occasion to write—but sorry to hear of Mrs Richard Nussey’s serious illness.4 They

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have lived together but a few years—after their long engagement, have they5—I trust however she may yet recover for a longer time than you anticipate. . . . I hope Miss Mercy’s6 foot is well again and herself recovered from the jar. I shall be glad to hear Mrs Clapham is better, it is very satisfactory to have a competent opinion in a case like hers—she has been an invalid a long long time. Mama unites with me in very kind love to Mrs Nussey of whom we are very glad to hear so well—and with best love and regards from us all to you all—dear Ellen,—believe me ever Your most aVec. friend, Mary Hewitt. This is a most shabby letter, the most so I have ever sent you I think. MS untraced. W & S 878. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: W & S 878. 1. For Mrs T. S. Hewitt, ne´e Gorham, see EN [?14.1.1852] n. 3. 2. W & S 878 misreads the address as ‘East Marsden’. East Marden was a tiny hamlet in Sussex. 3. CB’s letter has not been located. For the estrangement between her and Ellen Nussey, see EN 23.6.[1853] n. 1. Ellen had evidently written a self-pitying letter to Mary Hewitt about a breach caused in large part by her own selWsh and unreasonable attitude to CB’s possible marriage. See Mary Taylor’s reaction to similar complaints in her letter to Ellen of 24 Feb.–3 Mar. 1854. The breach had been healed through the good oYces of Margaret Wooler. Perhaps she had told CB about Ellen’s illness. See MW 12.4.1854. 4. Ellen must have included news about this illness, allegedly a ‘paralytic stroke’, in a letter to CB, who acknowledged it on 1 Mar. 1854. EN’s brother Richard (1803–72) had married Elizabeth Charnock of Leeds (b. ?1803) in Sept. 1846. Elizabeth was convalescent by 22 Mar. 5. The text may be corrupt. 6. Ellen’s sister Mercy survived until 1886, her sister Ann (Mrs Robert Clapham) until 1878. Her mother outlived CB, dying in 1857.

To Henry Garrs, 22 February 1854 Haworth. To Henry Garrs.1 Your letter seemed to me to be, on the whole, sensible and judicious. I must at once decline assuming the oYce of professed critic; but if you like to send your M.S. I will read it, and say what I think.2 It must however be fully understood that any opinion I may give is intended merely for your private satisfaction—not for public use. C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 93. No publication traced. Address (integral): To Henry Garrs. PM: not in MS.

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1. Henry Garrs (b. 1827) was a younger brother of Nancy Garrs (?1803–86). Nancy had been engaged as a nursemaid by Mr Bronte¨ in Thornton in 1816, and her sister Sarah was also the Bronte¨s’ servant for a time, there and in Haworth. Henry was one of the twelve children of Richard Garrs, a Bradford shoemaker said to be of French extraction, and his wife Mary, and was christened in Bradford on 23 Sept. 1827. His taste in poetry may be indicated by the signature ‘Henry Garrs’ in a well-used cheap edition of The Poetical Works of Robert Burns (Halifax, 1843) acquired by the present writer in SheYeld, where Henry Garrs had lived with relatives. He was in SheYeld when Mr Bronte¨ wrote to him on 2 Apr. 1856, thanking him for his verses about CB. 2. See CB’s letter to Henry Garrs of 17 Mar. 1854. For more information about the Garrs family, see L. A. Herbert, ‘Charlotte Bronte¨: Pleasant interview with the Old French Governess of this Famous Author . . . newspaper cutting from Mary Stull’s scrapbook’ and a typescript, William Lee Burton, ‘Sarah De Garrs Newsome: Friend of the Bronte¨s’ (BPM).

Mary Taylor to Ellen Nussey, 24 February to 3 March 1854 [Wellington, New Zealand] Dear Ellen I got a letter from you some time ago P[e]r. Constantine dated Brookroyd Aug 12/53 just abt six months ago.1 I thank you for your trouble concerning my dress & bonnet. You may have the satisfaction of knowing it was not in vain, as they both turned out wonderfully well, & I shall certainly accept yr kind oVer & get another in time for next winter but one. How ever did you manage to make the dress so heavy? & then call it not a winter dress! It Wtted well, tho it was too long; a very small fault. The bonnet just suited me. The thermometer just now rises to abt 80o every day wherefore the Wne things are put by. I shall bring them out in due time. You cannot imagine the importance they give me. The peak behind is the object of universal admiration. I am glad you approved of my lecture to Joe2 on diet, tho’ you are mistaken in thinking that I follow my own advice. In summer I never eat 6 dinners in the week, seldom more than three. My health suVers less from low living than it wd from biliousness were I to eat more. Luckily winter comes, & I can keep up my strength & have an easy mind & clear head at the same time. I seldom taste anything stronger than tea either in hot weather or cold. You talk wonderful nonsense abt C. Bronte¨ in yr letter. What do you mean about ‘‘bearing her position so long, & enduring to the end’’? & still better— ‘‘bearing our lot whatever it is’’.3 If its C’s lot to be married shd n’t she bear that too? or does your strange morality mean that she shd refuse to ameliorate her lot when it lies in her power. How wd. she be inconsistent with herself in marrying? Because she considers her own pleasure? If this is so new for her to do, it is high time she began to make it more common. It is an outrageous exaction to expect her to give up her choice in a matter so important, & I think her to blame in having been hitherto so yielding that her friends can think of making such an impudent demand.—Yr. account of yr trip to Yarmouth is amusing. I am right glad you <staid> came back again.4

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All your gossip is very interesting. Mrs. Joe Taylor sends me very little being used I think to spend her time too much at home. Perhaps when her health improves, she will take more interest in her neighbours. I wish you could see how busy I am going to be. I have got such a lot of things coming! Finery of all kinds. It will take me a fortnight’s hard work to get them all arranged & ticketed. And then the people that will come to see them! I always Wnd myself wondering at these people with one eye while I wait on them with the other. It gives them such evident pain to see anything they can’t buy, & it is so impossible for [them] not5 to look at the most expensive things, even when they can’t buy any but the cheapest. Then the tricks they play on their husbands’ head or heart or purse, to get the money! And then the coolness with [which] they’ll6 say they don’t care a bit about it only thought they might as well have it! There are some silk mantles coming about which more lies will be told than would make a lawyer’s fortune; to me, their husbands’ friends & neighbours. Don’t think all my customers answer to this description. Yet it’s wonderful how many do. I’ve got an addition to my store by which you may see I’m getting on in the world. It has 20 feet frontage & is 16 ft deep. So that my house now looks like

I could let it for £50 or £60 Pr an. but then the ground is not paid for. I intend to pay for it this winter. My coming home seems just as far oV as ever; that is two or three years more. In that time I expect this town & colony to advance wonderfully. There will be steam communication via Panama—perhaps I’ll come home that way.7 There will be a large export of wool to England8 & kai—provisions, to Australia. Then there are signs of a mania for emigration to N. Zealand coming on—a sort of fever which will injure those who get it, but will beneWt the colony generally. Old settlers of course encourage this mania as it is to their own advantage. Indeed so long as people come of their judgement there is no doubt they will do well. Labouring men get six shillings a day & every other kind of work is paid in proportion. But once let it be understood that a man can get rich just by coming here & we shall have such cargoes of helpless silly people! There were <some> a family of that kind came here once & settled in the country. They brought a man servant for the gentleman & a maid for the lady & a few more servants. They went into the country about two day’s journey from Wellington after making themselves remarkable for a while in the town with their extraordinary ringlets, ribbons Xy away hats & frippery of all kinds. After a few months I heard they were in great distress—nearly starving. All their servants had left them, & they were all ill in bed. ‘‘Why what’s the matter with them?’’ ‘‘Oh the mosquitoes have bitten them so!

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I wish you would send me some more particular account of yourself in your next letter. You write twice a year & I quite lose the thread of your wanderings between the letters. One newspaper sent me is addressed to you at Oundle vicarage Where in the world is Oundle?9 And what have you been doing there? You appear to travel about a good deal. When I see you again you will have travelled much more than I have, though people won’t think so. You don’t mention Miss Wooler. Have you seen her or rather do you see her when you come home from your peregrinations? Good bye dear Ellen I have written to the last minute. Yours aVectionately Mary Taylor. Mar 3d /54 MS BL Ashley 5768. W & S 879. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Mary’s letter would not reach EN until c.Aug. 1854, after CB was married. Stevens notes that the Constantine ‘arrived at Wellington from London on 4 February 1854’. See EN’s notes of the measurements for a dress written on Mary’s letter to EN of May–July 1853, p. 164. 2. Joe Taylor’s health was poor, and he was to die of ‘general debility and obstruction of the liver’ at Ilkley on 23 Mar. 1857 (Stevens 127). Cf. CB’s letters to Amelia Taylor of Dec. 1854. 3. Cf. Matthew 24: 13, Mark 13: 13: ‘But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.’ ‘Bearing our lot’ may echo Philippians 4: 11: ‘I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.’ Ellen had written to Mary Taylor soon after her visit to Haworth in July 1853. For her attitude to CB and Mr Nicholls see EN 23.6.[1853] n. 1, and for her reconciliation with CB, see M. Hewitt to EN 21.2.1854. In a letter to Emma Shaen of 8 May 1854, Catherine Winkworth described the progress of Nicholls’s courtship: he ‘wrote to [Charlotte] very miserably; wrote six times, and then she answered him,—a letter exhorting him to heroic submission to his lot, &c. He sent word it had comforted him so much that he must have a little more, and so she came to write to him several times’ (Letters and Memorials). See below, p. 258. 4. EN had travelled to the Upjohns’ house at Gorleston via Yarmouth in May 1853. See EN 31.10.1852, ?13.6.1853 and notes, and Mary Taylor’s letter to Ellen of May–July 1853. 5. MS reads ‘for not’. 6. MS reads ‘with they’ll’. 7. Stevens notes: ‘This project was much discussed at this date, partly because of the need for quicker access to the California goldWelds, as well as to Australia and New Zealand.’ 8. Wool was already being sent to Britain in large quantities from Australia, but the British woollen industry was still expanding, and New Zealanders foresaw a market there. Stevens explains that ‘Kai’ is Maori for ‘food’ (121 n. 7). 9. The Northamptonshire town where EN’s brother Joshua was Vicar, and where she stayed before returning home from Gorleston. See EN 16.6.1853 and notes.

To Ellen Nussey, 1 March [1854] Haworth. My dear Ellen I am sorry to hear that Mrs. R[ichar]d *Nussey has had a paralytic stroke—is this true or is it an exaggerated account?1—At her age one would scarcely have expected an attack of that nature but I believe paralysis attacks more persons

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and younger persons than formerly—A clergyman of not more than 35 in the neighbourhood of Skipton is entirely disabled from duty by the eVects of a paralytic stroke. How does your Mother continue to get on? Papa has so far borne the Winter surprisingly well on the whole—though now and then he still complains of a muscular weakness and other slight symptoms which renew anxiety. Still I have more reason for gratitude than fear in his case. Your sister Ann it seems has consulted Mr. Teale—is she better for his advice?2 Last but not least—how are you—yourself—? Yours aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS Montague. W & S 880. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation (i) by EN: 312 (ii) in unknown hand: 9 j The Year of her Marriage 1. CB had already written to EN before 21 Feb. See Mary Hewitt’s letter to EN of that date, and notes. 2. Perhaps CB had heard of the consultation from Margaret Wooler. For the Leeds doctor Thomas Pridgin Teale, see EN [?14.1.1852]. His advice would be sought in cases of serious illness.

To Ellen Nussey, 7 March 1854 Haworth. My dear Ellen I am very glad to hear that Mrs. Richard is pronounced out of danger for I think her loss would probably be severely felt by your brother—and he could not be much disturbed, without the evil coming more or less home to you all at Brookroyd. It is well too that the brain has so far escaped serious injury—it seems to me, perhaps, the worst of all dooms for the death of the mind to anticipate that of the body. Yet sometimes when these attacks fall chieXy on the nervous system a state of irritation follows which is found very trying not only for the poor patient—but most especially for friends. You do not mention that such is the case in the present instance, and I hope it will not prove so. I trust and believe your brother John1 is right in his opinion of your own ailment. On no account let it alarm you—for I imagine that comparatively few people are wholly free from some such inconvenience as you describe. An oversedentary life producing a conWned state of the bowels—I suppose is at the root of it. Remembering the eVect that iodine produced on you long since—I cannot help being glad that you have given up that remedy. It seems to me that those reducing drugs must be hazardous where the constitution is not robust. It is

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strange I have never heard of you as looking ill;2 but I have no doubt it was owing to the low state to which the pills &c had brought you—that that cold you caught in the winter took such hold on your system. So far I have been so favoured as to escape severe colds—but my headaches &c. still at times harass me and keep me thin. I am truly glad to hear that your Mother, Mr. Clapham and Mercy are well and that your Sister Ann is better. Mr. Teale will really do a good deed if he succeeds in curing her. Papa still continues well. Believe me my dear Ellen Yours aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS HM 26004. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/62. W & S 881. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KE—HLEY j MR 7 j 1853 (iii) LEEDS j MR 7 j 1—?4 Annotation on envelope by EN: Mar 7—53 j of Mrs R N’s illness j of EN Date: CB dated the letter clearly ‘Haworth. March 7th. / 54’. EN’s date is based on the erroneous Keighley year-stamp. Her annotation suits the content of the letter of 7 Mar., and CB used the same type of envelope for a letter clearly postmarked 1 Apr. 1854 by both Leeds and Keighley post oYces. 1. John Nussey (1794–1862) Ellen’s eldest brother, the doctor who lived at 4 Cleveland Row, London. See EN 6.6.1852, 9.9.1852, and notes. He and his wife had property as well as relatives in Birstall, and occasionally visited the area. 2. CB had probably received news of Ellen from Amelia Taylor as well as Margaret Wooler. The ‘reducing drugs’ could have included potassium iodide. In Graham’s Domestic Medicine, 36–7, iodine is noted as a ‘very active medicine’, but there are many caveats about its use: ‘In delicate, nervous habits, it is liable to bring on palpitations, dry cough, tremors, and other disagreeable symptoms.’ Mr Bronte¨ annotates Graham’s instructions on ‘external use’ of ‘hydriodate of potash’ to alleviate scrophulous tumours: ‘This is often used for swell’d necks, but it is a dangerous remedy—’ (37).

To Laetitia Wheelwright, 8 March 1854 Haworth. My dear Laetitia I was very glad to see your handwriting again: it is, I believe, a year since I heard from you.1 Again and again you have recurred to my thoughts lately, and I was beginning to have some sad presages as to the cause of your silence. Your letter happily does away with all these; it brings, on the whole, good tidings both of your Papa, Mamma, your Sisters and, last but not least, your dear respected English Self. My dear Father has borne the severe Winter very well—a circumstance for which I feel the more thankful as he had many weeks of very precarious health last Summer following an attack from which he suVered in June,2 and which for a few hours deprived him totally of sight—though neither his mind, speech, nor even his powers of motion were in the least aVected. I can hardly tell you how thankful I was—dear Laetitia—when after that dreary and almost despairing interval of utter darkness—some gleam of daylight became visible to him once

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more. I had feared that paralysis had seized the optic nerve. A sort of mist remained for a long time—and indeed his vision is not yet perfectly clear, but he can read, write and walk about, and he preaches twice every Sunday—the curate only reading the prayers. You can well understand how earnestly I wish and pray that sight may be spared him to the end; he so dreads the privation of blindness. His mind is just as strong and active as ever, and politics interest him as they do your Papa: the Czar, the War, the alliance between France and England3—into all these things he throws himself heart and soul; they seem to carry him back to his comparatively young days, and to renew the excitement of the last great European Struggle. Of course my Father’s sympathies (and mine too) ’are’ all with Justice and Europe against Tyranny and Russia. Circumstanced as I have been—you will comprehend that I have neither had leisure nor inclination to go from home much during the past year. I spent a week with Mrs. Gaskell in the Spring, and a fortnight with some other friends more recently4—and that includes the whole of my visiting since I saw you last. My life is indeed very uniform and retired—more so than is quite healthful either for mind or body, yet I Wnd reason for often renewed feelings of gratitude—in the sort of support which still comes and cheers me on from time to time. My health—though not unbroken—is I sometimes fancy—rather stronger on the whole than it was three years ago; headache and dyspepsia are my worst ailments. Whether I shall come up to Town this season for a few days—I do not yet know, but if I do—I shall hope to call in Phillimore Place. With kindest remembrances to your Papa, Mamma and Sisters I am dear Laetitia aVectionately yours C Bronte¨ MS King’s School, Canterbury. W & S 882. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. No letter from CB to Laetitia Wheelwright more recent than that of c.23 June 1852 has been located. 2. See ECG 18.6.1853 and GS 3.7.1853. Mr Bronte¨ especially dreaded blindness, for he had ‘lived in darkness’ for many months before his cataract operation on 25 Aug. 1846. See CBL i. 491–8. 3. Czar Nicholas I envisaged a Russian empire embracing South-east Europe, and in July 1853 Russian forces had occupied the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, claiming the right to protect Orthodox Christian subjects of the Ottoman Sultan. Russia and France were already disputing the privileges of Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic monks in the holy places of Palestine, which was part of the Ottoman empire. The French emperor Napoleon III did not want war with Russia, but he needed the personal prestige of a victory which might avenge the French retreat from Moscow in 1812; and British journalists portrayed Russia, dominated by a tyrant, as a threat to Britain’s possessions in the East. CB had probably read W. S. Landor’s shrill diatribe against the Czar in the Examiner for 3 Dec. 1853: ‘Nicholas! Tzar of Muscovy! . . . violator of treaties the most sacred, invader of every neighbour’s lands . . . how long are thy perWdy and violence to endure? . . . thy empire was built upon blood . . . thou,

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without intending or perceiving it, hast fabricated in thy furnace the electric wire that unites inseparably France and England’ (771–2). On 3 Jan. 1854 the French and British Xeets moved into the Black Sea after the Russians destroyed a Turkish squadron at Sinope; on 12 Mar. 1854 Great Britain and France became allies of Turkey. Newspapers were full of accounts of the preparations for war; and on 28 Mar. Britain and France declared war on Russia. 4. In 1853 CB stayed with the Gaskells 21–8 Apr., spent a week with Joe and Amelia Taylor in Scotland and Ilkley in August, stayed in Ilkley for about three days in September, and spent a week with Margaret Wooler at Hornsea ?6–13 Oct.

To Henry Garrs,1 17 March 1854 Haworth. To Henry Garrs I return your M.S. which I have read carefully. It seems to me that Mr. Forster2 was right in what he said. Your thoughts are often vigourous: your execution is sometimes defective. I have marked some prominent errors in orthography &c. but only in pencil—though, that you may eVace if you like. Where a superXuous syllable encumbers the line I have put s. s. in the margin. s.m. denotes a syllable minus. After careful revision, and provided you can get a suYcient number of subscribers to secure you against pecuniary loss—I think you would be justiWed in publishing the poems. Works of less pith and sense, though it may be of neater Wnish—issue from the press yearly. You can feel and reason—which is more than the majority of verse-makers can do: if you could correctly and eloquently express your emotions and reXections—they would often take a striking form. I should say that the reXective powers are stronger in your mind than the imaginative, though perhaps you may not think so yourself. Of the two long poems—‘‘Wilfred’’ seems to me the better. I think however the painful parts are too prolonged, while the happy close is so abrupt and brief as to fail in removing the sad impression produced by all the preceding misery. Perhaps you consider this essential to the moral of the piece. Should you decide on publishing, you may put down my father’s name and my own as subscribers for a copy each. Be very cautious however not to commit yourself to pecuniary risk. Printers and Publishers are hazardous men to deal with: it is seldom an author comes oV without loss. With sincere good wishes for your success I am Yours truly C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 94. No publication traced. Address (integral): To Henry Garrs

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PM: not in MS. 1. See CB’s previous letter to Henry Garrs of 22 Feb. 1854 and notes. 2. Possibly W. E. Forster, for whom see PB to Milnes 16.1.1852 n. 2. 3. I have not located any published poems by Garrs. In Thornton and the Bronte¨s William Scruton recorded reminiscences by Abraham Holroyd which give a diVerent account of Garrs’s approach to CB. Holroyd, consulted about some ‘very good’ poems by a young man ‘in poor circumstances’, was reluctant to advise publication because of the expense; but then, discovering that the man was Nancy Garrs’s brother, he suggested that CB’s opinion might be sought. Next day Garrs took his manuscripts with him to the Parsonage, and was invited in: ‘As soon as Miss Bronte¨ saw him she said, ‘‘Why, you are Nancy’s brother?’’ . . . he told me with tears in his eyes how she had made him welcome, read some of his poems, and entered at once, after the manner of a sister, into all his projects and plans. She told him how she had published poems at a loss to herself, and ended by persuading him to refrain from falling into the same error. But this was not all; fearing that she had not been suYciently explicit during the conversation at her own home, she, though very unwell at the time, dictated a letter to him, which was sent oV by her father, pressing him not to publish. . . . Some weeks after this there came a letter to his address enclosing Wve pounds, and on the envelope were the arms of Earl Carlisle—a nobleman well known in Yorkshire for his generosity’ (114–15). This account is not easily reconcilable with the evidence of the two letters to Garrs of Feb. and Mar. 1854, but it is possible that Garrs made a personal visit at a later date, or combined wishful thinking with memories of the ‘note of sympathy’ and verses he sent to Mr Bronte¨ ‘on the Wrst anniversary of Charlotte’s death’ (LD 487). For the Earl of Carlisle see CBL ii. 626 n.

To T. C. Newby,1 18 March 1854 Haworth. Keighley Dear Sir I have to acknowledge the receipt of your cheque for £30 which reached me safely yesterday. Your note—being posted—I suppose—later—did not arrive till this Morning. Should there be any diYculty in cashing the cheque at the Keighley Bank—I will let you know. With thanks— I am yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 94.1. Brief quotation in Notes and Queries, ns 42 ( June 1995), 191. Address (integral): T. C. Newby Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. For Thomas Cautley Newby (?1798–1882), the publisher of the novels of Anne and Emily Bronte¨, see CBL i. 563 n. He was probably passing on to CB part of the proceeds of his sale of copyright in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to Thomas Hodgson of Aldine Chambers, 13 Paternoster Row, London. Hodgson had placed an advertisement in the Examiner for 25 Feb. 1854, 127: ‘This day is published, price 1s. 6d. j THE PARLOUR LIBRARY, VOL CVI j THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL. j BY ACTON BELL, j Sister to Currer Bell, the Authoress of ‘Jane Eyre.’ A copy of the Hodgson edition in the Brotherton Collection, Leeds, contains a letter from Smith, Elder & Co. to C. K. Shorter, showing that Newby’s sale to Hodgson took place, and that Smith, Elder bought rights in the book from Darton & Co. in 1859. CB had not wanted Tenant to be republished with Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey in the Smith, Elder edition of her sisters’ works in 1850, and we do not know whether she had been consulted by Newby before his sale in 1854. The corrupt, bowdlerized, Parlour Library edition of Tenant, omitting the

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opening section (Markham’s letter to ‘J. Halford, Esq.’) and signiWcant passages from other chapters, was to be the text used in at least thirteen subsequent editions. See G. D. Hargreaves’s articles on the novel’s textual history in BST 16. 82. 113–17 and 17. 87. 115–21.

To Ellen Nussey, [?22 March 1854] [Haworth] Wednesday Morn-g. My dear Ellen I put oV writing yesterday because I had a headache—I have it again to-day— not severe but depressing—however I will write a few lines—and if they are ineYcient you will know the reason. Miss Wooler kindly asked me likewise to go and see her at Hornsea—but I had a prior engagement this month—which, however, it now seems very doubtful whether I shall keep1—it would have given me true pleasure to have joined Miss Wooler—had not my previous promise stood in the way. I was very glad to hear of Miss Cockhill’s2 engagement—oVer her my sincere congratulations on the subject. I don’t know John Battye—but if he only prove as kind a husband—as I feel sure she will be a good wife—they have a good chance of happiness. Mrs. R[ichar]d Nussey’s convalescence was good news also3—I trust she will now steadily improve—and many years may elapse before she has any return. The third stroke of paralysis or apoplexy is generally said to be fatal—but there is an instance in this neighbourhood of three strokes occurring within a period of 20 years—and the patient lives still and is indeed almost entirely recovered from the eVects of the 3rd. attack. One leg only is stiV and unmanageable but he can walk pretty well. Be sure and look after yourself dear Ellen—take exercise—Keep your spirits up—mind cold and the night-air. Tell me if you are in pretty good spirits when you write again [Yours aVectionately j C Bronte¨]4 How does your Sister Ann go on—and what treatment is prescribed by Mr. Teale?5 MS BPM Bon 249. W & S 883. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: Mar 22–54 Date: from annotation. 22 Mar. was a Wednesday. 1. Probably a reference to CB’s proposed visit to the Gaskells. See ECG [early Jan. 1854] and 3.4.1854.

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2. Thus in MS, for ‘Cockill’. Hannah G. Cockill (1810–93) and her sisters Sarah (1812–96) and Elizabeth (1813–54), were the daughters of the widowed Mrs Thomas Cockill, Wrst cousin of Mrs Sarah Nussey, ne´e Clapham, wife of an uncle of EN. With her mother and sisters Hannah kept a boarding-school at Oakwell Hall, Birstall, from about 1838 to 1852. She married John Battye (1812–99), a local solicitor. Despite her age, she was to have a daughter, Elizabeth (1856–1945). See BST 17. 88. 210–13 and Stevens Table D. 3. See EN 1.3.[1854]. 4. Original valediction and signature cut out; words written in by a later hand. 5. See EN 1.3.[1854].

To Ellen Nussey, [28 March 1854] Haworth. Tuesday Morn[in]g My dear Ellen The enclosure in yours of yesterday puzzled me at Wrst—for I did not immediately recognize my own handwriting—when I did—the sensation was one of consternation and vexation as the letter ought by all means to have gone on Friday1—it was intended to relieve him from great anxiety. However I trust he will get it to-day—and on the whole—when I think it over—I can only be thankful that the mistake was no worse and did not throw the letter into the hands of some indiVerent and unscrupulous person. I wrote it after some days of indisposition and uneasiness and when I felt weak and unWt to write. While writing to him—I was at the same time ’intending’ to answer your note—which I suppose accounts for the confusion of ideas—Shewn in the mixed and blundering address. I wish you could come about Easter2 rather than at another time—for this reason—Mr. *Nicholls—if not prevented—proposes coming over then—I suppose he will stay at Mr. *Grant’s, as he has done two or three times before—but he will be frequently coming here—which would enliven your visit a little— perhaps too—he might take a walk with us occasionally—altogether it would be a little change for you such as—you know—I could not always oVer. If all be well—he will come under diVerent circumstances to any that have attended his visits before—were it otherwise I should not ask you to meet him—for when aspects are gloomy and unpropitious—the fewer there are to suVer from the cloud—the better. He was here in Jany. and was then received but not pleasantly. I trust it will be a little diVerent now— Papa has breakfasted in bed to-day and has not yet risen—his bronchitis is still troublesome—I had a bad week last week—but am greatly better now—for my mind is a little relieved though very sedate, and rising only to expectations the most moderate.

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Some time—perhaps in May—I may be in your neighbourhood3 and shall then hope to come to Brookroyd—but as you will understand from what I have ’now’ stated—I could not come before. Think it over, dear Ellen, and come to Haworth if you can. Yours aVectionately C Bronte¨ Write as soon as you can decide. MS Princeton. W & S 884. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN (i) at head of letter: 313 Mar 28–54. (ii) at end of letter: Mar 28–54 Date: from annotation. 1. 24 Mar. CB’s letter, intended for Mr Nicholls, had been sent to EN at Brookroyd. 2. Easter Sunday was 16 Apr. EN did not visit the Parsonage then. 3. CB was to stay with the Nusseys 8–11 May, after her visit to Joe and Amelia Taylor at Hunsworth 4–8 May. See EN 28.4.1854.

To Ellen Nussey, [1 April 1854] [Haworth] Saturday Morn—g My dear Ellen You certainly were right in your second interpretation of my note. I am too well aware of the dullness of Haworth for any visitor—not to be glad to avail myself of the chance of oVering even a slight change. But this morning my little plans have been deranged by an intimation that Mr. *Nicholls is coming on Monday—I thought to put him oV—but have not succeeded—As Easter now consequently seems an unfavourable period both from your point of view and mine—we will adjourn it till a better opportunity oVers. Meantime I thank you—dear Ellen, for your kind oVer to come in case I wanted you. Papa is still very far from well—his cough very troublesome, and a good deal of inXammatory action in the chest. To-day he seems somewhat better than yesterday—and I earnestly trust the improvement may continue. With kind regards to your Mother and all at Brookroyd—I am dear Ellen yours aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 94.5. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/67. W & S 885. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j AP 1 j 1854 (iii) LEEDS j AP 1 j 1854 j Annotation by EN (i) on letter: 314 Ap 1st. 54 (ii) on envelope: Ap 1—54

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To Mrs Gaskell, 3 April 1854 Haworth. My dear Mrs. Gaskell Thank you for your kind note. I had begun to be a little anxious—not lest you had forgotten me—but lest you or some of yours Might be ill. You have been busied—I see—for others—as usual. Your time at Paris could not have been one of much pleasure—surrounded as you were by sickness; only—I know you would Wnd gratiWcation in aiding where aid was needed1 I cannot come to see you yet. My Father is suVering from his usual Spring attack of bronchitis—and though now—much better than he has been—he is still not well enough to be left. I am as usual. Will you permit me—my dear Mrs. Gaskell—to tell you when I can come to Manchester (it will probably not be before May)2 in full conWdence that if the time I name does not suit you—you will at once say so? Answer this note at your leisure; remember me kindly to Mr. Gaskell and all your circle and believe me Yours sincerely & aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS Rylands, Envelope: Berg. No publication traced. Address (envelope): Mrs. Gaskell j Plymouth-Grove j Manchester PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j AP ?3 j 1—4 (iii) LEEDS j AP—j 1854 (iv) MANCHESTER j AP 3 j 1854 j S Annotation in unknown hand: Charlotte Bronte¨’s j Autograph 1. The sickness was presumably in the family of the Salis Schwabes of Paris with whom Mrs Gaskell had stayed in ?late Jan./Feb. 1854. 2. CB was to stay with the Gaskells 1–4 May 1854.

To Ellen Nussey, 11 April 1854 Haworth. My dear Ellen Thank you for the collar—It is very pretty, and I will wear it for the sake of her who made and gave it. Mr *Nicholls came on Monday 3rd. and was here all last week.1 Matters have progressed thus since last July. He renewed his visit in Sept[embe]r —but then matters so fell out that I saw little of him. He continued to write. The correspondence pressed on my mind. I grew very miserable in keeping it from Papa. At last sheer pain made me gather courage to break it—I told all. It was very hard and rough work2 at the time—but the issue after a few days was that I obtained leave to continue the communication. Mr. N. came in Jan[uar]y he

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was ten days in the neighbourhood. I saw much of him—I had stipulated ’with Papa’ for opportunity to become better acquainted—I had it and all I learnt inclined me to esteem and, if not love—at least aVection—Still Papa was very —very hostile—bitterly unjust. I told Mr. *Nicholls the great obstacles that lay in his way. He has persevered—The result of this his last visit is—that Papa’s consent is gained—that his respect, I believe is won—for Mr. *Nicholls has in all things proved himself disinterested and forbearing. He has shewn too that while his feelings are exquisitely keen—he can freely forgive. Certainly I must respect him—nor can I withold from him more than mere cool respect. In fact, dear Ellen, I am engaged. Mr. *Nicholls in the course of a few months will return to the curacy of Haworth. I stipulated that I would not leave Papa—and to Papa himself I proposed a plan of residence—which should maintain his seclusion and convenience uninvaded and in a pecuniary sense bring him gain instead of loss.3 What seemed at one time—impossible—is now arranged—and Papa begins really to take a pleasure in the prospect. For myself—dear Ellen—while thankful to One who seems to have guided me through much diYculty, much and deep distress and perplexity of mind—I am still very calm—very—inexpectant. What I taste of happiness is of the soberest order. I trust to love my husband—I am grateful for his tender love to me—I believe him to be an aVectionate—a conscientious—a high-principled man—and if with all this, I should yield to regrets—that Wne talents, congenial ’tastes’ and thoughts are not added—it seems to me I should be most presumptuous and thankless. Providence oVers me this destiny. Doubtless then it is the best for me—Nor do I shrink from wishing those dear to me one not less happy. It is possible that our marriage may take place in the course of the Summer. Mr. *Nicholls wishes it to be in July. He spoke of you with great kindness and said he hoped you would be at our wedding. I said I thought of having no other bridesmaid. Did I say right? I mean the marriage to be literally as quiet as possible.4 Do not mention these things just yet. I mean to write to Miss Wooler shortly. Good-bye—There is a strange—half-sad feeling in making these announcements—The whole thing is something other than imagination paints it beforehand: cares—fears—come mixed inextricably with hopes. I trust yet to talk the matter over with you—Often last week I wished for your presence and said so to Mr. *Nicholls—Arthur—as I now call him—but he said it was the only time and place when he could not have wished to see you. Good bye Yours aVectionately C Bronte¨

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MS Pforzheimer. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/67.5. W & S 886. Address (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j AP 11 j 1854 (iii) LEEDS j AP 11 j 1854 j H Annotation by EN (i) on letter: 315 (ii) on envelope: Ap 11- j prop[osal] of Marriage j Mr j & ar [other letters cut oV] 1. Probably at the Revd J. B. Grant’s in Oxenhope. During his April visit Mr Nicholls oYciated in Haworth at the burial of William Fawthrop of Keighley on 3 Apr. and of Sally Binns of Haworth on 6 Apr., but did not perform any more duties there until 2 Aug. From 5 Aug. 1854 he took most of the baptisms until 18 Mar. 1855. 2. Charlotte gave Mrs Gaskell a dramatic account of this ‘hard and rough work’ during her visit to Manchester in May 1854. See ECG to John Forster [?17.5.1854]. 3. CB wrote ‘loss instead of gain’, but realized her mistake and wrote ‘2’ above ‘loss’ and ‘1’ above ‘gain’. 4. The wedding took place on the ‘dim quiet morning’ of 29 June 1854. See MW 16.6.1854, CB’s letter to EN, written on the evening of her wedding day, and Appendix VI.

To Francis Bennoch,1 11 April 1854 Haworth. My dear Sir It would have given me great pleasure to have been able at once to accept your kind invitation, but I cannot do this. Since I last wrote to you, circumstances have so shaped themselves and my engagements have become such at home, as to compel me for the present to relinquish all thoughts of visiting London this season I am sorry—for I should much have wished to see you again, and ever since you invited me I have dwelt with pleasure on the thought of going to Blackheath. It is [not] to be, however, just now. I grieve to hear of Miss Mitfo[rd’s]2 progressive decline—Remember me kindly to her when you see her again. Thank you for your k[ind] inquiries after my Father. His health has been only precarious th[is] Spring; for some weeks I felt v[ery] anxious about him, he is now however much better—and I trust will continue to improve. Unit[ing] his regards to my own I am, my dear Sir Yours very sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 95. BST 13. 67. 143–4. Address (integral): F. Bennoch Esqr. PM: not in MS. Text: square brackets enclose conjectural readings of words or parts of words concealed beneath a protective paper edging on the verso. 1. See CB’s letters to Bennoch of 19 Sept. 1853 n. 1 and 27 Jan. 1854. 2. Mary Russell Mitford (16 Dec. 1787–10. Jan. 1855). See F. Bennoch 19.9.1853 n. 3. Miss Mitford was very ill by July 1854, but she rallied brieXy in October, and was given hope that her life might be prolonged.

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To Margaret Wooler, 12 April 1854 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler The truly kind interest which you have always taken in my aVairs makes me feel that it is due to you to transmit an early communication on a subject respecting which I have already consulted you more than once. I must tell you then—that since I wrote last—Papa’s mind has gradually come round to a view very diVerent to that which he once took, and that after some correspondence, and as the result of a visit Mr. Nicholls paid here about a week ago—it was agreed that he is to resume the curacy of Haworth, as soon as Papa’s present Assistant1 is provided with a situation, and in due course of time he is to be received as an inmate into this house. It gives me unspeakable content to see that—now my Father has once admitted this new view of the case—he dwells on it complacently. In all arrangements his convenience and seclusion will be scrupulously respected. Mr. Nicholls seems deeply to feel the wish to comfort and sustain his declining years. I think—from Mr. N.’s character—I may depend on this not being a mere transitory impulsive feeling, but rather that it will be accepted steadily as a duty—and discharged tenderly as an oYce of aVection. The destiny which Providence in His goodness and wisdom seems to oVer me will not—I am aware—be generally regarded as brilliant—but I trust I see in it some germs of real happiness. I trust the demands of both feeling and duty will be in some measure reconciled by the step in contemplation. It is Mr. N’s wish that the marriage should take place this Summer—he urges the month of July—but that seems very soon. When you write to me—tell me how you are. It is probable I may be at Brookroyd before very long, and then I trust to see you2 and Wx the time for your coming here. I have now decidedly declined the visit to London: the ensuing three months will bring me abundance of occupation—I could not aVord to throw away a month. * Ellen and I are—I think—quite friends again—thanks, in a great measure to the kind mediating word which ‘‘turned away wrath’’. ‘‘Blessed are the peacemakers!’’3 Remember me kindly to Mr. and Mrs. Carter & their household circle—and believe me—my dear Miss Wooler— Yours with true aVection & respect C Bronte¨

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Papa has just got a letter from the good and dear Bishop —which has touched and pleased me much. It expresses so cordial an approbation of Mr. N’s return to Haworth (respecting which he was consulted—) and such kind gratiWcation ’at’ the domestic arrangements which are to ensue. It seems his penetration discovered the state of things when he was here in Jany. 1853—while his benevolence sympathized with Mr N—then in sorrow and dejection. I saw him press his hand and speak to him very kindly at parting. MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 887. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The Revd George Binks de Renzy, b. 1827. See EN 27.5.1853 n. 6. 2. Margaret Wooler was staying with her sister Mrs Carter, wife of the perpetual curate of Heckmondwike, about 2 miles from Brookroyd. 3. Proverbs 15: 1: ‘A soft answer turneth away wrath’, and Matthew 5: 9: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.’ 4. See EN 15.2.1853, 4.3.1853. Bishop Longley visited Haworth in Feb. not Jan. 1853.

To James Alexander Simpson1 Esquire, [13] April 1854 Haworth. An Author solicited for an autograph is placed in a dilemma. To refuse seems unkind; to grant seems a little weak—as if he gave in to the delusion that his mere handwriting has a value. Of the two errors, however, unkindness is worse than weakness; so Mr. S—is made very welcome to what he asks Charlotte Bronte¨ Haworth. April. 1854. P.S. I have no specimens of my Sisters’ handwriting with which I can part. MS BPM B.S. 95.1. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/67.6. No publication traced. Address (integral): To James Alexander Simpson Esqre. (envelope): James Alexander Simpson Esqre. j University j Edinburgh j N.B.2 PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j AP 13 j 1854 (iii) LEEDS j AP ?14 j 1854 j H (iv) APR j F 14 * j 1854 Annotation on envelope in unknown hand: Miss Bronte´ 1. The recipient has not been identiWed. It has been suggested that he was Dr James Young Simpson (1811–70; DNB), the famous Edinburgh physician whom the Dobells had consulted in Nov.–Dec. 1853 (see Dobell 3.2.1854 n. 3). But though Dr J. Y. Simpson appears in the university records simply as James Simpson, Mr Douglas Knock of the Wellcome Trust Library informs me that according to Simpson’s biographer John Shepherd he must have ‘added the name Young soon after qualiWcation’ as Doctor, in 1832. Mr Knock adds that ‘He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1836 so was well established by 1854 and almost certainly using the name James Young Simpson at that time (Medical Directory 1861)’ and that no ‘James Alexander Simpson’ is identiWable as a medical practitioner in the 1861 Directory.

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I am grateful to Mr Knock and to Ms Sheila Noble, User Services Librarian, Edinburgh University Library Special Collections, for their help and information. 2. North Britain—i.e. Scotland; a designation used since 1708, after the Act uniting England and Scotland in 1707.

To Ellen Nussey, [15 April 1854] [Haworth] Saturday My own dear Nell I hope to see you somewhere about the 2nd. week in May. The Manchester visit is still hanging over my head—I have deferred it and deferred it—but have Wnally promised to go about the beginning of next month—’I shall only stay about 3 days’ then I spend 2 or 3 days at Hunsworth— then come to Brookroyd.1 The 3 visits must be compressed into the space of a fortnight if possible. I suppose I shall have to go to Leeds.2 My purchases cannot be either expensive or extensive—You must just revolve in your head the bonnets and dresses something that can be turned to decent use and worn after the wedding-day will be best—I think. I wrote immediately to Miss Wooler and received a truly kind letter from her this morning. If you think she would like to come to the marriage I will not fail to ask her. Papa’s mind seems wholly changed about this matter; And he has said both to me and when I was not there—how much happier he feels since he allowed all to be settled. It is a wonderful relief for me to hear him treat the thing rationally—and quietly and amicably to talk over with him themes on which, once I dared not touch. He is rather anxious that things should get forward now—and takes quite an interest in the arrangement of preliminaries. His health improves daily, though this east-wind still keeps up a slight irritation in the throat and chest. The feeling which had been disappointed in Papa—was ambition—paternal pride, ever a restless feeling—as we all know. Now that this unquiet spirit is exorcised—Justice, which was once quite forgotten—is once more listened to— and aVection—I hope—resumes some power. My hope is that in the end this arrangement will turn out more truly to Papa’s advantage—than any other it was in my power to achieve. Mr. N[icholls] only in his last letter—refers touchingly to his earnest desire to prove his gratitude to Papa by oVering support and consolation to his declining age.3 This will not be mere talk with him—he is no talker—no dealer in professions. Dear Nell—I will write no more at present. You can of course tell your Sister Ann & Mr. *Clapham—the *Healds4 too if you judge proper—indeed I now

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leave the communication to you—I know you will not obtrude it where no interest would be taken. Yours aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 95.2. Envelope BPM B.S. 67.7. W & S 888. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j AP 15 j 185-(iii) LEEDS j AP 15 j —4 Annotation by EN (i) on letter: 316 j Ap 15–54 (ii) on envelope: Ap 15–54 j Of Mr B’s opinions & feelings j ?their [i.w.] j of Mr N’s desire to support & sustain Mr B’s [i.w.] age 1. CB was in Manchester from Monday 1 May until Thursday 4 May, with the Taylors at Hunsworth 4 to 8 May, and with Ellen at Brookroyd from 8 until Friday 11 May. 2. CB may have done so; but she purchased her wedding dress and some other garments for her trousseau in Halifax. See ?Mrs Gaskell early June 1854 and EN [11. 6. 1854]. 3. Mr Nicholls loyally remained with Mr Bronte¨ after CB’s death. 4. The Revd William Margetson Heald (1803–75), Vicar of Birstall, his wife Mary, ne´e Carr, and his sister Harriet. See index references in CBL i and ii.

To George Smith, 18 April 1854 Haworth My dear Sir It having become necessary that my Stock in the Funds should be transferred to another name, I have empowered Mr. Metcalfe1—my Solicitor—the Bearer of this note—to ask such particulars as are required to Wll up the Power of Attorney for a transfer, A statement of the exact amount standing in my name in the Government Books is also required: I have Bank-Receipts for the following sums in my possession.2 viz. £500. The price of the copyright of ‘‘Shirley’’ invested in the Funds Octbr. 1849 £480 Recd. for the copyright of ‘‘Villette’’ invested Decbr. 1852. £521 .17s. 6d. The proceeds of the sale of Railway Shares—invested Jany. 1853. £82. 10s. Recd. for Foreign Copyright of ‘‘Villette’’; invested April 1853. Besides these—there is a further sum of £100 which became due to me in July 1851—and which I Wnd by reference to a letter of yours dated Novbr. 15th 1851— was for the small edition of ‘‘Jane Eyre’’.3 You asked me—I remember—what should be done with this sum—and I said it might be put in the Bank with the rest—but for it I have never had a receipt, and should feel obliged if you will now ascertain whether such a document is in your possession. Apologizing for the unavoidable trouble thus given I am, my dear Sir Yours sincerely C Bronte¨

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MS BPM SG 89. BST 18. 92. 113–14. Address (integral): George Smith Esqre. PM: none, since the letter was carried by Mr Metcalfe. 1. Richard Metcalfe, b. ?1809, solicitor, and Clerk to the Magistrates, Queen Street, Keighley; son of Cuthbert and Isabella Metcalfe (ne´e Allen). The cold formality of this Wnancial statement was probably a consequence of its quasi-legal status and its presentation by a solicitor on CB’s behalf. It is possible that she sent a more friendly, personal letter to George Smith by post, announcing her engagement; or she might have asked Mr Metcalfe to explain why a transfer of funds was required. See her acknowledgement of Smith’s good wishes, GS 25.4.1854. 2. On 14 Sept. 1849 CB had asked George Smith for advice on the best way of investing the £500 she received for Shirley. He subsequently invested this, together with her earnings for Villette and the proceeds of the sale of her railway shares in 3 41 per cent reduced bank annuities. It is likely that foreign copyrights—with Tauchnitz, for example, who published continental editions of all CB’s novels—were arranged directly by Smith. The total investment fund mentioned in CB’s marriage settlement of 24 May 1854, which provided for its transfer to Joseph Taylor as a trustee, was £1,678. 9s. 9d. See Juliet R. V. Barker, ‘Subdued Expectations: Charlotte Bronte¨’s Marriage Settlement’, in BST 19. 1 and 2. 33–9. The settlement, designed to protect CB’s interests, meant that Nicholls would not have access to CB’s capital. This was to be paid into a trust for her and any children she might have. Joseph Taylor as trustee would receive ‘all the interest, dividends and proceeds arising from the capital sum’, and pay them to whomsoever CB should direct in writing; or ‘in default of such a direction’, to CB for her sole use. If she died in the lifetime of her husband, her money (unless she had directed otherwise) would go to her children, if any, or would be ‘paid out according to the rules of the Intestacy Statutes as if Charlotte had died unmarried and intestate’ (34). Thus the beneWciary would be her father, not her widower. In the event Charlotte’s happy marriage and conWdence in her husband led her to ‘circumvent this clause by making a written disposition of her estate. In her will, dated 17 February 1855, she bequeathed to her husband all her property to be his ‘‘absolutely and entirely’’ ’ (35–6). On p. 33 of her article Juliet Barker implies that R. M. Milnes had obtained ‘an annual pension of £100 for Mr Nicholls’, but in Barker 964 n.15 she writes that he did not seem to have received a pension. See ECG to R. M. Milnes 29.10.[1853] and n. 3. 3. The 4th edition, April 1850.

To Mrs Gaskell, ?18 April 1854 [Haworth] My dear Mrs Gaskell, (a) I should have deferred writing to you till I could Wx the day of coming to Manchester, but I have a thing or two to communicate which I want to get done with. You remember—or perhaps you do not remember—what I told you when you were at Haworth.1 Towards the end of autumn the matter was again brought prominently forward. There was much reluctance, and many diYculties to be overcome. I cannot deny that I had a battle to Wght with myself; I am not sure that I have even yet conquered certain inward combatants. Be this as it may—in January last papa gave his sanction for a renewal of acquaintance. Things have progressed I don’t know how. It is of no use going into detail. After various visits and as the result of perseverance in one quarter and a gradual

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change of feeling in others, I Wnd myself what people call ‘engaged.’ Mr Nicholls returns to Haworth. The people are very glad—especially the poor and old and very young—to all of whom he was kind, with a kindness that showed no Xash at Wrst, but left a very durable impression. He is to become a resident in this house.2 I believe it is expected that I shall change my name in the course of summer—perhaps in July. He promises to prove his gratitude to papa by oVering faithful support and consolation to his age. As he is not a man of Wne words, I believe him. The Rubicon once passed, papa seems cheerful and satisWed; he says he has been far too stern; he even admits that he was unjust—terribly unjust he certainly was for a time, but now all this is eVaced from memory—now that he is kind again and declares himself happy—and talks reasonably and without invective. I could almost cry sometimes that in this important action in my life I cannot better satisfy papa’s perhaps natural pride. My destiny will not be brilliant, certainly, but Mr Nicholls is conscientious, aVectionate, pure in heart and life.3 He oVers a most constant and tried attachment—I am very grateful to him. I mean to try and make him happy, and papa too . . . (b) . . . in contemplating the coming event—I cannot boast these things. I won’t say any more on paper. I may venture to consult you a little when I see you4 Good bye Yours faithfully & aVectionately C Bronte¨ MSS (a) untraced. (b) Mr Alan Gill. W & S 889 (part). Address: not in sources. PM: not in sources. Date: from W & S 889. Text: incomplete. A facsimile of part of fragment (b) (from ‘boast’ to the end) was reproduced in Sotheby’s sale catalogue for 4 June 1980, lot 1086. I am grateful to Mr Alan Gill, who provided a copy of the facsimile, and the accompanying information. The former owner, R. E. D. Rawlins, had noted that it came from ‘an album containing several letters to Mrs Gaskell’. It is likely to be the conclusion of the letter to her of 18 Apr. since on 23 Apr. Mrs Gaskell told John Forster, ‘she [CB] says she cannot tell me all the details in a letter’, and then quoted various phrases from part (a) (CP letter 191). See the extract from the letter to Forster, below. 1. In Sept. 1853. Mrs Gaskell had already acted on CB’s information by seeking help for Mr Nicholls from R. M. Milnes, and on 20 Apr. 1854 she sent on to him the present letter, with a covering note, in the belief that it would give him ‘true pleasure’. She asked him to treat it as conWdential, and return it ‘as soon as ever you can. I can’t help fancying your kind words may have made [Nicholls] feel that he was not so friendless as . . . he believed himself to be at Wrst; and might rouse his despondency up to a fresh eVort’ (CP letter 189). 2. CB arranged for the storeroom behind the Parsonage dining-room to be refurbished as Mr Nicholls’s study. See EN [21.5.1854]. 3. Cf. Matthew 5: 8. 4. Mrs Gaskell, married to a clergyman, and the mother of four girls, successfully combined her domestic duties with her career as a writer. CB would be prepared to conWde in her and listen to her advice.

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Mrs Gaskell to John Forster,1 [23 April 1854] Extract [Manchester] Sunday— . . . Ah! did you not cheat me with your (‘‘now don’t tell’’) at the bottom of the page! I turned over thinking you really had guessed, & for that & previous misconduct on the same aVair I have half a mind not to tell you—Yes! She is going to be married! to Mr. Nicholls, who has returned to Haworth. He made some kind of renewed application to her father to be allow[ed] to see them from time to time as an acquaintance, in January,—in Feb—he again spoke to her; & she says she can not tell me all the details in a letter, but ‘‘events have so Xowed out of each other that now she Wnds herself ’what people call’— engaged’’. Mr. Nicholls returns to Haworth to be curate to her father (himself only a perpetual curate under the vicar of Bradford, with 250£ a year pour tout potage2, out of which he pays Mr. Nicholls’ salary. They are ’all three father daughter & husband’ to live together; she says her father seems now anxious to make up for former injustice, & is so kind that at times she ‘‘could cry that she has not been able more to gratify his natural pride’’. The ‘‘old, the poor, the very young’’ among the Haworth people are delighted; which speaks well for Mr. Nicholls, I’m sure. I am terribly afraid he won’t let her go on being as intimate with us, heretics.3 I see she is, too, a little. However she is coming to us in May, & I must make the most of her then, & hope for the future. I fancy him very good, but very stern & bigoted; but I dare say that is partly fancy. Still it arises from what she has told me. He sounds vehemently in love with her. And I like his having known her dead sisters & dead brother & all she has gone through of home trials, & being no person who has just fancied himself in love with her, because he was dazzled by her genius. Mr. N. never knew, till long after Shirley was published, that she wrote books; and came in, cold & disapproving one day, to ask her if the report he had heard at Keighley was true &c. Fancy him, an Irish curate, loving her even then, reading that beginning of Shirley!4 However, with all his bigotry & sternness it must be charming to be loved with all the strength of his heart as she sounds to be. Mr. Shaen5 accuses me always of being ‘‘too much of a woman’’ in always wanting to obey somebody—but I am sure that Miss Bronte¨ could never have borne ’not to be well-ruled & ordered’— well! I think I have got into a ‘‘Wasco’’6 and I have hardly any right to go on discussing what she could or she could not do—but I mean that she would never have been happy but with an exacting, rigid, law-giving, passionate man—only you see, I’m afraid one of his laws will be to shut us out, & so I am making a sort of selWsh moan over it & have got out of temper I suppose with the very thing I have been wanting for her this six months past. . . .

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MS BL Add. 38794 S, fos. 264, 265. W & S 890. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: from CP letter 191. ECG dates ‘Sunday—’. 1. For John Forster (1812–76) see GS 7.2.1853 n. 1 and CBL ii. 279 n. 3. The earlier part of the letter deals with arrangements for the publication of Mr Gaskell’s lectures on Lancashire dialect, to be appended to the Wfth edition of Mary Barton. This was published by Chapman and Hall, for whom Forster was the reader and adviser. 2. Altogether. Mr Nicholls’s current salary was £90 per annum. 3. The Puseyite Nicholls would be a rigid Trinitarian, opposed to the Unitarian denial of the deity of Christ. On Unitarian attitudes to Arianism, see Anna Unsworth, letter on ‘The Novels of Mrs Gaskell’, TLS 9. 1. 1976. 4. Nicholls had Wnished reading Shirley (published on 26 Oct. 1849) by about 28 Jan. 1850. 5. The barrister William Shaen of 8 Bedford Row, London, had married Mrs Gaskell’s friend Emily Winkworth. 6. Literally a Xask or bottle (Italian), so perhaps Mrs Gaskell implies that she has reached a bottleneck or impasse.

Mrs Mary Hewitt, ne´e Gorham, to Ellen Nussey, 24 April [1854] East Marden [Sussex] My dearest Ellen, I am so sorry for not having written to you—some time back I might have done so—but I then did not feel very well and thought I would wait till I was better. Then I really became ill1 and this is the Wrst for many days that I have felt at all equal to writing. I cannot do much now—but must thank you for your letters very much—for all your news—congratulate you and Miss Bronte¨ especially on the at length happy conclusion—I am so glad of your reconcilement! How many marriages around you—You will certainly be married yourself someday whether you will or no. I must tell you too all is well with us except this ailment of mine. Mama recovered from her attack better than I could expect but has had another slight illness since—she is better and coming to us to-day I am thankful to say for it will be a great comfort and do me a great deal of good. . . . Mary Hewitt. MS untraced. W & S 891. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: W & S 891, with Mary Hewitt’s address, ‘East Marsden’ corrected to ‘East Marden’. 1. Mary Hewitt was pregnant. Her son Edward Swinton Hewitt was christened at East Marden on 31 Dec. 1854.

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To George Smith, 25 April 1854 [Haworth] My dear Sir I thank you for your congratulations and good wishes; if these last are realized but in part—I shall be very thankful. It gave me also sincere pleasure to be assured of your own happiness1—though of that I never doubted—I have faith also in its permanent character—provided Mrs. George Smith is—what it pleases me to fancy her to be. You never told me any particulars about her—though I should have liked them much—but did not like to ask questions—knowing how much your mind and time would be engaged. What I have to say—is soon told. The step in contemplation is no hasty one: on the gentleman’s side, at least, it has been meditated for many years, and I hope that in at last acceding to it—I am acting right; it is what I earnestly wish to do. My future husband is a clergyman. He was for eight years my Father’s curate. He left because the idea of this marriage was not entertained as he wished. His departure was regarded by the parish as a calamity—for he had devoted himself to his duties with no ordinary diligence. Various circumstances have led my Father to consent to his return, nor can I deny that my own feelings have been much impressed and changed by the nature and strength of the qualities brought out in the course of his long attachment. I fear I must accuse myself of having formerly done him less than justice. However he is to come back now. He has foregone many chances of preferment2 to return to the obscure village of Haworth. I believe I do right in marrying him. I mean to try to make him a good wife. There has been heavy anxiety—but I begin to hope all will end for the best. My expectations, however, are very subdued—very diVerent—I daresay—to what yours were before you were married. Care and Fear stand so close to Hope—I sometimes scarcely can see her for the Shadow they cast—And yet I am thankful too—and the doubtful Future must be left with Providence. On one feature in the marriage I can dwell with unmingled satisfaction— with a certainty of being right. It takes nothing from the attention I owe to my Father I am not to leave him—my ’future’ husband consents to come here— thus ’Papa’ secures by the step—a devoted and reliable assistant in his old age. There can—of course—be no reason for witholding the intelligence from your Mother & Sisters; remember me kindly to them whenever you write.3 I hardly know in what form of greeting to include your wife’s name—as I have never seen her—say to her whatever may seem to you most appropriate—and most expressive of good-will. I sometimes wonder how Mr. Williams is, and hope he is well.4 In the course of the year that is gone—Cornhill and London have receded a long way from me—the links of communication have

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waxed very frail and few. It must be so in this world. All things considered—I don’t wish it otherwise Yours sincerely C Bronte¨ MS BPM SG 90. W & S 892. Address (integral): George Smith Esqr. PM: not in MS. 1. George Smith married Elizabeth Blakeway on 11 Feb. 1854. Leonard Huxley writes: ‘Her gifts of mind and character were no less gracious than her outward presence. Her portrait was painted by Sir Frederick Burton, one of his most perfect ‘‘works.’’ . . . Husband and wife found a common inspiration for their lives in high-mindedness and mutual devotion. She shared in his bold plans, in his sanguine hopes, undefeated by the occasional ebb of fortune which was ultimately to swell in full Xood, and at the last, she received from him as his special legacy, his most cherished enterprise—the ‘‘Dictionary of National Biography.’’ There were two sons and three daughters of the marriage. . . . Mrs. Smith survived her husband thirteen years, reaching the age of eighty-three in 1914’ (Huxley 82–3). 2. Dr Hook of Leeds had enabled Monckton Milnes to oVer Nicholls a beneWce in Lancashire or one in Scotland, but Nicholls refused both. See Milnes to Mrs Gaskell, 30.1.[1854]. His other ‘chances of preferment’ by this date are unknown, but the testimonials to his work and character provided for his application to the SPG show that preferment would have been well deserved and supported. See EN 2.1.1853 n. 5. In Nov. 1854 Nicholls also refused Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth’s oVer of the living of Habergham. See EN 14.11.1854. 3. Perhaps Smith’s mother and sisters were away on holiday, or had moved house. ‘For four years [Smith] and his wife lived at 112, Gloucester Terrace, where he had formerly resided with his mother. Subsequently they spent some time at Wimbledon, and at the end of 1859 they settled at 11 Gloucester Square’ (DNB, ‘Memoir of George Smith,’ p. xxiii). There, and from 1863–72 at Oak Hill Lodge, Hampstead, the George Smiths regularly entertained the contributors to the Cornhill. 4. CB’s last known letter to W. S. Williams was her somewhat curt note of 6 Dec. 1853, q.v. In June 1854 she arranged for wedding-cards to be sent to Mr Williams and George Smith at their business address, 65 Cornhill.

To Mrs Gaskell, 26 April 1854 Haworth. My dear Mrs. Gaskell If all be well—I hope to come to you on Monday next (1st. May) I should reach Manchester in the evening by the 7.20m train which comes through Skipton Colne—Burnley &c.1 With regard to stay—I have just ten days to divide amongst three houses. If you will have me till Thursday—I will stay till then. I hope Meta is at home.2 I want so much to see her—for I feel as if I don’t know the real Meta at all. Tell Mr. Gaskell I accept his kind regards with all my heart—for I know they are kind. I believe when he sends such messages he means them. He must be pleased to be satisWed with only receiving my acknowledgments and thanks for his invitation to Mr. Nicholls. The fact is I have not transmitted it to its

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destination—Mr. Nicholls left his church but very lately3 and will have to leave it again soon—on business—and I think while he is there [it] is4 as well not to be instrumental in unsettling him. Yet I trust the day will come when he will see both you and Mr. Gaskell. I had a little talk with him about my ‘‘latitudinarianism’’ and his opposite quality. He did not bristle up at all—nor feel stiV and unmanageable—he only groaned a little over something in ‘‘Shirley’’ touching ‘‘baptismal regeneration and a wash-hand basin.’’5 Yet if he is indulgent to some points in me—I shall have carefully to respect certain reverse points in him. I don’t mean to triXe with matters deep-rooted and delicate of conscience and principle. I know that when once married I shall often have to hold my tongue on topics which heretofore have rarely failed to set that unruly member6 in tolerably facile motion. But I will not be a bigot—My heart will always turn to the good of every sect and class. Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS Rylands. BST 12. 62. 123. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. See ECG 14.4.1853 n. 2. 2. Meta Gaskell was in London for some time in May 1854. See CP letter 194 and Gaskell Further Letters 110. 3. At Kirk Smeaton. See EN 6.4.1853, 16.5.1853 and notes. 4. MS reads ‘there is is’. 5. In Shirley, ch. 1. As a ‘high church’ man, Nicholls would not question the doctrine that baptism confers unconditional spiritual regeneration. See CBL ii. 34 n., 443 n. 6. Cf. James 3: 6–8: ‘The tongue is a Wre . . . among our members . . . it deWleth the whole body. . . it is an unruly evil.’

To Mrs J. B. Grant, 27 April [1854] [Haworth] 1

[CB writes that she had planned to visit Mrs Grant during the afternoon of 27 April, but her preparations for leaving Haworth on the following Monday2 would prevent this. She does not want Mrs Grant to remain indoors waiting for her to come, and she hopes that the Grants’ son3 is still recuperating well. Mr Bronte¨’s improved health has enabled him to preach once on the 26th and twice on the 23rd of April. CB sends her regards to Mr Grant.] MS untraced. No publication traced. Address (integral): Mrs. Grant j Oxenhope PM: not in MS.

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Date: CB dates ‘April 27th.’ The year is indicated by the content, paper, and signature. MS sold at Sotheby’s London, 11 Dec. 1997, lot 144. 1. Sarah Ann, ne´e Turner, ‘eldest daughter of C. R. Turner Esq. Woodford’, and wife of the Revd Joseph Brett Grant, Vicar of Oxenhope (‘Mr Donne’ of Shirley) whom she married on 18 Jan. 1846 (Gentleman’s Magazine (Mar. 1846), 308). In Shirley CB writes of Donne, ‘He too married—a most sensible, quiet, lady-like little woman: the match was the making of him: he became an exemplary domestic character, and a truly active parish-priest’ (ch. 37). 2. CB was writing on Thursday, and would travel to Manchester on 1 May. ‘Sunday’ was the Wrst Sunday after Easter. 3. Charles Grant, b. ?1850; aged 11 in the 1861 Census, according to K. Emsley, Historic Haworth Today (Bradford, 1995), 126. An obituary of J. B. Grant records the ‘heavy family aZiction’ of the early death of Charles, ‘a young man of amiable manners and . . . promise’, in about 1878, when he ‘had been but recently ordained’ and had ‘just entered upon his curacy’ (unknown newspaper, 5.12.1879; document in BPM).

To Ellen Nussey, 28 April 1854 [Haworth] My dear Ellen I have delayed writing till I could give you some clear notion of my movements. If all be well I go to Manchester on Monday 1st. May, stay there till Thur[s]day—Thence to Hunsworth1 till Monday ’following’—when (D.V) I come to Brookroyd. I must be at home by the close of the week. Papa—thank God! continues to improve much. He preached twice on Sunday and again on Wednesday and was not tired—his mind and mood are diVerent to what they were—so much more cheerful and quiet. I trust the illusions of Ambition are quite dissipated—and that he really sees it is better to relieve a suVering and faithful heart—to secure in its Wdelity ’a’ solid good—than unfeelingly to abandon one who is truly attached to his interests as well as mine—and pursue some vain empty Shadow— Thank you—dear Ellen—for your kind invitation to Mr. *Nicholls. He was asked likewise to Manchester & Hunsworth. To Brookroyd & Hunsworth I would not have opposed his coming—for a day—had there been no real obstacle to the arrangement—certain little awkwardnesses of feeling I would have tried to get over—for the sake of introducing him to old friends—but it so happens that he cannot now leave on account of his Rector’s absence. Mr. *Cator2 will be in Town with his family till June and he always stipulates that his Curate shall remain at Kirk-*Smeaton while he is away. How did you get on at the Oratorio3 and what did Miss Wooler say to the proposal of being at the wedding?4 I have many points to discuss when I see you. I hope your Mother—Mr. & Mrs. *Clapham—& *Mercy are well. With kind remembrances to all and true love to you I am dear Nell

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the letters, 1854 faithfully yours C Bronte¨

When you write address to me at Mrs. Gaskell’s Plymouth Grove Manchester MS BPM B.S. 95.4. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/65. W & S 893. Address (envelope) Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j AP 28 j 1854 (iii) LEEDS j AP 28 j 1854 j H Annotation by EN on envelope: Ap 28–54 j of her visits before j her marriage 1. The home of Joseph and Amelia Taylor. 2. The Revd Thomas Cator of Kirk Smeaton. See EN 6.4.1853, 16.5.1853 and notes. 3. Not identiWed. 4. Margaret Wooler was present at CB’s wedding, and gave her away, since Mr Bronte¨ did not attend.

To Mrs Gaskell, [?29 April 1854] [Haworth] Saturday Morning My dear Mrs. Gaskell I just write one line to say that I hope Mr. Gaskell will not put himself to the trouble of meeting me at the Station. Nothing can be easier than for me to take a cab—and drive to Plymouth-Grove. I am sorry to hear of poor Mr. Robberd’s1 death—and (in another sense) sorry Meta will not be at home. Julia and Florence I expect to see changed—though it is not much more than a year since I saw them—it appears longer—2 Yours aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS Rylands. No publication traced. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: from content and CB’s date. 1. John Gooch Robberds had died suddenly on 21 Apr. Born in Norwich in 1789, he had trained for the Unitarian ministry at Manchester New College in York, and had been appointed minister of Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, in 1811. William Gaskell, who became his assistant minister on 3 Aug. 1828, had found him congenial. They shared a love of English literature, and in his funeral sermon for Robberds on 30 Apr. William paid tribute to his lively wit and cheerful piety. See Barbara Brill, William Gaskell 1805–84 (Manchester, 1984), 27, 29, 31. 2. CB had stayed with the Gaskells for a week, from 21 Apr. 1853.

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To Mrs Scott,1 2 May [1854] Plymouth Grove. My dear Mrs. Scott I feel real reluctance and regret in declining your kind invitation—yet decline it—I must. My visit to Mrs. Gaskell is limited to two days2—a stay too short to bear subtraction. If my own absence were alone in question—I should not feel that it required much apology—but that I should be the cause of detaining Mrs. Gaskell gives me—I own—a rather conscience-struck sensation. However I know that you are kind—and to your kindness and that of Mr. Scott I must trust for forgiveness some day—though you may be angry with me just now. Believe me Sincerely yours C Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 96.5. No publication traced. Address (integral): Mrs. Scott j Halliwell Lane j Cheetham Hill PM: not in MS. Annotation in unknown hands: Miss Bronte j 1854 1. Ann, ne´e Ker, wife of Alexander John Scott (1805–66), to whom Mrs Gaskell wrote aVectionately and conWdentially in for example a letter of [?20 June 1853], beginning ‘My dear Mrs Scott, j I do so want to see you, & Cheetham Hill is so far away’ (Gaskell Further Letters 94–6). Cheetham Hill is about 2 miles from the centre of Manchester. A. J. Scott, formerly a minister in London, had been a professor of English at University College London, and was the Wrst principal of Owens College, Manchester, from 22 Oct. 1850 until 1857. Like William Gaskell, he also lectured on literature at working men’s clubs, and was to collaborate with him in founding a Manchester Working-Men’s College in 1858. CB had read his Suggestions on Female Education (1849). See CBL ii. 363 n., 592 n.6. 2. For CB’s conversations with Mrs Gaskell and Catherine Winkworth during her visit to Manchester, see the extracts from Catherine Winkworth’s letter to Emma Shaen of 8 May 1854, and Mrs Gaskell’s letters to John Forster of ?8–14 May and ?17 May 1854, (pp. 259 and 261–2).

To Ellen Nussey, 6 May [1854] Hunsworth. My dear Ellen I came to Hunsworth on Thursday afternoon.1 I shall stay over Saturday & Sunday—and if all be well I hope to come to Brookroyd on Monday after dinner and just in time for tea. I leave you to judge by your own feelings whether I long to see you or not. Amelia tells me you are looking well. She tells me also that I am not—rather ugly as usual; but never mind that, dear Nell—as indeed you never did. On the whole I feel very decently at present—and within the last fortnight have had much respite from headache.

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You are kind to be so much in earnest in wishing for Mr *Nicholls to come to Brookroyd—and I am sorry that circumstances do not favour such a step—but knowing how matters stood—I did not repeat the proposal to him— for I thought it would be like tempting him to forget duty. No more at present—dear Nell except love to all at Brookroyd. Yours aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS BPM Bon 250. W & S 894. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: CB wrote the date ‘May 5th.’, then changed it to ‘6th.’ 1. After travelling from Manchester. CB was writing on Saturday.

Catherine Winkworth to Emma Shaen,1 8 May 1854 Alderley Edge Dearest Em, I meant to have written to you last week, but Wnding that I was to see Miss Bronte´2 this week I determined to wait till I could write about her, and her marriage. I suppose you will have heard that she is to be married in a few weeks to a clergyman, a Mr. Nicholls, who was for eight years curate to her father, was then sent oV in a hurry for his audacity in falling in love with the rector’s daughter, but is now coming back to be curate and son-in-law. Alas! alas! I am very glad for Miss Bronte´’s sake, but sorry for ours, for we can never reckon on seeing her much again when she is ‘‘a married woman.’’ Emily3 and I both went over on Tuesday to see her; Emily some hours Wrst, so as to have some talk to herself. When I came in, Lily4 took me in to Miss Bronte´’s bedroom and left me for a little bit, intending that I should speak of her marriage. I, not knowing whether I was supposed to know of it, held my tongue on that subject, but we talked friendlily, chieXy she asking me questions about myself, &c., till I thought she looked tired, so I took myself oV. The evening was ‘‘slow.’’ Susie,5 the Ewarts,6 and Susan Gully7 were there, so there was a great circle, and as Lily was in a silent mood, the conversation was not brilliant, but at parting, Miss Bronte´ said to me: ‘‘I hope I shall see you again.’’ So I went in on Wednesday. Lily greeted me in a brilliant manner. Mr. Gaskell’s proofs of his ‘‘Lancashire Lectures’’8 had come in all right and put her in excellent spirits; so she drew me in directly to the room whispering: ‘‘Say something about her marriage.’’ . . . When she was summoned away I began: ‘‘I was very glad to hear something Mrs. Gaskell told me about you.’’ ‘‘What was it?’’ ‘‘That you are not going to be alone any more.’’ She leant her head on her hand and said very quickly: ‘‘Yes, I am going to be married in June.’’ ‘‘It will be a great happiness for you to have some one to care for, and make happy.’’ ‘‘Yes; and it is a

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great thing to be the Wrst object with any one.’’ ‘‘And you must be very sure of that with Mr. Nicholls; he has known you and wished for this so long, I hear.’’ ‘‘Yes, he has more than once refused preferment since he left my father, because he knew he never could marry me unless he could return to Haworth; he knew I could not leave my father.’’ She stopped, and then went on: ‘‘But, Katie, it has cost me a good deal to come to this.’’ ‘‘You will have to care for his things, instead of his caring for yours, is that it?’’ ‘‘Yes, I can see that beforehand.’’ ‘‘But you have been together so long already that you know what his things are, very well. He is very devoted to his duties, is he not?—and you can and would like to help him in those?’’ ‘‘I have always been used to those, and it is one great pleasure to me that he is so much beloved by all the people in the parish; there is quite a rejoicing over his return. But those are not everything, and I cannot conceal from myself that he is not intellectual; there are many places into which he could not follow me intellectually.’’ ‘‘Well; of course every one has their own tastes. For myself, if a man had a Wrm, constant, aVectionate, reliable nature, with tolerable practical sense, I should be much better satisWed with him than if he had an intellect far beyond mine, and brilliant gifts without that trustworthiness. I care most for a calm, equable, atmosphere at home.’’ ‘‘I do believe Mr. Nicholls is as reliable as you say, or I wouldn’t marry him.’’ ‘‘And you have had time to prove it; you are not acting in a hurry.’’ ‘‘That is true; and, indeed, I am quite satisWed with my decision; still’’—here Lily came in, and Miss Bronte´ repeated what I had been saying, ending with—‘‘still such a character would be far less amusing and interesting than a more impulsive and Wckle one; it might be dull!’’ ‘‘Yes, indeed,’’ said Lily. ‘‘For a day’s companion, yes,’’ I said, ‘‘but not for a life’s: one’s home ought to be the one Wxed point, the one untroubled region in one’s lot; at home one wants peace and settled love and trust, not storm and change and excitement; besides such a character would have the advantage that one might do the Wckleness required one’s self, which would be a relief sometimes.’’ ‘‘Oh, Katie, if I had ever said such a wicked thing,’’ cried Lily; and then Miss Bronte´: ‘‘Oh Katie, I never thought to hear such a speech from you!’’ ‘‘You don’t agree with it?’’ ‘‘Oh, there is truth in it: so much that I don’t think I could ever have been so candid,’’ Miss Bronte´ said; ‘‘and there is danger, too, one might be led on to go too far.’’ ‘‘I think not,’’ I said, ‘‘the steadiness and generosity on the other side would always keep one in check.’’ But they made a great deal of fun and laughing about this, and then Lily was called away again, and Miss Bronte´ went on: ‘‘He is a Puseyite9 and very stiV; I fear it will stand in the way of my intercourse with some of my friends. But I shall always be the same in my heart towards them. I shall never let him make me a bigot. I don’t think diVerences of opinion ought to interfere with friendship, do you?’’ ‘‘No.’’ And we talked about this a little, and then I said: ‘‘Perhaps, too, you may do something to introduce him to goodness in sects where he has thought it could not be.’’ ‘‘That is what I hope; he has a most sincere love of goodness wherever he sees it. I think if he could come to know

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Mr. Gaskell it would change his feeling.’’ Then, quite suddenly, she said: ‘‘Tell me about your sister. Is she happy in her married life?’’ ‘‘Yes, very happy indeed.’’ ‘‘Sincerely?’’ ‘‘Yes, she not only says so, but it shines out in everything that she is happier than ever before in her life’’ ‘‘And what is your brother-in-law like?’’ So I had to describe Will, thinking privately that it did not sound as though Mr. Nicholls would make half such a good husband, but did not say so, and to tell her a good deal about their engagement. What she cared most about hearing about Will was, whether he was selWsh about small things, whether he took his share of small economies, or whether he appreciated Emily’s endeavours and small self-denials, &c. Concerning which he had been praising Emily to me the last time he was here, so I ediWed her with reporting that, and gave him generally ‘‘an excellent character,’’ as people say of servants. About Emily she wanted to know what variations of mood, what doubts and fears, she had felt about her marriage beforehand. Had she felt any, or was she always light-hearted during the time? So I said that no one could be exactly always light-hearted, I thought, who was not very young and thoughtless, whereat it came out that she thought Emily not twenty-Wve now. And then we talked over all the natural doubts that any thoughtful woman would feel at such a time, and my own mother’s early married life, and when Lily returned, she said she felt greatly comforted; and thereupon Lily set oV praising her husband for being a good sick nurse and so good to the children, and how very winning that was to the mother, &c. Afterwards, Miss Bronte´ asked me a good deal about you, with a great deal of kindly interest. . . . What I hear from Lily of Mr. Nicholls is all good . . . She [Miss Bronte´] knew him well all those eight years and has the greatest trust in his temper and principles. He loved her, but she refused him; he went on, but her father discovered it, went into a rage, and sent him away. He wrote to her very miserably; wrote six times, and then she answered him,—a letter exhorting him to heroic submission to his lot, &c. He sent word it had comforted him so much that he must have a little more, and so she came to write to him several times. Then her father wanted a curate, and never liked anyone so well as Mr. Nicholls, but did not at Wrst like to have him; sent for him, however, after a time. This was about Christmas. Miss Bronte´ had not then made up her mind; but when she saw him again, she decided that she could make him happy, and that his love was too good to be thrown away by one so lonely as she is; and so they are to be married. He thinks her intellectually superior to himself, and admires her gifts, and likes her the better, which sounds as though he were generous. And he has very good family connections, . . . and he gets on with her father, and all the parishioners adore him; but they will be very poor, for the living is only £250 a year. If only he is not altogether far too narrow for her, one can fancy her much more really happy with such a man than with one who might have made her more in love, and I am sure she will be really good to him. But I guess the true love was Paul Emanuel10 after all, and is dead; but I don’t know, and don’t think that Lily knows . . .

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MS untraced. W & S 896. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date from source. Text: Letters and Memorials of Catherine Winkworth, edited by her sister [Susanna Winkworth], 2 vols., privately printed (Clifton 1883), i. 437–40. 1. See Catherine Winkworth to Emma Shaen 23.3.1853 nn. 1 and 2. 2. Thus in source throughout. 3. Catherine’s sister Emily (1822–87), wife of the barrister William Shaen (‘Will’). 4. Elizabeth Gaskell, with whom CB was staying, known as ‘Lily’ to her friends. 5. Probably Susanna Winkworth (1820–84). 6. The barrister and liberal politician William Ewart (1798–1869) and his wife. 7. A friend of Marianne Gaskell; daughter of Dr James Gully (1808–83; DNB). 8. The Lancashire Dialect, Illustrated in Two Lectures, published by Chapman and Hall, 1854; based on lectures delivered in Manchester; also appended to the Wfth edition of Mary Barton (1854), for which Mr Gaskell had originally supplied explanatory notes on dialect. 9. See MW 13.4.1853 n. 2. 10. i.e. Paul Emanuel’s ‘original’, Constantin Heger (1809–96)—not known to Catherine Winkworth, whose perceptive guess was based on her reading of Villette. See her letter to Emma Shaen of 23 Mar. 1853.

Mrs Gaskell to John Forster, [?8-14 May 1854] Extracts [Manchester] (a) . . . I troubled you with my groans, my dear Mr. Forster, so now you see I am going to send you my reliefs—SelWsh the Wrst is. I don’t believe Miss Bronte¨ will ever become bigoted, or ever lose her true love for me,—but I do fear a little for her ’happiness’ just because he is narrow, and she is not. Good, true, pure, & aVectionate he is, but he is also narrow, and she can never be so.1 That’s gladness the Wrst. . . . (b) . . . Miss Bronte¨ has been telling me of a complete Mr. Gradgrind,2—A young man,—a young father3—who set a trap to catch a sparrow, & caught a robin, which he did not intend. He said to Miss Bronte¨ Now you shall see that cruelty is natural, & calls out glee in a child, till aVectation calls out false sentiment &c So he took the dead bird & showed it to his little girl aged 2. <She> ’The’ child looked at it; realized ? something strange & still, & began to cry—Oh nonsense’’ said he, quick[ly] this is a little chuckie; we will pluck the feathers oV it, & Emily shall see it’s head cut oV, and it’s inside taken out, and it shall be roasted for her dinner, & it will be so good!’’ This said Emily ’his only child’ is delicate; and one day after dinner—he said to some strange gentleman, his wife an invalid sitting at the head of the table ‘‘My child will die, that’s very clear; and I shall be glad of it—Nay my dear! why do you look so miserable; her life would be only a prolonged trouble to herself & to us, while even she is spared much if &c.—’’ Yet in a way he is a decent kind of man. . . .

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MSS (a) BL Add.MS 38794 S. fos. 267, 268. W & S 895 (part). (b) National Library of Scotland MS 2262 fo. 132. CP letter 192. 1. Cf. CB’s letter to Mrs Gaskell of 26 Apr. 1854. ‘He’ is Mr Nicholls. 2. ‘‘Mr Gradgrind’ in Dickens’s Hard Times boasts that he is ‘A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations.’ ‘He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away’ (ch. 1). Since Mrs Gaskell contributed stories to Household Words on 25 Feb. and 20 May 1854, she would probably read Hard Times in its original form as twenty weekly instalments in Household Words, 1 Apr.—12 Aug. 1854. 3. The name of the child, ‘Emily’, indicates that the father was almost certainly Joseph Taylor.

To Ellen Nussey, 14 May 1854 Haworth. My dear Ellen I took the time of the Leeds–Keighley–Skipton trains1 from Mr. Claphams Feby. Time-Table—and when I got to Leeds found myself all wrong—The trains on that line were changed—one had that moment left the station—indeed it was just steaming away—there was not another till a quarter after 5 o’clock; so I had just four hours to sit and twirl my thumbs. I got over the time somehow, but I was vexed to think how much more pleasantly I might have spent it at Brookroyd. It was just 7 o’clock when I reached home. I found Papa well. It seems he has been particularly well during my absence—but to-day2 he is a little sickly and only preached once: however he is better again this evening. He has already given Mr. *de *Renzy the legal notice:3 That gentleman is still perfectly smooth and fair-spoken to Papa; he never told him a word of what he has written to Mr. Nicholls—nor does he make any objection before ’Papa’—but has the deplorable weakness to go and pour out acrimonious complaints to John Brown, the National School-master4 and other subordinates. This only exposes himself to disrespectful comment from those exalted personages. For his own and his oYce-sake I wish he would be quiet. Dear Ellen, I could not leave you with a very quiet mind—or take away a satisWed feeling about you—Not that I think that bad cough lodged in a dangerous quarter—but it shakes your system, wears you out and makes you look ill. Take care of it—do dear Ellen avoid the evening air for a time—and even in the day-time—keep in the house when the weather is cold. Observe these precautions till the cough is quite gone—and you regain strength and feel better able to bear chill and change. Believe me it does not suit you at present to be much exposed to variations of <wea> temperature. I send the mantle5 with this—but have made up my mind not to let you have the cushion now—lest you should sit stitching over it too closely—it will do any time and

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whenever it comes, will be your present all the same. Write soon say how you are—and Believe me faithfully yours C Bronte¨ Remember me to them all at Brookroyd and thank them all for their kindness of word and deed MS HM 26005. W & S 897. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN on letter, with culpable inaccuracy: ‘‘Papa (after having refused to allow Charlotte to marry Nicholls) has the deplorable weakness to pour out acrimonious complaints’’ [about Nicholls] ‘‘to John Brown, the Schoolmaster 1. The Aire Valley line, open as far as Keighley since 16 Mar. 1847. 2. CB was writing on Sunday. 3. Notice of the termination of his curacy at Haworth. De Renzy was still in the vicinity in early June 1854. Mayhall records his participation in ‘A very large meeting’ in Leeds on 12 June, when a resolution was carried ‘ ‘‘To petition parliament in favour of a law for prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors, during the whole of Sunday.’’ ’ ‘The Rev. G. B. de Renzi’ [sic] was one of those who spoke in favour of the petition (Mayhall i. 650). 4. John Brown was the Haworth sexton. The schoolmaster was Edmund Bickall, who took over after the former master, William Summerscale, was appointed Headmaster of Haworth Free Grammar School in 1853. 5. A loose sleeveless cloak. Possibly the lace mantle which CB was to wear over her wedding dress, perhaps sent to EN to be embroidered or adjusted.

Mrs Gaskell to John Forster, [?17 May 1854] Extract [Manchester] . . . I enclose you Miss Bronte¨’s announcement of her marriage-to-be1—It is quiet, quaint, & a little formal; but like herself, & meaning the full force of every word she uses. She told me of Mr. Milnes interview with Mr. Nicholls, & of the latter’s puzzle to account for Mr. Milnes interest in him. She never2 for an instant suspected anything; or my head would not have been safe on my shoulders. To hear her description of the conversation with her father when she quietly insisted on her right to see something more of Mr. Nicholls was really Wne.3 Her father thought that she had a chance of some body higher or at least farther removed from poverty. She said ‘‘Father I am not a young girl, not a young woman even—I never was pretty. I now am ugly. At your death I shall have 300£ besides the little I have earned myself 4—do you think there are many men who would serve seven years for me?’’5 And again when he renewed the conversation and asked her if she would marry a curate?—‘‘Yes I must marry a curate if I marry at all; not merely a curate but your curate; not merely your

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curate but he must live in the house with you, for I cannot leave you.’’ The sightless old man stood up & said solemnly ‘Never. I will never have another man in this house’, and stalked out of the room. For a week he never spoke to her. She had not made up her mind to accept Mr. Nicholls, & the worry on both sides made her ill—Then the old servant interfered, and asked him, sitting blind & alone, ‘‘if he wished to kill his daughter?;’’ and went up to her and abused Mr. Nicholls for not having ‘‘more brass.’’6 And so it has ended where it has done. Since I have seen her I am more content than this letter made me at Wrst. You will return it to me, please. I think by way of making my 3 sheets worth7 your one, . . . I must pop in 2 clever letters from an old Parisian friend of mine ’Madame Mohl’ . . . Please to read my letters instead of Mary Barton one morning at breakfast, & then return all three to me. MS National Library of Scotland MS 2262 fos. 38–39v. CP letter 195. 1. CB’s letter to ECG of ?18 Apr. 1854, which ECG had already sent to R. M. Milnes on 20 Apr., with a request for its return. See CP letter 189. 2. CP letter 195 reads ‘He never’, but ‘She’ is reasonably clear in the MS. For the meeting between Milnes and Mr Nicholls see Milnes’s letter to ECG of 30 Jan. 1854. 3. Cf. Charlotte’s restrained account of her insistence and her father’s reluctant consent in EN 11.4.1854. 4. CB’s inheritance from her aunt Elizabeth Branwell, and the funds listed in her letter to George Smith of 18 Apr. 1854. 5. Cf. Genesis 29: 18, 20 (‘And Jacob served seven years for Rachel’), and 27 (‘seven other years’). 6. More nerve, boldness. The Wrst conversation would be before Jan. 1854; the date of the second is unknown. Following Mr Bronte¨’s ‘attack’ in June 1853, which brieXy ‘deprived him totally of sight’, ‘A sort of mist remained for a long time—and indeed his vision is not yet perfectly clear, but he can read, write, and walk about’ (LW 8.3.1854.) When Mrs Gaskell visited the Parsonage in Sept. 1853 Mr Bronte¨ probably still had ‘a sort of mist’, but he was not blind. 7. CP letter 195 reads ‘with your one’.

To Ellen Nussey, [21 May 1854] [Haworth] Sunday Evening Dear Ellen I wonder how you are and whether that harassing cough is better; but I am afraid the variable weather of last week will not have been favourable to improvement. I will not and do not believe the cough lies on any vital organ. Mr. *Carr1 will do very wrong if he imparts to you such an idea; yet though it may have nothing to do with the lungs—it is still a mark of weakness, and a warning to be scrupulously cautious about undue exposure—checks to perspiration &c. Just now—dear Ellen—an hour’s inadvertence might derange your whole constitution for years to come—might throw you into a state of chronic ill-health which would waste, fade and wither you up prematurely. So—once and again—Take care.

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2

If you go to *Miss *Cockill’s bride-visit or any other evening-party—pack yourself in blankets and a feather-bed to come home—also fold your boa3 twice over your mouth to serve as a respirator Since I came home I have been very busy stitching—the little new room4 is got into order now and the green and white curtaı´ns are up—they exactly suit the papering—and look neat and clean enough. I had a letter a day or two since announcing that Mr. *Nicholls comes to-morrow. I feel anxious about him— more anxious on one point than I dare quite express to myself. It seems he has again been suVering sharply from his rheumatic aVection. I hear this not from himself but from another quarter—He was ill while I was at Manchester and Brookroyd. He uttered <not> ’no’ complaint to me, dropped no hint on the subject. Alas! He was hoping he had got the better of it—and I know how this contradiction of his hopes will sadden him. For unselWsh reasons he did so earnestly wish this complaint might not become chronic. I fear—I fear— but however I mean to stand by him now whether in weal or woe This liability to rheumatic pain was one of the strong arguments used against the marriage.5 It did not weight some how—If he is doomed to suVer—it seems that so much the more will he need care and help—And yet the ultimate possibilities of such a case are appalling. You remember your Aunt *Nussey.6 Well—come what may—God help and strengthen both him and me. I look forward to to-morrow with a mixture of impatience and anxiety. Poor fellow! I want to see with my own eyes how he is. It is getting late and dusk. Write soon dear Ellen—Good-night and God bless you. Yours aVectionately C Bronte¨ MS BPM Grolier E 2. W & S 898 as 22 May (part). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation: by EN: ?320 j May 22–54 Date: EN probably dated from the postmark. CB was writing late on Sunday evening, 21 May. 1. Probably William Carr (1784–1861) of Gomersal, a surgeon in practice ‘prior to the Act of 1815 ’ (London and Provincial Medical Directory (1854), 358). He was the husband of EN’s cousin Sarah Nussey of White Lee (1791–1864). In EN [?15.4.1850] CB had written, ‘In Mr. Carr one really cannot feel much conWdence.’ See CBL ii. 385–6 n. EN’s cough was not on any ‘vital organ’. 2. For Hannah Cockill’s marriage to John Battye see EN [?22.3.1854] n. 2. 3. ‘A snake-like coil of fur worn by ladies round the neck’ (OED, with the date 1836). 4. The former storeroom behind the Parsonage dining-room. It was being refurbished as a study for Mr Nicholls. 5. The rumours of Mr Nicholls’s rheumatism were groundless, but Mr Bronte¨’s fear of the eVect of pregnancy on his daughter was another objection, according to Martha Brown. When the specialist pronounced CB’s case hopeless, Mr Bronte¨ ‘came down to the kitchen and said, ‘‘I told you, Martha, that there was no sense in Charlotte marrying at all, for she was not strong enough for marriage’’ ’ (Mrs Chadwick, In the Footsteps of the Bronte¨s, 477). 6. Perhaps a reference to Mrs Joshua Nussey of White Lee, ne´e Sarah Clapham, who had died on 28 May 1851 aged 85.

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To Charles Carr,1 22 May 1854 Haworth Dear Sir My Father desires me to say that Mr. Nicholls and Mr. Taylor will both be at our house on Wednesday next—’(24th)’ and if you can meet them on that day at from four to Wve o’clock in the afternoon and bring with you both the Deed of Settlement and the Deed of Power of Attorney—all the business can be settled at once. The trouble of a journey express to Cleckheaton2 will thus be spared. I can give you the name of a friend who will receive the Dividends, when you come. Hitherto they have always been transmitted to me by Mr. George Smith of the Firm of Smith Elder & Co. Publishers 65 Cornhill—and I have no doubt he will continue to do me this service. I gave him a Deed of Power of Attorney to receive them some years since.3 Perhaps however you had better not insert this name in the Deed till you come to Haworth—as Mr. Taylor may possibly wish to suggest some other person. I am, my dear Sir Yours very sincerely Charlotte Bronte¨ MS BPM B.S. 95.6. No publication traced. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation in unknown hand: Haworth May 22nd. 1854 j Miss Bronte 1. Charles Carr, solicitor, of Hill Top, Gomersal, who had married Eleanor Walker in 1848. Eleanor was the sister of Mary, wife of EN’s brother John. Mr Carr was to arrange for the signing of CB’s marriage settlement by CB, Mr Nicholls, and the trustee, Joseph Taylor of Hunsworth. For the settlement see GS 18.4.1854 n. 2. 2. Cleckheaton township in the Spen valley included Hunsworth. 3. In a letter of 22 Sept. 1849 CB had asked George Smith to receive her dividends. He had also arranged for the investment of her payments for Shirley, the 1850 edition of JE, and Villette. See GS 18.4.1854 n. 2.

To Ellen Nussey, 27 May 1854 Haworth. Dear Ellen Your letter was very welcome and I am glad and thankful to hear that you are better. Still beware of presuming on the improvement—don’t let it make you careless. Mr. *Nicholls has just left me this Morning. Your hopes were not ill-founded. At Wrst I was thoroughly frightened by his look ’when he came on Monday

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last’—It was wasted and strange, and his whole manner nervous. My worst apprehensions—I thought were in the way of being realized. However—inquiry gradually relieved me. In the Wrst place—he could give his ailment no name. He had not had one touch of rheumatism—that report was quite groundless— He was going to die, however, or something like it. I took heart on hearing this—which may seem paradoxical—but you know—dear Nell—when people are really going to die—they dont come a distance of some Wfty miles to tell you so. Having drawn in the horns of my sympathy—I heard further that he had been to Mr. Teale1—and was not surprised to receive the additional intelligence that that gentleman informed him that he had no manner of complaint whatever except an over-excited mind—In short I soon discovered that my business was—instead of sympathizing—to rate him soundly. He had wholesome treatment while he was at Haworth—and went away singularly better. Perfectly unreasonable however on some points—as his fallible sex are not ashamed to be—groaning over the prospect of a few more weeks of bachelorhood—as much as if it were an age of banishment or prison. It is probable he will fret himself thin again in the time—but I certainly shall not pity him if he does—there is not a woman in England but would have more sense—more courage—more sustaining hope than to behave so. Man is indeed an amazing piece of mechanism when you see—so to speak— the full weakness—of what he calls—his strength. There is not a female child above the age of eight but ’might’ rebuke him for the spoilt petulance of his wilful nonsense. I bought a border for the table-cloth and have put it on. If your sister Ann really wishes to do, what is very uncalled for, in the shape of making a present— let her give me a neat inexpensive ink-stand—to stand on a table. I have not one and it is a convenient thing. As to the cards2 I wish now I had ordered a hundred of each instead of 50. Mr. N—— has such a string of clerical acquaintance to whom he wishes to send. I ought to have reminded you to get some white wax proper for sealing—when you get the envelopes—I have <not> ’none’ and it is not sold here. Good bye—dear Nell—write again soon and mind and give a bulletin Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS HM 26006. W & S 899. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Thomas Pridgin Teale of Leeds. See EN [?14.1.1852] n. 2. 2. See CB’s list of people to whom wedding-cards were to be sent, p. 272. Presumably ABN wrote out a separate list of his friends.

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To ?Mrs Gaskell,1 ?early June 1854 Fragment [Haworth] —my conscience is satisWed—a sort of fawn-coloured silk—and a drab bare`ge2 with a little green spot in it—(I left them with the dress-maker at Halifax or you should have specimens—) Of the third—the wedding-dress—I wholly decline the responsibility It must be charged upon a sort of friendly compulsion or over-persuasion. Nothing would satisfy some of my friends but white which I told you I would not wear. Accordingly they dressed me in white by way of trial—vowed away their consciences that nothing had ever suited me so well—and white I had to buy and did buy to my own amazement— but I took care to get it in cheap material—there were some insinuations about silk <—>, tulle and I don’t know what—but I stuck convulsively to muslin— plain book muslin3 with a tuck or two. Also the white veil—I took care should be a matter of 5s being simply of tulle4 with little tucks. If I must make a fool of myself—it shall be on an economical plan. Now I have told you all. CB— MS BPM B.S. 95.7. Bronte¨ Studies 27. 3. 251–2. Facsimile of recto and transcription of some passages in the Sunday Telegraph 19.11.2000, 16. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The recipient may be Mrs Gaskell, though Charlotte usually signs letters to her ‘C. Bronte¨’. Gaskell enjoyed arranging or describing the details of dress, as she did for example in CP letters 117, 566, 567 to Marianne; and she revelled in Mrs Davenport’s display of her wedding Wnery (to Agnes Sandars, Gaskell Further Letters 62). She also distributed autographs and pieces of letters to her friends for their albums, or for good causes. The present fragment ‘was discovered lightly glued into an album containing dozens of other manuscripts written by various 19thcentury authors including Edward Lear, John Ruskin and Elizabeth Gaskell’ (Sunday Telegraph 19.11.2000, 16). Other possible recipients would be Amelia Taylor or Ellen Nussey. A letter written in this style to A. B. Nicholls, who said he had destroyed all Charlotte’s letters to him, seems highly unlikely. 2. The BPM has similar material in its collections. ‘Bare`ge’ is a ‘gauze-like, silky dress fabric’. Cf Anne Ritchie’s description of CB wearing ‘a little bare`ge dress with a pattern of faint green moss’ on one of her London visits (CBL ii. 754). Either the bare`ge or the ‘fawn-coloured silk’ was worn by CB when she left for her honeymoon (BPM HAOBP: D74 SB: 32; colour photograph in Sixty Treasures no. 51). For the ‘dress-maker at Halifax’ cf. EN [11.6.1854], ‘I got my dresses from Halifax a day or two since’. 3. ‘A Wne kind of muslin folded like a book when sold in the piece’ (OED). Mrs Gaskell heard that CB looked ‘like a snow-drop’ in her wedding dress of ‘white embroidered muslin, with a lace mantle, and white bonnet trimmed with green leaves’ (Life ii. 316). The dress was bequeathed by Mr Nicholls to his niece, Miss Charlotte Bronte¨ Nicholls, ‘with the instruction that she must burn it before she died so that it could not be sold’. This she did in 1954, but a copy was made following the instructions of Miss C. B. Nicholls’s niece Margaret Ross. See Sixty Treasures no. 53. 4. A ‘Wne silk bobbin-net’, often used for veils. A veil with a scalloped edge and delicate embroidered Xower-pattern is on permanent loan to BPM, HAOBP: D97. SB 2187; Sixty Treasures no. 53. Rachel Terry, the curator of the BPM, points out that this veil does not have the ‘little tucks’ described by CB, ‘and we can only conclude that there was a change of plan before the wedding day itself ’ (Bronte¨ Studies 27. 3. [251].

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To Ellen Nussey, 7 June 1854 Haworth. My dear Ellen I am very glad and thankful to hear that you <are> continue better, though I am afraid your cough will have returned a little during the late chilly change in the weather. Are you taking proper care of yourself—and either staying in the house or going out warmly clad and with a boa doing duty as a respirator? On this last point I incline particularly to insist—for you seemed careless about it and unconscious how much atmospheric harm the Wne thick hairs of the fur might ward oV. I was very miserable about Papa again some days ago—while the weather was so sultry and electric about a week since—he was suddenly attacked with deafness and complained of other symptoms which shewed the old tendency to the head. His spirits too became excessively depressed—it was all I could do to keep him up and I own I was sad and apprehensive myself—However he took some medicine which did him good. The change to cooler weather too has suited him—the temporary deafness has quite disappeared for the present—and his head is again clear and cool. I can only earnestly trust he will continue better. That unlucky Mr. *de *Renzy1 continues his eVorts to give what trouble he can— and I am obliged to conceal and keep things from Papa’s knowledge as well as I can to spare him that anxiety which hurts him so much. Mr. de R’s whole aim is to throw Papa into the dilemma of being without a curate for some weeks. Papa has every legal right to frustrate this at once by telling him he must stay till his quarter is up—but this is just the harsh decided sort of measure which it goes against Papa’s nature to adopt and which I can not and will not urge upon him while he is in delicate health. I feel compelled to throw the burden of the contest upon Mr. *Nicholls who is younger—more pugnacious and can bear it better. The worst of it is Mr. N. has not Papa’s rights to speak and act or he would do it to purpose—I should then have to mediate not rouse, to play the part of ‘‘feather-bed t’wixt castle-wall and heavy brunt of cannon-ball.’’2 You did quite right, dear Nell, about the cards 3—it was better not to put ‘‘Haworth’’ in the corner. Thank you too for ordering another 50. Good b’ye for the present. My kind regards to all at Brookroyd. Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ MS HM 26007. W & S 900. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: chatty letters [sic] refers to Mr. Nicholls, last paragraph ‘‘another 50’’ ¼ cards for her wedding which took place 3 weeks later

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1. By 14 May Mr Bronte¨ had given legal notice of the termination of his curacy to the curate who was replacing Mr Nicholls. See EN 27.5. 1853 n. 6 and 14.5.1854 n. 3. The Bradford Antiquary v. 456 names a George de Renzy as ‘Stipendiary Curate to the Revd John Burnet[t]’ in 1854. Dr Burnett (?1801–70), the Vicar of Bradford, like de Renzy and A. B. Nicholls, was an alumnus of Trinity College Dublin, where he graduated BA 1822, LL B 1827. He was granted an LL D in 1847. 2. Samuel Butler (1612–80), Hudibras (1663–8), part i, canto ii, 1. 872: ‘Like feather bed bewixt a wall j And heavy brunt of cannon ball.’ 3. See EN 27. 5. 1854.

To Ellen Nussey [11 June 1854] [Haworth] Sunday evening Dear Ellen Papa has preached twice to-day—as well and strongly as ever—it is strange how he varies—how soon ’he is’ depressed and how soon revived. It makes me feel so thankful when he is better—I am thankful too that you are better—dear Nell. My worthy acquaintance at Kirk-*Smeaton refuses to acknowledge himself better yet—and I got thoroughly provoked yesterday by an announcement that he is coming again directly—on Tuesday in fact. I wrote immediately that he positively should not stay the whole week—and expostulated with him seriously. 1 I am afraid of trying Papa’s patience—besides—I wish he would have kept away till July. I wish you were here. As yet I cannot Wx the day—before I do this all uncertainty about the duty being supplied must be quite cleared up. Mr. de *Renzy makes this so diYcult— Papa gave him up 3 weeks of his quarter—and now he is moving heaven & earth to get a fortnight more—on pretence of wanting a holiday. I am uneasy about not writing to Miss Wooler—I fear she will think me negligent—while I am only busy & bothered—I want to clear up my needle-work a little and have been sewing against time since I was at Brookroyd—Mr. N—— hindered me for a full week. I like the cards very well—but not the envelope. It will be better to have a new die made. I should like a perfectly plain envelope—with ’a’ silver initial <s> on a plain ground—no silver edge. I got my dresses from Halifax2 a day or two since—but have not had time yet to take the cord oV the box—so I don’t know what they are like. I had a most characteristic note from Amelia lately. Has she written to you since she was at * Tranby?3 Next time I write I hope to be able to give you clear information—and to tell you to come here without further delay. Good bye dear Nell. Yours faithfully C Bronte¨

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I think 2 doz. Card envelopes will be suYcient. You had better order the same number of postage envelopes MS BPM Grolier E 28. W & S 901 (part). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: 323 j Ju 12–54 Date: EN probably based her date on the postmark. The ‘Sunday evening’ nearest 12 June was 11th. 1. Words heavily deleted, almost certainly by CB. The reading is conjectural. 2. Cf. the ‘wedding-dress’ letter to ?Mrs Gaskell of early June. 3. Amelia Taylor’s former home near Hessle, Hull.

The Mayor and Mayoress of Oxford to C. Bronte¨, ?15 June 1854 (a) [Printed invitation card with CB’s name handwritten] The Mayor and Mayoress of Oxford request the Honor of Miss Charlotte Bronte’s Company at an Evening Reception in the Town hall, on Thursday, June 22nd. at nine o’clock. The favor of an early answer will oblige.1 (b) [Separate sheet of paper headed with blind embossed coat of arms, ‘CIVITATIS OXONIENSIS’ with shield.] The Mayor will have the gratiWcation of supplying facilities for visiting the principal objects of interest in Oxford and its neighbourhood; and will, in other respects, study to render agreeable the visit with which he asks to be honoured on the occasion. Oxford, 14, St. Giles’ Street, j June, 1854. MS BPM HAOBP: H219. (a) Contents noted in Sixty Treasures no. 48. (b) Transcribed in Sixty Treasures no. 48. Address (envelope): Miss Charlotte Bronte´ j care of Messrs Smith Elder & Co. j Cornhill j London. PM: (i) OXFORD j JU ?15 j 1854 j B (ii) 1854 j 16 JU 16 Text: in addition to (a) and (b), the envelope contained a printed street-map of ‘The Principal Colleges and Public Buildings of Oxford’. 1. CB no doubt refused, but no letter from her has been located.

To Ellen Nussey, [16 June 1854] [Haworth] My dear Ellen Can you come next Wednesday or Thursday?1 I am afraid circumstances will compel me to agree to an earlier day than I wished—I sadly wished to defer it till the 2nd. week in July—but I fear it must be sooner—’the 1st. week in July possibly the last week in June.2’—for Mr. *de *Renzy has succeeded in obtaining his holiday—and whereas—his quarter will not be up till the 20th. of August—

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he leaves on the 25th. June. This gives rise to much trouble and many diYculties,3 as you may imagine—and Papa’s whole anxiety now is to get the business over—Mr. *Nicholls—with his usual trustworthiness—takes all the trouble of providing substitutes on his own shoulders. I write to Miss Wooler to-day. Would it not be better dear Nell if you and she could arrange to come to Haworth on the same day—arrive at Keighley by the same train—then I could order the cab to meet you at the station and bring you on with your luggage. In this hot weather—walking would be quite out of the question—either for you or her—and I know she would persist in doing it if left to herself—and arrive half-killed. I thought it better to mention this arrangement to you Wrst—and then if you liked it—you could settle the time &c. with Miss Wooler and let me know. Be sure to give me timely information that I may write to the Devonshire Arms4 about the cab. Mr. *Nicholls is a kind considerate fellow with all his masculine faults in some points—he enters into my wishes about having the thing done quietly in a way which makes me grateful— —and if nobody interferes and spoils his arrangements—he will man[a]ge so that not a soul in Haworth shall be aware of the day.5 He is so thoughtful too—about ‘‘the ladies’’ i.e. you and Miss Wooler.— Anticipating the very arrangements I was going to propose to him about providing for your departure &c. He ’& Mr. *Sowden’6 will come to Mr. *Grant’s—the evening before—write me a note to let me know they are there—precisely at 8 in the morning they will be in the Church—and there we are to meet them. Mr. & Mrs. Grant are asked to the breakfast—not the ceremony. Let me hear from you as soon as possible dear Nell—and Believe me faithfully yours C Bronte¨ I had almost forgotten to mention about the envelopes—Mr. N—— says I have ordered far too few—he thinks 60 will be wanted—is it too late to remedy this error? There is no end to his string of [P]arson-friends—my own list I have not made out— MS BPM Grolier E 29. Envelope Mr James Frazer. W & S 902. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) ? HAWORTH (ii) LEEDS j JU 16 j 1854 j ?I Annotation by EN (i) on letter: 324 June 16–54 (ii) on envelope: Ju 16–54 1. 21 or 22 June. Ellen was to be CB’s bridesmaid. 2. The wedding was on 29 June. 3. Juliet Barker points out that CB was unfair to Mr de Renzy, who returned to Haworth to take Wve baptisms on 16 July and a service on 21 July (Barker 964). Mr Bronte¨ himself took a marriage service on 10 July. Other ministers who took services in Mr Nicholls’s absence were

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Thomas Crowther of Cragg Vale, Joseph Grant of Oxenhope, and William Mayne of St John’s, Ing Row. 4. The coaching inn in Church Street, Keighley. 5. Few people were aware of the day in advance. See Appendix VI. 6. Mr Nicholls’s friend the Revd SutcliVe Sowden of Hebden Bridge, for whom see EN 18.12.1852 n. 2. Mr Grant lived at Marshlands, near Oxenhope, less than a mile from Haworth church, and accessible by a footpath.

To Margaret Wooler, 16 June 1854 Haworth My dear Miss Wooler Owing to certain untoward proceedings—matters have hitherto been kept in such a state of uncertainty that I could not make any approach towards Wxing the day; and now if I would avoid inconveniencing Papa—I must hurry. I believe the commencement of July is the furthest date upon which I can calculate— possibly I may be obliged to accept one still nearer—the close of June—. I <expect> cannot quite decide till next week. Meantime—will you—my dear Miss Wooler—come as soon as you possibly can—and let me know at your earliest convenience the day of your arrival. I have written to Ellen N——begged her to communicate with you and mention <ed> ’ing’ an arrangement which I think might suit you both—On second thoughts—if you saw her soon—she might write and save you the trouble of a letter. I earnestly hope nothing will happen to prevent your coming. Your absence would be a real and grievous disappointment Papa also seems much to wish your presence. Mr. Nicholls enters with true kindness into my wish to have all done quietly, and he has made such arrangements as—I trust—will secure literal privacy. Yourself, E. Nussey & Mr. Sowden will be the only persons present at the ceremony1—Mr. & Mrs. Grant are asked to the breakfast afterwards. I know you will kindly excuse this brief note—for I am and have been very busy—and must still be busy up to the very day. Give my sincere love to all Mr. Carter’s family2—I hope Mr. Carter and Mr. Nicholls may meet some day—I believe mutual acquaintance would, in time, bring mutual respect—but one of them at least requires knowing to be appreciated—And I must say that I have not yet found him to lose with closer knowledge——I make no grand discoveries—but I occasionally come on a quiet little nook of character which excites esteem—He is always reliable, truthful, faithful, aVectionate; a little unbending perhaps—but still persuadable—and open to kind inXuence. A man never indeed to be driven—but who may be led. Good-bye my dear Miss Wooler. Yours now & always I trust aVectionately & respectfully C Bronte¨

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MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 903. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Text: the handwriting and alterations reXect CB’s haste. 1. CB does not include her father in this list. She perhaps took it for granted that he would be there, but in the event he stayed at home. If this was prearranged, possibly the decision to ask Miss Wooler to give the bride away was made earlier than the evening before the wedding. Mrs Gaskell does not give her source for her account in Life ii. 315–16: ‘[Miss Wooler and Ellen Nussey] arrived at Haworth Parsonage the day before [the wedding]; and the long summer afternoon and evening were spent by Charlotte in thoughtful arrangements for the morrow, and for her father’s comfort during her absence from home. When all was Wnished—the trunk packed, the morning’s breakfast arranged, the wedding-dress laid out,—just at bedtime, Mr. Bronte¨ announced his intention of stopping at home while the others went to church. What was to be done? Who was to give the bride away? . . . The Prayer-book was referred to; and there it was seen that the Rubric enjoins that the Minister shall receive ‘‘the woman from her father’s or friend’s hands,’’ and that nothing is speciWed as to the sex of the ‘‘friend.’’ So Miss Wooler, ever kind in emergency, volunteered to give her old pupil away. j The news of the wedding had slipt abroad before the little party came out of church, and many old and humble friends were there, seeing her look ‘‘like a snow-drop,’’ as they say.’ The marriage certiWcate describes Arthur Bell Nicholls as a bachelor of full age, clerk, residing at Kirk Smeaton, son of William Nicholls, Farmer; and CB as a spinster of full age, with no ‘rank or profession’, residing at Haworth, and daughter of Patrick Bronte, Clerk. They were married ‘according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Established Church’, by licence, the oYciating clergyman being SutcliVe Sowden, and the witnesses Ellen Nussey and Margaret Wooler. See Barker 757–8, and for John Robinson’s recollections of the wedding see Appendix VI. 2. Miss Wooler was probably staying at the home of her brother-in-law the Revd E. N. Carter in Heckmondwike.

Charlotte Bronte¨’s Wedding-Card List [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]

The Rev. W. Morgan, Rectory, Hulcott, Aylesbury, Bucks. Joseph Branwell, Esq., Thamar Terrace, Launceston, Cornwall. Wheelwright, 29 Phillimore Place, Kensington, London. George Smith, Esq., 65 Cornhill, London. Mrs and Misses Smith, ——do.—— W. S. Williams, Esq., ——do.—— R. Monckton Milnes, Esq. Mrs Gaskell, Plymouth Grove, Manchester. Francis Bennoch, Esq., Park, Blackheath, London. George Taylor, Esq., Stanbury. Mrs and Miss Taylor, Haworth. M. Merrall, Esq., Lea Sykes, Haworth. E. Merrall, Esq., Ebor House, Haworth. R. ButterWeld, Esq., Woodlands, Haworth. R. Thomas, Esq., Haworth. J. Pickles, Esq., Brow Top, Haworth. Wooler Family. Brookroyd.

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MS BPM Bon 126. The wedding-cards were not invitations to the wedding, but courtesy-cards announcing Charlotte’s married name. 1. The Revd William Morgan (1782–1858): a friend whom Mr Bronte¨ had Wrst met in Wellington, Shropshire in 1809 (CBL i. 213 n.). 2. Joseph Branwell, Esq (1789–1857): Mrs Bronte¨’s cousin, who was also her brother-in-law, having married her sister Charlotte (1791–1848). A schoolmaster, and later a banker (CBL i. 457 n.). 3. Wheelwright: members of a family Charlotte and Emily had Wrst met in Brussels in July 1842 (CBL i. 301 n.). Charlotte’s closest friend and correspondent in the family was Laetitia (1828–1911). 4. George Smith (1824–1901), Charlotte’s publisher, at the address of his Wrm, Smith, Elder & Co. (CBL ii, pp. li–liii). 5. Mrs and Misses Smith: George Smith’s mother and sisters, Eliza, Sarah, and Isabella (CBL ii. 85 n.). 6. William Smith Williams (1800–75): reader for Smith, Elder; friend and correspondent of Charlotte (CBL i. 97–9). 7. Richard Monckton Milnes (1809–85): writer, politician, philanthropist, and bon viveur, whom Charlotte had Wrst met in London on 29 May 1851 (CBL ii. 626–7 n.). 8. Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell (1810–65), who Wrst met CB in Aug. 1850 (CBL ii, pp. xlii–xliv). 9. Francis Bennoch (1812–90): London businessman and amateur of literature who had visited the Parsonage in Sept. 1853. See Charlotte’s letter to him of 19 Sept. 1853 and notes. 10. George Taylor (1801–65): woolstapler and landowner who lived at the Manor House, Stanbury. A Haworth Church Lands Trustee since 1823, and one of Mr Bronte¨’s churchwardens for twenty-one years (CBL i. 333 n.). 11. Mrs and Miss Taylor. Not identiWed. Perhaps relatives of the Taylors of Stanbury. 12. Michael Merrall (1811–81): millowner. Lees Syke Mill, Lees Lane, in Bingley township, was a steam-powered worsted spinning mill. Merrall was the treasurer of the Haworth Mechanics’ Institute. He had presented Mr Nicholls with an inscribed gold watch ‘on behalf of the congregation, teachers and scholars of the church and its Sunday schools’ on 25 May 1853 when Mr Nicholls (temporarily, as it turned out) relinquished his Haworth curacy (Barker 730). His brother, Hartley Merrall (1819–95), had been a friend of Branwell Bronte¨. 13. Edwin Merrall (1806–78), brother of Michael, partner in Merrall Brothers, worsted spinners and manufacturers. Ebor House dated from about 1829, and the Wrm bought Ebor Mill in 1853. Edwin Merrall became a Haworth Church Lands Trustee in 1854. 14. Richard Shackleton ButterWeld JP (1806–69) and his brothers acquired the Greenwoods’ Bridgehouse Mill and their house, Woodlands, in or soon after 1848, following the Greenwoods’ bankruptcy. See CBL ii. 104–5 n., and PB 2.6.1852 n. 4 in the present volume. 15. Richard Roberts Thomas (1819–76), wine and spirit merchant and property owner, Main Street, Haworth. 16. John Pickles or Pighills (1824–1908), son of Michael and Rebecca Pighills, yeoman farmers. Both father and son were Haworth Church Lands Trustees. 17. Wooler family: relatives of Charlotte’s schoolmistress and friend, Margaret Wooler (CBL i. 99–101, 109 n.). 18. Brookroyd: the Birstall home of Ellen Nussey’s mother and sisters (CBL i. 93–5). Note: Joseph and Amelia Taylor of Hunsworth were not included in the list, perhaps because Joseph Taylor had signed CB’s marriage settlement, and did not need formal notiWcation of the wedding. For information about the Haworth families mentioned above I am much indebted to Mr Robin Greenwood’s research, embodied in his draft of Haworth’s Landowners, Mills and Millowners and other principal Families during the Bronte¨ era 1820–61 (3rd edn., 18 June 1999), and am grateful to him for permission to use it.

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To Ellen Nussey, [29 June 1854] [Conway] Thursday Evening Dear Ellen I scribble one hasty line just to say that after a pleasant enough journey—we have got safely to Conway the evening is wet and wild—though the day was fair chieXy with some gleams of sunshine. However we are sheltered in a comfortable inn.1 My cold is not worse. If you get this scrawl to-morrow and write ’by return’—direct to me at the PostOYce. Bangor,2 and I may get it on <Saturday> Monday. Say how you and Miss Wooler got home. Give my kindest & most grateful love to Miss Wooler whenever you write—On Monday—I think we cross the channel3 no more at present Yours faithfully and lovingly C.B.N. MS Berg. W & S 904. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN (i) (ii)

at head of letter: 326 written on her wedding day j June 29—54 upside down at the foot of the verso of this single-sheet letter: From the last packet 1. The honeymoon began with a carriage-and-pair journey to Keighley station and a journey by train from there to North Wales, reaching the walled town of Conwy via Robert Stephenson’s tubular railway bridge of 1848. The ‘comfortable inn’ was probably the Castle Hotel, near the towering ruins of thirteenth-century Conwy Castle. On 10 Aug. 1903 the 85-year-old Mr Nicholls, writing from Banagher in Ireland, recalled ‘a pleasant day in Conway on our way to this Country. We put up at a Hotel very near to the Railway station— We found it very comfortable—the accommodation very good— j In reference to your remark about Hotel Visitor’s Books I may say that there was one where we stopped’ (BPM B.S. 285.75; photocopy of MS seen by courtesy of Mr Alan Gill). 2. The coastal railway route to Bangor, Caernarvonshire (now Gwynedd) would take the couple past Penmaenmawr, the mountain which had impressed Branwell in July 1845. The small cathedral city of Bangor, south of the Menai Strait, is within sight of the magniWcent mountain scenery of Snowdonia. When they left Bangor on Tuesday 4 July by rail, CB and Nicholls would have spectacular views of the Menai Strait before passing through Stephenson’s Britannia bridge to cross Anglesey to Holyhead. Cochrane, ch. 7, gives interesting details of the route. See also CB’s account of her honeymoon journeys in her letter to Catherine Wooler of 18 July 1854. 3. St George’s Channel. The travellers took the steamer from Holyhead to Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire). From there a short rail journey took them to Dublin.

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The Revd Patrick Bronte¨ to Ellen Nussey, 7 July 1854 Haworth, Nr. Keighley. My Dear Madam, I thank you for your kind and considerate letter—You are perfectly right in what you say, respecting the usual eVects, of changes, in regard to those far advanced in years—They are often reminded, of Solomon’s description of the old man, with whom ‘‘fears shall be in the way, and the grasshopper shall be a burden’’1—I was very glad that You and Miss Wooler, my Daughters, Old and faithful Friends, were present, on the important occasion, and it gave to my Daughter, also, great pleasure—There are times, and this time was one of them, when the presence, and conversation of Friends answer a good end, in more respects than one. I hope that under Providence, the change that has occur’d, in my case, will be for the good of all the parties concern’d—in reference, both to time, and eternity— That a gracious providence may direct, and bless you in all your ways is the sincere wish & ardent prayer of My dear Madam Your sincere & faithful friend P. Bronte MS BPM B.S. 200. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/68. LD 472. Address (integral): To Miss Nussey, j Brookroyd, j Birstal, j Nr. Leeds- (envelope): Miss Nussey j Brookroyd, j Birstall, j Nr. Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j JY 7 j——4 (iii) LEEDS j JY 7 j 1854 j I Annotation on letter by EN (i) on 1r: (After Charlotte’s Marriage though Mr. Bronte¨ so vehemently opposed Mr Nicholls at Wrst he was urgent when he had given his consent for the marriage to take place (ii) on 2v: Marriage 1. Ecclesiastes 12: 5. The verse continues: ‘man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.’

To Margaret Wooler, 10 July 1854 Banagher.1 My dear Miss Wooler I know that in your kindness you will have thought of me some-times since we parted at Haworth—and I feel that it is time to give some account of myself We remained in Wales till Tuesday. If I had more leisure I would tell you my impressions of what I saw there—but I have at this moment six letters to answer

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and my friends are waiting for me to take a drive. I snatch a moment to devote to you and Ellen Nussey to whom you must kindly forward this note—as I long to let her know how I am getting on—and cannot write to her to-day or indeed this week. Last Tuesday we crossed from Holyhead to Dublin—the weather was calm— the passage good. We spent two days in Dublin—drove over great part of the city—saw the College library, Museum, chapel &c.2 and should have seen much more—had not my bad cold been a restraint upon us. ’Three’ of Mr. Nicholls’ relatives met us in Dublin—his brother and 2 cousins. The 1st (brother)3 is manager of the Grand Canal from Dublin to Banagher—a sagacious well-informed and courteous man—his cousin4 is a student of the University and has just gained 3 premiums. The other cousin was a pretty lady-like girl5 with gentle English manners. They accompanied us last Friday down to Banagher—his Aunt<s>—Mrs. Bell’s6 residence, where we now are. I cannot help feeling singularly interested in all about the place. In this house7 Mr. Nicholls was brought up by his uncle Dr. Bell—It is very large and looks externally like a gentleman’s country-seat—within most of the rooms are lofty and spacious and some—the drawing-room—dining-room &c. handsomely and commodiously furnished—The passages look desolate and bare—our bed-room, a great room on the ground-Xoor would have looked gloomy when we were shewn into it but for the turf-Wre that was burning in the wide old chimney—. The male members of this family—such as I have seen seem thoroughly educated gentlemen. Mrs. Bell is like an English or Scotch Matron quiet, kind and well-bred—It seems she was brought up in London. Both her daughters8 are strikingly pretty in appearance—and their manners are very amiable and pleasing. I must say I like my new relations. My dear husband too appears in a new light here in his own country. More than once I have had deep pleasure in hearing his praises on all sides. Some of the old servants and followers of the family tell me I am a most fortunate person for that I have got one of the best gentlemen in the country. His Aunt too speaks of him with a mixture of aVection and respect most gratifying to hear. I was not well when I came here—fatigue and excitement had nearly knocked me up— and my cough was become very bad—but Mrs. *Bell has nursed me both with kindness and skill, and I am greatly better now. I trust I feel thankful to God for having enabled me to make what seems a right choice—and I pray to be enabled to repay as I ought the aVectionate devotion of a truthful, honourable, unboastful man. Remember me kindly to all Mr. Carter’s family. When you write—tell me how you got home and how you are.

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I received Ellen Nussey’s last welcome letter—when she reads this she must write to me again. We go in a few days to [Kilkee]9 a watering-place on the South-West Coast. The letters may be addressed—Mrs. Arthur Nicholls Post-OYce Kilkee County Clare Ireland Believe me my dear Miss Wooler Always yours with aVection & respect C.B. Nicholls MS Fitzwilliam, W & S 905. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Mr Nicholls was born in Antrim, but he and his brother Alan had moved south to be educated by their uncle, the Revd Alan Bell (1789–1839). See the biographical note, p. xxxv–xxxix. Banagher, King’s County (OValy) is described in the Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland (10 vols., 1844) as ‘a market and post town . . . The principal street is rather spacious . . . the number of good and tolerable dwellings is suYciently large . . . The glebe-house, several villas, some wood, and much cultivation in the environs, even produce a sense of cheerfulness in a stranger who approaches athwart the bogs and morasses from the direction of either Dublin, Athlone, or Ballinasloe.’ The Gazetteer notes the facilities for trade owing to Banagher’s proximity to the Shannon and the Grand Canal (i. 207–8) and remarks that the present ‘borough limits’ go ‘no farther east than to Cuba-house’—i.e. to the home of the Bells, where Charlotte and Mr Nicholls stayed from Friday 7 July until ‘a few days’ after 10 July. 2. Nicholls had graduated BA from Trinity College Dublin in Feb. 1844. Trinity was founded as a Protestant college in 1591, and was not freed from religious restrictions until 1873. The library, begun in 1712 and completed in 1732, is a noble building in classical style, the greatest of its many treasures being the Book of Kells. The Museum, built 1852–7 in an ornate Venetian Gothic style, made the reputation of its designer Benjamin Woodward (1816–61), who allowed the stone carvers to design details of the ornament. The building was praised by Ruskin as the Wrst signiWcant realization of the principles he had advocated in The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851–3). Charlotte had commented on vol. i of the latter, ‘ ‘‘The Stones of Venice’’ seem nobly laid and chiselled’ (GS 7.1.1851, CBL ii. 546, 548–9 n.). The chapel, with its Wne stucco ceiling, was completed in 1798 to the design of Sir William Chambers (1726– 96). See the descriptions in Cochrane 57–8. 3. Alan Bell, Nicholls’s elder brother, born 1816. ‘Last Friday’ was 7 July. The Grand Canal, built 1756–96, links Dublin with Shannon Harbour, about 2 miles north of Banagher, where the Shannon becomes navigable. The Parliamentary Gazetteer gives the total tonnage of traYc on the canal as 215,910 and the total number of passengers as 86,364 in 1836. 4. Joseph Samuel Bell, later LL D (1831–91), son of Dr Alan Bell and his wife Harriette; a brilliant student at Trinity College Dublin, whose prizes included one for English poetry. He eventually became Rector of Kells and a Canon of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. 5. Mary Anna Bell (11 Feb. 1830–1915), who had been known to Nicholls from her childhood, and who was to marry him on 26 Aug. 1864. She apparently accepted that ‘he had buried his heart with his Wrst wife, and that he was devotedly attached to her, guarding her fame as far as he could’. See Cochrane 80 (photograph) and 115. 6. Mrs Bell, ne´e Harriette Lucinda Adamson (1801–1902), the kindly and capable widow of Dr Alan Bell, formerly the headmaster of the Royal Free School, Banagher. Her welcome to Charlotte

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contrasted with Banagher’s attitude to Anthony Trollope, ‘received most kindly’ as a single man working as a Post OYce surveyor in 1841–4, but made to feel he had ‘given oVence’ when he later brought his English wife there (Autobiography (World’s Classics repr. 1987), 72). 7. Cuba House or Court (now demolished), reached by an avenue of lime trees: a substantial, square, Georgian house built in 1730, with two main storeys, attics above, and a basement. A shallow triangular pediment made an attractive feature above the central triple windows of the south front, and the west front was also pedimented. See Cochrane 2–3, 146, and illustration opp. 72. Beyond the house to the east lay the classrooms and dormitories of the Free School. 8. Mary Anna’s sister was Harriet Lucinda (1833–1911), who later married her cousin John Evans Adamson (1821–69). 9. MS reads ‘Killkee’. By 18 July Nicholls and Charlotte had left Banagher to travel to Limerick and thence to Kilkee, a ‘wild and remote’ spot, though it was already a favourite sea-bathing resort of Limerick citizens. See the letter to Catherine Wooler below.

To Catherine Wooler,1 18 July 1854 Kilkee. Co. Clare. Ireland My dear Miss Catherine Your kind letter reached me in a wild and remote Spot—a little wateringplace2 on the South West Coast of Ireland. Thank you for your kind wishes. I believe my dear husband to be a good man, and trust I have done right in marrying him. I hope too I shall be enabled always to feel grateful for the kindness and aVection he shews me. On the day of our marriage we went to Wales. The weather was not very favourable there—yet by making the most of opportunity we contrived to see some splendid Scenery—One drive indeed from Llanberis3 to Beddgelert surpassed anything I remember of the English Lakes. We afterwards took the packet4 from Holyhead to Dublin. If I had time I would tell you what I saw in Dublin—but your kind letter reached me in a parcel with about a dozen more, and they are all to be answered—and my husband is just now sitting before me kindly stretching his patience to the utmost, but wishing me very much to have done writing, and put on my bonnet for a walk. From Dublin we went to Banagher where Mr. Nicholls relations live—and spent a week amongst them. I was very much pleased—with all I saw—but I was also greatly surprised to Wnd so much of English order and repose in the family habits and arrangements. I had heard a great deal about Irish negligence &c. I own that till I came to Kilkee—I saw little of it. Here at our Inn—splendidly designated ‘‘the West-End Hotel’’—there is a good deal to carp at if one <was> ’were’ in a carping humour—but we laugh instead of grumbling—for out of doors there is much indeed to compensate for any indoor short-comings; so magniWcent an ocean—so bold and grand a coast—I never yet saw. My husband calls me— Give my love to all who care to have it and believe me dear Miss Catherine Your old pupil C. B. Nicholls.

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MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 906. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by ?T.C. Allbutt: To Miss Catherine Wooler—the second of the W. sisters. 1. Katherine Harriet Wooler (3 Aug. 1796–20 Nov. 1884), who is said to have taught French to Charlotte at her sister Margaret’s school at Roe Head. See CBL i. 109 n., 284, 286 n. She had made overtures of friendship to Charlotte in ?Aug. 1851 (CBL ii. 685). 2. Kilkee is set in a deeply curving bay on the Atlantic coast of County Clare. To the north ‘the cliVs gradually increase in height as far as Baltard Bay. . . On the S[outh] shore . . . is a natural Amphitheatre of terraced limestone, and the PuYng Hole, a blow-hole through which the spray bursts in stormy weather’ (L. Russell Muirhead, Ireland (1962), 253). The Parliamentary Gazetteer (1844) describes it as a rising town, with ‘a hotel, [and] numerous lodging-houses’. In these little houses ‘no attention seems to have been paid either to comfort or arrangement’ but ‘The coast scenery. . . is singularly grand, romantic, and imposing’ (v. 418). See also the letter to Catherine Winkworth of 27 July 1854 and Mr Nicholls’s letter to George Sowden of 10 Aug. 1854. The West End Hotel at the southern end of the bay, the ‘second best’ in the town, was ‘run by a widow, Mrs Shannon and her three daughters’. ‘It had an illustrious cliente`le, including Lord John Manners, who visited earlier, and the Dowager Lady Charlotte O’Brien of Dromoland Castle, who was there at the same time as the newly-weds’ (Barker 965 n. 39). 3. The Llanberis Pass lies south of Bangor, between the precipitous mountainsides of Snowdon and Glyder Vawr. The road to Beddgelert from the head of the Pass also follows a steep-sided river valley, passing lakes and dramatic waterfalls. See Cochrane 56 for the possibility that the travellers stayed overnight at the Goat Hotel, Beddgelert. Charlotte had seen the English lakes in Aug. and Dec. 1850. See CBL ii. 446–54, 535–8. 4. A paddle-steamer carrying mail as well as passengers. Dugdale records that since Holyhead was the ‘adopted station for the transmission and receipt of the mails between London and Dublin, an asylum harbour [had] been constructed at the expense of government’ (972–3). See also Cochrane 56–7.

To Catherine Winkworth,1 27 July 1854 Cork. Dear Katie It was at a little wild spot on the South-West Coast of Ireland2 that your letter reached me; of course I did not at Wrst recognize the handwriting—and when I saw the signature and afterwards read the full and interesting communication— I was touched—you are very good—Katie—very thoughtful for others. Yes—I am married—a month ago this very day I changed my name—the same day we went to Conway—stayed a few days in Wales—then crossed from Holyhead to Dublin—after a short sojourn in the capital—went to the coast—such a wild, iron-bound coast—with such an ocean-view as I had not yet seen—and such battling of waves with rocks as I had never imagined. My husband is not a poet or a poetical man—and one of my grand doubts before marriage was about ‘‘congenial tastes’’ and so on. The Wrst morning we went out on to the cliVs and saw the Atlantic coming in all white foam, I did not know whether I should get leave or time to take the matter in my own way.3 I did not want to talk—but I did want to look and

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be silent. Having hinted a petition, licence was not refused—covered with a rug to keep oV the spray I was allowed to sit where I chose—and he only interrupted me when he thought I crept too near the edge of the cliV. So far he is always good in this way—and this protection which does not interfere ’or pretend—’ is I believe a thousand times better than any half sort of pseudo sympathy. I will try with God’s help to be as indulgent to him wherever indulgence is needed We have been to Killarney4—I will not describe it a bit. We saw and went through the Gap of Dunloe.5 A sudden glimpse of a very grim phantom6 came on us in the Gap. The guide had warned me to alight from my horse as the path was now very broken and dangerous—I did not feel afraid and declined—we passed the dangerous part—the horse trembled in every limb and slipped once but did not fall—soon after <she it> ’she (it was a mare)’ started and was unruly for a minute—however I kept my seat—my husband went to her head and led her—suddenly without any apparent cause—she seemed to go mad—reared, plunged—I was thrown on the stones right under her—My husband did not see that I had fallen—he still held her—I saw and felt her kick, plunge, trample round me. I had my thoughts about the moment—its consequences—my husband—my father—When my plight was seen, the struggling creature was let loose—she sprung over me. I was lifted oV the stones neither bruised by the fall nor touched by the mare’s hoofs. Of course the only feeling left was gratitude for more sakes than my own. I can write no more at present Only this—under the circumstances—I can’t see that Mrs. Gaskell is one whit in error.7 Mr. Dickens, I think, may have been somewhat too exacting—but if she found or thought her honour pledged—she does well to redeem it to the best of her ability—as she will—and I have no doubt it will be worthily done. I go home soon; good-bye, dear Katie. I direct this to P[lymouth] Grove—not being sure of your address8 C B Nicholls MS Brotherton. W & S 907, with facsimile. Address (envelope): Miss K. Winkworth j ’Alderley Edge’ j near Manchester j England [‘Alderley Edge’ and ‘near’ may not be in CBN’s hand] PM: (i) [illegible] (ii) CORK j JY 27 j 1854 j E (iii) MANCHESTER j JY 29 j 1854 j A Annotation: by CBN on envelope: Care of Mrs. Gaskell 1. For Catherine Winkworth (1827–78) see CBL ii. 303 n., and for her account of a conversation with Charlotte before her marriage see Winkworth’s letter to Emma Shaen of 8 May 1854. 2. See the previous letter. 3. Mr Nicholls was also exhilarated by the sight of the sea, as his letter to George Sowden of 10 Aug. 1854 shows. See below, pp. 284–5. 4. The Parliamentary Gazetteer notes that ‘Sir Walter Scott, Miss Edgeworth, and other distinguished literary persons, sojourned at the Kenmare Arms’ Hotel’ in Killarney in 1825’ (v. 457). Charlotte might have heard of this, but we do not know which hotel she and Nicholls stayed at. 5. A narrow boulder-strewn pass between grim cliVs, separating Macgillicuddy’s Reeks from Purple Mountain. From the head of the Gap the beautiful Upper Lake of Killarney is visible.

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The ponies hired for the journey are usually sure-footed and well accustomed to the stony track. 6. The primary meaning is the ‘grim phantom’ of Death, an echo of Paradise Lost, ii. 682, 743, where the ‘grim and terrible’ shape of Death is a ‘Fantasm’—an image recalled in Charlotte’s letter to EN of 13 Sept. 1846 (CBL i. 497). But she might also have heard one of Killarney’s many legends: O’Donoghue Ross, the Chieftain of the Lakes, famed for his prowess, was thrown from his saddle when out hunting. ‘His horse baulked and he was unseated.’ Taking this as a warning of advancing age, he practised the Black Art, and could assume terrifying shapes before plunging into the Lake. But every seventh year he is seen riding on horseback—a good omen for those who ‘fulWlling certain conditions’ witness his return. See Legends of Killarney, ed. Donal O’Cahill (4th edn., Killarney, n.d.), and Eanne Oram, ‘Charlotte Bronte¨’s honeymoon,’ BST 15. 79. 343–4, illustrated by an engraving of the Gap of Dunloe. 7. For the Gaskell–Dickens correspondence over North and South see Dickens Letters vii. 320 V. Mrs Gaskell contributed the very successful episodes of Cranford to Household Words at intervals between 13 Dec. 1851 and 21 May 1853. Dickens had welcomed ten other items—stories and articles such as the recent ‘Company Manners’ on 20 May 1854. But North and South, which she was currently writing, and which would appear in Household Words from 2 Sept. 1854 to 27 Jan. 1855, caused dissension. Dickens wished her to leave the division into weekly portions to him, and found that the story seemed to ‘Xag unmanageably’ between parts 2 and 3, where she dealt with the ‘diYcult and dangerous subject’ of Mr Hale’s leaving the Church. In the event she ignored his suggestion that the two parts should be fused into one, and Dickens was not surprised that sales dropped after their publication, for he found them ‘so divided . . . wearisome in the last degree’ (Dickens to W. H. Wills, 14.10.1854; Dickens Letters vii. 439). 8. Charlotte had not yet received a letter from Mrs Gaskell, who had written to Geraldine Jewsbury on 21 July 1854: ‘Miss Bronte¨ is married, and I ought to write to her, but I’ve a panic about the husband seeing my letters. Bridegrooms are always curious; husbands are not’ (CP letter 207). They had probably corresponded before Charlotte wrote to Mrs Gaskell on 30 Sept. 1854.

To Martha Brown, 28 July 1854 Dublin Dear Martha I write a line to tell you that if all be well—we shall come home on Tuesday, August 1st. at about seven o’clock in the evening. I feel very anxious about Papa1—the idea of his illness has followed me all through my journey and made me miserable sometimes when otherwise I should have been happy enough. I longed to come home a fortnight since—though perhaps it would not have done much good—and I was sure that you would do your best for him Have things ready for tea on Tuesday Evening—and you had better have a little cold meat or ham as well—as we shall probably get no dinner—and Mr. Nicholls will want something. I hope you and Tabby have been and are well—and I do earnestly hope to Wnd Papa better. I am in haste and can only bid you good bye for the present. Yours faithfully CBN——

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MS BPM B.S. 96. W & S 908. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Mr Bronte¨ was ‘much better’ by 20 Aug., but still unWt to take services. See Charlotte’s letter to W. Cartman 20.8.1854.

To Ellen Nussey, [?28 July 1854] Dublin Dear Ellen, I really cannot rest any longer without writing you a line, which I have literally not had time to do during the last fortnight. We have been travelling about, with only just such cessation as enabled me to answer a few of the many notes of congratulation forwarded, and which I dared not suVer to accumulate till my return, when I know I shall be busy enough. We have been to Killarney,1 Glen GariVe,2 Tarbert,3 Tralee,4 Cork,5 and are now once more in Dublin again, on our way home, where we hope to arrive next week. I shall make no eVort to describe the scenery through which we have passed. Some parts have exceeded all I ever imagined. Of course, much pleasure has sprung from all this, and more, perhaps, from the kind and ceaseless protection which has ever surrounded me, and made travelling a diVerent matter to me from what it has heretofore been. Still, Nell, it is written that there shall be no unmixed happiness in this world. Papa has not been well, and I have been longing, longing intensely sometimes, to be at home. Indeed, I could enjoy and rest no more, and so home we are going. I can’t write another line—the post is going out. Yours, C. B. N. MS untraced. W & S 909. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: W & S 909. Not in Nussey, CBCircle, or Shorter. 1. Charlotte does not list the place-names in order. The itinerary is likely to have been from Kilkee southward to Tarbert, Tralee, Killarney, and GlengariV, then east and north-east to Cork and Dublin. 2. GlengariV, County Cork. Charlotte had read John Forbes’s Memorandums Made in Ireland in the Autumn of 1852 (2 vols., 1853) which has an attractive frontispiece in vol. i showing GlengariV’s sea-loch and islets against a background of spectacularly pointed mountain peaks. See GS 14.7.1853 n. 2. The Parliamentary Gazetteer describes the ‘creeks and coves which are feathered and almost packed with forest trees’, and the ‘wondrous museum of craigs, and alpine pinnacles, and mural gorges, and tumulated rocks, and soaring mountains’ which screen the loch. GlengariV itself is described as ‘an incipient village’ in a glen amid whose rocks grow hollies, yews, oak, birch, and arbutus, through which streams fall into glassy pools (v. 270–1).

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3. Tarbert, County Kerry, ‘a post, market, and sea-port town, . . . on the coast road from Limerick to Tralee . . . beautifully situated at the head of a small bay. . . [with] intricate and delightfully picturesque shores. Tarbert Rock . . . is the site of a lighthouse, a battery, and a coast-guard station.’ The town ‘has a much more clean and neat appearance than might be anticipated in so remote a situation’ (Parliamentary Gazetteer, viii. 315). 4. A thriving seaport of ‘decidedly respectable character’, capital of County Kerry. Its immediate environs are low and Xat, but the more distant scenery forms a ‘panorama, at once brilliant, beautiful, and comparatively unique’ (Parliamentary Gazetteer, ix. 383–6). 5. Described in the Gazetteer as a seaport, city, and ‘second town of Ireland’. The writer notes the colourful, irregular picturesqueness of its buildings, and the close proximity of the houses of wealthy and respectable owners to those occupied by ‘numerous families . . . apparently in the lowest state of destitution’ (iii. 519, 520).

To Ellen Nussey, 9 August [1854] Haworth. Dear Ellen I earnestly hope you are by yourself now—and relieved from the fag of entertaining guests. You do not complain; but I am afraid you have had too much of it. E. *Sherwood1 will probably end by accepting *Lionel *Knowles2—and— judging from what you say—it seems to me that it would be rational to do so. If—indeed—some one else whom she preferred wished to have her—and had duly and sincerely come forward—matters would be diVerent—but this it appears is not the case—and to cherish any ungrounded and unsanctioned preference is neither right nor wise. Since I came home I have not had an unemployed moment; my life is changed indeed—to be wanted continually—to be constantly called for and occupied seems so strange: yet it is a marvellously good thing. As yet I don’t quite understand how some wives grow so selWsh—As far as my experience of matrimony goes—I think it tends to draw you out of, and away from yourself. We have had sundry callers this week Yesterday Mr. Sowden and another gentleman dined here and Mr. & Mrs. Grant joined them at tea.3 I do not think we shall go to Brookroyd soon—on Papa’s account I do not wish again to leave home for a time—but I trust you will erelong come here. I really like Mr. Sowden very well. He asked after you. Mr. Nicholls told him we expected you would be coming to stay with us in the course of 3 or 4 weeks—and that he should then invite him over again as he wished us to take sundry rather long walks—and as he should have his wife to look after—and she was trouble enough—it would be quite necessary to have a guardian for the other lady. Mr. S——seemed perfectly acquiescent. Dear Nell—during the last 6 weeks—the colour of my thoughts is a good deal changed: I know more of the realities of life than I once did. I think many false ideas are propagated—perhaps unintentionally. I think those married women

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who indiscriminately urge their acquaintance to marry—much to blame. For my part—I can only say with deeper sincerity and fuller signiWcance—what I always said in theory—Wait God’s will. Indeed—indeed Nell—it is a solemn and strange and perilous thing for a woman to become a wife. Man’s lot is far— far diVerent. Tell me when you think you can come. Papa is better but not well. How is your Mother? Give my love to her and Ann & Mr. Clapham—and Mercy if she is good Yours faithfully C Nicholls Have I told you how much better Mr. Nicholls is? He looks quite strong and hale—he gained 12 lbs. during the 4 weeks we were in Ireland. To see this improvement in him has been a main source of happiness to me; and to speak truth—a subject of wonder too. MS Law-Dixon. W & S 910. Address not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: CBN’s original date is unclear; it may be ‘1855’ or ‘1853’. The last digit has been changed in pencil to ‘4’. Text: from photostat of Law-Dixon MS. 1. A friend of EN, born ?1828, daughter of the late Revd William Sherwood (?1796–1852), former incumbent of St James’s, Bradford. See CBL ii. 395 n. Perhaps she had been staying with the Nusseys. 2. Possibly Lionel William Knowles, son of Lionel and Lucy Knowles of Cleckheaton, christened at the ‘Independent or Congregational’ church there on 18 Mar. 1819. He may have been a relative of William Knowles, druggist and postmaster of Birstall. Mrs William Knowles was said to be a friend of EN who ‘often visited her at the post oYce . . . She always brought Charlotte Bronte¨ [there] for tea whenever she came over to Birstall’ (Whitehead 79). 3. For SutcliVe Sowden and the Grants, who had been loyal friends of Mr Nicholls during his exile from Haworth, see EN 18.12.1852.

The Revd A. B. Nicholls to the Revd George Sowden,1 10 August 1854 Haworth Keighley My dear Sowden— I feel that I have indeed been guilty of great negligence in not sooner replying to your kind letter of Congratulation on the occasion of my marriage—I trust however that you will accept the novelty of my position & the multiplicity of my engagements as an excuse for my silence. We had a delightful tour over nearly the same ground as you & your brother travelled—only we took the Shannon in our progress to Limerick: we also diverged to Kilkee,2 a glorious watering-place, with the Wnest shore I ever saw—completely girdled with stupendous cliVs—it

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was most refreshing to sit on a rock & look out on the broad Atlantic boiling & foaming at our feet— Your brother spent Tuesday last with us—He seems in good case— Mrs. Nicholls joins with me in the request that you will not fail to pay us a visit on your next appearance in Yorkshire—I need scarcely say how glad I shall be to see you. Believe me My dear Sowden Very sincerely yours A: B: Nicholls MS BPM B.S. 247. W & S 912. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The Revd George Sowden (1822–99), brother of SutcliVe Sowden. Son of Samuel Sowden, Halifax merchant, and his wife Martha. Matriculated at Magdalene College Cambridge 1842, BA 1846, MA 1849, Deacon 1845, Priest (Ripon) 1846. Curate of Stainland, near Halifax, 1845–53; curate of Houghton-le-Spring, Durham, 1853–61; Vicar of Hebden Bridge, Yorks., 1861–99. Hon. Canon of WakeWeld Cathedral 1888 (Venn and Clergy Lists 1847, 1848). 2. See Catherine Wooler 18.7.1854 n. 2.

To the Revd William Cartman,1 20 August [1854] Haworth Dear Sir Mr. Summerscale2 mentioned to Mr Nicholls that you were to preach at Cullingworth3 to-day—and had some thoughts of coming over to Haworth this evening. If you can do so—we shall be very glad to see you and shall be happy to give you a bed. My Father I am thankful to say is much better but still not quite strong enough to take any share in the duty—and the three services fall somewhat hard when there is but one to oYciate; a little assistance from you will be most welcome. With our united kind regards I am, my dear Sir Yours very sincerely, C: B: Nicholls Copy MS BPM. No publication traced. Address: (integral): The Rev. Wm. Cartman PM: not in source Date: from source. If it is correct, the note would have to be hand-delivered to William Cartman on the same day Text: based on what is probably a copy of a genuine letter. The copy (or forgery) was sold by Sotheby’s of London on 17 Dec. 1979 as lot 103, allegedly written on Charlotte’s behalf by A. B. Nicholls; but it is in an unknown hand. The content is compatible with Nicholls’s and Charlotte’s letters of this period, and the copyist has reproduced a style of signature used in for

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example CBN’s letter to Mrs Gaskell of 30 Sept. 1854, q.v. See also Appendix VIII, ‘Forgeries and Uncertain Attribution’, p. 379. 1. For the Revd Dr William Cartman of Skipton, see CBL ii. 476n.2 and 631 n.1. He had provided a testimonial for Mr Nicholls’s application to the SPG in Jan. 1853: ‘Mr Bronte` has often detailed to me his invaluable services . . . ’ (quoted in LD 457). See also EN 2.1.1853 n. 5. 2. Haworth church organist, and since 1853 head of the Haworth Free Grammar School. See EN 14.5.1854. 3. The village of Cullingworth is about 3 miles east of Haworth.

To Margaret Wooler, 22 August 1854 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler I found your letter with Many others awaiting me on my return home from Ireland. I thought to answer it immediately, but I reckoned without my host. Marriage certainly makes a diVerence in some things and amongst others the disposition and consumption of time. I really seem to have had scarcely a spare moment since that dim quiet June Morning when you, E. Nussey and myself all walked down to Haworth Church—. Not that I have been hurried or oppressed—but the fact is my time is not my own now; Somebody else wants a good portion of it—and says we must do so and so. We do ‘‘so and so’’ accordingly, and it generally seems the right thing—only I sometimes wish that I could have written the letter as well as taken the walk. We have had many callers too—from a distance—and latterly some little occupation in the way of preparing for a small village entertainment. Both Mr. Nicholls and myself wished much to make some response for the hearty welcome and general good-will shewn by the parishioners on his return; accordingly the Sunday and day-Scholars and Teachers—the church ringers, singers &c. to the number of 500 were asked to Tea and Supper in the schoolroom—. They seemed to enjoy it much, and it was very pleasant to see their happiness. One of the villagers in proposing my husband’s health described him as ‘‘a consistent Christian and a kind gentleman.’’ I own the words touched me—and I thought—(as I know you would have thought—had you been present)—that to merit and win such a character was better than to earn either Wealth or Fame or Power. I am disposed to echo that high but simple eulogium now. If I can do so with sincerity and conviction seven years—or even a year hence—I shall esteem myself a happy woman. Faultless my husband is not— faultless no human being is; but as you well know—I did not expect perfection. My dear Father was not well when we returned from Ireland—I am however most thankful to say that he is better now—May God preserve him to us yet for some years! The wish for his continued life—together with a certain solicitude for his happiness and health seems—I scarcely know why—stronger in me now

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than before I was married. So far the understanding between Papa and Mr. Nicholls seems excellent—if it only continues thus I shall be truly grateful. Papa has taken no duty since we returned—and each time I see Mr. Nicholls put on gown or surplice—I feel comforted to think that this marriage has secured Papa good aid in his old age. Are you at Richmond1 alone my dear Miss Wooler? Are you well and enjoying some share of that happiness you so thoroughly deserve? I wonder when I shall see you again—now you are once at Richmond you will stay there a long time I fear. As I do not know your address I enclose this under cover to Mr. Carter,2 answering his kind note at the same time Yours always with true respect and warm aVection C. B. Nicholls. MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 913. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: CBN began writing ‘Ju’, then deleted it and wrote ‘Augst.’ 1. Miss Wooler was in either the Surrey or the North Yorkshire Richmond. Dugdale describes the former as a scene whose ‘picturesque beauty’ will ‘surprise and delight the spectator’ (1334). CBN had enjoyed a visit to this Richmond in the company of George Smith and his family on 25 June 1851 (CBL ii. 649 n.), and might therefore know the scenery and ‘pleasant walks’ she mentions in her letter to Miss Wooler of 19 Sept. 1854. Dugdale describes the Yorkshire Richmond as a market town, manufacturing paper, ropes, twine, hair-cloth, and oil-cloth, but surrounded by ‘extremely romantic’ hills and mountains, valleys and streams (1335). 2. Miss Wooler’s brother-in-law. Mr Carter and his family had become Charlotte’s friends when she was a governess with the Sidgwicks at Stonegappe. See CBL i. 191.

To Ellen Nussey, 29 August [1854] Haworth. Dear Ellen Can you come here on Wednesday week—(Septbr. 6th.)? Try to arrange matters to do so if possible—for it will be better than to delay your visit till the days grow cold and short. I want to see you again dear Nell— and my husband too will receive you with pleasure—and he is not diVuse of his courtesies or partialities—I can assure you. One friendly word from him means as much as twenty from most people. We have been busy lately giving a supper and tea-drinking to the Singers, Ringers, Sunday-School Teachers and all the scholars of the Sunday & National Schools—amounting in all to some 500 Souls. It gave satisfaction and went oV well. Papa, I am thankful to say is much better; he preached last Sunday.

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How does your Mother bear this hot weather—? Write soon dear Nell and say you will come. Yours faithfully C B.N. MS BPM Bon 251. W & S 914. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: CBN began writing ‘Ju’, then deleted it and wrote ‘August.’.

To Ellen Nussey, 7 September 1854 Haworth. Dear Ellen I send a French paper1 to-day. You would almost think I had given them up it is so long since one was despatched. The fact is they had accumulated to quite a pile during my absence—I wished to look them over before sending them oV— and as yet I have scarcely found time. That same Time is an article of which I once had a large stock always on hand—where it is all gone now it would be diYcult to say, but my moments are very fully occupied. Take warning Ellen—the married woman can call but a very small portion of each day her own. Not that I complain of this sort of Monopoly as yet—and I hope I never shall incline to regard it as a Misfortune, but it certainly exists. We were both disappointed that you could not come on the day I mentioned2—I have grudged this splendid weather very much—the moors are in glory—I never saw them fuller of purple bloom—I wanted you to see them at their best. They are just turning now—and in another week—I fear, will be faded and sere. As soon as ever you can leave home—be sure to write and let me know. I am afraid Amelia continues to get on but poorly. At least I had a grievous letter from her a day or two since detailing a visit from Dr. Henriquez3—whom it appears she felt herself under the necessity of summoning down from London. I wish her nervous system, or whatever is wrong with her, could get into better order. Papa continues greatly better—my husband Xourishes—he begins indeed to express some slight alarm at the growing improvement in his condition. I think I am decent—better certainly than I was two months ago, but people don’t compliment me as they do Arthur—excuse the name—it has grown natural to use it now. I trust dear Nell that you are all well at Brookroyd—and that your visiting stirs4 are pretty nearly over—I compassionate you from my heart for all

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the trouble to which you must be put and I am rather ashamed of people coming sponging in that fashion one after another Get away from them and come here. Yours faithfully C B. Nicholls. How does the romance of real life between E. S. and L. K.5 get on? MS Pforzheimer. W & S 915. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. UnidentiWed. 2. 6 Sept. 3. Probably Dr Amos Henriquez of 67 Upper Berkeley Street, Portman Square, London. The London and Provincial Medical Directory for 1854 describes him as MRCS (England) 1832 and Honorary Physician to the Spanish Embassy. The British and Foreign Homœopathic Medical Directory and Record for 1853 adds that he is BSL (Paris), Surgeon to the Hahnemann Medical Institution and Dispensary, formerly a member of the Philosophical Society of Jamaica, and currently a Fellow of the Medico-Chirurgical Society. His published works included Letters on Mesmerism. 4. Excitements, commotions. CBN used the same word for the visiting which followed Ann Nussey’s marriage (CBL ii. 268 n. 4). 5. Emma Sherwood and Lionel Knowles. See EN 9.8.[1854] nn. 1 and 2. The phrase ‘A romance of real life’ recalls typical subtitles for popular three-volume novels.

To Ellen Nussey, 14 September 1854 Haworth. Dear Ellen Mr. Nicholls and I have a call or two to make in the neighbourhood of Keighley; we wish so to arrange as to meet you there, and bring you back with us in the cab. On Wednesday Mr. N. is always engaged—as it is a lecture day1— but on Thursday next (the 21st.) we will (D.V.)—expect you at the Station by the 6–11 Train. We shall be very very glad to see you dear Nell—and I want the day to come. Emma Sherwood does not seem to me one of the wise virgins2—and I must candidly add that L.K.3 strikes me also as one of the slightly infatuated—it must be outside which chieXy attracts him and then her reluctance stimulates his pursuit. However I trust we shal[l] have plenty of time to talk them, & others, over erelong. Good-bye dear Nell. Yours very faithfully C B Nicholls. MS Montague. W & S 916. Address: not in MS.

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PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: 327 1. Possibly lectures given by the local clergy and others at the Haworth Mechanics’ Institute, founded ?1849, of which Mr Nicholls was one of the Wrst members, and for some time its President. 2. Cf. Matthew 25: 1–13, the parable of the Wve wise and Wve foolish virgins. 3. Lionel Knowles.

To Margaret Wooler, 19 September 1854 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler You kindly tell me not to write while Ellen Nussey is with me; I am expecting her this week;1 and as I think it would be wrong—long to defer answering a letter like your last—I will reduce to practice the maxim ‘‘there is no time like the present;’’ and do it at once. It grieves me that you should have had any anxiety about my health; the cough left me before I quitted Ireland, and since my return home I have scarcely had an ailment, except occasional head-aches. My dear Father too continues much better. Dr. Burnet2 was here on Sunday preaching a Sermon for the Jews,3 and he gratiWed me much by saying that he thought Papa not at all altered since he saw him last—nearly a year ago. I am afraid this opinion is rather Xattering, but still it gave one pleasure—for I had feared that he looked undeniably thinner and older. You ask what visitors we have had?—A good many amongst the clergy &c. in the neighbourhood, but none of note from a distance. Haworth is—as you say— a very quiet place; it is also diYcult of access, and unless under the stimulus of necessity or that of strong curiosity—or Wnally that of true and tried friendship—few take courage to penetrate to so remote a nook. Besides, now that I am married I do not expect to be an object of much general interest. Ladies who have won some prominence (call it either notoriety or celebrity) in their single life—often fall quite into the background when they change their names; but if true domestic happiness replace Fame—the exchange ’will’ indeed be for the better. Yes—I am thankful to say—my dear Miss Wooler—that my Husband is in improved health and spirits. It makes me content and grateful to hear him from time to time avow his happiness in the brief plain phrase of sincerity. My own life is more occupied than it used to be: I have not so much time for thinking: I am obliged to be more practical, for my dear Arthur is a very practical as well as a very punctual, methodical man. Every Morning he is in the National School by nine o’clock; he gives the children religious instruction till 21 past 10. Almost every afternoon he pays visits amongst the poor parishioners.

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Of course he often Wnds a little work for his wife to do, and I hope she is not sorry to help him. I believe it is not bad for me that his bent should be so wholly towards matters of real life and active usefulness—so little inclined to the literary and contemplative. As to his continued aVection and kind attentions—it does not become me to say much of them but as yet they neither change nor diminish. I wish, my dear Miss Wooler—you had some kind, faithful companion to enliven your Solitude at Richmond—some friend to whom to communicate your pleasure in the Scenery, the Wne weather, the pleasant walks.4 You never complain, never murmur, never seem otherwise than thankful, but I know you must miss a privilege none could more keenly appreciate than yourself. Both my Father and my Husband desire me, whenever I write to oVer their kind regards to you, and both say that whenever you can come here they will be truly happy to see you. Believe me always Yours with truest aVection and respect C.B. Nicholls MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 917. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. CBN was writing on Tuesday. EN probably stayed at Haworth for about a fortnight, from Thursday 21 Sept. until some time before Sunday 8 Oct. See EN 11.10.1854. 2. For Dr Burnett, Vicar of Bradford, see EN 7.6.1854 n. 1 He had praised Mr Nicholls’s exertions, through which the church had ‘gain’d ground’ amongst the ‘rude, and dissenting population’ of ‘wild & rough’ Haworth, and was to recommend him as the next incumbent after Mr Bronte¨’s death (LD 457, 529). He had last seen Mr Bronte¨ on 2 Oct. 1853, when he preached at Haworth in aid of Stanbury Sunday Schools—a cause strongly supported by Mr Nicholls (Barker 742, 962 n. 77). 3. The London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, founded in 1809, had been supported by the evangelicals Charles Simeon and William Wilberforce, both of whom Mr Bronte¨ admired. Collections at the services were in aid of its work in, for example, distributing tracts and Bibles. Cf. Shirley, ch. 7, and EN 21.12.1839 and [17.3.1840], CBL i. 206–7, 212. 4. See MW 22. 8. 1854 n. 1.

To Mrs Gaskell, 30 September 18541 Haworth My dear Mrs. Gaskell Do not suVer yourself to be either vexed or in low spirits about what you have ‘‘gone and done’’. We all know that it is not precisely advantageous to a really good book to be published piecemeal in a periodical2—but still—such a plan has its good side: ‘‘North & South’’ will thus be seen by many into whose hands it would not otherwise fall.

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What has appeared I like well, and better, each fresh number; best of all the last (to-day’s).3 The Subject seems to me diYcult: at Wrst—I groaned over it: if you had any narrowness of views or bitterness of feeling towards the Church or her Clergy—I should groan over it still; but I think I see the ground you are about to take as far as the Church is concerned; not that of attack on her, but of defence of those who conscientiously diVer from her, and feel it a duty to leave her fold.4 Well—it is good ground, but still rugged for the step of Fiction; stony—thorny will it prove at times—I fear.5 It seems to me that you understand well the Genius of the North. Where the Southern Lady and the Northern Mechanic are brought into contrast and contact—I think Nature is well respected. Simple, true and good did I think the last number—clear of artiWcial trammels of style and thought. Come to Haworth as soon as you can Wnd a Wtting time—My Father—all in this house who have once seen you, wish to see you again. My husband does not know you yet, but when he does know you, he will feel as others feel; besides I want you to see him.6 It will perhaps do you good to get into our Land of Silence for a little while. Beg Mr. Gaskell to come also, but a single day is too brief a space of time for such a journey—try to spare two or three days. May I look for you in the second week of October—or when? I wish I knew of any girl with the qualiWcations you require—but there is none in this neighbourhood who would at all suit the place; the only young woman I know in any degree adapted by steadiness, neatness and manual skill is too much of an invalid to go from home; the Mills swallow up our girls as much as if they were denizens of Stockport or Manchester The incident you narrate of Julia is very characteristic—What a brave little soul it is!7 My true love to her—and not less—in a diVerent way—to Flossy. Remember me in all kindness to Mr. Gaskell—and believe me— Yours truly & aVectionately C: B: Nicholls. MS Rylands. W & S 918 (part). Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. There had probably been an exchange of letters between Mrs Gaskell and CBN after 21 July but before the present letter. See C. Winkworth 27.7.1854 n. 8. 2. Ch. 1 and 2 of North and South were published in Household Words on 2 Sept., 3 and 4 on 9 Sept., 5 on 16 Sept., 6 and 7 on 23 Sept., 8 and 9 on 30 Sept. For Mrs Gaskell’s concern about its serialization, and for Dickens’s dissatisfaction, see CBN to Catherine Winkworth 27.7.1854 n. 7. On ?4 Dec. 1854 Mrs Gaskell told her good friend Eliza Fox how writing the novel had become an almost unbearable burden: ‘I believe I’ve been as nearly dazed and crazed with this c——, d—— be h—— to it, story as can be. I’ve been sick of writing . . . to say nothing of deep hatred to my species about whom I was obliged to write as if I loved ’em. . . . Seriously it has been a terrible weight on me and has made me have some of the most felling headaches I ever had in my life’ (CP letter 222, with a corrected date). 3. Ch. 8, ‘Home Sickness’, Wnds Margaret Hale in smoky ‘Milton Northern’ nostalgically recalling her beautiful southern home, but aroused to pity by the uncomplaining invalid Bessy. In ch. 9

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4.

5. 6. 7.

293

the northern manufacturer, John Thornton, takes tea with the Hales. Mrs Hale complains that her daughter, a lady, has to prepare for the ‘tradesman’s’ coming; in turn Thornton’s mother is angered by his account of Margaret’s haughty reception. Thornton is not a ‘mechanic’ in the modern sense of the term. CBN’s use of it here echoes the attitude of Mrs Hale and of Margaret before she gains a better knowledge of Thornton’s character and position. In ch. 4, ‘Doubts and DiYculties’, Mr Hale tells Margaret that he must for conscience’ sake give up his living in the Church of England, since he cannot subscribe to all its tenets. He has no ‘doubts as to religion’ and still loves ‘the holy Church’ from which he is to be shut out. Other contemporary novels had dealt with ‘dangerous’ crises of faith caused by rejection of the Anglican 39 Articles. CBN had found Froude’s Nemesis of Faith (1849) ‘morbid’, but she thought Francis W. Newman’s The Soul (1849) ‘a deep and interesting subject of study’ (CBL ii. 314–16). The Unitarian Mrs Gaskell came somewhat belatedly into the Weld. She personally found the Anglican service ‘beautiful and impressive’, but could not accept its aYrmation of Christ’s equality with the Father. See her letter to her daughter Marianne of May–June 1854, CP letter 198a. Cf. Matthew 13: 3–8, 18–23, the parable of the sower. Fearing that Mr Nicholls would distrust her family as heretics, Mrs Gaskell had delayed writing to CBN after her marriage. She did not meet Nicholls until after CBN’s death. Reference unexplained. Just before the date of this letter, Mrs Gaskell had written to her daughter Marianne, ‘Julia is occasionally vicious but very funny & a great darling’ (?22.9.?1854, CP letter 147b, redated).

To Ellen Nussey, 11 October 1854 Haworth. Dear Ellen I cannot say I was surprised when I received yours to learn that you had had to wait at Keighley Station two long hours without Wre or company—but I was truly vexed & concerned. On looking at the clock after you were gone—I feared how it would be—so did Arthur—and we were both exceedingly grieved that you had not stayed for the later train. I must say Mr. *?Ellison’s1 behaviour was very creditable to him—the man must have the germ of innate politeness in his nature. I return his courteous little note. You will ask how we got on with the *Hunsworth party yesterday. Read the enclosed which I received on Monday Morning and it will tell you. *Amelia is really a simpleton in some things—she will now be worshipping Mrs. * Paulton2—Wne clothes—open pink muslin gown—worked petticoat—velvet cape—and carriage & pair included. I do not say that she should shew or feel one shade of jealousy of her husband’s former Xames—but that assiduous cultivation of their society and countenance seems strained—odd—unnatural. Arthur is very strong upon it—and much out of patience with *Amelia. I don’t know whether I shall be able to keep him at home now whenever she does come. He threatens to bolt. He Xourishes and desires his kind regards to you. He also often says he wishes you were well settled in life. He is just gone out this morning—in a rather refractory mood about some dissenters. On Sunday we

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had a pair of very sweet sermons indeed—really good—and touching the better springs of our nature. Just before going to Church—he menaced me with something worse than the preceding Sunday—I was agreeably disappointed. I cannot say I wonder at Mr. *Heald’s resignation.3 It seems to me that all who truly believe the doctrines and trust the promises of Christianity—must—after watching the suVerings of sickness and agonies of death in one they love—feel— in the Wrst instance—a sort of peace in their ’release’—and resignation to their loss. It is some time afterwards that the dark & durable regrets arise— and perhaps surrounded by his family and parishioners he may be spared these. With love to your dear Mother *Mercy (**if she be good**) and all at Brookroyd—Most to yourself Nell— I am yours faithfully CB: Nicholls Papa I am sorry to say—is still a good deal troubled with his cough though better than he has been MS Pierpont Morgan. W & S 919. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. EN had stayed at the Parsonage for about a fortnight from 21 Sept. EN adds in the margin of BPM Nussey: ‘The Station master sen[t] with a polit[e] little note refreshmen[ts] to Miss N’. EN’s memory, some forty years later, was probably at fault. John Ellison is named in the West Riding of Yorkshire Post OYce Directory for 1857 as the proprietor of the Crown Hotel and the Devonshire Hotel, both in Church Street, Keighley (333). EN would arrive at the Devonshire, where Mr Ellison might realize Ellen’s predicament, and send refreshments to the station. White’s Leeds and Clothing District Directory for 1853 names the Keighley station-master as William Davison (546). 2. Not identiWed. Joseph Taylor had many ‘old Xames’. CB had been both amused and saddened by his Xirtations with girls who unfortunately were ‘forced to care for him’ because their minds were ‘mostly unemployed’ though their sensations were ‘fresh and keen’ (see CBL i. 391–2, 494–5). 3. The Revd W. M. Heald, Vicar of Birstall, was resigned to the loss of his sister Harriet (?1802–54), who had died on 25 Sept. (Information from the Leeds Intelligencer 30.9.1854, by courtesy of Mrs Louise Barnard.) He was ‘a man of boundless charity. . . great spirituality and gentleness of manner’ (H. C. Cradock, The Ancient Parish of Birstall, Yorkshire (1933), 268). Harriet had been seriously ill by 29 Oct. 1848 after some years of poor health. She was the original of Margaret Hall in Shirley, and had ‘called Jane Eyre a ‘‘wicked book’’, on the authority of the ‘‘Quarterly’’ ’ (?WSW 21.9.1849; see CBL ii. 131, 260).

To Ellen Nussey, [?20 October 1854] [Haworth] Friday Mor[nin]g. Dear Nell You would have been written to before now if I had not been very busy. * Amelia, *Joe, *Tim & *?Anne1 came on Tuesday Morning—*Joe only stayed till the same evening—we had the others till yesterday. We got on with them better

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*

than I expected. Amelia seemed pleased and content and forgot her fancies for the time She looked—not at all pretty—but stronger and in better health. Tim behaved capitally on the whole. She amused Papa very much—chattering away to him very funnily—his white hair took her fancy—She announced a decided preference for it over Arthur’s black hair—and coolly advised the latter to ‘‘go to the barber, and get his whiskers cut oV.’’ Papa says she speaks as I did when I was a child—says the same odd unexpected things. Neither Arthur nor Papa liked A’s look at Wrst—but she improved on them—I think. Arthur will go [to] the Consecration of Hep[tonsta]ll Church2—D.V. but I don’t mean to accompany him—I hardly like coming in contact with all the Mrs. Parsons—if you were here I should go. A[rthur] heard from Mr. *Sowden lately—an uninteresting letter—no remark on our vote of thanks &c.3 A brother of his is coming over. Arthur means to invite them both here for a night—I shall take stock of them and tell you what I think. Arthur is impatient for his walk.—I am obliged to scrawl hurriedly. When I go to Brookroyd if I hear Mr. C——4 or anybody else say anything to the disparagement of single women I shall go oV like a bomb-shell—and as for you—but I won’t prop[h]ecy, Arthur has just been glancing over this note—He thinks I have written too freely about *Amelia &c. Men don’t seem to understand making letters a vehicle of communication—they always seem to think us incautious. I’m sure I don’t think I have said anything rash—however you must burn it when read.5 Arthur says such letters as mine never ought to be kept—they are dangerous as lucifer matches6—so be sure to follow a recommendation he has just given ‘‘Wre them’’—or ‘‘there will be no more.’’ Such is his resolve. I can’t help laughing—this seems to me so funny, Arthur however says he is quite ‘‘serious and looks it, I assure you—he is bending over the desk with his eyes full of concern. I am now desired ‘‘to have done with it—’’ so with his kind regards and mine—Good-bye dear Ellen Yours aVectionately CB: Nicholls MS Pierpont Morgan, W & S 920. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN (i) at head of letter: 329 Probably Oct—54 [Also by EN or another: omitted] (ii) below signature: Probably Oct—54 j of the Taylors visit of Mr. N’s opinions on correspondence 1. The Taylors’ 3-year-old daughter Emily Martha. Perhaps ‘Anne’ was a nursemaid. 2. The former church at Heptonstall, about 9 miles south of Haworth, had been ‘damaged beyond repair in a great gale in 1847. Bishop Longley of Ripon . . . was due to perform’ the consecration ceremony of the new church on 26 Oct. (Cochrane 64–5). Mr Nicholls’s friend SutcliVe Sowden was the incumbent at nearby Hebden Bridge.

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3. Perhaps there had been a vote of thanks to SutcliVe Sowden, who had oYciated at CBN’s wedding, at the party held just before 22 Aug. For his brother George see ABN’s letter to him of 10 Aug. 1854 and notes. 4. Robert Clapham, EN’s brother-in-law. 5. EN notes in the margin of BPM Nussey I, apropos of this letter: ‘Mr. N asked for his wife[s] letters [?to] send to Mrs Gaske[ll].’ EN was to use this apparent inconsistency on Mr Nicholls’s part to justify her failure to burn Charlotte’s letters at his request. She also alleged that Mr Nicholls continued to censor them. 6. OED gives the Wrst date for this term as 1831. The phosphorus used to make the matches was dangerous to the ‘match-girls’ who made them and hazardous in use.

To Ellen Nussey, 31 October 1854 Haworth. Dear Ellen I wrote my last in a hurry, and as soon as I had sealed it—remembered that it contained no comment on what you had said about E. *Cockhill’s1 illness—I was sorry—for the news had impressed me painfully and I wished much to know how she was getting on. Does the slight improvement continue? Her particular wish for champagne might imply a turn either for the better or the worse—I trust it was the former in her case—though I have known where such a caprice of the appetite has been of fatal augury. You will kindly remember to give me information respecting her when you write again. The consecration of Heptonstall Church2 took place last Thursday—Arthur fully intended to go but a funeral kept him at home. I <was sorr[y]> ’regretted’ this as the day happened to be very Wne. Mr. *Grant went. He said there was a good attendance of the laity—but very few clergy—this was owing to the fact of invitations not having been sent. I return Mrs. *Hewitt’s3 letter—it bears that character of unassuming goodness and sense which mark all her letters—but I should fear her illness has perhaps been more serious than she allows. She is evidently not one to make much of her own ailments. Dear Ellen—Arthur complains that you do not distinctly promise to burn my letters as you receive them. He says you must give him a plain pledge to that eVect—or he will read every line I write and elect himself censor of our correspondence. He says women are most rash in letter-writing—they think only of the trustworthiness of their immediate friend—and do not look to contingencies—a letter may fall into any hand. You must give the promise4—I believe— at least he says so, with his best regards—or else you will get such notes as he

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*

writes to Mr. Sowden—plain, brief statements of facts without the adornment of a single Xourish—with no comment on the character or peculiarities of any human being—and if a phrase of sensibility or aVection steals in—it seems to come on tiptoe—looking ashamed of itself—blushing ‘‘pea-green’’ as he says—and holding both its shy hands before its face. Write him out his promise on a separate slip of paper, in a legible hand—and send it in your next. Papa I am glad to say continues pretty well—I hope your Mother prospers—and that Ann is better—with love to all—Mr. C[lapham] included—* *and Mercy if ?good* *— I am yours faithfully C B. Nicholls. MS BPM B.S. 96.5. W & S 921. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. For the Cockills see EN 23.3.1852, [?22.3.1854] and notes. Elizabeth Cockill, b. 1813, had been a fellow pupil of CB at Roe Head. She died before 7 Nov. 1854. 2. 26 Oct. Mr Nicholls had to take the burial service for Roger H. Greenwood, aged one year. 3. Mary Hewitt, ne´e Gorham, was pregnant. Her son Edward Swinton Hewitt was christened at East Marden, Sussex, on 31 Dec. 1854. 4. See the previous letter, n. 5, and the letter from EN to Mr Nicholls, below.

Ellen Nussey to A. B. Nicholls, [November 1854] [Brookroyd] My dear Mr Nicholls As you seem to hold in great horror the ardentia verba1 of feminine epistles, I pledge myself to the destruction of Charlotte’s ’epistles’ henceforth, if You, pledge yourself to no censorship2 in the matter communicated Yours very truly E. Nussey MS Texas. W & S 922. Address (integral): To the Revd. j The Magister PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN in pencil: Mr N continued his censorship so the pledge was void. 1. Fervid words: literally Wery, burning words, in allusion to Mr Nicholls’s comparison with ‘lucifer matches’ in EN [?20.10.1854]. 2. See EN’s annotation, above. It is unclear whether the reading of W & S 922, ‘no authorship’ is a misreading of EN’s handwriting, or a deliberate, and misleading, substitution. W & S also replace ‘censorship’ with ‘authorship’ in their reproduction of EN’s note. The letter is not in Shorter.

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To Ellen Nussey, 7 November 1854 Haworth Dear Ellen The news of an acquaintance death always seems to come suddenly. I thought ill of the previous accounts you had given of poor Elizabeth *Cockhill1—but still I did not expect she would die so soon. And theirs is a family into which it is diYcult to realise the entrance of Death. They seemed so cheerful, active, sanguine. How does *Sarah bear her loss? Will She not feel companionless— almost sisterless? I should almost fear so—for a married Sister can hardly be to her like the other. I should like to know too how Mrs. *Cockhill2 is. Did she ever lose a child before? Arthur thanks you for the promise3 He was out when I commenced this letter, but he is just come in—on my asking him whether he would give the pledge required in return—he says ‘‘yes we may now write any dangerous stuV we please to each other—it is not ‘‘old friends’’ he mistrusts, but the chances of war—the accidental passing of letters into hands and under eyes for which they were never written.’’ All this seems mighty amusing to me: it is a man’s mode of viewing correspondence—Men’s letters are proverbially uninteresting and uncommunicative—I never quite knew before why they made them so. They may be right in a sense. Strange chances do fall out certainly. As to my own notes I never thought of attaching importance to them, or considering their fate—till Arthur seemed to reXect on both so seriously. Mr. Sowden and his brother4 were here yesterday—stayed all night and are but just gone. George Sowden is six or seven years the junior of SutcliVe Sowden (the one you have seen) he looks very delicate and quiet—a good sincere man— I should think—’Mr. S——asked after ‘‘Miss Nussey.’’’ I will write again next week if all be well, to name a day for coming to see you—I am sure you want—or at least, ought to have a little rest before you are bothered with more company: but whenever I come—I suppose, dear Nell, under present circumstances—it will be a quiet visit and that I shall not need to bring more than a plain dress or two. Tell me this when you write Believe me faithfully yours C B ’Nicholls’ I intend to write to Miss Wooler shortly MS Pierpont Morgan. W & S 923. Address: not in MS.

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PM: not in MS. Annotation: apart from ‘W.’, T. J. Wise’s sign of ownership, there is no annotation on this letter; but EN endorsed the envelope of CB’s letter of 7 Dec. 1854, obviously in error: ‘Nov 7–54 j of E Cockill j letters &c.’ 1. See EN 22.3.1854 n. 2, 31.10.1854 and notes. The corrupt Shorter 686 and W & S 923 texts, based on EN’s version in Nussey, leave the surname blank. All three Cockill sisters, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Hannah, had taught together at Oakwell Hall, Birstall, until c.1852, and their widowed mother had lived with them there. The Nusseys would be in mourning, since the Cockills were their relatives. See also Barbara Clapham, ‘Charlotte Bronte¨ and Oakwell Hall’, BST 17. 88. 210–13. 2. Shorter and W & S read ‘Mrs Hewitt’. Mary Hewitt did not lose her child: see EN 26.12.1854. 3. W & S 923 reads ‘Arthur wishes you would burn my letters’. This is based on EN’s gross distortion of the true reading, and must have been inserted by her in the copy of Nussey (the suppressed printing, for which see CBL i. 43–8) used by Shorter for his Bronte¨ editions. See the variant texts in CBCircle 494 and Shorter letter 686. Ellen intended to conceal her own promise, and Nicholls’s pledge in response to it. In the BPM Copy I of Nussey she did this by deleting as thoroughly as she could the Wrst part of para. 2 in this letter, from ‘Arthur thanks you’ to ‘each other’, and adding a footnote in pencil: ‘he never did give the pledge’. In the BPM SB 243 copy of Nussey, EN crossed through the words from ‘Arthur thanks you’ to ‘never written’, and noted in the margin opposite ‘promise’, ‘conditional’; opposite ‘pledge’ she wrote ‘not complied with’ (333). 4. The Revd George Sowden (1822–99). See ABN to G. Sowden 10.8.1854 n. 1. Mr Sowden recalled his ‘extreme pleasure’ in witnessing the ‘complete happiness’ of the Nichollses’ married life: Charlotte ‘was a thoroughly ladylike woman, and very self-possessed. I could imagine her somewhat reserved with strangers, though with us she was not so in the slightest degree. There was not a word of high-Xown conversation. In fact, all was so simple. She showed me beautifully-illustrated volumes of French fables (La Fontaine’s) which she was evidently proud of, as the gift to her by W. M. Thackeray, whom she looked up to with veneration, and regarded as the regenerator of society. She was then as simple as the house she lived in, with its homely arrangements. . . . never dreaming of an apology for being caught in a domestic employment’ (Halifax Courier 8.12.1906, as reprinted in the British Weekly 20.12.1906; quoted in Bronte¨ Newsletter 3 (1984), 3. Charlotte Bronte¨’s copy of Fables de La Fontaine, illustre´es par J. J. Grandville, Nouvelle Edition, 2 vols. (Paris, 1839) is now in the BPM, Bon 47).

To Ellen Nussey, 14 November 1854 [Haworth] Dear Ellen I am only just at liberty to write to you: Guests have kept me very busy during the last two or three days. Sir J. Kay *Shuttleworth and a friend of his came here on Saturday afternoon1 and stayed till after dinner on Monday. His chief errand was to see my husband—and when he had seen him he took a fancy to him and before his departure made him a formal oVer of the living of Padiham2 (near his house at Gawthorpe) now vacant—or on the point of becoming so. Arthur of course is tied to Haworth so long as Papa lives and was obliged to decline for that reason—had there been none other. Sir James then begged him to name some other clergyman of his acquaintance and in whom he had conWdence. Arthur has thought of Mr. Sowden3—and would have gone over to-day to

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propose the matter to him and talk over pros. & cons. but it is very wet and he means consequently to write and summon Mr. Sowden here to-morrow. I wish it might be arranged—Mr. S. would suit Sir James better than any man I know— the living it seems is £200 per ann. Mr. S’s present income is only £130—£80 Wxed—the rest quite uncertain. There is a beautiful church at Padiham and a parsonage is about to be erected.4 When I go to Brookroyd—Arthur will take me there and stay one night— but I cannot yet Wx the time of my visit5—Joe & Amelia, it seems, are oV to Scarbro’ they mean to stay a fortnight and Amelia has written in great anxiety that I should wait till they come home—Indeed I have so long promised to visit them when I go to Brookroyd that it would not be right to fall oV—you are aware of the inconvenience and expense of making Hunsworth the subject of a second visit direct from Haworth: I am sorry too to be obliged to defer seeing you—very sorry—but I hope to manage the matter before Christmas. Good bye for the present dear Nell Yours faithfully C. B. Nicholls MS BL Ashley 168. W & S 924. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: Letters after marriage 1. 11 Nov. 2. All Saints’ church, Habergham (near Padiham, where factories had recently been erected in addition to the handloom weavers’ cottages) was built in 1846–7, ‘with the Kay-Shuttleworths providing the land and £1,300 . . . Kay-Shuttleworth seems to have considered that the living was in his hands, although strictly speaking it was in the gift of the Crown. The incumbent of All Saints’, the radical, eccentric and Wnancially irresponsible Edward Arundel Verity, warred incessantly with Kay-Shuttleworth and [James and John Dugdale] . . . and in November 1854 he was in embarrassing Wnancial diYculties which Kay-Shuttleworth assumed (or hoped) would force him to leave the parish. Moreover, he was planning to sail to Patagonia as a missionary’ (Selleck 298). 3. SutcliVe Sowden. 4. Kay-Shuttleworth’s biographer Frank Smith quotes a letter from him about this visit: ‘I heard that our friend Miss Bronte¨ had married a Mr. Nicholls. I had written to her. She had described her husband as a sensible man of high principles, and whose attachment to her had borne the trial of several years’ delay. He had been described to me as a very estimable man by others. I found him all and more than I had been led to expect. They seemed in a calm and hopeful state of mutual conWdence and regard. I sounded them on the possibility of any change. They both felt that they could not leave Mr. Bronte¨, who is 78, and to whom any change at that age would be very hazardous. We agreed that it was better not to disturb him by mentioning what was obviously impracticable. The emolument of Haworth is only £160 per annum and the parsonage, and the cure involves an exile from civilisation—the emoluments of Habergham are £200, and we propose to build a parsonage’ (The Life and Work of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth (1923), 226). 5. CB was never again to visit Brookroyd.

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To Margaret Wooler, 15 November 1854 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler I should have acknowledged your last kind and interesting letter before now, had I not waited in the hopes of being able to give a deWnite answer to your inquiry respecting the probable date of my visit to Brookroyd. I had Wxed for next week, but am now obliged to defer it for a short time, as I had promised a brief stay at Hunsworth after the visit to Ellen Nussey— ’and’ at present Mr and Mrs. J Taylor are absent at Scarbro where they are gone by medical advice in consequence of Joe’s very delicate state of health.1 He is said to have gastric fever—a complaint which has been strangely prevalent and often fatal— this autumn. I feel anxious to hear how he is getting on—for I fear his constitution has not much stamina to resist disease—and he has now been suVering from prostration of strength for some time. You kindly inquire after Papa. He is better—and seems to gain strength as the weather gets colder; indeed of late years his health has always been better in Winter than in Summer. We are all—indeed—pretty well—and for my own part—it is long since I have known such comparative immunity from headache, sickness and indigestion, as during the last three months. My life is diVerent to what it used to be—May God make me thankful for it! I have a good, kind, attached husband, and every day makes my own attachment to him stronger. Do you remember, my dear Miss Wooler—my speaking of Sir J. K. Shuttleworth when you were here last and mentioning the frightful accident by which sight and life were emperilled together?2 I am glad to say that, after much suVering, he is better—indeed quite recovered—with the exception of the lost eye which can never be restored. He has been our guest within the last few days; he came on Saturday and remained till Monday afternoon.—I mention this— partly for the purpose of introducing what was to me a gratifying proof of respect for my dear Arthur. Sir James seemed to take quite a fancy ’to’ him—and—before his departure, oVered him his living of Habergham or Padiham. It is worth £200 per ann. and in many ways would have been advantageous—could Arthur have accepted it—but, of course, during Papa’s life, he is bound to Haworth. He had therefore no alternative but to decline. Sir James then requested Arthur to recommend some clerical friend, and this he will try to do.

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I am glad to hear good accounts of all Mr. Carter’s family. I trust Susan will one day repay your kindness to her, and that Ellen may derive beneWt moral and physical—from her sojourn abroad.3 She is making good discoveries—it appears—respecting the advantages of regular employment and rational repasts: ** ‘‘Better late than never.’’**4 With kindest regards to Mr. and Mrs. Carter and all old friends—and in the hopes of seeing you erelong I am—my dear Miss Wooler Yours faithfully & aVectionately C.B. Nicholls MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 925. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Joe Taylor’s health, never very good, was deteriorating. After his death from liver disease on 23 Mar. 1857 his sister Mary wrote from New Zealand to Ellen Nussey: ‘The wrapping & nursing & feeding that the child [Emily Martha Taylor] gets seem absurd; but so do all the precautions that delicate people take seem absurd to healthy ones. The same may be said of Joe’s treatment. No one but himself could know what did him harm or good. At one time he was so subject to diarrhea [sic] that speaking to a stranger brought on activity of the bowels. . . . It seems absurd that talking to John [Taylor] should make him tremble with the beating of his heart, but so it was. Never surely was life such a burden to any one as to him & through him to Amelia’ (28 Jan. 1858; MS BPM, Horsfall Turner Collection; printed in suppressed edition of CB’s letters, 382–4). 2. R. J. W. Selleck notes that in 1853–4 Kay-Shuttleworth ‘had four epileptic attacks . . . Then, as winter turned to the spring of 1854, he had an accident, of which both nature and cause are unknown . . . He was forced to use a glass eye for the rest of his life’ (Selleck 286–7). He was also at this period humiliated by his wife’s continuing absence in Germany, and by her doctor’s recommendation on 1 Oct. 1854 that it was ‘absolutely necessary’ for her to remain there for medical treatment if she was to make a full recovery, and that her husband ‘should live at a distance’ from her, but the children should remain with her (Selleck 289–90). 3. Ellen M. Carter (b. 1834) and Susan Margaret Carter (10 July 1837–8 Aug. 1894) were the daughters of Margaret Wooler’s sister Susanna (Mrs Edward Nicholl Carter). The Census for 1871 shows that by that time Ellen and another sister, Catherine, were schoolmistresses at Oakwell Hall, Birstall. For Susan see CB’s comments in MW 2.9.1852. 4. ‘Better . . . never’ heavily deleted.

To Ellen Nussey, 21 November 1854 Haworth. Dear Ellen I hope you will write very soon and let me know how *Mercy is getting on and how you all are. I trust the fever will soon be allayed in *Mercy’s case, and, above all, that it will be conWned to her, and not spread to others of the family—

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and indeed I quite hope this will not be the case because the fever was not generated at Brookroyd, proving miasma1 in the neighbourhood, but was imported it seems from Leeds. Mrs. *Ward was indeed thoughtless. I fear you will have much to do—too much; but yet I hope and believe you will be supported. You ask about Mr. *Sowden’s matter.2 He walked over here on a wild rainy day. We talked it over. He is quite disposed to entertain the proposal—but of course there must be close inquiry and ripe consideration before either he or the patron decide. Meantime, Mr S—— is most anxious that the aVair should be kept absolutely quiet—in the event of disappointment it would be both painful and injurious to him if it should be rumoured at *Hebden-*Bridge that he has had thoughts of leaving. Arthur says if a whisper gets out—these things Xy from parson to parson like wild-Wre. I cannot help somehow wishing that the matter should be arranged—if all on examination is found tolerably satisfactory. Papa continues pretty well—I am thankful to say; his deafness is wonderfully relieved. Winter seems to suit him better than summer, Besides he is settled and content—as I perceive with gratitude to God. Dear Ellen, I wish you well through every trouble. Arthur is not in just now or he would send a kind message—with love to *Mercy and all at Brookroyd— and in the hope that you will as soon as possible let me know how she is doing Believe me yours faithfully C B: Nicholls. MS Berg. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/69. W & S 926. Address (envelope): Miss E. Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAW[ORTH] (ii) KEIGHLEY j NO 21 j 1854 j A (iii) LEEDS j NO 21 j 1854 j ?F Annotation by EN (i) on letter: 331 (ii) on envelope: Nov 21—5- j Mercys illness j Mr. S & the Living j 31 1. Mercy Nussey had typhus fever. The ‘miasmic’ theory assumed that ‘vapours arising from soil, swamps, or decaying organisms’ were the direct cause of such diseases in man (Encyclopædia Britannica (1982), vi. 855). Joseph Lister (1827–1912) discarded this assumption and developed his germ theory in the 1860s. The Mrs Ward whom EN had previously visited in Feb. 1852 had probably been in contact with a typhus patient. See EN 16.2.1852. CB would recall the typhus epidemic of 1847–8, during which deaths from the disease in England and Wales had totalled 30,320 in 1847. A smaller outbreak in the 1850s which was particularly virulent in northern manufacturing towns was to climax in 1856. See Charles Creighton, A History of Epidemics in Britain (1894; repr. Cambridge, 1965), ii. 205–10. 2. In the event the Habergham incumbent did not leave his church until 1855, to become a chaplain in the Crimea, but ‘he returned to dog Kay-Shuttleworth for decades’. See EN 14.11.1854 n. 2, Selleck 298. SutcliVe Sowden remained at Hebden Bridge.

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To Ellen Nussey, 29 November 1854 Haworth Dear Ellen I intended to have written a line yesterday—but just as I was sitting down for the purpose Arthur called to me to take a walk. We set oV not intending to go far—but though wild and cloudy it was fair in the morning—when we had got about half a mile on the moors—Arthur suggested the idea of the waterfall1— after the melted snow he said it would be Wne. I had often wanted to see it in its winter power—so we walked on. It was Wne indeed—a perfect torrent raving over the rocks white and bountiful. It began to rain while we were watching it— and we returned home under a streaming sky—however I enjoyed the walk inexpressibly—and would not have missed the spectacle on any account. How is *Mercy now? I hope still better—I hope she will get forward with her convalescence in clever style—and not linger half-fondly over the business. How are you? Can you get out now and take a walk sometimes? Let me know soon, dear Ellen, about your welfare and hers. Arthur somewhat demurs about my going to Brookroyd as yet: fever—you know is a formidable word. I cannot say I entertain any apprehensions myself— further than this—that I should be terribly bothered at the idea of being taken ill from home and causing trouble—and strangers are sometimes more liable to infection than persons living in the house. Mr. *Sowden has seen Sir J. K. S. but I fancy the matter is very uncertain as yet. It seems the Bishop of Manchester2 stipulates that the clergyman chosen should if possible be from his own diocese and this—Arthur says—is quite right and just—An exception would have been made in Arthur’s favour—but the case is not so clear with Mr. S. However no harm will have been done if the matter does not take wind—as I trust it will not. Write very soon dear Nell—and believe me Yours faithfully C: B: Nicholls MS BL Ashley 2452. W & S 927. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The fall of the Lumb Beck into the Sladen valley, now known as the ‘Bronte¨ waterfall’; about 2 miles from the Parsonage. Mrs Gaskell writes, exaggerating the length of the walk: ‘She did not achieve this walk of seven or eight miles, in such weather, with impunity. She began to shiver soon after her return home, in spite of every precaution, and had a bad lingering sorethroat and cold, which hung about her, and made her thin and weak’ (Life ii. 321). Cf. EN 7.12.1854, para. 1. 2. The Right Revd James Prince Lee, DD (1804–69; DNB), Bishop of Manchester since 1847.

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To Margaret Wooler, 6 December 1854 Haworth. My dear Miss Wooler I thank you very much for your truly kind warning—and I believe my husband thanks you still more. He is quite of your opinion—indeed before we received your note—and when I was ignorant that Miss Mercy Nussey’s case was anything more than one of ordinary low fever1—he was averse to my going—Now his wish is so decided—that for the present I think it will be right to defer the visit at least till Miss Mercy is well. I am very sorry to hear that her illness is of so serious a nature, and I earnestly trust Ellen, as well as the other inmates of Brookroyd may be preserved from infection. I believe Ellen does not know her sister’s illness to be typhus—Of course I shall say nothing to her on the subject—but it seems to me that medical men ought to be more candid in these matters. It pains me to disappoint Ellen and nearly as much to disappoint myself—I have long been looking forward to the visit both on her account and yours— When do you think—my dear Miss Wooler—that you can come to see us at Haworth? The disadvantages of weather, roads &c. make me diYdent of urging invitations in the Winter Season, but whenever it may suit your convenience and inclination to undertake the journey—let me know—for all in this house will be glad to see you. With kindest regards to Mr and Mrs. Carter and all old friends Believe me always Yours faithfully & aVectionately C B: Nicholls. I say nothing about the War2—but when I read of its horrors—I cannot help thinking that it is one of the greatest curses that can fall upon mankind. I trust it may not last long—for it really seems to me that no glory to be gained can compensate for the suVerings which must be endured This tone may seem a little ignoble and unpatriotic—but I think that as we advance towards middle age—nobleness and patriotism bear a diVerent signiWcation to us to that which we accept while young. I still hope to go to Brookroyd soon after Christmas, and then I trust I shall have the true pleasure of seeing you. Good by’e—C:B:N: MS Fitzwilliam. W & S 929. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS.

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1. See EN 21.11.1854 n. 1. The term ‘low fever’ was used for a non-speciWc illness characterized by a raised temperature and some degree of prostration, not necessarily life threatening. 2. See LW 8.3.1854 n. 3. In Sept. 1854 Britain and France had landed troops in the Crimea, where they besieged, but failed to take, Sevastopol. William Howard Russell’s dispatches in The Times on 9, 10, and 13 Oct. revealed the British War OYce’s gross mismanagement of the campaign. The troops endured horriWc conditions in the Crimean winter, lacking adequate clothing, food, and equipment, and suVering cholera, scurvy, dysentery, and fever. After the battle of Balaclava on 25 Oct., where the Light Brigade rode to its death, Russians gained command of the road to the British base, but were repulsed on 5 Nov. after the desperate battle of Inkerman. The war did not end until Russia accepted the British and French terms proposed in Feb. 1856 and conWrmed in the Treaty of Paris in Mar. 1856. For the National Patriotic Fund, see Mr Bronte¨’s letter of 13 Dec. 1854 and n. 2.

To Ellen Nussey, 7 December 1854 Haworth. Dear Ellen I shall not get leave to go to Brookroyd before Christmas now—so do not expect me. For my own part I really should have no fear—and if it just depended on me—I should come—but these matters are not quite in my power now— another must be consulted—and where his wish and judgment have a decided bias to a particular course—I make no stir, but just adopt it. Arthur is sorry to disappoint both you and me, but it is his Wxed wish that a few weeks should be allowed yet to elapse before we meet—Probably he is conWrmed in this desire by my having a cold at present— I did not achieve the walk to the waterfall with impunity—though I changed my wet things immediately on returning home—yet I felt a chill afterwards, and the same night had sore throat and cold—however I am better now—but not ’quite’ well. I am truly glad to hear that *Mercy is recovering so nicely. I trust for your sake as well as hers there will be no drawback—and that you will soon have some complete rest which you must need. It is good news about Mrs. *Hewitt.1 The aVair seems to have got over admirably—Was it not a little sooner than she expected? Did I tell you that our poor little Flossy2 is dead? He drooped for a single day—and died quietly in the night without pain. The loss even of a dog was very saddening—yet perhaps no dog ever had a happier life or an easier death. Papa continues pretty well, I am happy to say—and my dear boy Xourishes—I do not mean that he continues to grow stouter—which one would not desire— but he keeps in excellent condition. You would wonder I daresay at the long disappearance of the French Paper—I had got such an accumulation of them unread—that I thought I would not wait to send the old ones—now you will receive them regularly. I am writing in haste—It is almost inexplicable to me that I seem so often hurried now—but the

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fact is whenever Arthur is in, I must have occupations in which he can share, or which will not at least divert my attention from him—Thus a multitude of little matters get put oV till he goes out and then I am quite busy. Good bye, dear Ellen—I hope we shall meet soon. Yours faithfully C: B: Nicholls MS BPM Grolier E 30. Envelope BPM B.S. 104/70. W & S 930. Address (envelope): <Mrs. J. Taylor> ’Miss E. Nussey’ j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY DE 7 j 1854 j - (iii) LEEDS j DE 7 j 1854 j I Annotation by EN (i) [at the head of the letter]: 333 (ii) [at the end of the letter]: Dec 7—54 of her wifely submission (iii) on envelope (in error): Nov 7—54 j of G. Cockill j letters &c. [This applies to a previous letter, EN 7.11.54, q.v.] 1. A reference to the birth of Mary Hewitt’s son Edward Swinton Hewitt. See EN 31.10.1854 n. 3. 2. Anne Bronte¨’s black and white spaniel, given to her in or before July 1844. See CBL i. 361—2 n, 408–9 n., and ii. 19.

To Amelia Taylor, ne´e Ringrose, [?early December 1854] [Haworth] Dear Amelia If there is no tubercular ulceration of the bowels or lungs—I should think there is hope. The case may look bad; its lingering character and the frequent relapses dishearten, yet for my part I could not cease to hope yet.1 Still Joe is very right to prepare himself in that quiet and Wrm spirit which few can possess at such a time—and very right are you to share that spirit and preparation with him. Whatever happens—perhaps the keenest pang is felt when we Wrst allow to ourselves that what we so well love—so dearly value—is passing from us. I don’t want him to go yet—you don’t want him to go. May God keep him a little longer! I cannot help praying this. You cannot probably write long letters—but send me an envelope with a word in it as often as you can. Come what will Joe has a nurse tender and faithful. Good bye C B: Nicholls The strong probability that Joe may yet recover returns upon me. It is astonishing how much debilitating wasting functional derangement the human frame can bear when there is nothing of, what the doctors call, organic change—no tubercles—no ulcers. I wonder if Joe would be better away from Hunsworth—at

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Birmingham for instance—could he travel so far? Can he still take nourishment regularly? Has he the least cough—or has he any pain? Though it is right Joe should be, as he is, tranquilly prepared for what is—at least possible—yet he must not quit his hold upon life in thought nor entirely relax his will to live. A mental tendency inherited from his Mother3 will dispose him to do this too soon. He must remember it is better for his wife, better for his child—better for many that he should live. He may feel that he can already lie down serene and fearless by his Father and Grandfather— but others may Wnd it too diYcult and dreary to live on after he has left them4 I shall hope both for him and you—a little longer yet. But write a line soon— to-morrow if possible—though indeed he will not change from day to day. A week hence you might be able to say whether he is better or worse—weaker or stronger—but a week is a long time to wait. MS Brotherton, W & S 931. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: suggested by the W & S placing in early Dec. 1854, before the Taylors had moved to Spen; but both W & S 931 and 934 are likely to precede W & S 928, where CB’s Christmas wishes imply a date later in the month. CB’s false start (‘Mrs J. Taylor’) in addressing an envelope to EN on 7 Dec. may imply that the present letter was written at about that time. 1. For Joe Taylor’s ill health see MW 15.11.1854 n. 1. He had often been depressed as well as physically ill. See for example Mary Taylor’s letter to EN of May–21 July 1853 (p. 163), and a later letter of 19 Apr.–10 May 1856 (Stevens letter 28) where Mary inclines to her brother John’s opinion that ‘Joe’s hopelessness is a symptom of his disorder and not to be believed in’. Joe’s death in Ilkley in Mar. 1857 was caused by ‘general debility and obstruction of the liver’ (Stevens 127 n. 4). 2. CB had complained about the bad air in and around the Hunsworth cottage, next to the Taylors’ mill (‘the malaria of Hunsworth . . . an abominable smell of gas—I was sick from it ten times a day’) after she stayed there in late Jan. or early Feb. 1845. See CBL i. 381–2 and 500. Joe’s cousins, George, Abram, and Mary Dixon, lived in Birmingham. See CBL i. 269–70 n., 335 n., and ii. 316–17 n. 3. The stern and gloomy Anne, ne´e Tickell, depicted as ‘Mrs Yorke’ in Shirley. Joe’s father was the woollen manufacturer and merchant Joshua Taylor (1766–1840), son of John Taylor of Gomersal (1736–1805). See Stevens, esp. 1–8. 4. Amelia was still alive in March 1861. The date of her death is unknown. There is no Wrm evidence for Joan Bellamy’s assertion that after Joe Taylor’s death Amelia ‘was not inconsolable, she remarried and as Mrs Helsing [sic], lived once more in East Yorkshire, in Beverley’ (‘More Precious than Rubies’: Mary Taylor: Friend of Charlotte Bronte¨, Strong-Minded Woman (Beverley, 2002), 62). A Sotheby’s Sale Catalogue for 26 Mar. 1923 listed Charlotte’s letters to Amelia, ‘Property of Mrs Helmsing j Woodcroft, Beverley’, oVered for sale by her son Norman Helmsing. He was the son of Mildred Helmsing, ne´e Jackson, the daughter of Amelia’s youngest sister, Laura Ringrose, later Scheibler, then Jackson (born c.1836). It is likely that he was the same Norman Helmsing who in or shortly before 1985 gave a copy of the sale catalogue to the BPM. I am greatly indebted to Margaret and Robert Cochrane, who patiently teased out the complicated lineage of the family, and gave me the beneWt of their research.

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Revd P. Bronte¨ to an unknown correspondent,1 13 December 1854 [Haworth] Sir You are requested to attend a Meeting to be held in the Haworth National School on Saturday next at 3:0: p.m. to take into consideration the means of raising a General Subscription in aid of the Patriotic Fund.2 I am Sir Yours truly P. Bronte¨ MS Woodhouse Grove School. BST 18. 93. 236–7, with facsimile. In the handwriting of Charlotte Bronte¨. Address: not visible in source. PM: not in source. Text: from facsimile, BST 18. 93. 237. 1. This note, probably one of many, was written on Mr Bronte¨’s behalf by CB. Juliet Barker records the existence of a similar note, in Mr Nicholls’s hand, to Messrs Heaton (WYAS Bradford, MS Heaton B143, 4; see Barker 967 n. 71 and BL photocopy RP 1152. 2. Early in October The Times had ‘opened a subscription for the beneWt of the army, and sent Mr. Macdonald to the Crimea to administer it. . . . The Queen was now of opinion that the time had come for appealing to the generosity of the people . . . ’ (Wilson Victoria ii. 624). She therefore appointed a royal commission, headed by Prince Albert, to raise and distribute a National Patriotic Fund for the widows and orphans of soldiers, sailors, and marines killed in or dying as a result of the war (The Times 14.10.1854). More than £92,000 in voluntary subscriptions had been raised nationally by 25 Nov. The Leeds Intelligencer had also reported the setting up of the Fund on 14 Oct., and following an announcement in the Bradford Observer on 19 Oct., Bradford citizens had acted quickly, raising over £3,000 by the end of the month. The Haworth response was comparatively slow.

To Amelia Taylor, ne´e Ringrose, [?mid-December 1854] [Haworth] Dear Amelia I would not be a false comforter if I knew it, but I certainly think from your report of this morning—a far better report than I had ventured to expect—you are justiWed in hoping that Joe will get better. His quiet pulse proves that there is no feverish hectic: from what you say I can gather evidence of no ailment but debility. Keep yourself as calm, as steadily cheerful—as reliant on a good issue as you can dear Amelia. If one single sign of mortal disease were apparent—I would not say this—I should just think it right that you should make up your

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mind to part with your husband, but nature tells us to hope while grounds for hope are seen—and I think that the fortitude which is voluntarily put in the place of hope yet justiWable—is an artiWcial kind of fortitude diVerent from that strange and powerful feeling which accompanies true, inevitable despair—You would know that feeling when it came—and it is not to be met or made except in the awful exigency. We then feel that he is a fool who struggles—and are perfectly quiet. I think Joe will not get better as long as the turmoil of this stormy damp weather lasts—exciting irritation in all weak points of weak frames—He will relapse probably every time a fresh hurricane brews1—When a steady calm returns to the atmosphere and bracing frost sets in—I believe he will change for the better and perhaps in two months time he will be well enough to argue with all imaginable perversity and even to wear that expression seen in his daguerreotype portrait.2 I am glad you have got to Spen3—Hurry yourself as little as you can—and get what help you can— Yours faithfully C B: Nicholls MS Brotherton. W & S 934. Address not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: later than the letter beginning ‘If there is no tubercular ulceration’ (p. 307), in which CB suggested a move from Hunsworth. The Taylors were now in Spen. See n. 3. 1. The weather had been ‘wild and cloudy’ after a snowfall in late November, the Sladen waterfall was ‘a perfect torrent’, and CB had walked home ‘under a streaming sky’ (EN 29.11.1854). The Annual Register for 1854 notes that the weather was extremely variable in the autumnal quarter, but nothing indicated ‘the long and cold winter with which the year 1855 commenced’. In 1854 ‘The weather was not so boisterous as to cause comparatively any remarkable increase of casualties’ in shipwrecks till October, but the total of such deaths in that year was 1549 compared with 689 the previous year (Annual Register, ‘Chronicle’ 217). 2. Untraced; but for Joe Taylor’s expression cf. the deleted description of Hunsden Yorke Hunsden in The Professor—a character who resembles Taylor in many ways: ‘I can only say that the ?face and countenance of Hunsden Yorke Hunsden Esqre. resembled more the result of a cross between Oliver Cromwell and a French grisette, than anything else in Heaven above or in the Earth beneath.’ See the Clarendon edn., ch. 22, p. 200. 3. The Taylors were staying in the hamlet of Spen, about 1 mile south of Hunsworth, and further down the Spen valley. The family owned or rented property there, including a woollen manufacturing mill run by Joe Taylor’s brother John. His brother Joshua (1812–80) lived for some years at Spen Hall, a large house in extensive grounds near the road between Cleckheaton and Gomersal, and not far from Firdene Wood (then called Scotland Wood) owned by the Taylors and used as a private burial ground for members of the family.

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To Amelia Taylor, ne´e Ringrose, [late December 1854] [Haworth] Dear Amelia You never were more thoroughly right in your thoughts than when you believed I cared for yourself and Joe—that I do with my whole heart. I have known Joe above twenty years and diVered from him and been enraged with him and liked him and cared for him as long—and you—dear Amelia—well—I will just say this—I can now realize how Joe will appreciate the value of a nature genuinely aVectionate—which will adhere to him the closer and love him the better because there is something to be done for him—In high health—there might have been women who would give life more brilliancy—in sickness—no wife could be better than Joe’s own actual wife. Continue to keep as strong in heart as you can, dear Amelia, and believe as well as you can in the better time which we will still hope is coming. Dear little Tim—I did not name her in my last—as I remembered after closing the envelope. Give her a kiss from grandmama and the wish that the many Christmases which probably are yet in store for her may be as happy as the changing nature of this life will permit.1 Whenever you are low, dear Amelia, comfort yourself with this thought— that when Joe gets better he will certainly value you more and love you better than ever he has done. [Signature cut oV.] MS Brotherton. W & S 928. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: the second paragraph indicates that CB was probably writing just before or after Christmas, and after a letter in which ‘Tim’ (Emily Martha) was not mentioned. The implied date of W & S 928, between letters of 29 Nov. and 6 Dec. 1854, is probably too early. 1. ‘Tim’ outlived her father by little more than a year. She died on 24 Aug. 1858.

To Ellen Nussey, 26 December [1854] Haworth. Dear Ellen I return Mrs. *Hewitt’s letter. It is—as you say, very genuine—truthful aVectionate—maternal without a taint of sham or exaggeration. Mary will love her child without spoiling it—I think.1 She does not make an uproar about her happiness either—the longer I live—the more I suspect exaggerations.

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I fancy it is sometimes a sort of fashion for each to vie with the other in protestations about their wonderful felicity—and sometimes they—fib I am truly glad to hear you are all better at Brookroyd—In the course of three or four weeks more—I expect to get leave to come to you—I certainly long to see you again—one circumstance reconciles me to this delay—the weather. I do not know whether it has been as bad with you as with us—but here for three weeks2 we have had little else than a succession of hurricanes. In your last you asked about Mr. S[owden] and Sir James. I fear Mr. S. has little chance of the living—he had heard nothing more of it the last time he wrote to Arthur—and in a note I had from Sir James yesterday—the subject is not mentioned.3 You inquire too after Mrs. Gaskell—She has not been here and I think I should not like her to come now till summer. She is very busy with her story of ‘‘North & South.’’4 I must make this note short that it may not be overweight. Arthur joins me in sincere good wishes for a happy Christmas & many of them to you and yours. He is well—thank God—and so am I—and he is ‘‘my dear boy’’ certainly— dearer now than he was six months ago—in three days we shall actually have been married that length of time! Good bye dear Nell Yours faithfully CB. Nicholls BPM B.S. 97. W & S 932. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: CB wrote ‘Jany.’ in error, deleted it and wrote ‘Decbr 26’. 1. See EN 7.12.1854 n. 1. 2. MS reads ‘week’—acceptable as a dialect plural, but probably CB’s slip. The tempestuous weather of the autumnal quarter was to reach a climax on New Year’s Day 1855 when ‘a fearful storm visited the Northern coasts of Europe. . . . The storm commenced on the 31st December [1854], and raged with extreme violence’, causing great destruction (Annual Register for 1855, ‘Chronicle’ 2.) Mr Nicholls recalled that ‘One Evening at the close of 1854 ’ as he and Charlotte ‘sat by the Wre listening to the howling of the wind around the house my poor wife suddenly said, ‘‘If you had not been with me I must have been writing now’’—She then ran upstairs, brought down & read aloud the beginning of her New Tale’, ‘Emma’, which she had begun on 27 Nov. 1853. See ?WSW 6.12.1853 n. 3 and the Clarendon edn. of The Professor, Appendix VI. 3. See EN 14.11.1854 and notes. Kay-Shuttleworth’s letter perhaps included his invitation to Charlotte and Mr Nicholls to visit Gawthorpe. See EN 19.1.1855 and notes. 4. For North and South see Charlotte’s letters to Catherine Winkworth, 27.7.1854 n. 7, and to Mrs Gaskell 30.9.1854. Mrs Gaskell found the diYculty of Wtting her material into the space available meant that the story was ‘huddled & hurried up’ (to Anna Jameson, CP letter 225), and on 17 Dec. 1854 Catherine Winkworth described her as still ‘writing furiously, thirty pages a week; . . . [she] expects to Wnish in ten days’ (Letters and Memorials i. 472). On or about the same date Mrs Gaskell wrote to ?Charles Dickens: ‘ . . . what I send today is meant to be crammed & stuVed into Janry 20th . . . I think a better title than N. & S. would have been ‘‘Death & Variations’’. There are 5 deaths, each beautifully suited to the character of the individual’ (CP letter 220). There was to be a sixth death, that of Dr Bell, before the book was complete.

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To Mrs Ann Clapham, [?28 December 1854] Haworth My dear Mrs. *Clapham, Ellen will have already received a note from me which partly answers your kind note of yesterday. I hope to visit Brookroyd about the beginning of February, but before that time, I do not think it likely I shall get oV. Do not therefore postpone any engagements that may oVer for yourself on my account. As to infection, I have not the slightest fear on my own account, but there are cases, as I need not remind you, where wives have just to put their own judgment on the shelf and do as they are bid. I am truly glad to hear through you that Ellen has borne her late fatigues pretty well, for I know that much anxiety or over-exertion does not suit her, and she must have had a good deal of both lately. It would be cheering to see your Mother and M[ercy] both down on Christmas Day. Give my love to Mercy. I hope she will be a very good girl, eat nourishing things and get strong as fast as she can. You do not mention your own health, but I trust you are now quite recovered from your late painful attack. Tell Mr Clapham I have long been wanting to pay my bride-visit1 to Brookroyd and that I shall be sincerely glad to shake hands with him once more. I want to introduce him to my husband too, and I have an idea that they would not disagree, that is, if they had time to know each other, which, however, could scarcely be done in a day. With love to your Mother, Ellen, Mercy, and yourself. Believe me, my dear Mrs C[lapham], AVectionately yours, C. B. Nicholls. MS untraced. W & S 933. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Annotation: in the British Library copy of Nussey, Ashley 169, Ellen Nussey crosses through paras. 2 and 3 in ink, and writes at the foot of p. 338, ‘To [sic] private to be any interest to the Public’. She also deletes all but the ‘C’ of ‘Clapham’ in paragraph 4, and the phrase ‘With love . . . yourself ’. Date from source. Text: based on Nussey 338–9. Shorter 692 and W & S 933 are substantially the same as Nussey, but give all names in full. 1. i.e. Charlotte’s Wrst visit to Brookroyd as a married woman, to see Ellen Nussey and her relatives, including her sister Ann and Ann’s husband Robert Clapham. Cf. Ellen’s diary entry for 6 May 1844, following W. M. Heald’s marriage to Mary Carr on 23 Apr.: ‘Mr Heald’s Bride visit’ (MS Texas).

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the letters, 1854

To Mr Ingham,1 Surgeon, [? December 1854 or 2 January 1855] Parsonage Tuesday Afternoon Dear Sir I regret to have to disturb you at a time when you are suVering from illness— but I merely wish to ask if you can send any medicine for our old servant Tabby.2 She has lately been much troubled with diarrhea—and though her appetite is perfectly good and she is not conWned to her bed, and seems in other respects as well as usual—yet her bowels are in such a state that the food she takes passes through almost immediately without warning. If you could send anything to do her good I should be greatly obliged. Trusting you will soon be better I am Yours sincerely C: B: Nicholls MS BPM B.S. 98. W & S 937 (part, as [January, 1855]). Address (integral): Mr. Ingham j Surgeon PM: not in MS. (The note would be delivered by hand.) Annotation in ink in unknown hand: Written Decr 1854 1. Amos Ingham (1827–89; MRCS, LSA 1852; later (1862) MD St Andrews), one of the Haworth surgeons, who had begun his practice there in 1852 and was living at the Manor House in Cookgate. He had married Mary Ackroyd, the daughter of a wealthy worsted-spinner of Oxenhope, on 21 Mar. 1854. He attended Charlotte during her last illness and was to sign her death certiWcate. I am grateful to Mr Stephen Whitehead and Mr Robin Greenwood for their information. 2. Tabby (Tabitha Aykroyd), who was moved to the home of her great-niece Mary RatcliVe (ne´e Wood) in Stubbing Lane (now Sun Street) during this illness, which ended in her death on 17 Feb. 1855. (Information kindly supplied by Ann Dinsdale and Christine Alexander.) Her gravestone in Haworth churchyard describes her as a ‘Faithful Servant of the Bronte¨ Family for over thirty years’.

January–March 1855

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Mrs Gaskell to Catherine Winkworth, 1 January 1855 Extract Plymouth Grove [Manchester] Dearest Katie,—Thanks for your note; and best and kindest wishes for you at the New Year; . . . Miss Bronte´’s letter is very nice; I wish she’d write to me,— should I to her?1 Last time I wrote,2 it was a sort of explanation of my way of looking at her Church (the Establishment) and religion; intended for her husband’s beneWt. She has never answered it. I’m glad she likes ‘‘North and South’’. I did not think Margaret3 was so over good. What would Miss B. say to Florence Nightingale?4 I can’t imagine! for there is intellect such as I never came in contact with before in woman!—only two in men—great beauty, and of her holy goodness, who is Wt to speak? . . . MS untraced. Part of W & S 935. Address: not in source. PM: not in source. Date: from source. Text: Letters and Memorials i. 480. 1. On 4 Apr. 1855, after receiving the news of Charlotte’s death Mrs Gaskell wrote to John Greenwood of Haworth: ‘I had heard nothing of her since the beginning of December when she wrote to a mutual friend saying that she was well, and happy’ (CP letter 232). The friend would be Catherine Winkworth, whose account of her conversation with Charlotte about her forthcoming marriage (to Emma Shaen, 8 May 1854) shows how thoroughly she had gained Charlotte’s trust and aVection. See also Charlotte’s long letter to Catherine Winkworth describing her honeymoon journey (27 July 1854). Charlotte was probably Wnding it diYcult to reconcile Mr Nicholls to her friendship with the Unitarian Gaskells. See her letters to Mrs Gaskell of 30 Sept. 1854 and to EN of 26 Dec. 1854. 2. Mrs Gaskell had replied to Charlotte’s letter of 30 Sept., as she recalled in a letter to George Smith of 4 June 1855: ‘I wrote to her last in October; and she had never replied to that letter, but as she knew I was very busy in completing a task which I extremely disliked, I fancied that her silence arose partly from the sensitive delicacy which always made her hold aloof from even the semblance of interruption or intrusion. Moreover in my last letter I had spoken a good deal of my views of the Church of England, which she knew well enough before, & sympathized in, but which I thought might probably annoy her husband . . . but I had promised her I would be very patient, and trustfully await her bringing him round to tolerate dissenters. And so, . . . I never wrote to her again after that October letter; and I do so regret it now!’ (CP letter 242). 3. Margaret Hale, heroine of North and South. 4. Though Mrs Gaskell agreed with Florence Nightingale’s sister Parthenope that Florence ‘does not care for individuals . . . but for the whole race as being God’s creatures’, she acknowledged that this ‘love for the race’ was intense, and that she showed ‘utter unselWshness in serving & ministering’ (to Emily Shaen 27.10.1854, Gaskell Further Letters 114, 116).

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the letters, 1855

To Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth, 5 January 1855 Haworth. Dear Sir James If all be well we hope to be at the Rose-Grove Station1 at 4—40 on the afternoon of Tuesday next. I would sooner have written to specify the exact time—had I not found a diYculty in procuring an accurate Time-Table—such a convenience not being procurable in Haworth. My Father, I am glad [to]2 say, is pretty well—He and my Husband both beg to join me in sincerest wishes for your happiness and welfare during this year and for many, many years to come. Believe me dear Sir James very faithfully yours C: B: Nicholls MS Cely-Trevilian Collection, Royal Society of Antiquaries. No publication traced. Address (integral): Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth Bart. PM: not in MS. Date: CBN wrote ‘Jany. 6th. 1855’, then corrected it to ‘5th.’ She was writing on Friday. 1. Two miles from Gawthorpe Hall. Charlotte and Arthur Nicholls planned to arrive on 9 Jan., and they stayed at the hall for ‘two or three days’ (Life ii. 321). Mrs Gaskell wrote to George Smith on 5 Apr. 1860: ‘Sir J. P. K. Shuttleworth . . . has generally a double set of motives for all his actions . . . he has a novel,—partly read to Mrs Nicholls the last time she was at Gawthrop [sic],—partly to me, . . . —a novel of Lancashire society, whh is at present in MS & which he wants you to publish I have no doubt’ (CP letter 462) Scarsdale (3 vols.) was published anonymously by Smith, Elder in 1860. In vol. ii, ch. 6, Kay-Shuttleworth describes the landscape ‘down the valley of the Calder’ towards Whalley, and the view from there of ‘steep banks, rising on the east to the last swell of Pendle’—a countryside through which he had taken CB during her visit to Gawthorpe in Mar. 1850. See CBL ii. 366–9. 2. The word after ‘glad’ is obscured by a dark ink blot.

To Ellen Nussey, 19 January 1855 Haworth. Dear Ellen Since our return from *Gawthorpe we have had a Mr. Bell1—one of Arthur’s cousins—staying with us—It was a great pleasure; I wish you could have seen him and made his acquaintance: a true gentleman by nature and cultivation is not after all an everyday thing. As to the living of *Habergham or *Padiham—it appears the chance is doubtful at present for anybody—The present incumbent2 wishes to retract his resignation and declares his intention of appointing a curate for two years. I fear Mr. S[owden] hardly produced a favourable impression; a strong wish was again expressed that Arthur could come—but that is out of the question.

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I very much wish to come to Brookroyd—and I hoped to be able to write with certainty and Wx Wednesday the 31st. Jany. as the day—but the fact is I am not sure whether I shall be well enough to leave home. At present I should be a most tedious visitor. My health has been really very good ever since my return from Ireland till about ten days ago,3 when the stomach seemed quite suddenly to lose its tone—indigestion and continual faint sickness have been my portion ever since. Don’t conjecture—dear Nell—for it is too soon yet—though I certainly never before felt as I have done lately. But keep the matter wholly to yourself—for I can come to no decided opinion at present. I am rather mortiWed to lose my good looks and grow thin as I am doing—just when I thought of going to Brookroyd. Poor Joe *Taylor! I still hope he will get better—but Amelia writes grievous though not always clear or consistent accounts. Dear Ellen I want to see you and I hope I shall see you well. My love to all Yours faithfully C B Nicholls Thank Mr. *Clapham for his hospitable wish—but it would be quite out of Arthur’s power to stay more than one night or two—at the most. MS BPM B.S. 99. W & S 936. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN (i) on 1r: The last letter written with ink (ii) at the end, deleted—perhaps written there in error by EN when she replied: My Sister Ann is ?very far from well, & is ?sadly harrassed by Mercy’s illness. Accept my best love EN 1. The Revd James Adamson Bell (1826–91), a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, BA 1847, MA 1853, ordained 1852. He was the second son of ABN’s uncle Dr Alan Bell and his wife, ne´e Harriette Lucinda Adamson, and had been the headmaster of the Royal Free School at Banagher since 1849. He ‘was forced to leave the school [in January 1867] following an enquiry’ by the Royal Commission on Endowed Schools into his retention of his stipend and rents despite his dismissal of all his pupils in 1865. (See Cochrane 68, 116.) 2. Edward Arundel Verity. See EN 14.11.1854 n. 2. 3. ‘Ten days ago’ would be the day on which the Nichollses travelled to Gawthorpe. Mrs Gaskell, probably unaware of the exact date of the visit, writes: ‘Early in the New Year (1855), Mr. and Mrs. Nicholls went to visit Sir James Kay Shuttleworth at Gawthorpe. They only remained two or three days, but it so fell out that she increased her lingering cold, by a long walk over damp ground in thin shoes. j Soon after her return, she was attacked by new sensations of perpetual nausea, and ever-recurring faintness. After this state of things had lasted for some time, she yielded to Mr. Nicholls’ wish that a doctor should be sent for. He came, and assigned a natural cause for her miserable indisposition; a little patience, and all would go right (Life ii. 321–2). As Mr Bronte¨ informed Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth on 3 Feb., both the local surgeon, Amos Ingham, and Dr Macturk of Bradford apparently conWrmed Charlotte’s suspicion that she might be pregnant, for they considered her sickness ‘symptomatic’. Mrs Gaskell recorded that Martha Brown ‘from time to time tried to cheer her with the thought of the baby that was coming’ (Life ii. 322; see EN c.21.2.1855 n. 1). In late February Charlotte asked Ellen to tell her how long Mary Hewitt was ill ‘and in what way’—i.e during her pregnancy in 1854.

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the letters, 1855

Because Dr Ingham, who signed the death certiWcate, gave the cause as ‘Phthisis’, with no mention of pregnancy, later writers have diVered on the nature of Charlotte’s illness. In ‘A Medical Appraisal of the Bronte¨s’ (BST 16. 82. 101–9) Professor Philip Rhodes accepts the idea that Charlotte ‘died of hyperemesis gravidarum, the pernicious vomiting of pregnancy’ (106) but attributes the excessive degree of her sickness to a neuroticism he perceives throughout her life: ‘Her neurosis was the ultimate cause of her death’ (107). In Charlotte Bronte¨ and Sexuality (Cambridge, 1984), John Maynard points out the circularity of this argument: ‘the theory of her acute neurosis leads to the diagnosis of death which in turn supports the theory of neurosis.’ Maynard observes that Charlotte’s mental health ‘seems good in the records we have of her life before and after her marriage’. Nor can one ‘justify romantic notions that her death was caused by her psychological revulsion from motherhood or marriage’ (224). But, unaware of the supporting evidence provided by Mr Bronte¨’s letter and the signiWcance of Charlotte’s references to Mary Hewitt, Maynard is willing to entertain the view of Dr Gerson Weiss that the assumption of pregnancy should be called into ‘strong question’ (224), and that the ‘simplest explanation’ is that Charlotte ‘died of a severe terminal wasting disease of some sort without pregnancy’ (223). In ‘Charlotte Bronte¨: A Surgeon’s Assessment’ (BST 18. 95. 363–9) H. W. Gallagher suggests that hyperemesis gravidarum and tuberculosis combined to kill Charlotte, but adds that the pregnancy might have been ‘abnormal from the time of conception’: ‘the fertilised ovum, instead of developing into a foetus’ might have become ‘a bag of cysts, known medically as hydatidiform mole’, a rare complication which causes ‘severe vomiting and irregular vaginal bleeding at the onset’ (369). In The Bronte¨s, Juliet Barker supports the view that Charlotte was undoubtedly pregnant: had she not been, ‘her family and friends had ample opportunity to contradict’ Mrs Gaskell’s express statement in the Life. Barker notes that Charlotte’s feverish symptoms ‘are consistent with a urinary infection,’ that her small frame and thinness would lead to rapid and severe deterioration, and that by Wfteen weeks she would have been so emaciated by the constant vomiting ‘which in itself would have caused poisoning of her body Xuids as her kidneys failed, that the death certiWcate verdict of ‘‘phthisis’’, general wasting, would have been appropriate’ (967–8 n. 96).

To Amelia Taylor, ne´e Ringrose, [?21 January 1855] [Haworth] Dear Amelia I have long wanted to see Joe, and both Arthur and Papa have of their own accord suggested my going over for the purpose—but I knew quite well, from the simple directness of your character, that whenever you thought a visit advisable you would say so—and I knew also ’by’ sorrowful experience that visits even from dear friends are rarely advisable during serious sickness. Ellen Nussey used, with a good intention enough, to volunteer her presence when my sisters were ill; it was impossible for me to do with her.—except during the last fortnight when we went from home—and an acquaintance was absolutely indispensable to witness and help in the event1 which I knew too well was about to befal amongst total strangers. I think, if all be well, of going to Brookroyd in the course of a fortnight—My stay will not be very long there—and I can spend one night and one day with you on my road home—if you then think it right that I should do so. This

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arrangement will obviate any awkwardness of the kind to which you allude about E. N[ussey] It is well indeed that you are sustained so far with both husband and child to nurse; but aVection has its peculiar strength, and sorrow is sometimes its own stay. There is one comfort in the nature of poor little Tim’s ailment—I hope it may ultimately ’do’ good—external eruption sometimes relieves the system ’of irritation’ for a long time. As the year turns I still believe and hope Joe will gather strength. When I go to Brookroyd I hope to be better than I am now—till about a fortnight since I have scarcely had an ailment since I was married—but latterly my health has been a good deal disordered—only however by indigestion—loss of appetite and such like annoyances. Papa continues much better—and Arthur is well and Xourishing. His Cousin has been here and the visit was a real treat—He is a cultivated, thoroughly educated man with a mind stored with information gathered from books and travel—and what is far rarer—with the art of conversing appropriately and quietly and never pushing his superiority upon you. His name is James Adamson Bell and he is a clergyman. It is an hourly happiness to me dear Amelia to see how well Arthur and my Father get on together now—there has never been a misunderstanding or wrong word. I wish you continued strength, and I hope comfort may soon come to you dear A. faithfully yours CB: Nicholls. MS Brotherton. W & S 938. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation in unknown hand in pencil: 17 Date W & S date [January 21st, 1855]. No authority for this is given, but it is probably correct. See the following letter for the date of Charlotte’s projected visit to Brookroyd. 1. Anne Bronte¨’s death in Scarborough on 28 May 1849. See CBL ii, esp. 204–23.

The Revd A. B. Nicholls to Ellen Nussey, 23 January 1855 Haworth—Keighley Dear Miss Nussey— As Charlotte is not well, she requests me to answer your letter, & say that it will not be possible for her to visit you earlier than the 31st.—I should say, that unless she improve very rapidly, it will not be advisable for her to leave home even then—

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the letters, 1855

She will be obliged to you to keep 2 lbs of honey for her—she does not know of a customer for the Queens of Scotland1—The remainder of your note she will answer, I hope, soon. Believe me Sincerely yours A: B: Nicholls. MS Brotherton. W & S 939. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Possibly some volumes of Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses connected with the Regal Succession of Great Britain (1850–9). Strickland’s sister Elizabeth collaborated in this work, as she had done in the very successful Lives of the Queens of England (1840–8). See DNB.

The Revd A. B. Nicholls to Ellen Nussey, 29 January 1855 Haworth Keighley Dear Miss Nussey— As Charlotte continues unwell I again write a line for her—She has been conWned to bed for some days, I have sent for Dr. Mac-Turk1 today, as I wish to have better advice than Haworth aVords—Under these circumstances you will see that it is quite impossible to name any date for our visit to you. Charlotte sends her love, & says she will write as soon as she is able— Believe me faithfully your’s A: B: Nicholls MS Brotherton. W & S 940. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Dr William Macturk (1795–1872), MD Glasgow 1823; senior physician to the Bradford InWrmary and Dispensary. He was born in South Cave, Yorks., and had studied in Edinburgh as well as Glasgow. He helped to establish the Bradford InWrmary, and was well known for his skill, honesty, courtesy, and charitable help for the poor. He and his colleagues had warned the public of the approach of cholera in Sept. 1848. See Wroot 124, Macturk’s obituary in the Bradford Observer (4.3.1872, 3), The Bradford Antiquary (1888), 91, and the London and Provincial Medical Directory (1854), 481. Charlotte had used his name for the skilled doctor mentioned in Shirley, chs. 24 and 32. Unlike the Wctional Macturk, the Bradford doctor was ‘possessed of a genuine and even tender sympathy; the quietness of his demeanour inspired conWdence’ (Bradford Observer obituary.)

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A. B. Nicholls to Ellen Nussey, 1 February 1855 Haworth Dear Miss Nussey— Dr. Macturk saw Charlotte on Tuesday.1 His opinion was that her illness would be of some duration,—but that there was no immediate danger—I trust therefore that in a few weeks she will be well again— We were very much concerned to hear of your Sister’s continued illness, both on your account & hers—Charlotte begs you will write a line soon to let her know how Miss Mercy gets on—& she is sure she can trust you to excuse her from answering until she is able— Believe me yrs. faithfully A: B: Nicholls MS Brotherton. W & S 941. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. 30 Jan.

The Revd P. Bronte¨ to Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, 3 February 1855 Haworth My Dear Sir James, Owing to my Dear Daughter’s indisposition, she has desired me to answer your kind letter, by return of post—For several days past, she has been conWn’d to her bed, where she still lies, oppress’d with nausea, sickness, irritation, and a ?slow feverish feeling—and a consequent want of appetite and digestion, —Our Village, Surgeon,1 visits her daily, and we have had a visit from Dr. Mackturk of Bradford—who, both think her sickness is symptomatic— and that after a few weeks they hope her health, will again return—nevertheless the trying circumstance gives much uneasiness in our little family circle—where till lately, considering our respective ages, we have all been, in good health and spirits,—I have read with much interest, and a thorough sense of gratitude to you, and the celebrated Medical Gentleman you consulted, the scientiWc opinion, respecting the state of my eyes—Events subsequent to the temporary obscuration, seem to justify, what you have stated—My sight has been gradually improving, and appears—under Providence, to give earnest, that it may suYce for my wants, so that, I shall be able to see to read and write, and Wnd my way,

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without a guide, as long as I shall live—This, at my advanced age, is all I can reasonably expect, or that God may be pleased to give—Though, Mr. and Mrs. Nicholls, and I, sincerely sympathise, with you, and Lady Kay Shuttleworth2 on account of Her Ladyship’s loss in the death, of so near a relative, yet we rejoice, that your health is improving—and that, the horrid Nuralgia,3 is less frequent in its visits, and has lost some of that virulence, which often [extends]4 its direful inXuence to body and Mind. Mr. and Mrs. Nicholls, join me, in the most respectful regards—and as soon as my dear Daughter gets better, she will no doubt, give you a stat[e]ment, of circumstances, in a manner more satisfactory, than I am able to do—I remain, My Dear Sir James, Very respectfully, Your Obedient Servant, P. Bronte¨ MS Brotherton. Frank Smith, The Life and Work of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth (1923) 227 (part). Address (integral): To Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, Bart. j The Athanaeum Club. j Pall Mall. j London. PM: not in MS. 1. Probably Amos Ingham, to whom Charlotte had written in Dec. 1854 or Jan.1855 requesting medicine for Tabitha Aykroyd. See n. 1 to Charlotte’s letter. After quoting that letter, Lock and Dixon write, without giving their source, ‘Dr Ingham continued ill and the young local accoucheur, Crawshaw Dugdale, frequently attended Charlotte’ (LD 474). Winifred Ge´rin also refers to Dugdale: ‘Little Dr. Dugdale, barely beginning his long career as the village accoucheur, carried into old age the regret and humiliation of losing his Wrst—and most illustrious—patient. Of all the babies he lost, he used to say, the one that grieved him most was Charlotte Bronte¨’s’ (Ge´rin CB 566). But Dugdale is described in the Census records for Haworth as a ‘medical assistant’, not a doctor. In 1855 he was about 17 years old. (Information by courtesy of Mr Stephen Whitehead.) 2. In Feb. 1855 Janet Kay-Shuttleworth was abroad. Though she returned to England for a time from July 1855, she did not rejoin her husband, but stayed with friends in London (Selleck 299–300). Janet’s mother, whose second husband was Frederick North, had died on 17 Jan. 1855. She had been very ill, and much concerned about her daughter’s marital troubles, but Lady Kay-Shuttleworth did not return from Homburg to attend the funeral. When she returned to England in July, her stepfather ‘gave her her mother’s diamonds. ‘‘She made not a remark,’’ he noted bitterly, ‘‘except that they were all right’’ ’ (Selleck 295, quoting Frederick North’s diary, and 445 n. 65). 3. Thus in MS. 4. Mr Bronte¨ wrote ‘?extendense’. The last three letters are indistinct.

The Revd A. B. Nicholls to Ellen Nussey, 14 February 1855 Haworth— Dear Miss Nussey— It is diYcult to write to friends about my wife’s illness, as its cause is yet uncertain—at present she is completely prostrated with weakness & sickness & frequent fever—All may turn out well in the end, & I hope it will; if you

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1

saw [her] you would perceive that she can maintain no correspondence at present— She thinks of you & sympathizes with you in your present aZiction,2 & longed much to hear from you— Believe me Sincerely yrs. A: B: Nicholls. P.S. Till lately Mr. Bronte¨ was very [well],3 he is now however suVering from bronchial irritation— MS Brotherton. W & S 942. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Mr Nicholls’s omission of ‘her’ in this sentence and of ‘well’ in the postscript reXects his anxiety and preoccupation with Charlotte’s illness. Juliet Barker notes that Charlotte also must have feared that she might not recover. On 17 Feb. she made her will in terms which were a convincing proof of the happiness and trust of her marriage. She overturned her marriage settlement, which had provided for her estate to go to her children, if she had any, or failing issue, to be paid out as if she had died intestate—i.e. to her father. See GS 18.4.1854 n. 2. But in her will she declared ‘In case I die without issue I give and bequeath to my husband all my property to be his absolutely & entirely; but in case I leave issue I bequeath to my husband the interest of my property during his lifetime, and at his death I desire that the principal should go to my surviving child, or children; should there be more than one child, share and share alike.’ She appointed her husband the sole executor of her will (Charlotte Nicholls, Last Will and Testament, MS Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York). There was no provision for Mr Bronte¨, who witnessed, with Martha Brown, Charlotte’s ‘shaky signature’. ‘The will was a declaration of Charlotte’s absolute faith in her husband’s integrity; she now knew that he did not require a legal obligation to compel him to look after her father’ (Barker 770). 2. Mercy Nussey recovered from her illness. See Charlotte’s letter to EN, on or after 21 Feb. 1855, below. 3. ‘well’ added in an unknown hand, in pencil.

To Laetitia Wheelwright, 15 February 1855 [Haworth] Dear Laetitia A few lines of acknowledgment your letter shall have whether well or ill. At present I am conWned to my bed with illness and have been so for 3 weeks. Up to this period since my marriage I have had excellent health—My Husband & I live at home with my Father—of course I could not leave him. He is pretty well— better than last summer. No kinder better husband than mine it seems to me can there be in the world. I do not want now for kind companionship in health and the tenderest nursing in sickness.

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the letters, 1855

Deeply I sympathize in all you tell me about Dr. Wheelwright1—and in your excellent Mamma’s anxiety—I trust he will not risk another operation. I cannot write more now for I am much reduced and very weak— God bless you all! Yours aVectionately C B Nicholls MS King’s School, Canterbury. W & S 943. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Laetitia’s father, Dr Thomas Wheelwright (1786–1861) had probably already had one operation for cataract. See LW 12.4.1852, [c. 23.6.1852].

To Ellen Nussey, [on or after 21 February 1855] [Haworth] My dear Ellen I must write one line out of my weary bed. The news of Mercy’s probable recovery came like a ray of joy to me. I am not going to talk about my suVerings1 it would be useless and painful—I want to give you an assurance which I know will comfort you—and that is that I Wnd in my husband the tenderest nurse, the kindest support—the best earthly comfort that ever woman had. His patience never fails and it is tried by sad days and broken nights. Write & tell me about Mrs. Hewitt’s case, how long she was ill and in what way.2 Papa thank God! is better—Our poor old Tabby is dead and buried.3 Give my truest love to Miss Wooler. May God comfort and help you. C B Nicholls MS BPM B.S. 101. W & S 944. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Date: on the day of or later than Tabitha Aykroyd’s burial on 21 Feb. 1855. Text: very faint but legible, written in pencil. 1. Mrs Gaskell writes: ‘She, who was ever patient in illness, tried hard to bear up and bear on. But the dreadful sickness increased and increased, till the very sight of food occasioned nausea. ‘‘A wren would have starved on what she ate during those last six weeks,’’ says one. Tabby’s health had suddenly and utterly given way, and she died in this time of distress and anxiety. . . Martha tenderly waited on her mistress, and from time to time tried to cheer her with the thought of the baby that was coming. ‘‘I dare say I shall be glad sometime,’’ she would say; ‘‘but I am so ill—so weary—’’ Then she took to her bed, too weak to sit up. From that last couch she wrote two notes—in pencil. The Wrst . . . is addressed to her own ‘‘Dear Nell’’’. (The present letter follows, transcribed with some inaccuracies. See Life ii. 322–3). Mrs Gaskell had also seen the letter to Laetitia Wheelwright of 15 Feb., but not the subsequent letters to EN and Amelia Taylor. As Charlotte’s letter to Laetitia shows, she had been conWned to bed since the last week in January.

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2. A clear indication that Charlotte thought she was pregnant. Mary Hewitt had been ill during her pregnancy in 1854, but had borne a son in or before December. See her letter to EN of 24 Apr. 1854, and Charlotte’s to EN of 31 Oct. 1854, 7 Dec. 1854, and notes. 3. Tabitha Aykroyd had died on 17 Feb. Mr Nicholls took her burial service on 21 Feb.

To Amelia Taylor, ne´e Ringrose [?late February 1855] [Haworth] Dear Amelia Let me speak the plain truth—my suVerings are very great—my nights indescribable—sickness with scarce a reprieve—I strain until what I vomit is mixed with blood. Medicine I have quite discontinued—If you can send me anything that will do good—do. As to my husband—my heart is knit to him1—he is so tender, so good, helpful, patient. Poor Joe! long has he to suVer.2 May God soon send him, you, all of us health strength—comfort! C.B. Nicholls MS BPM B.S. 103. W & S 946. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. Annotation: in faint brown ink on the incomplete fo. 2v, in an unknown hand: cocoa nibs Date: W & S 946 gives the date ‘February 1855’. The letter precedes those to EN and Amelia Taylor in which Charlotte describes herself as slightly better during the milder weather—i.e between 28 Feb. and 6 Mar. Text: very faint, in pitifully uneven pencil writing. 1. Cf. I Chronicles 12: 17, ‘Mine heart shall be knit unto you’, and Colossians 2: 2, ‘That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love.’ 2. For Joe Taylor’s illness, see Charlotte’s letters to Amelia of Dec. 1854.

To Amelia Taylor, ne´e Ringrose [?early March 1855] [Haworth] Dear Amelia I’ll try to write a line myself. The medicines produced no perceptible eVect on me but I thank you for them all the same. I would not let Arthur write to Dr. Henriquez1—I knew it would be wholly useless. For 2 days I have been something better—owing to the milder weather.2 We all grieve that there is no better news of Joe. Oh for happier times! My little Grandchild3—when shall I see her again? God bless you! C B Nicholls

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the letters, 1855

Write when you can. I think of you all very much. MS BPM B.S. 102. W & S 947 as ‘[February, 1855]’. Address (integral): Mrs. J. Taylor PM: not in MS. Date: uncertain. W & S 947 dates ‘[February, 1855]’. See n. 2 below. Text: written unevenly in pencil. 1. Charlotte’s indistinct writing accounts for the misreading ‘Dr. Hemingway’ in W & S 947. For Dr Henriquez, see EN 7.9.1854 n.3. 2. The Annual Register for 1855 shows that there was very little mild weather in the early months of the year: ‘On the 14th [January], a period of very cold weather set in, and continued without intermission to the 24th February. . . From the 24th February to the 6th March, the weather was more moderate; but on that day the cold again set in, and the weather continued, to the 26th June, to be cold, nipping, and miserable beyond record. . . . the wind was almost uniformly N.E. . . . snow fell on the 9th January, and on every day, at one station or other corresponding with the Meteorological Society, from January 13 to February 28, from March 8 to the end of the month, and frequently to the middle of May. . . deaths greatly exceeded the average . . . ’ (Annual Register (1855), ‘Chronicle’ 1.) See also Mr Nicholls’s comments in his letter to EN of 15 Mar. 3. ‘Tim’ Taylor, of whom Charlotte was very fond, and who called her ‘grandmamma’. See Charlotte’s letter to Amelia Taylor of late Dec. 1854, p. 311.

To Ellen Nussey, [?early March 1855] [Haworth] My dear Ellen Thank you much for Mrs. Hewitt’s sensible clear letter. Thank her too. In much her case was wonderfully like mine—but I am reduced to greater weakness—the skeleton emaciation is the same1 &c. &c. &c. I cannot talk— even to my dear patient constant Arthur I can say but few words at once. These last two days I have been somewhat better—and have taken some beeftea—spoonsful of wine & water—a mouthful of light pudding at diVerent times— Dear Ellen, I realize full well what you have gone through & will have to go through with poor Mercy—Oh may you continue to be supported and not sink! Sickness here has been terribly rife. Papa is well now. Kindest regards to Mr. & Mrs. C[lapham] your Mother, Mercy. Write when you can. yours C B Nicholls MS BPM B.S. 100. W & S 945 as ‘[February, 1855]’. Address (integral): Miss E Nussey PM: not in MS. Annotation by EN: Dear CB’s pencilled letters from her bed of death Date: uncertain, but probably on the same day as the letter to Amelia Taylor beginning ‘I’ll try to write a line’, in which Charlotte writes, as in the present note, that she has been ‘somewhat better’ for two days. On 15 Mar. Mr Nicholls described her as ‘better last week’. Text written in very faint pencil. 1. Charlotte may mean that Mary Hewitt also was emaciated during her pregnancy, or that her own emaciation continued.

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The Revd A. B. Nicholls to Ellen Nussey, 15 March 1855 Haworth—Keighley My dear Miss Nussey Be assured you have all our sympathies in the awful & painful event,1 which has just befallen your household—I broke the sad news to Charlotte as gently as I could but it was a great shock—She is much concerned both on your account, and that of poor Mrs. Clapham & also at the thought that she shall never see again one, whom she greatly respected. These seem troubled times, my dear Miss Nussey.2 May God support you through them— Charlotte was better last week3—This week I am sorry to say she has again suVered much—The bad weather has thrown her back—You do not mention Miss Mercy, but we should be glad to know how she is getting on, when you can write again— Believe me Yrs. very sincerely A. B. Nicholls MS Brotherton. W & S 948. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. The sudden death on 12 Mar. of Ellen’s brother-in-law Robert Clapham, reported in the Leeds Intelligencer for 17 Mar.: ‘On Monday last after two days illness greatly respected Mr Robert Clapham Brookroyd near Birstal in his 68th year.’ I am grateful to Mrs Louise Barnard for this information. 2. Juliet Barker notes that Mr Nicholls had ‘not failed to do his parochial duties’ despite his anxiety about Charlotte, and that he had to ‘conduct the prayers and services on 21 March . . . [a] day of National Humiliation and Prayer because of the war in Russia’ (Barker 771–2). 3. Mr Nicholls was writing on Thursday. It was probably in the previous week that Charlotte wrote of having been ‘better’ for two days.

The Revd Patrick Bronte to Ellen Nussey, 30 March 1855 Haworth Near Keighley My Dear Madam, We are all in great trouble, and Mr. Nicholls so much so, that he is not so suYciently strong, and composed as to be able to write— I therefore devote a few moments, to tell you, that my Dear Daughter is very ill, and apparently on the verge of the grave— If she could speak, she would no doubt dictate to us whilst answering your kind letter, but we are left to ourselves, to give what answer we can—The

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the letters, 1855

Doctors have no hope of her case, and fondly as we a long time, cherished hope, that hope is now gone, and we [have] only to look forward to the solemn event, with prayer to God, that he will give us grace and Strength suYcient unto our day—1 Will you be so kind as to write to Miss Wooler, and Mrs. Joe Taylor, and inform them that we requested you to do so—telling them of our present condition.— Ever truly and respectfully Yours, P. Bronte¨ MS Princeton. W & S 949. Address (integral): To j Miss Nussey, j Brookroyd, j Birstal j Nr. Leeds— PM: not in MS. 1. Cf. St Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12: 9: ‘And [the Lord] said unto me, My grace is suYcient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’

The Revd A. B. Nicholls to Ellen Nussey, 31 March 1855 Haworth Dear Miss Nussey Mr. Bronte`’s letter would prepare you for the sad intelligence I have to communicate—Our dear Charlotte is no more—she died last night of Exhaustion.1 For the last two or three weeks we had become very uneasy about her, but it was not until Sunday Evening that it became apparent that her sojourn with us was likely to be short—We intend to bury her on Wednesday morn[in]g—.2 Believe me Sincerely yours A. B. Nicholls MS BPM B.S. 247.2. Mourning stationery. W & S 950. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Charlotte died early in the morning of Saturday 31 Mar. Mrs Gaskell writes of the period following Charlotte’s letter to Laetitia Wheelwright of 15 Feb.: ‘Long days and longer nights went by; still the same relentless nausea and faintness, and still borne on in patient trust. About the third week in March there was a change; a low wandering delirium came on; and in it she begged constantly for food and even for stimulants. She swallowed eagerly now; but it was too late. Wakening for an instant from this stupor of intelligence, she saw her husband’s woe-worn face, and caught the sound of some murmured words of prayer that God would spare her. ‘‘Oh!’’ she whispered forth, ‘‘I am not going to die, am I? He will not separate us, we have been so happy.’’ j Early on Saturday morning, March 31 st, the solemn tolling of Haworth church-bell spoke forth the fact of her death . . . ’ (Life ii. 323–4). Two old servants and friends, Hannah Dawson and Martha Brown, were present at her death. ‘Her husband was reclining in another room worn out with watching’ (The Halifax Courier 8.12.1906, reprinted in The British Weekly

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20.12.1906; quoted in Bronte¨ Newsletter, 3 (1984), 3.) LD 477 gives a diVerent account: ‘As Charlotte died, Nicholls sprawled across the bed in a convulsion of grief, sobbing loudly. Patrick stood upright with dry eyes. Then, completely under control, he quietly turned and left the room, leaving Martha and Tabitha Brown wondering at his hardness of feeling. After her sister had closed Charlotte’s eyes, Tabitha left the room, followed by Martha, leaving the shattered husband alone with his beloved. Thinking that Patrick had gone down to his study, Tabitha opened his bedroom door and then stopped abruptly. Patrick was kneeling by his bed in an attitude of prayer and crying in agonized tones, ‘‘My poor Charlotte! My dear Charlotte!’’ ’ Probably Mr Nicholls was called into Charlotte’s room as soon as Martha Brown and the women helping her realized that death was imminent. Amos Ingham signed the death certiWcate, giving the cause of death as ‘Phthisis’—wasting disease, a term most often used for the wasting accompanying tuberculosis, but in Charlotte’s case probably caused by excessive sickness during pregnancy (hyperemesis gravidarum). See EN 19.1.1855 n. 3. 2. In her letters to George Smith of 28 Mar. 1860 (MS Berg) and 1 June 1860 (MS Murray) Ellen Nussey recalled that she had travelled to Haworth as soon as possible after receiving Mr Bronte¨’s letter of 30 Mar., arriving there on the 31st. At Martha Brown’s request she placed Xowers and evergreens ‘on the lifeless form’. Mr Bronte¨ ‘did not appear at Wrst, but he sent a message requesting’ her to stay for the interment. She remained at the Parsonage, leaving about an hour after the funeral on 4 Apr. The service was taken by Mr Nicholls’s friend, the Revd SutcliVe Sowden, who had taken his marriage service. ‘Those who were excluded from the formal train of mourners thronged the churchyard and church, to see [her] carried forth, and laid beside her own people’ in the vault beneath the church-aisle (Life ii. 325).

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April 1855

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The Revd Patrick Bronte¨ to Mrs Gaskell, 5 April 1855 Haworth, Nr. Keighley, My Dear Madam, I thank you for your kind sympathy—My Daughter, is indeed, dead, and the solemn truth presses upon her worthy, and aVectionate ’Husband’ and me, with great, and it may be with unusual weight—But, others, also, have, or shall have their sorrows, and we feel our own the most—The marriage that took place, seem’d to hold forth, long, and bright prospects of happiness, but in the inscrutable providence of God, all our hopes, have ended in disappointment, and our joy <ended> in mourning1—May we resign to the will of the Most High—After three months of Sickness, a tranquil death closed the scene. But our loss we trust is her gain—But why should I trouble ’you’ longer with our sorrows. ‘‘The heart knoweth its own bitterness’’2—and we ought to bear with fortitude our own grievances, & not to bring others—into our suVerings— With my very respectful regards to Mr. Gaskel[l], and your Family, I remain, my Dear Madam, Yours, respectfully & truly, P: Bronte¨ P.S. Excuse this scrawl, I am not Wt, at present, to write much—nor to write satisfactorily. MS Rylands. Mourning stationery. LD 479. Address (integral): Mrs. E. C. Gaskell, j 17—Cumberland Terrace, j Regents Park, j London.3 PM: not in MS. 1. Cf. James 4: 9, ‘Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness’, and contrast Jeremiah 31: 13, ‘For I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them.’ 2. Cf. Proverbs 14: 10. 3. Mrs Gaskell was staying with her relatives Hensleigh and Frances Wedgwood, whose daughter Frances Julia (‘Snow’, 1833–1913) was to be one of her amanuenses when she wrote the Life of Charlotte Bronte¨. Gaskell had received the news of Charlotte’s death from John Greenwood, the stationer of Haworth, whom she had met during her visit there. Replying to him on 4 Apr., the day on which she must also have written to Mr Bronte¨, she wrote, ‘I can not tell you how VERY sad your note has made me. My dear dear friend that I shall never see again on earth! I did not even know she was ill. . . . I was meaning to write to her this very day, to tell her of the appearance of a copy of my new book, whh I was sending to her . . . strangers might know her by her great fame, but we loved her dearly for her goodness, truth, and kindness . . . I loved her dearly, more than I think she knew.’ On 12 Apr. she wrote again to Greenwood: ‘How I wish I had known! . . . I do fancy that if I had come, I could have induced her,—even though they had all felt angry with me at Wrst,—to do what was so absolutely necessary, for her very life’ (CP letters 232 and 233). Opinion is divided on the interpretation of ‘what was . . . necessary’: it is possible that Mrs Gaskell believed she might persuade or help Charlotte to induce a premature birth, or terminate her pregnancy. See Anna Unsworth, ‘Mrs Gaskell and Charlotte Bronte¨’, Gaskell Society Newsletter, 8 (Aug. 1989), 17–18, Rebecca Fraser, Charlotte Bronte¨ (1988), 488, and Jenny Uglow, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories (1993), 389 and 656 n. 4.

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the letters, 1855

The Revd A. B. Nicholls to ?Mary Hewitt, ne´e Gorham,1 11 April 1855 Haworth Parsonage Keighley My dear Madam— Mr. Bronte & myself thank you very sincerely for your sympathy with us in our sad bereavement—our loss is indeed great—the loss of one as good as she was gifted—Altho’ she had been ill from the beginning of January, it was only a few days previous to her death that we became alarmed for her safety—On [the]2 whole she had not much suVering—she spoke little during the last few days, but continued quite conscious— Mr. Bronte¨ is pretty well, tho’ of course the present trial is a great shock to him—I return your letter as I do not know ?the3 address—Again thanking you for your sympathy I am dear Madam, Yrs. faithfully A. B. Nicholls MS Brotherton. Mourning stationery. W & S 951. Address: not in MS. W & S 951 adds a footnote, ‘Under cover to Ellen Nussey’. PM: not in MS. 1. Mary Hewitt is the probable recipient. EN had forwarded one of her letters to Charlotte in ?early Mar. 1855. See p. 328. Shorter 703 is headed ‘To Ellen Nussey’, and the ‘address’ mentioned in the last paragraph is glossed: ‘The address of Laetitia Wheelwright.’ But Ellen Nussey had never met Laetitia, whereas Mary was a close friend. Joseph J. Green, the husband of Emily Poulter, Dr Wheelwright’s eldest daughter, wrote that Mr Nicholls did not know Laetitia Wheelwright’s address, and so did not send her the news of Charlotte’s death ( J. J. Green, The Bronte¨–Wheelwright Friendship (SheYeld, 1916). 2. ABN omits ‘the’. 3. MS may read ‘her’ address.

The Revd A. B. Nicholls to E. Nussey, 16 April 1855 Haworth. Keighley— Dear Miss Nussey— We thank you for your kind Enquiries after our health[.] We are, thank God, no worse than when you left us—Will you be so kind as to thank your Mother & sister ’on our behalf’ for their sympathy for us in our aZiction—

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337 1

I trust that Miss Wooler is better—I was glad to hear that Mr. Taylor was not so bad as was expected—I understand he continues to be rather better. Believe me Yrs. sincerely A. B. Nicholls MS Brotherton. Mourning stationery. W & S 952. Address: not in MS. PM: not in MS. 1. Joseph Taylor of Hunsworth.

The Revd Patrick Bronte¨ to George Smith,1 20 April 1855 Haworth, Nr Keighley My Dear Sir, I thank you for your kind sympathy, Having heard my Dear Daughter speak so much about you and your Family, your letter seem’d to be one from an old Friend. Her Husband’s sorrow and mine, <are> is indeed very great—We Mourn the loss of one, whose like, we hope not, ever to see again—and as you justly state we do not mourn alone—That you may ?never experimentally know, Sorrow such as ours,2 and that when trouble does come, you may receive, due aid from Heaven, is the sincere wish and ardent prayer, of yours, very respectfully & truly, P. Bronte¨ MS Murray. Mourning stationery. W & S 953. Address (integral): To j Geo. Smith Esqr. j 65, Cornhill, London. PM: not in MS. 1. George Smith co-operated with and advised Mrs Gaskell during her writing of the Life of Charlotte Bronte¨, a practical sign of his friendship for Charlotte as well as of his commercial shrewdness, though he failed to prevent Gaskell’s ‘libellous’ statements. See Mrs Gaskell’s side of her correspondence with him, from 31 May 1855 (CP letter 241). The warmth of Charlotte’s personal friendship for him, and her bitter disappointment at the cooling of his attitude to her, were not to be fully revealed until his descendant, Mrs Seton-Gordon, bequeathed Charlotte’s letters to the Bronte¨ Parsonage Museum. 2. George Smith knew the sorrow of the deaths of two of his sisters, Sarah and Eliza, but his wife and all his children survived him (‘Memoir of George Smith’, DNB (Supplement), xxii, p. xlvii).

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Undated Letters

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To Mrs Thomas1 Miss Bronte¨ is much obliged to Mrs. Thomas for her kind invitation and though circumstances will prevent Miss Bronte¨ from accepting it—she is not on that account the less sensible of Mrs T——’s politeness in asking her j Miss Bronte¨ hopes sincerely that Mrs Thoma’s [sic] party will have Wne weather for their excursion to-morrow. j Friday Morning MS Montague. 1. Mrs Thomas probably belonged to the Thomas family of Haworth, wine-merchants. ‘R Thomas, Esq, Haworth’ received one of CB’s wedding-cards in June 1854. See above, p. 272.

To Miss Greenwood [Haworth] My dear Miss Greenwood1 I return you Mrs. Ellis’s2 work and thank you sincerely for the loan of it. I began to read it with some prejudice, never having heard it spoken of but in very qualiWed terms of approbation; but the prejudice wore oV as I proceeded. I see the writer’s aim is excellent and in pursuing it she keeps a single eye to the great end of beneWting her race and thinks little of displaying her own talents. I honour such a woman for her conscientiousness, her courage and her candour and wish her book had a place in every library and its principles a hold on every heart. Give my best regards to Mrs. Carlill3 who I hope is well and believe me Yours faithfully C Bronte¨ Tuesday Morning MS Montague. No publication traced. Address (integral): Miss Greenwood PM: not in MS. Annotation in unknown hand: Refers to ‘‘The Value of Heath’’ [sic, for ‘Health’] j by Mrs Sarah Hickney [sic, for Stickney] Ellis London 1849. j Charlotte Bronti Date: uncertain, but unlikely to be 1849 since CB was using mourning stationery in that year and until May 1850. The paper used is cream wove, a kind CB occasionally used for draft letters; her usual writing paper June 1850–Feb. 1855 was cream laid. The signature rules out any date after 29 June 1854, the date of her marriage. See also n. 2 below. 1. Probably Sarah Greenwood (1811–93), the unmarried daughter of George Greenwood of Hull (1774–1856) by his second marriage. She was the half-sister of William Greenwood jun. (1800– 93) of Old Oxenhope Hall, and joined him there, probably in the 1850s, possibly after the death of her mother in 1852. Both William and Sarah were Baptists, but William was one of Mr

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undated letters

Bronte¨’s churchwardens in 1843 and 1845. According to his obituary in the Keighley News for 4 Nov. 1893, William was ‘on terms of closest intimacy’ with the Bronte¨s, and his house was one of the few which they ‘visited socially’. I am most grateful to Mr Robin Greenwood and Sarah Fermi for information about the Greenwoods. 2. For Sarah Ellis (1799–1872), proliWc author of conduct books, and reviewer of Shirley and Jane Eyre on 1 Jan. 1850, see CBL ii. 329 n. Boase i. 986 gives her date of birth as 1812, not 1799, and describes her as the daughter of a farmer, William Stickney of Ridgmont (in the Holderness district of East Yorkshire) near Hull. She moved to Hoddesdon, Herts., after her marriage in 1837. Robin Greenwood points out that she might have been known to William and Sarah Greenwood, who were born and brought up in Hull, and to Mrs Carlill. Mrs Ellis’s The Value of Health (London, 1854) was a 15-page booklet. Copies recorded in the British Library Catalogue and National Union Catalogue (in a list of Temperance addresses and essays) both have this date, but there might have been an earlier printing. The work is not listed among her publications in the Publishers’ Circulars for 1853 or 1854, Boase, DNB (where her writings are listed after those of her husband, the Revd William Ellis), or in the Dictionary of British Women Writers, ed. Janet Todd (1989), 221–3. Unfortunately the British Library copy of the pamphlet is missing, and there is no copy in the Wellcome Trust Library. 3. Sarah, ne´e Greenwood (1765–1859), daughter of William Greenwood of Old Oxenhope (1728–79), and aunt of the William and Sarah Greenwood named in n. 1. She had married John Carlill (d. 1830), a Hull shipowner, in 1802, and probably returned to Old Oxenhope after his death, since she was recorded as present there in the 1841 and 1851 Census lists.

Appendices

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I . M S F R AG M E N T S I N C H A R LOT T E B R O N T E¨ ’ S H A N D This list includes fragments which may not be parts of letters. It does not include fragments which have been conjecturally assigned to and printed as parts of dated letters. 1. . . . pretentious seal was from one G. W. M. Reynolds requesting a contribution to ‘‘Reynold’s Miscellany.’’ Can [?this] be Reynolds of Mysteries—of— [verso] and yours. j I am, my dear Sir j Yours sincerely j C Bronte¨ MS Kent Bicknell; not mourning stationery. The wording of the valediction shows that the letter was probably to W. S. Williams. George William MacArthur Reynolds (1814–79), journalist, novelist, and radical politician, started Reynolds’s Miscellany, a sensational Wction weekly, in 1846, and was its editor until 1869. He was also the author of popular penny-dreadfuls: the Wrst two of four series of Mysteries of London (collected in 4 vols., 1845–8), followed by Mysteries of the Court of London (1849–56), in imitation of Euge`ne Sue’s Les Myste`res de Paris (1842–3). 2. The Author of ‘‘Villette’’ begs to inform Dr. W: that the catastrophe of that work is left to the imagination and taste of the reader. The lover of tragedy will decide one way; the cheerfully disposed will take the opposite view. j C B Transcript among the papers of Mildred Christian at BPM. The MS is said to be in the National Library of Ireland, but the curator informs me that the document is now illegible. It may not have been an authentic autograph. 3. . . . you, I hope I may not soon forget their good conduct [verso] <Miss N . . . ]> MS BPM B.S. Accompanied by a.l.s. dated Haworth, 9 July 1857 from Mr Bronte¨ to Miss Jenkins of Bath: ‘The annexed scrap is all I can spare, of my dear daughter Charlotte Bronte¨, I have had so many applications that my store is nealy [sic] exhausted . . . ’ 4. ?Landor’s Geeks [sic] & Romans MS Princeton, Parrish collection. A ‘pencil’d scrap’ said by Mr Bronte¨ to be ‘all I can now spare of my Dear Daughter Charlotte’s Handwriting’ when he sent it to ‘Miss Wrigly, Nr. HuddersWeld’ on 4 June 1860. CB was presumably alluding to the classical dialogues in Walter Savage Landor’s series of ‘Imaginary Conversations’, which had begun in 1824. Edward Moxon

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appendices published an edition entitled Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans in 1853.

5. . . . of a ministry ever . . . and devoted— . . . them in common MS oVered for sale by Sotheby’s of London, 13 July 2000, lot 45. Authenticated as ‘The Autograph of Charlotte Bronte¨—’ by ‘A: B: Nicholls—Haworth Parsonage Augt. 10th—1860’. 6. . . . as genuine as j . . . in the great j . . . seen Wt to MS Alan Gill Esq. Authenticated as CB’s hand by ‘A: B: Nicholls j Haworth Parsonage j Augt. 15. 1860.’ 7. towards their . . . j ss their hope . . . j Mr. Heald . . . j for many. . . j [?fr]iends and . . . MS BPM B.S. 243.2. Authenticated as ‘The Autograph of j Charlotte Bronte´’ by ‘A: B: Nicholls j Haworth Parsonage j January 11th. 1861’. 8. all sincerity. . . j has endured ?sep . . . j Sister and a co . . . MS BPM B.S. 243.5. Authenticated as ‘The Autograph of Charlotte Bronte´’ by ‘A: B: Nicholls j Haworth Parsonage. j March 22nd. 1861’. 9. [ . . . d an example: j . . . for consolation j . . . a pure life MS Brown University. Authenticated as ‘The Autograph of Charlotte Bronte´’ by ‘A: B: Nicholls j Haworth Parsonage j Augt. 19th. 1861’. 10. [front of envelope addressed by CB to:] Revd. P. Bronte¨ j Haworth j Keighley j Yorkshire MS BPM. Authenticated as ‘The autograph of Charlotte Bronte¨’ by ‘A. B. Nicholls j Banagher j Novr. 1st. 1861’. 11. . . . eccentric—you would j . . . were—however I sw [verso]: believe me Yours truly j C Bronte¨ MS oVered for sale by Phillips of London, 14 Nov. 1991, along with MS of EN [?28 May 1836] (CBL i. 145). 12. G. H. Lewes Esqr. j 26 Bedford Place j Kensington MS BPM B.S. 104/66, fragment of envelope. Rosemary Ashton notes that G. H. and Agnes Lewes moved to 26 Bedford Square [sic], Kensington, in June 1846, and that Lewes probably left home after July 1852 (Ashton 332–4). CB’s extant correspondence with Lewes occurs between 6 Nov. 1847 and 23 Nov. 1850. 13. W. S. Williams Esqr. j 65 Cornhill j London

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MS BPM B.S. 104/66, fragment of envelope. CB habitually directed her letters to Williams at Smith, Elder’s premises. 14. Your aVectionate daughter j Cbronte [Thus in catalogue transcription. Original MS not seen.] MS oVered for sale by Bonhams of London, 17/18 Dec. 2002. Described as ‘pasted into an album with the note above ‘‘Autograph Signature of Charlotte Bronte presented to C. E. Tisdale by Revd Arthur Bell Nicholls— Incumbent of Haworth Yorkshire husband of Charlotte Bronte—sent by Mr Nichols [sic] Augt. 26th 1876’’ with Nicholl’s signature (presumably from the covering letter) pasted below.’ [Mr Nicholls had been the curate, not the incumbent of Haworth, and had lived in Banagher, Ireland, from Oct. 1861.]

I I . L I S T O F M A N U S C R I P T OW N E R S A N D LO C AT I O N S The Beinecke Library, Yale The Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library Mrs Karen Bicknell Dr Kent Bicknell Birmingham University Library UK The Bodleian Library, Oxford Boston Public Library, Mass. The British Library The Bronte¨ Society, Bronte¨ Parsonage Museum, Haworth The Brotherton Collection, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island BuValo Public Library, BuValo, NY Columbia University, New York The Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, Devonshire Collections Enys Autograph Collection, The Royal Institution of Cornwall, Truro Eton College Library The Fales Library, New York University The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Mr James Frazer Mr Alan Gill Ms L. Glading Sir James Graham and the Executors of Colonel B. C. Greenwood, deceased Guildhall Library, London The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin The Houghton Library, Harvard Haverford College Library, Pennsylvania The Huntington Library, San Marino, California University of Kentucky Libraries, Division of Special Collections and Archives The King’s School, Canterbury Knox College Library, Galesburg, Illinois The Law-Dixon Collection, formerly the Law Collection [no longer accessible] Maine Historical Society, Portland, Maine The Gilbert and Amy Angell Collier Montague Collection, New York Public Library The Morgan Library, New York

appendices The John Murray archive, London The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Ferdinand J. Dreer Collection Mr A. M. I. Parmeter The Penzance Library, Morrab House, Penzance The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and his Circle, NYPL Princeton University Libraries The University of Rochester, New York The Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia The Royal Society of Antiquaries, London The John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester Professor Mark Seaward Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps College, Claremont, California Mr William Self SheYeld University Library Trinity College Cambridge Trinity College Dublin Wellesley College, Mass. Dr T. J. Winnifrith Woodhouse Grove School, Yorkshire The Wordsworth Trustees, Dove Cottage, Grasmere West Yorkshire Archive Service at Bradford, Calderdale, and Kirklees Mr G. A. Yablon

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I I I . QU OTAT I O N S F R O M C H A R LOT T E B RO N T E¨ ’ S L E T T E R S O R C O N V E R S AT I O N I N M R S G A S K E L L’ S L I F E This list does not include quotations from letters already located and printed in the present edition. Chapter references in continuously numbered editions are given in parentheses. 1. Life ii. 140 (ch. 19, early 1850). ‘By this time, ‘‘Airedale, Wharfedale, Calderdale, and Ribblesdale’’ all knew the place of residence of Currer Bell. She compared herself to the ostrich hiding its head in the sand; and says that she still buries hers in the heath of Haworth moors; but ‘‘the concealment is but self-delusion’’.’ 2. Life ii. 206 (ch. 23, spring 1851). ‘As spring drew on, the depression of spirits to which she was subject began to grasp her again, and ‘‘to crush her with a day- and night-mare.’’ She became afraid of sinking as low as she had done in the autumn . . . ’

I V. C H A R LOT T E B RO N T E¨ ’ S V I S I T TO T H E G A S K E L L S, 2 1 – 2 8 A P R I L 1 8 5 3 Extract from The Life of Charlotte Bronte¨ ii. 288–91. Rylands MS Life ii, fos. 623–8 ’When’ Easter—with its duties arising out of sermons to be preached by strange clergymen, who had afterwards to be entertained at the Parsonage,—with Mechanics’ Institute Meetings, and school tea-drinkings—was over and gone, she came, at the close of April, to visit us in Manchester. We had a friend, a young lady, staying with us. Miss Bronte¨ had expected to Wnd us alone; and although our friend was gentle and sensible after Miss Bronte¨’s own heart, yet her presence was enough to create a nervous tremor . I was aware that both of our guests were unusually silent; and I saw a little shiver run from time to time over Miss Bronte¨’s frame. I could account for the modest reserve of the young lady; and the next day Miss Bronte¨ told me how the unexpected sight of a strange face had aVected her. It was now two or three years since I had <seen> ’witnessed’ a similar eVect produced on her, in anticipation of a quiet evening at Fox-How; and since then she had seen many and various people in London; but the physical ’sensations’ produced by shyness <was> ’were’ still the same; and, on the following day, she laboured under severe head-ache. I had several opportunities of perceiving how this nervousness was ingrained in her constitution, and how acutely she suVered in striving to overcome it. One evening we had, among other guests, two sisters, who sang Scottish ballads exquisitely. Miss Bronte¨ had been sitting quiet and constrained till they began ‘‘The Bonnie House of Airlie,’’ but the eVect 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 & 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 thought 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. Much of this nervous dread of encountering strangers I ascribed to the idea of her personal ugliness, which had been strongly impressed upon her imagination early in life, and which she exaggerated to herself in a

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remarkable manner. ‘‘I notice,’’ said she, ‘‘that after a stranger has once looked at my face, he is careful not to let his eyes wander to that part of the room again!’’ A more untrue idea never entered into any one’s head. Two gentlemen, who saw her during this visit, without knowing at the time who she was, were singularly attracted by her appearance; and this feeling of attraction towards a pleasant countenance, ’sweet voice’ and gentle timid manners, was so strong in one as to conquer a dislike he had previously entertained to her works. There was another circumstance that came to my knowledge at this period which told secrets about the Wnely-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 ’Wrst’ 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. One day, we asked two gentlemen to ’meet her at’ dinner, expecting that ’she and’ they would have a mutual pleasure in making each other’s acquaintance. To our disappointment, she drew back with timid reserve from all their advances, replying to their questions and remarks in the briefest manner possible; till at last they gave up their eVorts to draw her into conversation in despair, and talked to each other and my husband on subjects of recent local interest. Among these, Thackeray’s lectures (which had lately been delivered here1) were spoken of, & that on Fielding especially dwelt upon. One gentleman objected to it strongly, as calculated to do moral harm, and regretted that a man having so great an inXuence over the tone of thought of the day, as Thackeray, should not more carefully weigh his words.2 The other took the opposite view. He said that Thackeray described men from the inside, as it were; from3 his strong power of dramatic sympathy, he identiWed himself with certain characters, felt their temptations, entered into their pleasures &c. This roused Miss Bronte¨, who ’threw herself ’ warmly into the discussion; the ice of her reserve was broken, and from that time she entered fully into4 all that was said, and contributed her share to any conversation that was going on in the course of the evening. What she said, and which part she took, in the dispute about Thackeray’s lecture, may be gathered from the following letter, referring to the same subject: . . . [Mrs Gaskell quotes part of CB’s letter to George Smith of 26 March 1853, beginning ‘ ‘‘The ‘Lectures’ arrived safely’’ ’ and ending ‘ ‘‘feeling upon it earnestly’’ ’.] 1

Life reads ‘delivered in Manchester’. The gentleman who objected on moral grounds to Thackeray’s lecture on Fielding was Mr Gaskell, according to Catherine Winkworth (Letters and Memorials i.) 3 4 Life reads ‘through’. Life reads ‘She showed her interest in all’. 2

V. M R S G A S K E L L’ S V I S I T TO H AWO RT H , S E P T E M B E R 1 8 5 3 Excerpts from The Life of Charlotte Bronte¨ ii, ch. 13, Rylands MS Life ii, fos. 633–41 ’Towards’ the latter end of September, I went to Haworth. At the risk of repeating something which I have previously said, I will copy out parts of a letter which I wrote at the time. ‘‘It was a dull, drizzly, Indian-inky day, ’all the way on the’ railroad to Keighley, which is a rising wool manufacturing town, lying in a hollow between hills—not a pretty hollow, but more what the Yorkshire people call a ‘‘bottom’’ or ‘‘botham.’’ I left Keighley in a car for Haworth, four miles oV— four tough, steep, scrambling miles, the road winding between the wave-like hills, that rose and fell on every side of the horizon, with a long illimitable sinuous look, as if they were a part of the line of the Great Serpent, which the ’Norse’ legend says, girdles the world. The day was lead-coloured; the road had stone factories along side of it,—grey dull coloured rows of stone cottages belonging to these factories;—and then we came to poor, hungrylooking Welds,—stone-fences everywhere, and trees nowhere. Haworth is a long straggling village: one steep narrow street—so steep that the Xag-stones with which it is paved are placed end-ways that the horses’ feet may have something to cling to, and not slip down backwards; which if they did, they would soon reach Keighley. But if the horses had cat’s feet and claws, they would do all the better. Well! we (the man, horse, car, and I,) clambered up this Street, and reached the Church dedicated to St. Autest (who was he?); then we turned oV into a lane on the left, past the Curates’ lodging at the Sexton’s, ’past’ the School <s>-house, up to the Parsonage yard-door. I went round the house to the front door, looking to the Church; moors every where beyond and above. The crowded grave-yard surrounds the house, and small grass enclosure for drying clothes I don’t know that I ever saw a spot more exquisitely clean; the most dainty place for that I ever saw. To be sure, the life is like clock-work. No one comes to the house; nothing disturbs the deep repose; hardly a voice is heard; you catch the ticking of the clock in the kitchen, or the buzzing of a Xy in the parlour, all over the house. Miss Bronte¨ sits alone in her parlour; breakfasting with her father in his study at nine o’clock. She helps in the housework; for one of their servants, Tabby, is nearly ninety, and the other only a girl. Then I accompanied her in her walks on the sweeping moors: the heather-bloom had been blighted

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by a thunder-storm a day or two before, and was all of a livid brown colour, instead of the blaze of purple glory it ought to have been. Oh! those high, wild, desolate moors, up above the whole world, and the very realms of silence! Home to dinner at two. Mr. Bronte¨ has his dinner sent in to him. All the small table arrangements had the same dainty simplicity about them. Then we rested, and talked, over the clear bright Wre; it is a cold country, and the Wres were a pretty warm dancing light all over the house. The parlour has been evidently refurnished within the last few years, since Miss Bronte¨’s success has enabled her to have a little more money to spend. Everything Wts into, and is in harmony with the idea of a country parsonage, possessed by people of very moderate means. The prevailing colour of the room is crimson, to make a warm setting for the cold grey landscape without. There is her likeness by Richmond; and an engraving from Lawrence’s picture of Thackeray; and two recesses, on each side of the high, narrow, old-fashioned mantel-piece, Wlled with books,—books given to her, books she has bought, and which tell of her individual pursuits and tastes; not standard books. She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way she weakened her eyesight was this: when she was 16 or 17, she wanted much to draw; and she copied nimini-pimini copper-plate engravings out of annuals, (‘‘stippling’’ don’t the artists call it?) every little point put in, till at the end of six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to draw stories, and not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing; but in so small a hand that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time. But now to return to our quiet hour of rest after dinner. I soon observed that her habits of order were such that she could not go on with the conversation, if a chair was out of its place; everything was arranged with delicate regularity. We talked over the old times of her childhood; of her elder sister’s (Maria’s) ’death-’ just like that of Helen Burns in ‘‘Jane Eyre;’’ of those strange starved days at school; of the desire (almost amounting to illness) of expressing herself in some way,—writing or drawing; of her weakened eyesight, which prevented her doing anything for two years, from the age of 17 to 19; of her being a governess; of her going to Brussels; whereupon I said I disliked Lucy Snowe, and we discussed M. Paul Emanuel; and I told her of——’s admiration of ‘‘Shirley,’’ which pleased her, for ’the character of’ Shirley was meant for her sister Emily; about whom she is never tired of talking, nor I of listening. Emily must have been a remnant of the Titans; great grand-daughter of the Giants, who used to inhabit Earth. One day, Miss Bronte¨ brought down a rough, common-looking oil-painting, done by her brother, of herself,—a little, rather prim-looking girl of 18,—and the two other sisters, girls of 16 and 14, with cropped hair, and sad, dreamy-looking eyes. ---------- ---------- ----------

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Emily had a great dog,—half mastiV, half bulldog—so savage &c ---------- ---------- ----------1 This dog went to her funeral, walking side by side with her father, and then, to the day of its death, it slept at her room door, snuYng under it, and whining every morning. We have generally had another walk before tea, which is at six; at half past eight, prayers, and by nine all the household are in bed, except ourselves. We sit up together till ten, or past; and after I go, I hear Miss Bronte¨ come down and walk up and down the room for an hour or so.’’ Copying this letter has brought the days of that pleasant visit very clear before me; very sad in their clearness. We were so happy together. We were full2 of interest in each other’s subjects. The day seemed only too short for what we had to say and to hear. I understood her life the better for seeing the place where it had been spent; where she had loved and suVered. Mr. Bronte¨ was a most courteous host, and when he was with us—at breakfast in his study, or at tea in Charlotte’s parlour—he had a sort of grand and stately way of describing past times which tallied well with his striking appearance. He never seemed quite to have lost the feeling that Charlotte was a child to be guided and ruled, when she was present; and she herself submitted to this with a quiet docility that half amused, half astonished me. But when she had to leave the room, then all ’his’ pride in her genius and fame came out. He ’eagerly’ listened to ’every thing’ I could tell him of the high admiration I had <ever> ’at any time’ heard expressed for her works. He would ask for certain speeches over and over again, as if he desired to impress them on his memory. I remember two or three subjects of the conversations ’which she’ and I held in the evenings, besides those alluded to in my letter. I ’asked’ her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description given of its eVects in ‘‘Villette’’ was so exactly like ’what’ I had experienced,—vivid and exaggerated presence of objects, of which the outlines were indistinct, or lost in golden mist &c. She replied that she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of ’it’ in any shape, but that she had followed the process she always adopted, when she had to describe any thing which had not fallen within her own experience; she had thought intently on it for many ’and many a’ night<s> before falling to sleep,—wondering what it was like, or how it would be,—till at length,—sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one point for weeks,—she wakened up in the morning with all clear before her, as if she had in reality gone through the experience, and could3 describe it, word for word, as it had happened. I cannot account for this psychologically; I only am sure that it was so, because she said it. 1 In the manuscript Mrs Gaskell or her amanuensis used a serious of short lines to indicate omissions from her original letter. 2 Life 1st edn. reads ‘were so full’. 3 Life 1st edn. reads ‘and then could’.

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She made many enquiries as to Mrs. Stowe’s personal appearance; and it evidently harmonized well with some theory of hers, to hear that ’the author of ‘‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’’’ was small and slight. It was another theory of hers, that no mixture4 of blood produced such Wne characters, mentally and morally, as the Scottish and English. I recollect too her saying how acutely she dreaded a charge of plagiarism, when, after she had written ‘‘Jane Eyre,’’ she read the thrilling eVect of the Mysterious Scream at Midnight in Mrs. Marsh’s story of the ‘‘Deformed.’’ She also said that, when she read the ‘‘Neighbours,’’ she thought every one would fancy that she must have taken her conception of Jane Eyre’s character from that of ‘‘Francesca,’’ the narrator of Miss Bremer’s story. For my own part, I cannot see the slightest resemblance between the two characters, and so I told her; but she persisted in saying that Francesca was Jane Eyre married to a good-natured Bear of a Swedish surgeon. We went, not purposely, but accidentally, to see various poor people in our distant walks. From one we had borrowed an umbrella; in the house of another we had taken shelter from a rough September storm. In all these cottages, her quiet presence was known. At three miles from her home, the chair was dusted for her, with a kindly ‘‘Sit ye down, Miss Bronte¨.’’ And she knew what ’absent or ailing’ members of the family to enquire after. Her quiet, gentle words, few though they <were> ’might be’, were evidently grateful to those Yorkshire ears. Their welcome to her, though rough and curt, was sincere and hearty. We talked about the diVerent courses through which Life ran. She said, in her own composed manner, ’as if she had accepted the theory as a fact,’ that she believed some were appointed beforehand to sorrow and much disappointment; that it did not fall to the lot of all,—as Scripture told us,—to have their lines fall in pleasant places; that it was well for ’those who had rougher paths,’ to perceive that such was God’s will concerning them, and try to moderate their expectations, leaving hope to those of a diVerent doom, and seeking patience and resignation, as the virtues they were to cultivate. I took a diVerent view: I thought that human lots were ’more’ equal than she imagined; that to some happiness and sorrow came in strong patches of light and shadow, (so to speak,) while in the lives of others they were pretty equally blended throughout. She smiled, and shook her head, and said she was trying to school herself against ever anticipating any pleasure; that it was better to be brave and submit faithfully; there was some good reason, which we should know in time, why sorrow and disappointment were to be the lot of some on earth. It was better to acknowledge this, and face out the truth in a religious faith. In connexion with this conversation, she named a little abortive plan which I had not heard of till then: how, in the previous July, she had been tempted to 4

Life 1st edn. reads ‘no mixtures’.

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join some friends (a married couple and their child) in an excursion to Scotland. They set out joyfully; she with especial gladness, for Scotland was a land which had its roots deep down in her imaginative aVections, and the glimpse of two days at Edinburgh was all she had as yet seen of it. But, at the Wrst stage after Carlisle, the little yearling child was taken with a slight indisposition; the anxious parents fancied that strange diet disagreed with it, and hurried back to their Yorkshire home as eagerly as, two or three days before, they had set their faces northward, in hopes of a month’s pleasant ramble. We parted with many intentions on both sides, of renewing ’very frequently’ the pleasure we had had in being together. We agreed that when she wanted bustle, or when I wanted quiet, we were to let each other know, and exchange visits as occasion required. I was aware that she had a great anxiety on her mind at this time; and being acquainted with its nature, I could not but ’deeply’ admire the patient docility which she displayed in her conduct towards her father. MS Rylands MS Life ii, fos. 633–41 and displaced part-leaf bound at end of volume. W & S 867 and iv. 93–6.

V I . C H A R LOT T E B R O N T E¨ ’ S W E D D I N G : AN EXCERPT FROM THE KEIGHLEY N E W S F O R 2 7 O C TO B E R 1 9 2 3 LOV E S TO RY O F C H A R LO T T E B R O N T E . -------------

W E D D I N G R E C A L L E D. -------------

H AWO RT H M A N ’ S D I A M O N D W E D D I N G. ------------By the sixtieth anniversary of the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. John Robinson, which was celebrated at Wombwell, interesting memories of Charlotte Bronte¨ are revived. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson are both 86 years old. Mr. Robinson was born near Haworth, where Mr. Patrick Bronte¨, the father of the famous writer, was incumbent, and he used every Sunday morning to receive instruction from Mr. Nicholls, who afterwards married Charlotte Bronte¨. Mr. Robinson was one of the few persons who attended the early morning wedding of Charlotte and Mr. Nicholls. ‘‘I owe a lot to the Bronte¨ family,’’ said Mr. Robinson to a representative of ‘‘The SheYeld Independent,’’ who called upon him to oVer him and his wife congratulations on reaching the sixtieth anniversary of their wedding, which they were then celebrating. ‘‘I come from Stanbury, where Patrick Bronte¨, Charlotte’s father, was incumbent, and Mr. Nicholls, whom she married, used to have me up to his lodgings every Saturday morning to give me lessons,’’ he said. ‘‘It was Mr. Nicholls who taught me what love-sickness means. I have heard him moan with anguish when things did not run smoothly.

O P P O S I T I O N TO T H E M A R R I AG E ‘‘Charlotte’s father was, I think, against the marriage, because, as fame came to her, she, of course, became comparatively well oV, and her father seemed to think that Mr. Nicholls was after her money. ‘‘Charlotte, however, appears to have given him some encouragement. The Bronte¨s had an old and faithful servant, Martha Brown, who was as familiar with her employers as a servant very well can be, and she told me that once when the young couple had had to part, she found Mr. Nicholls with his head against the garden door sobbing as though his heart would break. However, after this separation things seemed to improve for them, and one morning I met

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the sexton, John Brown, the father of Martha Brown, who said that he had been waiting for me. He told me that Charlotte and Mr. Nicholls were going to get married, and my instructions were to go to the top of a hill and look for the approach of three men. When I saw them I was to run back to the parsonage and tell the folk there that they were coming. ‘‘I went to my place and watched, and presently I saw in the distance three persons—Mr. Nicholls, Mr. Grant, and Mr. Snowden. [sic, for ‘Sowden’.] Then I went back to the parsonage, and was told to go as fast as I could for Josh Redman, the old parish clerk. I found him, and told him he had to come to church as quickly as possible. He came immediately. On the way he stopped and said, ‘I’d better lace up my boots,’ and he went to the wall and did so. We hurried to the church. and on the stroke of eight Charlotte entered with her two women friends. There were thus in the church Charlotte, her two friends, the clerk, the sexton, and myself—nine persons in all. I don’t think Mr. Bronte¨ was there.

T H E W E D D I N G B R E A K FA S T ‘‘The ceremony was gone through quickly, and, passing out of the vestry, they left the church as they came—by the back door leading into Church Lane, close to the Vicarage. They went to the Vicarage, and then I remember seeing a carriage and pair drive oV to the nearest station—Keighley. I went back to the school for my lessons, but I had not been there many minutes when a message came from the Parsonage to say that I was to go for some breakfast. I went and remember having boiled ham, so that you see I had some of Charlotte Bronte¨’s wedding breakfast, although, of course, not with them. ‘‘When Charlotte Bronte¨ and her husband returned a lumber room was cleared out at the Parsonage and Wtted up as a study for him. He was then curate, and each Saturday morning I went for my lessons as usual. My apprenticeship continued until I was 18. When I said good-bye, Mr. Bronte¨ held my hand for a long time and gave me some good advice. Remember, all this was a long time ago, and we were in a village where we knew little and heard little, and he told me how diVerent I should Wnd things elsewhere. As a parting gift he gave me a portrait of himself, bearing his autograph. The oYcials of the Bronte¨ Museum at Haworth have begged long and earnestly for that, but I shall not part with it, although I have given them his snuVbox.’’

A WO N D E R F U L WO M A N Mr. Robinson said that Charlotte Bronte¨ was a wonderful little woman. He had watched her often from the church tower, from whence he could see into the room where she was writing. She was very short-sighted, and when she

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came into the school to inspect the children’s needlework she had to hold it very close to her eyes. ‘‘I have seen it sometimes suggested that she and her husband were not altogether happy together,’’ went on Mr. Robinson. ‘‘There never was a bigger lie than that. To see them together, arm-in-arm, walking over the moors, and to see the way in which he assisted her in the diYcult places, was to be convinced that there never was a couple more completely in love with each other. ‘‘Charlotte’s brother Branwell was diVerent from the rest of the family, being of a more gay disposition. In the local inn he always used to occupy the same chair, and entertain the company, and I remember once that a stranger tried to take a rise out of him. ‘‘There was on the wall a picture of a man riding a donkey, and the stranger, turning to Branwell, remarked, pointing to the picture: ‘That reminds me of you.’ In a moment Branwell had jumped on to the stranger’s back, and remarked: ‘The likeness is now complete.’ ’’ Mr. Robinson has held every public oYce at Wombwell . . . Only two years ago Mr. Robinson paid a visit by motor to Stanbury and Haworth to look at the old places.

V I I . A D D E N DA A N D C O R R I G E N DA TO VO LU M E S I A N D I I This appendix is intended to include further letters and information that have come to light up to the time of this Wnal volume’s going to press. It contains: 1. Letters, letter-fragments, and envelopes which came to light too late to be included in Volumes I and II. Small corrections in punctuation, capitalization, or abbreviation are not noted. 2. Additional or replacement notes. 3. Corrections incorporated in the revised reprint of Volume I (1996). 4. Corrections of errors and omissions in the indexes to Volumes I and II. Information from the Leeds Intelligencer has been provided by Mrs Louise Barnard, and information about envelopes in WYAS Kirklees by Ms Helga Hughes. Their help is gratefully acknowledged. Volume I Page and line 1 21. 24 21. 32 21. 32 21. 33 27 29. 20–1 29. 21–4 33 49. 10 57. 4 60. 30 66 67. 8 67. 11 67. 22

n. 1 delete and read EN ?20.10.1854. delete Four and read Five delete The fourth letter was and read The other two letters were after March add and 8 May delete it is . . . it adds and read they are . . . they add n. 1 for n.s.v. read n.s.vi. for to early October 1853 read 1853 to 1 March 1854 delete, and again . . . have been destroyed n. 31 line 3 for May read April or May n. 31 line 6 for Nov. read Aug. for 1885 read 1887 after in the Star, add or through William Robertson Nicoll, who had met Martha Brown in Haworth in 1879. after Princeton add and Shorter printed it in part in CBCircle 479–80. n. 1 for 1941 read 1942 delete and 1938 for until his death in 1930 read then President 1927–9 for all read many of

362 67. 29 78. 24 79. 31 97. 3 lines up 114

114 116 116 116 125 132 132

134 139 149 150 167 169 192 193 196. 20–7

appendices for 1930 read 1929 for 23 March read 23 May for 3 March read 31 March delete in 1825 and read a Miss Hills on 14 January 1826. n. 7 line 5 add The Leeds Intelligencer for 22 Dec. 1831 records the death ‘On Tuesday the 19th inst at Haworth, aged 35 the Rev J. Driver, MA, Incumbent of Shireshead near Lancaster’. n. 8 penultimate line for iii read ii n. 5 line 1 after 1815, insert d. 18 Dec. 1855, n. 6 line 4 add She married Dr George Allbutt on 6 Aug. 1842. n. 7 line 1 for an elder brother read a brother n. 5 lines 1, 3 delete ne´e Wood and a widow of n. 24 line 1 for 1867 read 29 Aug. 1860 n. 24 penultimate line delete where . . . 1867 and read but died in Wootton, Warwickshire, aged 48. His wife died 2 Feb. 1907 aged 95. n. 6 delete Not . . . sister and read Mary Halliley (d. 31 May 1856) had married Jeremiah Carter, a member of . . . Carter. n. 8 line 8 delete iii and read ii n. 3. add Jane Buttle, ne´e Walker, died at Torquay on 4 Jan. 1858. n. 3 line 1 for cotton-spinning read worsted note on MS add Southey’s a.l.s. now BPM MS B.S. IX, S. See MS-based text in BST (1996), 21. 7. 330–2. note on MS delete untraced and read CB’s a.l.s. now BPM B.S. 40.25. See MS-based text in BST (1996), 21. 7. 332–4. n. 2 line 5 for June read January n. 10 line 4 delete Frederick . . . 1862 and read Edwin Greenwood (1798–1852) delete postscript and read MS-based text as follows: PS—If I Wnd it impossible to stay for longer than a week could you not get some one else to bear you company for the remaining fortnight? C Bronte¨ j PS—Encore. Since writing the above I Wnd that Aunt & Papa have determined to go to Liverpool for a fortnight and take us all with them it is stipulated however that I <mu> should give up the Cleethorpes scheme—I yield reluctantly—but Aunt suggests that you may be able to join us at Liverpool—what do you say—? We sha[ll] not go for a fortnight or three weeks because till that time papa’s expected Assistant will not be ready to undertake his duties—write as soon as [ . . . ] can— [lacuna caused by torn paper]

appendices 196. 28 196. 29 196. 30 196. 31 207 211 211 211 217. 27 217. 30 217. 34

217. 35 217. 41

217. 42 218. 5 218 218 218 218.15 218

363

MS note after 24417 add Postscript BL Add. MS 70949 fo. 361. Address note delete not in MS and read (integral): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal Leeds PM note delete not in MS and read (i) BRADFOR[D] j — j JY— j 1839 (ii) Bradford Yorks Penny Post Annotation add after 39 on going to the seaside together—39 n. 4 line 1 delete sister . . . Wood and read sisters were Susannah Wood and Rose Bower, ne´e Ackroyd n. 2 lines 2–3 delete See . . . 254.) n. 6 line 2 for Colne read Trawden n. 6 line 3 for 17 Jan. read 5 Jan. 1840 add the following material to the letter To Ellen Nussey, [15 May 1840] Square brackets indicate paraphrase. after interest, add [both in your news and your way of conveying it.] after think add [You write in a way that **Mary Swaine, Rebecca Taylor, Caroline Dury or Sarah Sugden** would not have used;] it?[w]as a unique of its kind, calm, genuine Sense from beginning to end—no Xightiness no coquetry, no vanity. There were some passages in it which astonished me from their cool steadiness—I assure you Ellen I am not up to anything of the kind, in real dignity—in proper appreciation of the importance of an occurrence you surpass me by a hundred degrees. Then too I am amazed to see how Mr *Vincent’s partiality for you fails to warp your opinion of his character; in what a clear unprejudiced light you view ’it’—and his compliments, how you weigh them in the balance, and cast them aside as wanting, again I repeat I could not do this— after weaknesses add in my character. after rankling read pangs—This Ellen is a weakness which your correct, steady judgment will always shield you from. j [I am sure Mr Vincent will propose, but I cannot advise you on your answer: trust your feelings] for respect a person read respect a person for than disgust read than disgust n. 2 delete note and read MS and Hours at Home read ‘eVorts’. n. 6 for may reXect read is also the reading of n. 7 add The MS includes this paragraph delete untraced and read MS sold by Phillips, 12.6.1998, lot 289. Catalogue has transcripts and a facsimile of some passages. after n. 8 add the following notes

364

227

236 236

247. 24

248

appendices Mary Swaine, b. c.1816: one of the younger daughters of Joseph and Mary Swaine of Brier Hall, Gomersal; she married in 1849. Rebecca Taylor: possibly the Rebecca Taylor of Birstall, who died aged 35, and was buried at Liversedge Parish Church on 6 Sept. 1849; see CBL ii. 265. Caroline Dury, b. 1820, daughter of the Revd Theodore Dury of Keighley, who was William Weightman’s ‘object of Devotion’ in June–July 1840; see CBL i. 222–3. Sarah Sugden (c.1814–76), daughter of the wealthy William Sugden of Eastwood House, Keighley, who, like Caroline, was ‘smitten’ with Weightman’s charms in July 1840; see CBL i. 223–4. ‘Vincent’ is the Revd Osman Parke Vincent. See CBL i index entries. n. 5 line 2 add A ‘Mr John Bradbury of Bradford, woolstapler’ married ‘Annis youngest daughter of the late Mr Geo. Scott of Hexham’ on 5 Aug. 1840 (Leeds Intelligencer 15.8.1840). n. 16 line 1 delete Possibly. . . way, n. 16 line 4 add ‘Walter Mitchell eldest son of Thomas Mitchell, Esq. of Birstall, surgeon’ qualiWed as an apothecary on 20 Sept. 1838. Information from Leeds Intelligencer for 6 Oct. 1838. delete untraced and read a.l.s. sold at Sotheby’s of London, 10 July 2001, lot 57. Additional text includes: (1) an opening sentence explaining that CB has not written for a long time because she has been busy; (2) a comment that Rawdon’s ‘date’ (postal address) is Leeds, not Bradford; (3) the word ‘now’ after ‘seem to me’ in the sentence beginning ‘All I can say’; (4) after ‘4 miles from *Bradford’ three heavily deleted and mostly illegible lines probably beginning ‘Your last letter’, and followed by the question ‘How is Mr *Vincent?’ A facsimile of the page containing this passage is provided in the sale catalogue p. 46. n. 5 line 4 add Bonham’s sale catalogue for 23 and 24 May 2000, lot 673, lists the book as The Beavers and the Elephant: Stories in Natural History for Children. By a Mother (William Blackwood, 1829). In the inscription the pupil’s Christian name is given as ‘Jasper’.

appendices 255

257. 14

259. 3 259. 4 259. 5

269 279

283 285

305. 30

365

n. 2 line 5 add EN’s memory was probably at fault. Anna Maria Brooke married Dr George Allbutt. See Corrigenda for CBL i. 116. insert new heading and envelope details: To Ellen Nussey. [?26 May] 1841 j Envelope only MS WYAS Kirklees. Address: Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds PM: (i) RAWDEN (ii) LEEDS j MY 26 j 1841 j F Annotation by EN: May 41 add Envelope WYAS Kirklees delete not in MS and read (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstall j Leeds delete not in MS and read (i) BRADFORD YORKS P[enn]Y POST (ii) BRADFORD YORKS j JY 1 j 1841 (iii) LEEDS j JY 2 j 1841 j A n. 7 line 2 delete probably n. 3 delete Not identiWed and read Probably Mary Anne Marzials, ne´e Jackson. See the Leeds Intelligencer 22.9.1834: [Marriages] ‘Last week in London the Rev. Antoine Theophile Marzials, BD Pastor of the Protestant Established Church at Lille to Mary Anne, only daughter of the Rev Thomas Jackson, Editor of the Methodist Magazine.’ n. 9 line 5 add He had become the British Chaplain at Spa, Belgium, before 18 Apr. 1846. n. 1 line 2 add A letter from CB to EN written in Feb. 1842 has not been located. Its existence is inferred from an envelope addressed to EN at Birstall, postmarked FE 42, and sold by Sophie Dupre´ to a private owner in autumn 1996. add after this line a new heading and letter as follows: To Mrs Taylor, Stanbury, [?December 1842 or early January 1843 The Miss Bronte¨s and Mr B Bronte¨ will be happy to accept Mrs Taylor’s invitation tomorrow if the weather is Wne. Tuesday afternoon Text: as in Sotheby’s (London), catalogue of sale, 15 July 1998, lot 96. Date: content, handwriting, and paper indicate a date close to the letters to Mrs Taylor, pp. 305–6. Possibly this letter rather than the Wrst of those printed there refers to the invitation refused on ‘Wednesday Morning’.

366 313 313

371

373 387. 13 394 401. 23 409 413. 8 413. 9 413. 10 413. 11 427. 8

appendices n. 9 line 1 delete Revd John . . . father and read late Joshua Walker of Oakwell House n. 9 line 2 add She was to marry the Revd Richard Greaves Micklethwaite BA, incumbent of Ardsley, on 17 Jan. 1844 (Leeds Intelligencer 20.1.1844). n. 13 line 7 add M. Heger gave copies of the speeches of 1843 to CB and EJB. See The Belgian Essays: Charlotte Bronte¨ and Emily Bronte¨, edited and translated by Sue LonoV (1996), 383 n. 93, 388 n. 10. n. 5 line 1 delete d. ?1884 and read ?1820–79 delete untraced and read Kent Bicknell. MS has minor variants in punctuation and capitalization. n. 2 line 5 delete Feb. and read Jan. add Annotation by EN: 100 n. 16 line 2 add ‘Turning’ could also mean turning the handle of a mangle. add Envelope WYAS Kirklees. delete not in MS and read (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Vicarage Hathersage j Bakewell j Derbyshire delete not in MS and read (i) HAWORTH (ii) BRADFORD YORKS j JY 31 j 1845 j C (iii) BAKEWELL j AU 1 j 1845 add on envelope by EN: July 45 of [?Mr Rooker] & of Branwell Replace by MS-based text as follows: Haworth. j Bradford. Yorks. Dear Sir, I fear you will burn my present letter on recognizing the handwriting; but if you will read it through you will perhaps rather pity than spurn the distress of mind which could prompt my communication, after a silence of nearly three (to me) eventful years. While very ill, and conWned to my room, I wrote to you, two months ago, directing my letter to either the principal Inn in Bingley or Keighley, because I did not know your proper address; and as I heard you were engaged on the Bradford extension line I concluded that in your surveys you would have occasion to take your quarters at times in either of the two houses. I never heard from you in reply and as my letter only asked for one day with you to ease a very wearied mind in the company of a gentleman who used to have what I wanted always, but most want now—cheerfulness—I am

appendices

367

sure you never recieved my letter, or your heart would have prompted an answer. When I say that since I last shook hands with you in Halifax two summers ago my life till lately has been one of apparent happiness and indulgence you will ask why does he complain? And I can only reply by shewing the undercurrent of distress which bore my bark toward a whirlpool despite the surface waves of life that seemed wafting me toward peace. In a letter begun in the spring of 18431, and never Wnished owing to incessant attacks of illness, I tried to tell you how I was situated—As Tutor to the only son of a wealthy Gentleman whose wife was sister to Mr Tho[ma]s Gisborne M p. for Nottingham ’and’—Mrs Evans the wife of the member for one Division of Derbyshire—and the cousin of Mr Macaulay. This Lady (though her husband detested me) shewed me a degree of kindness which—when I was deeply grieved one day at her husbands conduct opened in an unexpected declaration of more than ordinary feeling. My admiration of her mental and personal attractions which, though she is 17 years older than myself, are both very great, my knowledge of her totally unselWsh generosity, sweet temper, and unwearied care for all others, with ill requital in return, my horror at the heartless and unmanly manner in which she was treated by an eunuch like fellow who though possessed of such a treasure never even occupied the same apartment with her—All combined to make me reciprocate an attachment I had little dared to look for. During nearly three years I had daily ‘‘troubled pleasure soon chastised by fear’’ in the society of one whom I must, till death, call my wife. Three months since, while at home, I received a furious letter from my Employer threatning to shoot me if I returned from the vacation—and letters from her ladies maid and her physician informed me of the outbreak, and threatened proceedings only checked by her Wrm courage and resolution that come what harm might to her none should come to me—The wretchedly broken health and want of energy in her bloodless mock husband made him put up with the simple joy of daily torturing her while I was left uninjured. 1

Last digit changed to ‘8’ in dark ink.

368

appendices Had I strength to return and meet him the results would be serious to one or both, but providence has hitherto denied me the power for I have lain during nine long weeks utterly shattered in body and broken down in mental despair. The probability of his state of health ere long leaving her, free to give me herself and her estate as was her hearts resolve never rose to drive oV the prospect of her decline under her present grief and suVerings and I dreaded too the wreck of my mind and body which God knows have both during a short life been severely tried. Eleven continued nights of sleepless horrors reduced me to almost blindness and while taken into Wales to rouse me the sweet scenery, the sea, the sound of music only caused Wts of unspeakable distress and irrepressible tears. I implored for society and comfort but could neither be pleasant to one or blessed by the other, and wine or other stimulants caused not exhiliration [sic] but deeper dejection. You will say, ‘‘What a fool!’’ but if you knew the many causes I have had for sorrow which I cannot hint at here you would perhaps pity as well as blame. I am better now but though at the kind request of Mr Macaulay and Mr Baines I have striven to rouse my mind by writing something that I ought to make deserving of being read, I Wnd I really cannot yet do so with eVect for one line of poetry like one note of music produces in my frame a sickening thrill of despair. I know you will—if you read it ’at’ all—despise this letter and its writer, but I can only answer the writer does the same, and he would not wish to live if he did not hope that active exertion and change of scene may yet restore him to the by past manhood which used to boast of unconquerable health, where for 3 years he has known no interval of one week from agonizing sickness, and latterly not even one day. I should indeed be gratiWed if I knew that you would soon be anywhere where an hours visit to you would not be forbidden. The crumpled appearance of the sheet is owing to my having kept it unWnished for days in my pocket. Apologizing, sincerely for what will seem whining egotism and hardly daring to hint about days when in your company I could sometimes laugh or ?smile the thoughts

appendices

369

which ‘‘Remind me of departed days,’’ but, I would fain hope, not Departed never to return,—I remain, Dear Sir, Yours most sincerely, j P. B. Bronte´ Mr F. H. Grundy MS Brotherton. 433 438

467 492

503. 30 503. 31 503. 32

504. 36 504. 37 504. 38

508

521. 38 521. 39 521. 40

n. 2 line 2 delete in ?Sept. and read on 2 Oct. n. 2 line 2 delete the Moravian . . . 1838 and read Liversedge. The Leeds Intelligencer for 22 Sept. 1838 records their marriage: ‘Sept 13 at Liversedge Church, Littletown by the Rev H Roberson Mr Wm. Joshua Taylor, manufacturer Gomersal, to Miss Jane Charlesworth youngest daughter of the late Susanna Charlesworth, cardmaker, Hightown near Leeds.’ n. 2. delete in ?Sept. and read on 2 Oct. n. 5 delete not identiWed and read Probably the Elizabeth Hirst whose death is recorded in the Leeds Intelligencer for 8 Aug. 1846: ‘Sunday last of consumption aged 34 Elizabeth daughter of William Hirst, Esq. Marsh House, Gomersal.’ add Envelope WYAS Kirklees. delete not in MS. and read (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds delete not in MS and read (i) HAWORTH (ii) BRADFORD j OC 14 j 18–6 j E (iii) LEEDS j OC 15 j 1846 j A add below ‘PM’: Annotation by EN on envelope: Oct 15—46 On taking pupils—[i.w.] [Wafer : blue lozenge with the words ‘Be true’.] add Envelope WY AS Kirklees. delete Not in MS. and read (envelope) Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds delete not in MS. and read (i) HAWORTH (ii) BRADFORD YORKS j NO 17 j 18–6 j E (iii) LEEDS j NO 18 j 1846 j A add below ‘PM’ [Wafer: pink rectangle with the word ‘Believe’.] n. 8 line 4 add EN also knew Mary Hirst, daughter of W. Hirst of Marsh House, Gomersal, who married the Revd Thomas Atkinson of Liversedge. See CBL ii. 229 n. 5. add Envelope WY AS Kirklees. delete not in MS. and read (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds delete not in MS. and read (i) HAWORTH (ii) BRADFORD YORKS j AP 6 j 18–7 j D (iii) LEEDS j AP 7 j 1847 j A

370 521. 41 523. 11 523. 13 523. 18 523. 23–4 523. 29

523. 30 523. 31

530 531. 15 531. 16

537 539. 18

546 552. 12 554. 27

appendices add [Wafer: blue lozenge with the words ‘Reply Quick’.] for all about your read all about both your after from home? read and is the former still at *? I am sure they ought to be much obliged to her for going there. for should as soon read should almost as soon for in the autumn read in Autumn delete untraced and read a.l.s. for sale at Christie’s, New York, 19 May 2000, lot 191. After 286 add Envelope WYAS Kirklees. The catalogue gives the wrong date (‘21 April 1844’) and mistranscribes ‘Ann and Mercy’ [Nussey] as ‘Anne [Anne Bronte¨] and Missy’. The transcription of the letter and facsimile of p. 2 in the catalogue (162) also show what are probably genuine variants in punctuation and paragraphing, and substantive variants as given above. delete not in source and read (envelope): Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds delete not in source and read (i) HAWORTH (ii) BRADFORD YORKS j AP 22 j 1847 j D (iii) LEEDS j AP 23 j 1847 j A (iv) BIRSTALL n. 1 para. 3 line 8 after Yale add Alfred Tennyson Collection, Gen MSS 276 n. 1 penult. line after inscribed insert not n. 1 last line add Dickens’s library included an unopened copy of the Bells’ Poems, possibly sent by CB. (See The Library of Charles Dickens from Gadshill . . . ed. J. H. Stonehouse (1935), and The Dickensian, no. 445, vol. 94, part 2, pp. 89, 97 n. 6.) n. 4 delete Not traced. and read By the Revd Thomas Allbutt. See Venn. delete: envelope only. Add text of letter as follows: Dear Ellen I will (D.V.) come to Brookroyd on Thursday—I shall endeavour to come by the Wrst conveyance—I trust I shall Wnd you all well—Love to all— Yrs. C Bronte¨ You left a brooch here—the broken one which I will bring MS BPM B.S. 58.5. n. 3 line 1 for Makepiece read Makepeace delete not in MS. and read (integral) Messrs Smith, Elder & Co delete not in MS. and read (integral) To W. S. Williams Esqr.

appendices 575. 17 579. 31 582. 14 583. 2

614 615 618 619 619 620 622 624 626

371

delete not in MS. and read (integral) To W. S. Williams Esqr. delete not in MS. and read (integral) To W. S. Williams Esqr. delete not in MS. and read (integral) To W. S. Williams Esq. add Marianne Thorma¨hlen comments: ‘In Loss and Gain, Newman showed that he knew the attribution [of the creed] to Athanasius to be spurious, devoting an entire chapter (vii) to exploring the standing of the Creed in contemporary religious debate’ (The Bronte¨s and Religion (Cambridge, 1999), 237 n. 31). col. 2, Bronte¨, Emily Jane, line 6 after 403 add 454 col. 2, Calvinism after 157 n. add 417 n. col. 2, Harrogate after 327–8 add 362 col. 1, HuddersWeld before 146 insert 107–9 col. 2, hydropathy add 337 n. col. 2, Methodism after 144 add 289 col. 1, Nussey, Dr John after 94 add 127 n. col. 2, Sidgwick, Mrs J. B. delete Ann and read Hannah col. 1, Thackeray delete Makepiece and read Makepeace

Volume II Page and line xl. 30 liii

37 63 103

117 158 189. 24

delete from 20 and read 20–9 delete for about a week 7 lines up add ‘A life-sized portrait is carved in a stone roundel on top of [Taylor’s] big impressive gravestone’ in Sewree cemetery, Bombay. See the photograph of the stone and the ‘Letter from Bombay’ by Charlotte Cory in TLS 16.8.2002, 13–14. n. 9 line 2 insert 10. before CB had n. 7 penult. line after Life of insert the Rev’d n. 2 last line add CB’s poem, ‘The Orphans’, a translation of Louis Belmontet’s ‘Les Orphelins’, was published in Manchester Athenæum Album (1850). See The Poems of Charlotte Bronte¨, ed. Victor A. Neufeldt (1990), 353–5. n. 24 line 4 for Chetnam read Cheltnam n. 2 line 3 add W. Wood was Tabby’s great-nephew. a.l.s. for sale by Michael Silverman, Catalogue 18, 2000, no. 8. Described as ‘2 pages small 8vo. on mourning stationery, blank integral leaf, [Haworth], March 11, 1849.’ Transcription of part, and facsimile of fo. 1v, show minor punctuation variants.

372 190. 2 192. 30 233. 33 233. 34 233. 35 239

261 261

307. 1 341 349

398 410 411. 3 411. 5 411. 11 411. 19 411. 29 411. 31 411. 32

411. 33 411. 34

appendices add Catalogue facsimile shows integral address ‘W. S. Williams Esq.’ insert1 after Sister’s health. and correct subsequent note numbers delete not in MS. and read (envelope) Miss Ellen Nussey j Brookroyd j Birstal j Leeds delete not in MS. and read (i) HAWORTH (ii) KEIGHLEY j — 27 j 18–9 (iii) LEEDS j JY— j 849 j F (iv) BIRSTAL add (envelope) July 27—49 j of buying furs j R Ringrose j appearance n. 4 last line add It is possible that by ‘English cholera’ CB means the less dangerous ‘cholera nostras’, a bilious complaint. n. 3 line 9 delete ?1858/9 and read 1858 n. 3. line 12 after 327–9. insert The Leeds Intelligencer for 14 Aug. 1858 records John Driver’s death at Harrogate: ‘On the 8th inst. at his residence, the Grange, John Driver Esq. of Liverpool, aged 49.’ delete editor and read leader-writer n. 4 last line delete spring of 1849 and read late 1840s. n. 9 line 5 after 1871. add The Leeds Intelligencer records that Cassels married, at St Paul’s Church, Edinburgh, Hannah, ‘eldest daughter of Wm. Anderson Esq. of Halyards, Peebleshire and 8 Regent-terrace, Edinburgh’ (24.1.1857). n. 5 line 4 for Selena read Selina 7 lines up delete square brackets from date 4 June 1850 after begin read a <month> ’week’ ago. after Academy read where delete inclosed and read enclosed before foreign delete large and read huge delete Sharpe’s Magazine and read Sharp’s Magazine for Sharpe, read Sharp— delete untraced and read Fay and GeoVrey Elliott Collection, Leeds University Library. The MS diVers from the printed text in capitalization (e.g. Gardens, Keeper, Snake) and in punctuation (e.g. in a more liberal use of dashes instead of commas). delete not in source and read (envelope): Revd. P. Bronte¨ j Haworth j Keighley j Yorkshire delete not in source and read (i) Conduit St Dt (ii) BA j JU 4 j 1850 (iii) LEEDS j JU 5 j A (iv) KEIGHLEY j JU 5 j 1850

appendices 411 8up

418 418 486. 38 592 641. 7 663. 10 663. 10 663. 12 683

688

693. 18

694. 9

714. 5 714. 5 730

[759] 760 773

373

before the text note insert Annotation by PB (i) on the letter in ink: Semper ret—?re-B. (ii) on the envelope in ink: My D[aughte]rs l[ette]r, semper ?retinere, B. 1850 [PB intends to keep the letter always] n. 4 line 1 after Redman add (christened 29 Apr. 1827; aged 23 in 1851 Census) n. 4 line 2 delete nephew and read great-nephew delete Mrs J. B. B. Light and read BPM B.S. 79.75 n. 6 last line delete 1851 and read 22 Oct. 1850 delete perserving and read persevering after and insert to after appreciates insert certain delete on and read upon n. 2 line 4 add The Leeds Intelligencer for 17 Apr. 1852 records the marriage at Birstall on 14 Apr. 1852 ‘at the parish church by the Rev. W. M. Heald, Geo. Barcroft Withington, Esq. of Manchester to Catharine, youngest daughter of Jos. Swaine, Esq. Brier Hall’. n. 5 after para. 3 add Valerie Sanders notes that her real name was Wilhelmina Racidula (The Letters of Harriet Martineau, ed. V. Sanders, (Oxford 1990), 248). add a.l.s. for sale by Bonhams of London; catalogue for 23 and 24 May 2000, lot 672, described as ‘2 pages, 8vo, with autograph envelope with Leeds postmark, Haworth, 18 September, 1851’. Facsimile of Wrst page on catalogue, p. 131, shows the date in CB’s hand, a paragraph division between ‘intervened since.’ and ‘I regret’, and minor variants in punctuation. after HuddersWeld. add The Leeds Intelligencer for 19 May 1855 records her marriage at Guiseley parish church on 16 May 1855 to ‘Walter Atkinson Esq. of Buckstone Cottage, Apperley Lane’. delete 83 and read 70, though it is currently placed with SG 83 delete 12.6.1853 and read 11.3.1852 n. 2 line 7 add For the former see Ruddock Mackay, ‘Dr William Ruddock (1814–1860): A Brief Memoir’, Bronte¨ Studies, 27/1 (Mar. 2002), 76–8. col. 2 Atkinson, Henry George for 574 read 574–6 col. 1 Bradford Observer, The add 334 n. col. 1 Morgan, Revd William, line 2 delete 612 and read 685, 686 n.

374 773 777 780

appendices col. 1 Morgan, Revd William, line 3 delete 685, 686 n. and read 612 col. 1 Shaen family after 450 n., insert 533 n., col. 1 Thackeray, William Makepeace after 615, insert 627, 628, 629 n.,

V I I I . F O R G E R I E S A N D U N C E RTA I N AT T R I BU T I O N Forgeries This list of documents wrongly attributed to Charlotte Bronte¨ is not comprehensive. It includes forgeries and copies, most of them in major MSS collections, identiWable as counterfeits intended to deceive. Handwriting, literacy, content, style, alleged date, ink, paper, and watermarks have been taken into account wherever possible. 1. ‘Currer Bell’ to ‘Miss Ingledew, 129 Southwark Bridge Road, Southwark, London’, from Hartlepool. Published as from Charlotte Bronte¨, W & S 449, n.d., but placed between letters of 13 and 23 June 1849. Invalidated by handwriting, misspellings (occured’, ‘pospone’, ‘your sincerely’), and paper. MS Brotherton. Reference in CBL ii. 223. 2. ‘Charlotte Bronte¨’ to ‘Emily’, dated ‘Paris, le Juillet 3’. ‘Dear Emily: I send you this nice little book of ‘Les Psaumes de David’ as it will enable you to polish up your French. I shall never be satisWed until you are able to read Racine, Corneille, and Moliere suYciently well to thoroughly appreciate all their thousand beauties. j I shall return, D. V. by the 20th. j Ever thy true Sister j Charlotte Bronte¨.’ MS written on Xyleaf of Les Psaumes de David Mis en Vers Franc¸ais (Neuchaˆtel, 1832). Accepted as genuine in MGC Census pt. 1, 197, and Jos Bemelmans, ‘A Charlotte Bronte¨ Manuscript’, Notes and Queries, 228 (Aug. 1983), 294–5. Invalidated by handwriting and solecism in wording of date. Reference in CBL i. 411. 3. ‘Charlotte Bronte¨’ to ‘Mrs Gaskell, Sept. 8 j 1839’. ‘Dear Mrs Gaskell j It is with great pleasure I sit down to address you: it seems such a very long period since I saw you . . . j Your ever aVectionate j Charlotte Bronte¨.’ Invalidated by handwriting, valediction, and alleged date. CB did not meet Mrs Gaskell until Aug. 1850. MS Berg. See MGC Census pt. 3, 58, and pt. 5, 228. 4. ‘Charlotte Bronte¨’ to ‘Thackeray, Haworth: Sep. 3’, no year. ‘Dear Thackeray j I herewith return your ?little Work . . . Believe me j Ever your j Sincere admirer, j Charlotte Bronte¨.’ Refers to ‘Mr Nicholls’. Invalidated by handwriting, which is the same as that used in no. 3 above, and style, including discourteous use of ‘Thackeray’.

376

5.

6.

7.

8.

appendices MS Berg, on Xyleaf of Pierre Jurieu, The Policy of the Clergy of France. See MGC Census pt. 3, 57, and pt. 5, 228. ‘Charlotte Bronte¨’ to a friend, ‘January 3’, no year. ‘My dear Friend—I am highly Xattered with what you have written concerning ‘Shirley’. . . . ‘You know how extremely delicate they [C’s sisters] are’. Invalidated by handwriting, which resembles that of no. 3 above, and by the content. Both Emily and Anne Bronte¨ died before Shirley was published on 26 Oct. 1849. MS Berg. See MGC Census pt. 3, 57, and pt. 5, 228. ‘C. Bronte¨’ to unknown recipient, ‘Haworth: Jan 7’ no year. ‘Now that the new year has commenced, I hope and trust that we shall see you often . . . My sisters and myself are nearly always alone (our brother being in France) . . . C. Bronte¨.’ Invalidated by handwriting and content. Branwell Bronte¨ never visited France. MS Berg. See MGC Census pt. 5, 225, 228. C. Bronte¨ to ‘Miss——’, 22 April 1852. ‘Dear Miss—— j I fear you will have thought somewhat hardly of me . . . with my best wishes for your welfare j Believe me j Sincerely Yours j C Bronte¨.’ Invalidated by the paper, dark ink, and omission of the recipient’s surname. The handwriting closely resembles that of CB, but the document was almost certainly a traced copy of a facsimile of a genuine letter in The Autographic Mirror: L’Autographe Cosmopolite: lithographed by Vincent Brooks, Chandos St, Charing Cross, n.d., in which the surname of the recipient is omitted. BPM has a copy of the original letter, beginning ‘Dear Miss Holmes’, provided by its unknown owner. The letter was to Mary Holmes, an acquaintance and correspondent of W. M. Thackeray. See above, pp. 41–2. MS Berg. Formerly oVered for sale by Ritter Galleries, James M. Kennedy Sale, 19 Dec. 1933, as ‘A FINE SPECIMEN OF AN EXTREMELY RARE HOLOGRAPH . . . Autograph Letter Signed.’ See MGC Census pt. 5, 229, an account probably written in ignorance of the existence of The Autographic Mirror. ‘Charlotte Bronte¨’ to unknown recipient, from ‘Rome, 28th August’, no year. ‘Dearest Sir, j I wrote you a long letter yesterday which I sent by a private hand who will see it safely delivered.’ Invalidated by handwriting, pink paper, and alleged address. CB never visited Rome. MS Historical Society of Pennysylvania. See MGC Census pt. 3, 58.

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9. ‘Charlotte Nicholls’ to ‘My dear F——’, ‘Oct 2 j Wednesday’. ‘My dear F—— j Many thanks to you for your great kindness . . . ‘Shirley’ I think will be my greatest success . . . You know I am married, and to one of the best of men. . . . Charlotte Nicholls (nee´ [sic] Bronte¨).’ Invalidated by handwriting and content: Shirley, published 26 Oct. 1849, preceded CB’s marriage (29 June 1854). MS formerly in the library of Robert H. Taylor, New York. See MGC Census pt. 5, 229. 10. ‘C. B.’ to ‘Warren Horne, Esq. Tavistock Street, Bedford Square’. ‘Dear Sir j The enclosed is the piece I spoke to you of, to whom it belongs I really cannot tell but I am <desired> ’empowered’ to make any use of it that I think proper and I therefore send it to you, and have no doubt you will apply it to some proper purpose. j I am j Sir j Your’s &c. j C.B.’ Invalidated by the large bold handwriting, which has no resemblance to that of Charlotte Bronte¨. MS Yale. MGC Census pt 3, 59, pt 5, 229. 11. ‘C. Bronte¨’ to unknown recipient, ‘Haworth, Jan 7’ no year. ‘Dear Sir, j It is with great thankfulness I have to inform you that my poor unfortunate Brother has at length gained a position which I trust will make him both independent of others, and enable him to obtain a better one in the future. Mrs S. has been very very kind . . . I am rapidly progressing with my novel, and . . . Emily is busy on a volume of poems, . . . I was sorry to hear of the illness of poor Mrs. F. . . j You must excuse the brevity of this, as I am so busy in various ways: accept therefore the remembrances of j Yours very faithfully j C Bronte¨.’ Invalidated by handwriting, content, and style; no other example of a paper used by CB with the watermark ‘Joynson Super-Fine’. MS for sale by Heritage Book Shop, Inc., Los Angeles, June 2002. Suggested date ‘probably January 1846’, 4 pp. watermarked Joynson Super-Fine. 12. ‘Charlotte Bronte´’ to ‘MeSsrs Smith Elder & Co-y.’ ‘thanks for your kindneSs j I remain j Yours very truly j Charlotte Bronte´ j MeSsrs Smith Elder & Co-y’ Invalidated by the copperplate handwriting, using the long s. By 1847, when CB was corresponding with Smith, Elder, she was not using this style in addressing the firm. See analysis and examples of handwriting, CBL i. 72, and illustrations between 318 and 319. MS BPM. 13. ‘Currer Bell’ to the ‘grandson of the author of Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred’. Haworth. j June 1st. ‘Dear Sir—I have read 2,500 with pleasure. It is a very clever and ingenious production. Your Grandfather must have been an intellectual, clever and

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accomplished man j Thanking you for your high appreciation of ‘‘Jane Eyre’’,—I am so glad you enjoyed it,— j I am, dear Sir, j Yours faithfully j Currer Bell.’ Invalidated by handwriting. MS inscription BPM Bon 202 on Xyleaf of [H. J. Mercier] Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred. . . . A New Edition, Revised and Corrected (Liverpool, 1802), BPM Bon 52. Catalogue of the Bonnell Collection (Haworth, 1932), 64, alleges that it is ‘evidently only a draft of the letter sent’. 14. ‘Charlotte Bronte¨’ to ‘Mr. Thackeray’, n.d. ‘Dear Mr. Thackeray,—It is with heartfelt pleasure I greet you on the production of my poor book, and with heartfelt gratitude for your generous kindness in passing that review, and eulogising so heartily the humble oVering [sic in printed source, altered in ink to ‘oVspring’] of a brain that can lay no claim to cope with the power and strength of your own. [‘ . . . ’ added in ink] I have long yearned to address you, and the present is a Wtting opportunity to express to you the admiration with which your works and characters have inspired me. The prototype of Dobbin is truly in yourself as far as goodness lies. It is a great thing for the poor seeker Renomme [thus in source] to have gained the esteem and friendship of one who, like yourself, has secured a lofty position in the Temple of Fame, but you have secured it by the possession of that which you so Xatteringly attribute to me—genius, and the works of W. M. Thackeray will live and be thought more of in future times even than they are now. Many and many thanks from my humble home, and from those who turn to me for the daily necessaries of life. The words you have written will live for ever in my heart, and the advice you have given me will, I trust, be followed in any future production that may emanate from the pen and brain of your devoted servant, j Charlotte Bronte¨.’ Invalidated by style and alleged print-style handwriting, which CB did not use in her normal correspondence, and by the content: no one turned to CB ‘for the daily necessaries of life’. It is unlikely that any genuine letters from CB to Thackeray survive. In her address to the Bronte¨ Society on 4 Feb. 1911, Mrs Ellis H. Chadwick recalled that she had tried to trace CB’s reply to the ‘remarkable epistle from Thackeray’ mentioned in EN 25.1.1850 (CBL ii. 336), but ‘Lady Ritchie [Thackeray’s daughter Anne Ritchie] assures me that she has no letters of Charlotte Bronte¨ to her father, not even a scrap of her writing’ (BST 4. 21. 173). The letter was included in Whiteley Turner, A Spring-Time Saunter: Round and About Bronte¨-land (Halifax Courier Ltd, 1913), 229, from an alleged original in CB’s print-style writing covering ‘a space of two inches by three’. Printed as part of a description of items in the Bronte¨

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379

Museum, which had been opened on 18 May 1895 in a rented room over the Yorkshire Penny Bank in Haworth. Uncertain Attribution ‘C: B: Nicholls’ to ‘The Rev. Wm. Cartman, Haworth Augst. 20th’ ‘Dear Sir j Mr. Summerscale mentioned to Mr Nicholls that you were to preach at Cullingworth to-day— . . . a little assistance from you will be most welcome. With our united kind regards j I am, my dear Sir j Yours very sincerely, j C: B: Nicholls.’ Copy MS formerly in the Bale Collection, bought from Sotheby’s of London on 17 Dec. 1979 as lot 103, described as ‘a letter written on Charlotte’s behalf by her husband A. B. Nicholls’; now BPM. The writer’s identity is not known, but is certainly not Nicholls. The content and style nevertheless suggest that there had been an authentic original by Charlotte Bronte¨ Nicholls, and the text has been printed in the present volume as ‘Probably a copy of a genuine letter’, 20 Aug. [1854].

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C U M U L AT I V E I N D E X O F C O R R E S P O N D E N T S, VO LU M E S I – I I I Letters from Charlotte Bronte¨ to: Alexander, Harriet ii. 363 Aylott and Jones i. 445, 449, 451, 452, 453 (2), 454, 457, 459, 461, 462, 464, 470, 473, 474, 484, 486, 499 Bennoch, Francis iii. 194, 195, 222, 241 Bland, Susan (?) (‘Susey’) ii. 71 Branwell, Elizabeth i. 268 Bronte¨, Anne (note in letter to BB) i. 317 Bronte¨, Branwell i. 112, 316 Bronte¨, Emily Jane i. 190, 195, 251, 273, 319, 329, 331, 339 Bronte¨, Revd Patrick i. 105, 321; ii. 217, 218, 221 (envelope), 301, 410, 445, 537, 623, 625, 630, 636, 640, 649; iii. 49, 346 (envelope), 372 (envelope) Brooke, Leah Sophia (?) i. 254 Brown, Martha ii. 217, 271, 417, 420; iii. 114, 281

194, 206, 211, 214, 221, 239, 246, 251, 254, ?266, 291 Gore, Mrs Catherine Grace Frances ii. 455, 644, 647, 653; iii. 49 Grant, Mrs Joseph Brett iii. 252 Greenwood, Ann i. 149 Greenwood, John (stationer, of Haworth) ii. 351 Greenwood, Sarah iii. 341 Heger, Constantin i. 355, 369, 377, 433 Hogg, James (printer) ii. 418 Holland, Mrs iii. 171 Holmes, Mary iii. 41, 179 Horne, Richard Henry (later Hengist) i. 577 Hudson, Ellen (?) ii. 466 Hunt, Thornton Leigh ii. 360 Ingham, Dr Amos iii. 314

Carr, Charles junr., solicitor iii. 264 Cartman, Revd Dr William iii. 285 Christian Remembrancer, Editor of iii. 186 Clapham, Mrs Robert, see Nussey, Ann Colburn, Henry i. 481 Coleridge, Hartley i. 236, 239 De Quincey, Thomas i. 529 Dixon, Mary i. 313, 336 Dobell, Sydney ii. 526, 603, 610, 622, 651; iii. 224 Driver, John ii. 398, 402 Dublin University Magazine, Editor of i. 501 Dubois, Victoire i, 346 Elliott, Ebenezer i. 531 n. Enoch, Frederick i. 487 Epps, Dr John (?) ii. 150–1 Forster, Jane Martha, ne´e Arnold ii. 706 Franks, Elizabeth, ne´e Firth i. 108, 146 ‘friend, a’ (German exercise) i. 322 Garrs, Henry iii. 227, 234 Gaskell, Mrs Elizabeth ii. 288, 456, 475, 532, 544, 545, 560, ?587, 590, 591, 614, 638, 641, 644, 676, 695, 708, 710; iii. 14, 42, 47, 104, ?114, ?115, 116, 126, 156, 159, 172, 176, 182, 191, 193,

‘K. T.’ ii. 500, 514, 515, 524, 525 Kavanagh, Julia ii. 24, 558 Kay-Shuttleworth, Sir James ii. 645; iii. 318 Kay-Shuttleworth, Lady ii. 352, 368, 399, 401, 408, 645 Kingston, Eliza Jane i. 456, 472 Lewes, George Henry i. 559, 566; ii. 9, 13, 275, 330, 332, 484, 516; iii. 346 (envelope) Lockhart, John Gibson i. 530 n. Lovejoy, George ii. 339 Martineau, Harriet ii. 287, 304 (2), 480, 549, 571, 728; iii. 110, 118 Milnes, Richard Monckton ii. 639 Newby, Thomas Cautley iii. 235 Nussey, Ann, later Mrs Robert Clapham i. 127, 268; iii. 313 Nussey, Ellen i. 109, 110, 114, 116, 118, 120, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 133, 135, 136, 137, 139, 143, 145, 148, 150, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157, 158, 162, 164, 171, 173 (2), 175, 176, 178, 180, 182, 184, 187, 189, 193, 195, 197, 199, 200, 202, 205, 207, 208, 210, 211, 213, 216, 217, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 230, 232, 242, 246,

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cumulative index of correspondents

Nussey, Ellen (cont) 248, 249, 252, 257, 258, 259, 260, 265, 270, 271, 274, 275, 277, 278, 281, 283, 289, 302, 303, 304, 306, 307, 308, 311, 314, 324, 326, 333, 340 (2), 343 (2), 344, 345, 350, 361, 362, 364, 368, 372, 373, 375, 380, 382, 383, 384, 387, 388, 391, 395, 397, 399, 401, 402, 411, 418, 419, 420, 421, 425, 426, 432, 438, 440, 441, 443, 450, 452, 455, 459, 463, 465, 466, 475, 477, 482, 488, 491, 492, 494, 496 (2), 498, 500, 502, 504, 506, 508, 510, 515, 516, 517, 519, 520, 523, 524 (2), 525, 526, 527 (2), 528, 532, 533 (envelope), 534, 536, 538, 539 (envelope), 542, 547, 550, 556, 569, 583. ii. 8, 20, 33, 37, 39, 43, 53, 56, 62, 68, 81, 92, 103, 125, 130, 145, 146, 152, 154, 157, 166, 169, 171, 172, 183, 189, 191, 193, 200, 204, 208, 211, 213 (envelope), 222, 228, 230, 233, 234, 238, 248, 249, 263, 265, 268, 269, 274, 277, 285, 293, 298, 299, 305, 310, 316, 334, 336, 337, 338, 340, 341, 346, 353, 366, 370, 374, 384, 385, 387, 394, 396, 400, 405, 408, 414, 419, 422, 424, 426, 432, 437, 444, 450, 459, 468, 481, 482, 487, 512, 521, 535, 536, 541, 550, 566, 579, 597, 599, 601, 608, 611, 612, 620, 621, 627, 635, 642, 648, 653, 671, 673, 682, 685, 688, 692, 694, 703, 711, 715, 719, 722, 726, 730, 731, 734. iii. 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 16, 19, 23, 24, 25, 31, 38, 40, 43, 45, 46, 51, 53, 56, 58, 60 (2), 63, 66, 67, 69 (2), 70, 73, 76, 79, 83 (envelope), 85, 91, 92, 94, 101, 102, 108, 112, 122, 125, 126, 129, 134, 135, 136, 145, 148, 156, 158 (2), 161, 162, 165, 166, 168, 173, 175 (2), 177, 178, 180, 230, 231, 236, 237, 238, 239, 244, 253, 255, 260, 262, 264, 267, 268, 269, 274, 282, 283, 287, 288, 289, 293, 294, 296, 298, 299, 302, 304, 306, 311, 318, 326, 328, 362 , 363, 364, 365, 365, 366 (envelope), 369 (envelopes), 370 (2) Nussey, Mrs John, ne´e Ellen Wade (EN’s mother) i. 406–7 Nussey, Revd Henry 185, 204, 219, 244, 255 Nussey, Mercy Mary i. 276 Rand, Ebenezer i. 442 Rand, Mrs Ebenezer i. 393 Ringrose, Amelia, see Taylor, Mrs Joseph Scott, Mrs Alexander John, ne´e Ker iii. 255 Shaen, Mrs Emily, ne´e Winkworth iii. 208, 211 Simpson, James Alexander iii. 243 Smith, Elder and Co. i. 533, 534, 535, 537, 539, 541, 542, 544, 549, 552 (2), 563, 568 (2), 570, 586; ii. 52 Smith, Mrs Elizabeth, ne´e Murray ii. 307, 327, 406, 407, 421, 603, 617, 654 iii. 13, 86, 92, 96, 209

Smith, George junr. (1824–1901) ii. 28–9, 75, 86, 101, 117, 137, 139, 149, 150, 170, 246, 253, 258, 262, 264, 267, 270, 289, 308, 317, 330, 358, 386, 420, 430, 433, 436, ?453, 470, 473, 491, 522, 545, 572, 582, 593, 606, 614, 655, 656, 662, 670, 672, 674, 679, 683, 686, 690, 699, 712, 720, 723, 731, 732; iii. 3, 9, 12, 16, 17, 20, 26, 30, 47, 61, 74, 77, 81, 83, 86, 87, 88, 118, 123, 128, 141, 165, 174, 180, 184, 213, 245, 250 Smith, John Stores ii. 352, 428 Southey, Revd Charles Cuthbert ii. 454 Southey, Robert i. 160, 168 ‘Susey’, see Bland, Susan (?) Taylor, James ii. 187, 247, 258, 280, ?314, 460, 495, 543, 553, 574, 588, 589, 716 Taylor, Mrs Joseph, ne´e Amelia Ringrose i. 585; ii. 31, 276, 284, 297, 335, 357, 372, 381, 390, 600, 633, 634; iii. 307, 309, 311, 320, 327 (2) Taylor, Maria, of Stanbury, later Mrs James Ingham i. 201 Taylor, Mary (‘Pag’, ‘Polly’) of Gomersal ii. 101 Taylor, Mrs Stephen, of Stanbury, ne´e Mary Wright i. 305 (2), 351; iii. 365 Tennyson, Alfred i. 530 n. Thomas, Mrs iii. 341 Tomlinson, Ellen (?) ii. 110 Wheelwright, Laetitia Elizabeth ii. 190, 309, 369, 410, 431, 552; iii. 39, 54, 232, 325 White, John ii. 693 Williams, William Smith i. 546, 549, 553, 557, 561, 564, 565, 567, 571, 574, 576, (draft) 578, 579, 580, 581, 587; ii. 3, 12, 16, 22, 25, 27, 29, 35, 40, 42, 44, 49, 51, 54, 57, 63, 70, 72, 77, 83, 84, 94, 98, 102, 118, 122, 123, 128, 132, 135, 140, 142, 147, 150, 155, 159, 165, 167, 174, 176, 181, 185, 189, 196, 201, 206, 213, 214, 215, 219, 223, 226, 231, 235, 237, 239, 241, 245, 248, 251, 254, 255, 256, 257, 260, 266, 271, 278, 281 (reference), 282, 286, 290, 294, 296, 312, 323, 328, 349, 354, 364, 375, 382, 388, 396, 400, ?402, 427, 462, 464, 473, 479, 483, ?486, 488, 501, 513, 542, 570, 667, 701, 707, 709, 713, 714, 756; iii. 3, 32, 34, 59, 72, 80, 96, ?131, 132, 138, ?146, 151, 170, ?212 Winkworth, Catherine iii. 279 Wooler, Catherine (Katherine Harriet) iii. 278 Wooler, Margaret i. 389, 447, 505; ii. 47, 106, 192, 210, 342, 476, 665, 689, 700, 704; iii. 9, 21, 28, 55, 64, 71, 89, 110, 122, 154, 188, 192, 202, 213, 242, 271, 275, 286, 290, 301, 305 Wooler, Dr William Moore iii. 147 ‘Young Man, A’ ii. 404

cumulative index of correspondents Letters to Charlotte Bronte¨ from: Abbott, Revd Joseph ii. 576 Bronte¨, Revd Patrick iii. 105, 106 Dana, Charles Anderson ii. 551 Dobell, Sydney ii. 594, 605, 619 ‘K. T.’ ii. 497, 503, 519, 529 Martineau, Harriet iii. 117 ‘Mathilde’ i. 352 Mayor and Mayoress of Oxford iii. 269 Mountaineer of the Wild West, A ii. 580 Robinson, Henry ii. 669 Smith, Mrs Elizabeth, ne´e Murray iii. 209 Sophie, Mademoiselle i. 337 Southey, Robert i. 165, 170; iii. 362 (reference to MS) Taylor, Ellen ii. 439 Taylor, Mary ii. 87, 198, 378, 391, 438; iii. 36 Williams, William Smith ii. 155 Letters to and from other members of the Bronte¨ family: From Anne Bronte¨ to Ellen Nussey i. 544; ii. 19, 194; to Revd D. Thom ii. 160; to W. S. Williams ii. 121 From Branwell Bronte¨ to John Brown ii. 110; to F. H. Grundy i. 294, 295, 427, 430, 479, 490; iii. 366; to J. B. Leyland i. 414, 423, 439, 467, 475, 480, 512; ii. 6, 76 (2); to H. Robson (?) i. 431; to William Wordsworth i. 160 From Emily Bronte¨ to Ellen Nussey i. 318, 403, 454 To Emily Bronte¨ (?) from Thomas Cautley Newby ii. 26 From Revd Patrick Bronte¨ to Edward Baines iii. 121; to Charlotte Bronte¨ iii. 105, 106; to Mrs Elizabeth Franks i. 106, 141, 147; to Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell iii. 173, 192, 335; to ?Mr Greenwood i. 333; to John

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Greenwood, stationer, ii. 391; to Sir J. K. Shuttleworth iii. 323; to R. M. Milnes iii. 8; to Ellen Nussey ii. 423, iii. 275, 329; to Ebenezer Rand ii. 184; to Revd John Rand ii.219 n.; to George Smith ii. 435, iii. 120, 337; to an unknown correspondent iii. 309 To Revd Patrick Bronte¨ from Constantin Heger i. 298 Letters about or relevant to Charlotte Bronte¨: From Mrs W. E. Forster to Mrs Gaskell (?) ii. 568 From Mrs Gaskell to John Forster iii. 159, ?196, 248, 259, 261; to Mrs W. M. James ii. 706; to Lady Hatherton iii. 216; to Lady KayShuttleworth ii. 532; iii. 150; to R. M. Milnes iii. 204; to Catherine Winkworth ii. 446; iii. 317 From Mary Gorham (Mrs T. S. Hewitt) to Ellen Nussey iii. 226, 249 From Revd W. M. Heald to Ellen Nussey ii. 324 From Harriet Martineau to: Thornton Hunt (?) ii. 564; to G. H. Lewes ii 527, 534 From R. M. Milnes to Mrs Gaskell iii. 223 From Mary Russell Mitford to E. B. Browning iii. 205 From Revd A. B. Nicholls to Mary Gorham (Mrs T. S. Hewitt) (?) iii. 336; to Ellen Nussey iii. 321, 322, 323, 324, 329, 330, 336; to Revd George Sowden iii. 284 From Ellen Nussey to Mary Gorham (Mrs T. S. Hewitt) i. 347, 404, 415; to Revd A.B. Nicholls iii. 297 From George Smith to Harriet Martineau iii. 136 From Martha Taylor to Ellen Nussey i. 282 From Mary Taylor to Ellen Nussey i. 280, 282, 291, 292, 296, 309, 366, 377; ii. 178, 441, 585; iii. 162, 228 From W. M. Thackeray to Mrs Elizabeth Smith, ne´e Murray ii. 413; to W. S. Williams ii. 18 From Catherine Winkworth to Eliza Paterson ii. 303; to Emily Shaen iii. 141; to Emma Shaen iii. 139, 256

G E N E R A L I N D E X F O R VO LU M E I I I Addison, Joseph 18 n. Agnes Grey, see Bronte¨, Anne, work s Airedale 350 Albert, Prince 199, 309 n. Allbutt, Dr George 362, 364 Allbutt, Mrs George, see Brooke, Anna Maria Allbutt, Revd Thomas 190, 370 Allbutt, Mrs Thomas, ne´e Marianne Wooler, 1st wife 190 Allbutt, Thomas Clifford 190 n. Ambleside 57, 86, 88–9 n., 190 n. America 172, 184–5 n. Anderson, Hannah, later Mrs Andrew Cassels 372 Anderson, William 372 Anderson, Dr William Charles 31–2 n. Antrim 277 n. Arnold, Jane, see Forster, Mrs William Edward art 221–2 n. atheism 111–12 n., 144 n. Athenaeum (journal) (review of Villette) 123 n., 124., (review of Balder) 226 n. Atkinson, Henry George 144 n. Atkinson, Revd Thomas, of Liversedge 369 Atkinson, Mrs Thomas, ne´e Mary Hirst, of Liversedge 369 Atkinson, Walter, of Guiseley 373 Atlas (newspaper) (on Villette) 131–2 n. Austen, Jane 138, 139 n. Australia 94 n., 101–2 n., 106 Aykroyd (Ackroyd), Tabitha (Tabby) 29, 50, 63–4 n., 105 n., 106, 114, 199–200, 202 n., 216–17 n., 262, (illness) 314; (death) 326–7 n.; 353, 363, 371 Aytoun, William Edmondstoune 226 n. Bailey, Philip James 226 n. Baines, Sir Edward (1800–90) 120–1 n., 124, 368 Balaclava, Battle of 306 n. Balcony, Haworth 216–17 n. Balder 224–6 n. Balzac, Honore´ de 119, 120 n. Banagher, Offaly, Ireland 102 n., 274, 275–7 n., 278, 319 n. Bangor, North Wales 274 Bank of England 108–9 n. Battye, John 236–7 n., 263 n. Beavers and the Elephant, The 364 ‘Beck, Baroness von’ (Wilhelmina Racidula) 373

‘Becky’ (Rebecca Sharp in Vanity Fair) 55 n. Beddgelert, Wales 278–9 Bedford College for Women 112 n. Bell, Acton, see Bronte¨, Anne Bell, Alan 276–7 n. Bell, Revd Dr Alan 276–8 n. Bell, Currer, see Bronte¨, Charlotte Bell, Ellis, see Bronte¨, Emily Bell, Harriet Lucinda, later Mrs J. E. Adamson 276, 278 n. Bell, Mrs Harriette Lucinda, ne´e Adamson 276–8 n. Bell, James Adamson 318–19 n., 321 Bell, Joseph Samuel 276–7 n. Bell, Mary Anna, later Nicholls 95 n., 276–7 n. Bell’s Weekly Messenger (on Villette) 123 n. Bennett, Dr James A. 31–2 n. Bennett, Dr Joseph Blacker 31–2 n. Bennoch, Francis 194, 195–6, 197, 201 n., 222–3 n., 241, 272–3 n. Bennoch, Mrs Margaret 195–6 n. Bethlehem Hospital, London 108–9 n Bickall, Edmund 260–1 n. Bingley 366 Birmingham 308 Blackwood’s Magazine 226 n. Blakeway, Elizabeth, see Smith, Mrs George junr. Bombay 24 n., 62 Bonaparte, Charles Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) 22, 23 n., 32 n., 169 n., 233–4 n. Boulogne 54–5 n., 179 Bower, Rose, ne´e Aykroyd or Ackroyd, sister of ‘Tabby’ 363 Bradbury, John 364 Bradbury, Mrs John, ne´e Annis Scott 364 Bradford 366 Bradford Observer 38 n., 121 n. Bradley, Revd James Chesterton 201 n. Branwell, Elizabeth (‘Aunt’) 262 n. Branwell, Joseph (1789–1857) 272–3 n. Branwell, Maria (1783–1821), see Bronte¨, Maria (Mrs Patrick) Bremer, Fredrika 356 ‘Brettons, the’ in Villette 78 n. Bridlington 29 Brier Hall 364 Bromsgrove, Worcs. 11 n.

general index Bronte¨, Anne 15 n., 39 n., (gravestone) 52 n.; 107 n., 200, 202 n., (universalism) 215 n.; 243 w o r k s: Agnes Grey 37 n., 161 n., 235 n. Poems 1846 196 n., 370 Tenant 235–6 n. Bronte¨, Branwell 15 n., 143, 144–5 n., 200, 217 n., (painting by) 354–5; 360, 365, 376, 377 Bronte¨, Charlotte: correspondence, see Cumulative Index of Correspondents, above Life: appearance 160, 205, 261, 319, 352 attitude to ABN (after proposal) 92–5 (development of love for him) 301, 306, 325, 327, 328, 330 n., 360 books and reading, see index entries for Austen; Aytoun; Balzac; Bremer; Bunyan; Butler; Dickens; Dobell; Ellis; Fielding; Forbes; Forster, W. E.; Froude; Gaskell, Mrs E.; Goldsmith; Gore; Gwynne; Kavanagh; Kingsley; La Fontaine; Lamartine; Marsh; Martineau, Harriet; Milton; Mitford; Moore, Thomas; Newman, F. W.; Robinson, Revd Robert; Rochefoucauld; Ruskin; Scott, A. J.; Sewell; Steele; Stowe; Swift; Thackeray, W. M.; White, Revd Hugh; Whitehead character, see esp. 64, 77, 248, 257, 259, 297–8, 299 n., 305, 351–2, 354–7 death 320 n.; 329, 330, 335 depression 36, 57, 68, 214, 350 engagement to ABN 240, 242, 247, 256–9 n. estrangement from EN 180, 214, 228; (reconciliation) 230 n., 240, 242, 249 fame, attitude to 75 n., 221–2 n., 290 finance (assets) 245, 261–2 n.; (deed of settlement) 264; (will) 325 n.; see also wo rks : Villette friendships, see esp. entries for Gaskell, Mrs Elizabeth; Nussey, Ellen; Smith, George; Taylor, Joseph; Taylor, Mrs Joseph; Wheelwright, Laetitia; Wooler, Margaret illness 8–10, 13–14, 24, 55 n., 57, 68, 163, 306, 321–5, (‘sickness with scarce a reprieve’) 327; 330 isolation, feeling of 39, 55, 63, 65, 70, 74, 186, 214 loyalty to her father 240, 244, 250, 281–2 marriage, attitude to 240, 244, 248, 256–8, 261–2, 283–8, (happiness) 299 n., 300 n., 301, 307, 325 n., 360

385

places visited or lived in, see entries for Ambleside; Bangor; Beddgelert; Bridlington; Brookroyd; Brussels; Conway; Easton; Dewsbury Moor; Dublin; Dumfries; Edinburgh; Filey; Fox How; Gawthorpe Hall; Glengariff; Gomersal; Halifax; Haworth; Holyhead; Hornsea; Hull; Hunsworth; Ilkley; Ireland; Keighley; Killarney; Lake District; Leeds; Limerick; Llanberis; London; Manchester; Padiham; Roe Head; Scarborough; Scotland; Tarbert (Ireland); Tralee; Wales possible pregnancy 263 n., 319–20 n., 326–7 n., 331 n., 335 n. wedding 240, 245 n., 261 n., (trousseau) 266, 268; (wedding cards) 265, 267, 268, 272–3 n. (‘quiet wedding’) 270–2 n., 358–60 works: ‘Emma’ 160 n., 212 n., 312 n. Jane Eyre 59, 74, 104–5 n., 117 n., 133 n., 137, 142, 153 n., 200, 201 n., (4th edn.) 245–6 n.; 294 n. originals of characters in JE 322, 354 ‘John Henry’ or ‘The Moores’ 160 n. Poems 1846 196 n., 370 Professor, The 58 n., 160 n. Shirley 74, 87 n., 90 n., 124 n., 125 n., 152 n., 165 n., 198, 217 n., (2nd edn.) 27–28 n., 32–3 n.; 52 n., 59 n., 62, 81–2 n., (copyright) 245–6 n.; 248, 252, 376, 377 originals of characters in Shirley xxxvi, 201 n., 308 n., 354 Villette 34 n., 40 n., 57, 74–5, 85, 345 composition 29, 38–9 n., 67, 70, 73 French translation 160 manuscript 79 n., 80–1 n; MS sent to press (vols. 1 and 2) 72–3 n., (vol. 3) 83, 86 ‘originals’ of places and people 78 n., 80–1 n., 85 n., 88 n., 89 n., 115 n., 141, 258–9 n. payment 86, 88–90 n., 160, 165, 245–6 n. pirated version 85 n. proof-correcting 86, 96, 101 publication 96–7 n., 104–5 n., 108, 110–11 (gift-copies sent) 111, 113 reviews and opinions 117, 118–25, 131–5, 137–42, 145–6, 151–5, 171, 186–8, 212 second edition 139 ‘Willie Ellin’ 160 n., 212 n. Bronte¨, Elizabeth 200, 202 n. Bronte¨, Emily Jane 15 n., 200, 202 n., 243, 354 works:

386

general index

Bronte¨, Emily Jane (cont) Poems 1846 196 n., 370 Wuthering Heights (reviews) 200, 202 n.; (2nd edn.) 36–7, 161 n., 235 n.; (Tauchnitz edn.) 198 Bronte¨, Maria (CB’s sister) 200, 202 n., 354 Bronte¨, Maria (Mrs Patrick Bronte¨) 199–200, 202 n. Bronte¨, Revd Patrick 39–40 n., 49–51 n., 128 appearance 198–202 n. attitude to Mrs Gaskell 173–4 attitude to A. B. Nicholls 93–5, 148–9, 157, 166–7, (‘implacable’) 169, 215; (hostility overcome) 240–2, 247, 253, 261–2, 321 attitude to Margaret Wooler 203 CB’s wedding 272 n., 275 character, see esp. 244, 253, 354–5 concern for CB 6, 209, 323, 329; grief for her death 331 n. eyesight 39–40 n., 58, 63–4, 175–6, 177, 181, 184, 186–7, 199, 232–3 n., 262, 323 health 24, 38–9, (danger of apoplexy) 59–61, 93–4 n., 108, 237–9, 267 letters from PB to: Edward Baines 121; CB 105, 106; Elizabeth Gaskell 173–4, 192–3, 335; Sir J. KayShuttleworth 323–4; R. Monckton Milnes 8; Ellen Nussey 275, 329; George Smith 120, 337; unknown correspondent 309 life in the Parsonage 197–202 n. Brooke, Anna Maria, later Mrs George Allbutt 364 Brookfield, Jane 19 n., 84 n. Brookfield, William 19 n. Brookroyd, Birstall 7, 12, 14, 21, 85–90, 238, (CB’s visit to) 244–5 n.; 253, 272–3 n., (intention to visit) 300, 313, 319, 320, 370 Brown, John 101–2 n., 166, 201, 260–1 n., 359 Brown, Martha 49–50, 54 n., 63, (attitude to ABN) 101–2 n.; 106, 113 n., 114, 129, 149, 178, 199, 202 n., 206, 211, (CB’s letter to) 281; 319 n.; (tries to comfort CB) 326 n.; 330–1 n., 358, 361 Brown, Mrs Mary 94–5 n. Brown, Tabitha 331 n. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett 194 n., 205 Browning, Robert 205 Brussels 40 n., 55 n., 150–1 n., 205 Buckinghamshire 148 Bunsen, Christian Karl Josias von 140 Bunyan, John 61 n. Burlington, see Bridlington Burnett, Revd Dr John 268 n., 290–1 n. Burnley, Mrs Thomas 103

Butler, Samuel (?1612–80), Hudibras 267–8 n. Butterfield, Richard Shackleton 50–1 n., 272–3 n. Buttle, Mrs, see Walker, Jane, of Lascelles Hall Caen, France 221–2 n. Cakeham 6 n., 39 n., (EN at) 51–60 Calderdale 350 Cambridge University 198, 206–7 n. Canterbury, Archbishop of 123 n. Carlill, Mrs Sarah, ne´e Greenwood 341–2 n. Carlisle, George W. F. Howard, 7th Earl of (Lord Morpeth) 235 n. Carmichael-Smyth, Mrs Anne 42 n. Carr, Charles junr. (solicitor) 207 n., 264 Carr, Mary, dtr. of Charles Carr senr., see Heald, Mrs W. M. junr. Carr, Dr William senr. (1784–1861) 262–3 n Carter, Revd Edward Nicholl 56, 90, 271–2 n., 302 Carter, Mrs Edward Nicholl, ne´e Susan or Susanna[h] Wooler 56, 271–2 n., 302 Carter, Ellen 56, 65, 102 Carter, Mrs Jeremiah, ne´e Mary Halliley 362 Carter, Susan Margaret 56, 65, 302 Cartman, Revd Dr William 149–50 n., 202–3 n., 285–6 n., 379 Cassels, Revd Andrew 372 Catholicism 33–4 n., 42 n., 120 n., 138 n., 153 n., 154, (in Villette) 155 n.; 179–80 n., 185 n. Cator, Revd Thomas 149–50 n., 253 Chambers, Sir William 277 n. Chapman and Hall (publishers) 97 n., 105 n., 159, 249 n. Charnock, Elizabeth, see Nussey, Mrs Richard Cheltnam, Charles 371 Chobham 184–5 n. cholera 372 Christian Remembrancer (on Villette) 152, 153 n., 154–5 n.; (CB to the Editor) 186–8 n.; (on Jane Eyre) 188 n. Church of England 215, 281 n., 317 Clapham, Robert 5, 7, (illness) 11, 20, 135, 136 n.; 166–7 n., 295–6 n., 297, 313, (death) 329 Clapham, Mrs Robert, see Nussey, Ann Cleckheaton 85, 264, 310 n. Cleethorpes 362 Clergy Daughters’ School, see Cowan Bridge Cockill family 32 n. Cockill, Elizabeth 32 n., 237 n., 298–9 n. Cockill, Hannah G. 31–2 n., 236–7 n., 263 Cockill, Mrs Hannah 237 n., 298–9 Cockill, Sarah 32 n., 237 n., 298 Colne, Lancs. 363

general index communism 30–1 Comte, Auguste 144 n. Constantine (ship) 228, 230 n. Conway (Conwy) 278, 279 Coram, Captain Thomas 109 n. Cork 185 n., 282–3 n. Cornhill, London 57, 250 Cornhill Magazine 109 n. Cowan Bridge (Clergy Daughters’) School 200 Crimean War 225 n., 233–4 n., 305–6 n., 329 n. Critic (newspaper) (on Villette) 131, 134 Crix, Essex 207 n. Crosland, Camilla, ne´e Toulmin 195–6 n., 197 Crowther, Revd Thomas 271 n. Cuba House, Banagher 277–8 n. Cullingworth 285–6 n. Daily News (on Villette) 118 n., 119–20 n., 125 n. Davenport, Caroline, ne´e Hurt, afterwards Lady Hatherton 15, 16 n., (ECG’s letter to) 216–17 n. Dawson, Hannah 330 n. De Renzy, Revd George Binks 170 n., 201 n., 242–3 n., 260–1 n., 267–8 n., 269–71 n. Derby, Lord 32 Devonshire Arms, Keighley 270–1 n. Dewsbury Moor (Heald’s House school) 23 n. Dickens, Charles 19 n., 370 w o r k s: Barnaby Rudge 109 n. Bleak House 27–8 n., 129 n. Hard Times 259, 260 n. Household Words 42–3 n., 160 n., 174 n., 217 n., 221–2 n., 292 n., 312 n. Oliver Twist 109 n. Sketches by Boz 109 n. Dictionary of National Biography, The 251 n. Disraeli, Benjamin 31–2 n. Dixon family of Birmingham 69 Dixon, Miss, of Dublin 69 Dobell, Sydney 224–6 n. Dobell, Mrs Sydney, ne´e Emily Fordham 224, 225 n. ‘Donne, Mr’ in Shirley 224 Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper 202 n. Dove, Mrs 208, 211 Driver, John 372 Driver, Revd Jonas 362 Dublin 185 n., 274 n., 276–7 n., 278, 279, 282 Dublin, Trinity College 276–7 n. Dublin Review (on Villette) 138 n. Dublin University Magazine 196 n. Dugdale, Crawshaw 324 n. Dugdale, John 11 n.

387

Dumfries 189 Dury, Caroline 363, 364 Eastlake, Lady, see Rigby, Elizabeth Easton, near Bridlington 48 n. Eastwood, Keighley 201 n. Eclectic Review (on Villette) 132–3 n.; (on Wuthering Heights) 133 n. Edinburgh 62 n., 357 Edinburgh Guardian (on Villette) 212 Edinburgh Review (on Villette) 151, 152 n. Ellis, Sarah Stickney 341–2 n. Ellison, Mr 293–4 n. ‘Emanuel, Paul’ in Villette 140, 248–9 n. ‘Emma’, see Bronte¨, Charlotte, w o r k s English Churchman (on Villette) 154–5 n., 186 English Humourists, see Thackeray, W. M., work s: Lectures on the English Humourists Evans, Mrs William 367 Ewart, Mr and Mrs William 256, 259 n. Examiner (newspaper) 53, 66, 69 n., 73, (on Henry Esmond) 84, 160 n.; (on Villette) 118–19 n.; 122, 168, 184, (on the Crimean War) 233–4 n. Experience of Life, The, see Sewell, Elizabeth Missing ‘Fanshawe, Ginevra’, in Villette 77–8 n. Fawcett, Revd William 202–3 n. Fennell, Revd John 126 n. Fielding, Henry 27–8 n., 143, 144–5 n., 351 Filby (tailor) 27–8 n. Filey, Yorks. 47, 49–56, 65 finance 206–7 n.; see also Bronte¨, Charlotte, work s; Smith, George junr. Firmilian 226 n. Flossy senr., Anne Bronte¨’s spaniel 50, 106–8 n., 149–50 n., (death) 306–7 n. Fonblanque, Albany 119 n. Forbes, Dr John 108–9 n., 170, 184–5 n., 282 Forc¸ade, Euge`ne 138 n. Forster, John 84 n., 119 n., 160, 196, 200 n., 206–7 n., 248–9 n., 261–2 Forster, William Edward 8 n., 30–1, 69 Forster, Mrs William Edward, ne´e Jane Martha Arnold 8 n., 23 n., 69, 234–5 n. Foundling Hospital, London 108–9 n. Fowler, Lorenzo Niles 57 n. Fox How 351 France 22–3 n., 55 n., 169 n., 205–6 n., 222 n., 233–4 n. (and Crimean War) 306 n., 376 ‘Fraser, Mr’ (i.e. George Smith) 124, 125 n., 142 Fraser’s Magazine 21 n. French books 146–7 n. French language (in Villette) 139

388

general index

French newspapers 168, 288, 306 French Revolution (1848) 170 n. Froude, James Anthony 293 n. Fryston Hall 8 Fullerton, Lady Georgiana 138 n. Furnivall, F. J. 216 n. Gargrave 19 n., 42 n. Garrs, Henry 227–8 n., 234–5 n. Garrs, Nancy 228 n., 235 n. Garrs, Sarah 228 n. Gaskell, Mrs Elizabeth 4, 8, 14–15, 42–3, 104–5 n., 114–16, 156, (on Villette) 125 n., 126–7, 150–1 n.; (on Thackeray) 184–5 n.; 191, 194–5 n., 206–7, 211, 214–15 n., 221–2 n., 233, 239, 246–7 n., 251 CB’s letters to, see Cumulative Index of Correspondents, above CB’s visits to, projected or achieved 104–5 n., 116, 155–6, 236 n., 239, 255–9 n., 351–2 Gaskell’s visit to Haworth, projected or achieved 161 n., 172, 173, 176, 192, 353–7 Gaskell’s letters to John Forster 159, ?196, 248, 259, 261; Lady Hatherton 216; Lady Kay-Shuttleworth 150; R. Monckton Milnes 204; Catherine Winkworth 317 use of CB’s letters in Life 112 n., 115 n., 296 n., 350 works: Cranford 42–3 n., 47–6 n., 159–60 n., 171 n., 174 n., 182, 222 n. Life of CB 117 n., 118 n., (on CB’s wedding) 272 n.; 319 n., (CB’s funeral) 331 n.; 335 n., 337 n. Mary Barton 104, 262 Morton Hall 216–17 n., 221 North and South 280–1 n., 291–3 n., 312, 317 Ruth 43, 96–7 n., 104–5 n., 108, 111, 116, 127 n., 140, 150, 183 Gaskell, Florence Elizabeth (‘Flossy’) 48, 156, 183, 191, 254 Gaskell, Julia Bradford 15, 48, 156, 183, 191, 195 n., 254, 292–3 n. Gaskell, Margaret Emily (‘Meta’) 47–6 n., 104–5 n., 127–8 n., 156, 183, 191, 222 n., 251–2 n., 254 Gaskell, Marianne 15 n., 22–3 n., 48, 156, 183, 191, 221–2 n. Gaskell, Revd William 15, 48, 249 n., 251, 256, 258–259 n., 292 Gaskell, William (son of Revd W. and Elizabeth Gaskell) 192 n. Gawthorpe Hall 299–300 n., 312 n., 318 Gisborne, Revd Thomas 367

Glengariff 185 n., 282 Globe (newspaper) (on Villette) 123 n. Goldsmith, Oliver 27–8 n., 34–5 n. Gomersal 310 n., 364 Gore, Mrs Catherine Frances Grace 49 Gorham, Christiana Elizabeth 77 n. Gorham, Revd John 39 n., 52 n., 53 Gorham, Mrs John 249 Gorham, Mary, later Mrs T. S. Hewitt 6, 23–4 n., 26, 45–6 n., 58, 69, 108, (letters to EN) 226–7 n., 249; (pregnancy) 249 n., 296–7 n.; (birth of her son) 306–7 n., 311–12 n.; (illness during pregnancy) 326–7 n.; 32 Gorleston 90 n., 102 n., 134, 155 n., 165, 166, (EN arrives at) 168, 230 n. governesses 42 n., 111–12 n., 141 Graham, Dr Thomas John, Modern Domestic Medicine 6 n., 10–11 n., 20 n., 58 n., 58 n., 59 n., 77 n., 232 n. Grant, Charles 252–3 n. Grant, Revd Joseph Brett 95 n., 106, 130, 134–5 n., 149, 169, 201 n., 237, 241 n., 252, 270–1, 283, 296, 359 Grant, Mrs J. B., ne´e Sarah Ann Turner (CB’s letter to) 252–3 n.; 270–1, 283 Great Saddleworth Exhibition 221 Greenwood, Edwin 362 Greenwood, Frederick 362 Greenwood, George of Hull 341 n. Greenwood, James (1793–1857) 50 n. Greenwood, John (1807–63), stationer, of Haworth 317 n., 335 n. Greenwood, Sarah 341 Greenwood, William, of Oxenhope 341 n. Greg, William Rathbone (on Villette) 152 n. Grundy, Francis Henry 369 Guardian (newspaper) (on Villette) 131, 132–3 n., 134, 154–5 n., 186, 188 n. Guild of Literature and Art 197, 200 n. Gully, Susan 256, 259 n. Gwynne, Talbot ( Josepha Gulston) 34–5 n. Habergham 300 n., 301, 303 n., 318 Hainworth 126 Halifax 245 n., 266, 268 ‘Hall, Margaret’, in Shirley 294 n. Hallam, Henry 140 Halliley, Mary 362 Hamburg (‘Hamburgh’) 22 Hannay, James 28 n. Hare, Julius Charles 140 Harrogate 372 Hartlepool 375 Hathersage 366

general index Hatherton, Edward John Littleton, 1st Baron 16 n. Haworth (EN’s visits to) 70–3, 113, 123, 178–80, 271–2, 287–91, 331 n. Haworth church 199–202 n., 330 n., 331 n., 353 Haworth moors 197–9, 353–4 Haworth National School 168, 201, 286, 287, 290, 309 Haworth Parsonage 196–202 n., 247, 263, 353–5, 359 Haworth Sunday School 286, 287 Hawthorne, Nathaniel 212 n. Haynau, Field Marshal Freiherr von 87 Heald, Miss Harriet 244–5 n., 294 Heald, Revd W. M. junr. (1803–75) 244–5 n., 294 Heald, Mrs W. M. junr., ne´e Mary Carr 244–5 n. Hebden Bridge 95 n., 303 Heckmondwike 71–2 n., 85, 90 Heger, Constantin 78 n., 258 (‘Paul Emanuel’), 259 n., 366 Heger, Mme., ne´e Claire Zoe¨ Parent 85 n., 141 n. Helmsing, Norman 308 n. Henriquez, Dr Amos 288–9 n., 327–8 n. Heptonstall 294, 296 Hewitt, Edward Swinton 249 n., 297, 311 Hewitt, Revd Thomas Swinton 6 n. Hewitt, Mrs T. S., see Gorham, Mary high church, see Pusey, Revd Dr Edward Bouverie Hills, Miss, see Williams, Mrs William Smith Hirst, Elizabeth (‘Bessie’), daughter of William Hirst of Marsh House, Gomersal 369 Hodgson, Thomas (publisher) 235–6 n. Hogarth, William 28 n., 144 n. Holland, Mrs Lucy 171 Holmes, Revd Joseph 77 n. Holmes, Mary 19 n., 21 n., 41–2 n., 179–80 n., 376 Holyhead 274 n., 276, 278, 279 homoeopathy 289 n. Hook, Revd Walter Farquhar 204–5 n., 224 n., 251 Hopkinson, Mrs 24 Horne, Warren 377 Hornsea, Yorks. 155 n., 190, 202–3 n., 213, 236 Houghton, Lord, see Milnes, Richard Monckton Hours at Home 363 Household Words, see Dickens, Charles, w o r k s Hudson, John 51–2 n. Hudson, Mrs John, ne´e Sophia Whipp 51–2 n. Hulcott (‘Hulcoates’) 139, 148 n.

389

Hull 202–3 n., 342 n. Hunsworth, Yorks. 5 n., 24, 66, 73, 156, 162, 164, 238 n., (CB’s visit to) 244–5 n., 253, 255–6 n., (proposed visit to) 301; ‘bad air’ 308 n. Hunt, Thornton Leigh 31 n., 53 n. hydropathy 41 Ilkley, Yorks. 10, 11, 189–90 n., 193 n. Illustrated London News 109 n. India 38–9 n., 57, 62 n., 87, 103, 124 n., 144 n., 371 Ing Row 126 n. Ingham, Dr Amos 314, 319 n., 323, 331 Ingledew, Miss 375 Inkerman, battle of 306 n. Ireland 102 n., 120 n., 198, 274–83 n. Jackson, Revd Thomas Norfolk 50 James, Mrs William Milbourne, ne´e Maria Otter 174 n. Jane Eyre, see Bronte¨, Charlotte, w o r k s Jenkins, Miss, of Bath 345 Jews, London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the 290–1 n. Johnson, Dr Samuel 27–8 n. Joyce, Mrs 208 Kavanagh, Julia: works: Daisy Burns 132–4 n. Madeleine 132–4 n. Three Paths, The 134 n. Women of Christianity 31–2 n., 33–4 n. Kay-Shuttleworth, Sir James 36–8 n., 93–4 n., 102, 113, 127, (offers living to ABN) 299–300 n.; (accident) 301–2 n.; (meets Sutcliffe Sowden) 304; 312, 318; (Scarsdale) 318 n. Kay-Shuttleworth, Lady 21, 113–14 n., 127–8 n., 150, 324 Keats, John 122 n. Keeper (Emily Bronte¨’s dog) 199, 200, 355 Keighley 19, 246, 353, 359, 366 Keighley News 358–60 Kemp, Revd John 40–1 n. Kenney, Charles Lamb 97 n. Kenney, James 184 n. Kilkee, Ireland 277–9 n., 284 Killarney 185 n., 280–1 n., 282 King, Henry Samuel 62 n., 143–4 n., 181–2 n., 210 King’s College, London 112 n., 215 n. Kingsley, Charles, The Saint’s Tragedy 34 n., 180 n. Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), Ireland 274 n.

390

general index

Kirk Smeaton 149 n., 204–5 n., 215 n., 253, 268 Kirkcudbright 189–90 n. Knoll, The, Ambleside 57 n. Knowles, Lionel 283–4 n., 289 La Fontaine 216 n., 299 n. Lady’s Magazine 194 n. Lake District, England 278–9 n. Lamartine, Alphonse de 170 Lancashire 223 Landor, Walter Savage 233 n., 345–6 n. Laurence, Samuel (artist) 129 n., (‘Lawrence’) 353 Lavater, Johann Kaspar 105–6 n. Leader (newspaper) 30–1, 53, 69 n., 73–4 n., (on Henry Esmond) 82–3 n.; (on Villette) 138 n., 152–3 n.; 168–9 n. Lee, Rt. Revd James Prince 304 Leeds 91, 244–5 n. Leeds Intelligencer (on Villette) 121 n., 137 n. Leeds Mercury 120–1 Lewes, George Henry 53 n., 83 n., (on Villette) 138 n., 151, 152–3 n., (envelope addressed to) 346 Life of Charlotte Bronte¨, see Gaskell, Mrs Elizabeth, wo rks Limerick 278, 284 Literary Gazette (on Villette) 118–19 n., 122, 221–2 n. Liverpool 128 n., 191 n., 362 Liversedge 85, 369 Llanberis 278–9 n. London (CB’s visit) 88; (letters written from) 102–16; 127, (projected visit) 206–7 n., 208, 211; (visit cancelled) 211; 223 n., 251 n., 351, (EN in) 67 Longley, Revd Dr Charles Thomas 122–3 n., 129–30 n., 351 Louis Napoleon, see Bonaparte, Charles Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) Lupton, Mary Anne 132–3 n. ‘Macarthey, Mr’, in Shirley (A. B. Nicholls) xxxvi Macaulay, Thomas Babington 30–1, 367, 368 Macturk, Dr William 319 n., 322, 323 Mahomet Shah (ship) 163–4 n. Manchester 48, 105 n., 127, 148–9, 155, 156, (CB in) 158–9; 172, 176, 196 n., 199, (projected visit to) 221, 239, 244–5 n., 246, 251, 253; 292; (CB in) 351–2 Manchester Athenaeum Album 371 Manchester Examiner 121 n. Manchester Working Men’s College 255 n.

Manners, Lord John 57–8 n., 279 n. Maori (ship) 163–4 n. Marden, Sussex 6 n., 58 n., (EN at) 64; 226 Marlborough, 1st Duke of (1650–1722) 30–1 Marsh, Mrs Anne, ne´e Caldwell 356 Martineau, Harriet 3, 9, 25, 27, 36–8 n., 48, 57, 85, 88–9 n., 93, 111, 117–18, 155 n. (on Villette) 110, 117–120 n., 125, 142, 154 CB’s estrangement from 110, 117–18, 142, 157, 159–60 CB’s letters to, see Cumulative Index of Correspondents, above letter to CB 117 letter to Martineau from GS 136 w o r k s: Autobiography 110 Deerbrook 3, 136 n. Letters from Ireland 119–20 n. Letters on the Laws of Man’s Social Nature and Development 89 n., 112 n., 144 n. Oliver Weld 3, 25, 27–8 n. Martineau, Rachel Ann 128 n., 191 n. Marzials, Madame Antoine The´ophile, ne´e Mary Anne Jackson 365 Maurice, Revd Frederick Denison 140, 215–16 n. Mayne, Revd William G. 126 n., 271 n. Mayne, Mrs W. G. 126 Mayor and Mayoress of Oxford, the 269 Mechanics’ Institutes: Haworth 137 Wellington, New Zealand 164 Mercier, H. J. 378 Merrall, Edwin 272–3 n. Merrall, Hartley 273 n. Merrall, Michael 272–3 n. Mesmerism 38 n. Metcalfe, Richard 245–6 n. Methodism 50 Micklethwaite, Mrs R. G., ne´e Mary Walker of Oakwell House 365 Miller, Maria, see Robertson, Mrs W. P. Milnes, Hon. Annabel, ne´e Crewe 204–5 n., 223–4 n. Milnes, Richard Monckton, Lord Houghton 8, 140, 204–5 n., 211, (letter to Mrs Gaskell) 223; (meets ABN) 223–4 n.; 247 n., 251,261, 272–3 n. Milton, John: w o r k s: Lycidas 213 n. Paradise Lost 226 n., 281 n. Miss Miles, see Taylor, Mary Mitchell, Thomas 364 Mitchell, Walter 364

general index Mitford, Mary Russell 194, 196 n., 197, 201 n., (letter to E. B. Browning) 205; 222–3 n., 241 Modern Domestic Medicine, see Graham, Dr Thomas John Moore, Mrs, relative of Wooler family 10, 22, 111–12 n. Moore, Thomas (writer) 170 Moore, Thomas Barrington G. 11 n. Morgan, Revd William 139, 148–9 n., 157, 272–3 n. Morning Advertiser (on Villette) 122 Morning Chronicle (on Villette) 123 n. Morning Herald 37 n., (on Villette) 145, 146 Morning Post 37 n. Mozley, Anne (on Villette) 153 n.; 187, 188 n. Mozley, James Bowling 153 n., 188 n. Mozley, Thomas 153 n. Mulock, Dinah Maria (Mrs Craik) 138, 139 n., 142 Napoleon III of France, see Bonaparte, Charles Louis Napoleon National Patriotic Fund 306 n., 309 National Society 129 n. Nelson, New Zealand 163–4 n. New Zealand 5, 26, 36–7, 76, 162–4 Newby, Thomas Cautley 133 n., 235–6 n. Newgate prison, London 108–9 n. Newman, Francis William 293 n. Newman, John Henry 153 n., 188 n., 370 Nicholas I, Czar of Russia 233–4 n. Nicholls, Revd Arthur Bell [xxxv]–xxxix, 8, 50, 58 n., 248 appearance 223, 265, 295 applies to Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 94–5 n., 102 n., 130–1 n. asks EN to burn CB’s letters 295–9 n. bequest of CB’s wedding-dress 266 n. breaks down at Whitsuntide service Revd Patrick Bronte¨’s hostility to, see esp. 101, 105–7, 130, 149; reconciliation with, see esp. 240–7, 253, 261–2, 321 character 101, 107, 129–30 n., 149, 240, 242, 244–5 n., 247–8, 250, 270, 278, 280, 291, 300 n. engagement 240–1 n. Mrs Gaskell tries to help 204–5 n. improved health 284, 290 letters to Mary Gorham (Mrs T. S. Hewitt) ?336; EN 321, 322, 323, 324, 329, 330, 336; Revd George Sowden 284; letters and notes authenticating CB’s autograph 346–7

391

love for CB 240, 248, 257–8, 268, 271, 278, 280, 291, 300 n., (‘tenderest nursing’) 325–9; 335, 360 loyalty to PB 223, 299 Monckton Milnes visits ABN 261 praise of CB 336 Puseyism 248–9 n. refuses livings away from Haworth 251 n., 298–301, 318 salary 248–9 n. testimonial to 167, 168–9 n. wedding 272, 358–60 work at Stanbury 201 n. Nicholls, Charlotte Bronte¨ 266 n. Nicoll, William Robertson 188 n., 361 Nightingale, Florence 317 Nonconformist (newspaper) (on Shirley) 118–19 n., (on Villette) 119–20 n. Norfolk 101–2 n., 130 Normandy 176 n., 191, 222 n. North British Review (on Villette) 212 n. ‘North Country Courtesies’ 221–2 n. Nowell, William 202 n. Nussey, Ann, later Mrs Robert Clapham (EN’s sister, 1795–1878) 5 n., 11, 20, 24, 66, (illness) 46; 134, 217, 231–2, 265, 313, (husband’s death) 329; ?336 Nussey, Edward Richard 113 Nussey, Ellen: Revd P. Bronte¨’s letters to 275, 329 the Bronte¨s’ authorship, attitude towards 137 CB’s anxiety about EN’s health 232, 236, 264, 267 at CB’s funeral 331 n. CB’s letters to, see Cumulative Index of Correspondents, above estrangement from CB 180, 214, 228 friendship with and affection for CB, see esp. 69–70, 73, 253, 255 friendship with Mary Gorham (Mrs Hewitt) 226, 249 CB’s marriage to A. B. Nicholls, attitude to 180 n., 228; presence at 271–2 n. Mary Hewitt’s letters to 226, 249 A. B. Nicholls’s letters to 321, 322, 323, 324, 329, 330, 336, places visited or lived in, apart from Birstall, see index entries for Cakeham; Gorleston; Haworth; London; Marden; Oundle; Scholes reconciliation with CB 230 n., 240, 242, 249 suitors or potential suitors 51–2 n. Mary Taylor’s letters to 162, 228

392

general index

Nussey, Georgiana Mary 52, 113 Nussey, Revd Henry 362 Nussey, Mrs Henry, ne´e Emily Prescott 362 Nussey, Isabella, of White Lee 32 n. Nussey, John, of White Lee 31–2 n. Nussey, Mrs John, ne´e Ellen Wade (EN’s mother) 31, 66, 227, 336 Nussey, Dr John (EN’s brother, 1794–1862) 52 n., 113, 231–2 n. Nussey, Mrs John, ne´e Mary Walker, wife of Dr J. Nussey 67 n., 113 Nussey, Revd Joshua 169 n., 173 Nussey, Mrs Joshua of White Lee, ne´e Sarah Clapham 32 n., 263 n. Nussey, Mercy Mary 46, 66, 76, 227, 294, 297, (has typhus) 302–3 n., 304, 305–6 n.; (temporary recovery) 306, 313; 323, 326 Nussey, Richard 227 n. Nussey, Mrs Richard, ne´e Elizabeth Charnock 226–7 n., 230–1, 236 Nussey, Sarah of White Lee, later Mrs William Carr 263 n. Oakwell Hall, Birstall 237 n., 299 n., 302 n. Oakwell House 365 Oakworth 201 n. ‘Old Bailey’, London 124, 125 n. Oundle (EN at) 169 n., 173, 176–8, 230 Owens College, Manchester 255 n. Oxenhope 201, 341–2 n. Oxford, Mayor and Mayoress of, letter to CB 269 Oxford Chronicle 121 n. Oxford Movement 155 n. Padiham, Lancs. 299–300 n., 301, 318 Pag, see Taylor, Mary Palladium (journal) (on WH) 225 n. Palmerston, Lord 32 n., 198, 202 n. Panama 229, 230 n. Paris 221, 239, 375 Paulton, Mrs 293–4 n. Penistone Moor 197 Penmaenmawr, Wales 274 Penn, William 30–1 pensionnat Heger, Brussels 55 n. Pentonville prison, London 108–9 n. Phillips, Samuel 97 n., 124, 125 n. phrenology 57 Pickles (or Pighills), John 272–3 n. Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, 1846, see Bronte¨, Charlotte, wo rks Poll/Polly, see Taylor, Mary; Gorham, Mary Poplawska, Rosa 22, 23 n., 150–1 n. Prescott, Emily, see Nussey, Mrs Henry

Professor, The, see Bronte¨, Charlotte, wo rks Prospective Review 19 n. Protestantism 33–4 n., 153 n., 155 n. Pusey, Revd Dr Edward Bouverie 153 n., 155 n. Puseyites (‘high church’) 154–5 n., 249 n., 252, 257 Quakers 30–1 Quarterly Review (on JE) 188 n., 294 n. Queen’s College, London 112 n., 216 n. railways 85, 156 n., 251, 260–1 n., 293, 318, 366 Ratcliffe, Mrs Tabitha, ne´e Brown 331 n. Rawden/Rawdon, near Leeds 364 Rayner, Mr (surgeon) 20, 25 Redman, Joseph 165–6 n., 359 religion [xv], 33–4 n., 152–3 n., (CB’s faith) 172 n.; 215–16 n., 240, 242, (CB’s ‘latitudinarianism’) 252; 294, 317; see also atheism; Catholicism; Church of England; Jews, London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the; Protestantism; Puseyites; Quakers; Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; Unitarian church; universalism Revue des deux Mondes, la (on Villette) 138 n. Reynolds, G. W. M. 345 Ribblesdale 350 Richardson, Revd George 31–2 n. Richmond (Surrey) 287, 291 Richmond (Yorks.) 287, 291 Richmond, George (artist) (portrait of CB) 128–9 n., 197, 201 n., 354 Rigby, Elizabeth, later Lady Eastlake (on JE) 188 n. Ringrose, Amelia (Amy), see Taylor, Mrs Joseph Ringrose, Laura 308 n. Ringrose, Margaret Rosita or Rosetta (Rosy), later Mrs John Dugdale 11, 24–5 n. Ritchie, Lady, see Thackeray, Anne Robberds, Revd John Gooch 254 Robertson, W. P. 55 n. Robertson, Mrs W. P. Robertson, ne´e Maria Miller 54–5 n., 78 n., 141 Robinson, Revd Edmund 367–8 Robinson, Mrs Edmund, ne´e Lydia Gisborne, later Lady Scott 367–8 Robinson, John 272 n., 358–60 Robinson, Revd Robert 206–7 n. Rochefoucauld, Franc¸ois de la 146–7 n. Roe Head school, Mirfield 23 n., 190 n. Rogers, Miss 22 Rome 376 Rose Grove 318

general index Rotterdam 57 n. Rouse Mill, Batley 22, 23 n., 31–2 n. Royal Exchange, London 108–9 n. Ruddock, William (surgeon) 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 19, 25, 58, 60, 373 Ruff, Mrs 213–14 n. Ruskin, John 184–5 n., 277 n. Russell, Lord John 31–2 n. Russell, William Howard 306 n. Russia 233–4 n., 305–6 n. Sand, George 152–3 n. Scarborough, Yorks. 29, 38–9 n., 51–2 n., 55–6 n., 65, 200, 202 n., 300, 301 Scholes, Yorks. 161, 162 Schwabe, Julia (Mrs Salis Schwabe) 176 n., 183 n., 191–2 n. Schwabe, Salis 191–2 n. Scotland 188–90 n., 223, 344 n., 357 Scott, Alexander John 140, 255 Scott, Mrs Alexander John, ne´e Ann Ker (CB’s letter to) 255 Scott, Annis, see Bradbury, Mrs J. Scruton, William 235 n. Sevastopol 306 n. Sewell, Elizabeth Missing 203–4 n. Shaen, Annie 206–7 n. Shaen, Emma 139, 140 n., 256 Shaen, William 208 n., 248–9 n., 258 Shaen, Mrs William, ne´e Emily Winkworth 141, (CB’s letters to) 208, 211; 221–2 n., 256, 258 Shakespeare, William (Twelfth Night) 158, 183–4 n. Shannon (river) 277 n. Sharpe’s London Magazine (on Daisy Burns) 134 n.; (on Villette) 134–5 n. Sherwood, Emma 44–5 n., 53–4 n., 283–4 n., 289 Sherwood, Revd William H. 45 n. Shireshead, near Lancaster 362 Shirley, see Bronte¨, Charlotte, wo rks Sidgwick, Mrs J. B. 371 Simeon, Revd Charles 291 n. Simpson, James Alexander 225 n., 243 Simpson, Dr James Young 225 n., 243 Skipton, Yorks. 19 n., 42 n., 231, 286 n. Sladen valley 304 n. Sladen, Isabelle 374 Smith, Alexander, brother of George Smith junr. 62, 87 Smith, Mrs ?Eleanor, of Filey 47 n., 51–2 n. Smith, Eliza, sister of George Smith junr. 62–3 n., 103 n., 108, 272–3 n., 337 n.

393

Smith, George, junr., publisher (1824–1901) 12, 13 CB’s letters to, see Cumulative Index of Correspondents, above GS and the Dictionary of National Biography 251 n. and Villette 77–8 n., 87–8, 91, 96–7, 114–15 n., 136 commissions portrait of Thackeray 129 n. engagement and marriage to Elizabeth Blakeway 210, 213 on Henry Fielding 144–5 n. finance: CB’s dividends 165, 207 n., 245–6 n. gift of portraits to CB 197, 201 n. letter to H. Martineau about CB 136 CB’s wedding-card sent to 272–3 n. workload at Smith, Elder and Co. 102–3 n., 124 n., 128, 141–4, 180–2 n., 207.n., 210 n. Smith, Mrs George junr., ne´e Elizabeth Blakeway 78 n., 182 n., 207 n., 250–1 n. Smith, George, senr., publisher (d. ?1846) 210 n. Smith, Mrs George senr., ne´e Elizabeth Murray 86–7 n., 91–2, 96, 102, 108, 206–7 n., (CB’s letter to) 209; (letter to CB) 209–10 n.; 272–3 n. Smith, Isabella, sister of George Smith junr. 62–3 n., 103 n., 108, 272–3 n. Smith, Revd James William 201 n. Smith, Revd John, of Oakworth 130 n. Smith, Sarah, sister of George Smith junr. 62–3 n., 103 n., 108, 272–3 n., 337 n. Smith, Elder, and Co., publishers 24 n., 39 n., 62 n., 90 n., 103 n., 124 n., 133 n., 143–4 n., 147–8 n., 154, 210, 212 n., 225 n., 235 n., 377 Smith, Taylor and Company 24 n., 62 n., 103 n. Smollett, Tobias 28 n., 144 n. Smythe, George 57–8 n. ‘Snowe, Lucy’, in Villette 80–1 n. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) 94 n., 95 n., 102 n., 130–1 n. Southey, Robert 362 Sowden, Revd George 279 n., 280 n., 284–5 n., 295–6 n., 298–9 n. Sowden, Revd Sutcliffe 95 n., 149, (officiates at CB’s wedding) 270–1; 283, 295–6 n., 297–298, (suggested for living at Padiham) 299–300 n., 303, 304, 312, 318; (officiates at CB’s funeral) 331 n.; (CB’s wedding recalled) 359 Spectator (on Henry Esmond) 83–4 n.; (on Villette) 138 n. Speeton, Yorks. 50 Spen, near Hunsworth, Yorks. 310

394

general index

St Clair, Lady Harriette 138–9 n., 142 Stanbury, near Haworth 201 n., 291 n., 358 Stanley, Edward George, see Derby, Lord Steele, Richard 18 n., 27–8 n., 160 Sterne, Laurence 28 n. Stockport 292 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Uncle Tom’s Cabin 67–8 n., 75, 182–3 n., 185 n., 356 Strickland, Agnes 322 Suffolk 102 n. Sugden, Sarah, of Keighley 363, 364 Summerscale, William 261 n., 379 Sunday School, see Haworth Sunday School Swain, Charles 195–6 n., 197 Swaine, Catherine, later Withington 373 Swaine, Joseph 373 Swaine, Mary 363, 364 ‘Sweeting, Mr’, in Shirley 201 n. Swift, Jonathan 28 n., 142, 144 n., 146–7 n. Tabby, see Aykroyd, Tabitha Tarbert, Ireland 185 n., 282–3 n. Tauchnitz, Freiherr Bernhard von 160 Taylor family of Stanbury 272–3 n. Taylor, Ellen (Mary Taylor’s cousin) 5, 26, 36–7 n., (death) 43–4 n., 46 Taylor, Emily Martha (‘Tim’) 12, 24–5 n., 31–2 n., 41, 45, 48 n., 67 n., 156–7 n., 163 n. (illness leads to return from Scotland) 188–9 n.; 259–60 n., 294–5, (CB’s ‘grandchild’) 311, 321, 327–8 n.; 357 Taylor, George, of Stanbury 272–3 n. Taylor, James, of Smith, Elder and Co. [3]–4, 24 n., 39 n., 44–5 n., 94 n., 103 Taylor, John, of Gomersal (Mary Taylor’s brother) 108–9 n., 310 n. Taylor, Joseph (‘Joe’, of Gomersal, Mary Taylor’s brother) 5 n., 57–8 n., 67 n., 108–9 n., 137, 163, 188–9, 228, 230 n., (?Mr Gradgrind) 259–60 n.; (witnesses legal deeds) 264; 294, 300, (illness) 301, 307–8 n., 309–11, 320–1, 327 Taylor, Mrs Joseph, ne´e Amelia Ringrose 5, 11, 24–5 n., 26, 31–2 n., 41, 45, 61, (‘egotistic’) 66–7 n.; 76–7 n., 137, (anxiety about her daughter) 156–7 n.; 163, 188–9; 229, 259, 266 n., 288, (visits Haworth) 293–5; 300, 301, (nurses her husband) 307–11, 320–1, 327; 330, 357, 372 CB’s letters to, see Cumulative Index of Correspondents, above Taylor, Joshua (1760–1840, Mary Taylor’s father) 308 n. Taylor, Joshua (1812–80, Mary Taylor’s brother) 369

Taylor, Mrs Joshua junr., ne´e Jane Lister Charlesworth 369 Taylor, Mary (‘Pag’) 5, (letter to CB) 36–8 n.; Miss Miles 38 n.; 43–4, 61, 76–7 n., (letters to EN) 162–4, 228–30 Taylor, Rebecca 363 Taylor, Mrs Stephen, of Stanbury, ne´e Mary Wright 365 Taylor, William Henry (Mary Taylor’s cousin) 36–7 n. Teale, Dr Thomas Pridgin 6, 231–2, 236, 265 Tenant of Wildfell Hall, The, see Bronte¨, Anne, wo rks Thackeray, Anne Isabella, (‘Anny’, later Lady Ritchie) 266 n., 378 Thackeray, William Makepeace 16, 17–19 n., 20, 21, 26–8, 42 n., 47, (portrait) 128–9 n.; 160, 179, 182–3 n., (portrait) 197, 201 n.; 213 n., 299 n., 353, 375, 378 w o r k s: Comic Tales and Sketches 21 n. Henry Esmond 16, 17–21, 26, 28 n., 30, 62–3, 74–5 n., 78–9 n., 81–4 n., 90, 96–7 n., 115, 144 n., 160 The Kickleburys on the Rhine 97 n. Lectures on the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century 18 n., 26, 28 n., 36–7 n., 142–3, 144–5 n., 160, 351 The Newcomes 184–5 n., 203–4 n., 215–16 n. Paris Sketches 27–8 n. Pendennis 19 n. Vanity Fair 55 n. The Virginians 204 n. Thomas, Richard Roberts 272–3 n., 341 Tim, see Taylor, Emily Martha Times, The 67, 84 n., (on Henry Esmond) 96–7 n., 87; (on Shirley) 125 n.; 134 (on the Crimean war) 306 n., 309 n. Tisdale, C. E. 347 Torquay 362 Toulmin, Camilla Dufour (Mrs Crosland) 195–6 n Tralee 185 n., 282–3 n. Tranby, near Hull, Yorks. 268–9 n. Trawden, Lancs. 363 Trollope, Frances 205–6 n. tuberculosis 331 n. Turkey 234 n. Turner, Whiteley 378 Unitarian church 191 n., 215 n., 249 n., 317 n. universalism 215–16 n. University College, London 112 n. Upjohn, Revd Francis 77 n., 79, 90 n., 155 n., (‘Mr Clergyman’) 162; 168–9, 230 n.

general index Upjohn, Mrs Francis, ne´e Sarah Gorham 76–7 n., 79, 90 n., 92, 108, 125, 129, 134, 135, 136, (‘acted . . . strangely’) 148; (‘crippled state’) 162; (‘Mrs Clergyman’) 162; 165, 166, 168, (EN leaves) 169; 175 Verity, Revd Edward Arundel 300 n., 303 n., 318–19 n. Victoria, Queen 309 n. Villette, see Bronte¨, Charlotte, w o r k s Vincent, Revd Osman Parke 363, 364 Wales 191, 275, 279 Walker, Amelia, of Lascelles Hall and Torquay 53–4 n., 78 n. Walker, Jane, later Mrs Buttle, of Lascelles Hall 362 Walker, Joshua 365 Ward, Mrs (friend of the Nussey family) 19–20 n., 303 Wedgwood, Frances Julia 335 n. Weekly Chronicle (on Villette) 123 n. Weightman, Revd William 364 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of 22–3 n., 67–8 n., 128–9 n., (portrait) 197, 201 n. Wellington, New Zealand 36–7, 162–4, 228–30 n. Wenlock, Lady 51–2 n. Westminster Review (on Villette) 151, 153 n. Westmoreland Gazette 38 n. Wetherall, Mrs 208 Wharfedale 350 Wheelwright, Charles 40 Wheelwright, Julia 40 n. Wheelwright, Laetitia Elizabeth 39–40 n., 54, 232–3 n., 325–6 n., 336 n. Wheelwright, Dr Thomas 39, 40 n., 54–5 n., 233, 326 Wheelwright, Mrs Thomas, ne´e Elizabeth Ridge 40, 326 Wheelwright family 272–3 n. Whipp, Fanny (‘Fanchon’), later Mrs North 48 n. White, Revd Hugh 72 n. White, Jasper Leavens 364 White, Sarah Louisa, later Mrs Walter Atkinson 373 Whitehead, Mrs Sarah R. 32–4 n., 72. Wight, Isle of 210 Wilberforce, William 291 n. Williams, William Francis (‘Frank’, son of W. S. Williams) 4, 138, 139 n.

395

Williams, William Smith (on Villette) 83, 91, 142; 250, 272–3 n. CB’s letters to, see Cumulative Index of Correspondents Williams, Mrs William Smith, ne´e Margaret Eliza Hills 362 Williams and Norgate 160 Wilson, Dr William James 40 n. Windsor 199 Winkworth, Catherine (on Villette) 139–41; (on A. B. Nicholls) 230 n.; (on CB’s engagement) 256–9 n. CB’s letter to 279–80 letter to Emma Shaen 139–40 letter to Emily Shaen 141 Winkworth, Emily 256 Winkworth, Selina 140 Winkworth, Susanna 144 n., 256 Withington, George Barcroft 373 women, condition and education of 63, 74 n., 111–12 n., 116, 124 n., 141, 153 n., 162–3, 213, 228, 295 Wood, Susannah, sister of Tabitha Aykroyd 363 Wood, William, of Haworth (great–nephew of Tabitha Aykroyd) 371 Woodford 61–2 n., 87 Woodhouse Grove School, Rawdon, Yorks. 309 n. Woodlands, Haworth 51 n. Wooler, Annie 148 n. Wooler, Catherine (Katherine Harriet) (CB’s letter to) 278–9 n. Wooler, Eliza 22–3 n. Wooler, Harriet 22–3 n. Wooler, James Upton 23 n. Wooler, John junr. 22–3 n. Wooler, John senr. 22–3 n. Wooler, Margaret 28–9, 38, 44, 110–12 n., 154–5, 188, (in Hornsea) 190 n., 192, 202–3 n., 213–14 n.; 227 n., 236, 242–3 n., 275–7, (and CB’s wedding) 253–4 n., 270, 271–3 n., 275; 286–7, 330 CB’s letters to, see Cumulative Index of Correspondents, above Wooler, Margaret Ellenora (‘Ellen’) 22–3 n., 148 n. Wooler, Mary Anne (‘Marianne’), see Allbutt, Mrs Thomas Wooler, Sarah (Margaret Wooler’s sister) 10, 11 n. Wooler, Susan or Susanna[h], see Carter, Mrs Edward Nicholl Wooler, Thomas (Margaret Wooler’s brother) 10, 21, 29

396

general index

Wooler, Walter Hernaman 148 n. Wooler, Dr William Moore 22–3 n., 55–6 n., 147–8 n., 154–5 n. Wooler, Mrs William Moore, 1st wife, ne´e Sidney Maria Allbutt 23 n. Wooler, Mrs William Moore, 2nd wife, ne´e Anne Medley 22–3 n., 148 n. Wooler, William Upton 148 n. Wootton, Warks. 132 Wordsworth, William 194 n.

Working Men’s College, Manchester 255 n. Wrigly, Miss, of near Huddersfield 345 writing, art of and attitude to 59, 354–6; see also Bronte¨, Charlotte, w o r k s Wuthering Heights, see Bronte¨, Emily, work s Yarmouth 90–1, 155, 167, 228, 230 n. ‘Yorke family’ in Shirley 308 n. Young England Movement 58 n.