Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (593 page)

‘You say you suspect I have found a large circle of acquaintance by this time.  No, I cannot say that I have.  I doubt whether I possess either the wish or the power to do so.  A few friends I should like to know well; if such knowledge brought proportionate regard I could not help concentrating my feelings.  Dissipation, I think, appears synonymous with dilution.  However, I have as yet scarcely been tried.  During the month I spent in London in the spring, I kept very quiet, having the fear of “lionising” before my eyes.  I only went out once to dinner, and was once present at an evening party; and the only visits I have paid have been to Sir J. K. Shuttleworth and my publishers.  From this system I should not like to depart.  As far as I can see, indiscriminate visiting tends only
 
to a waste of time and a vulgarising of character.  Besides, it would be wrong to leave papa often; he is now in his 75th year, the infirmities of age begin to creep upon him.  During the summer he has been much harassed by chronic bronchitis, but, I am thankful to say, he is now somewhat better.  I think my own health has derived benefit from change and exercise.

‘You ask after Ellen Nussey.  When I saw Ellen, about two months ago, she looked remarkably well.  I sometimes hear small fragments of gossip which amuse me.  Somebody professes to have authority for saying that “When Miss Brontë was in London she neglected to attend divine service on the Sabbath, and in the week spent her time in going about to balls, theatres, and operas.”  On the other hand, the London quidnuncs make my seclusion a matter of wonder, and devise twenty romantic fictions to account for it.  Formerly I used to listen to report with interest and a certain credulity; I am now grown deaf and sceptical.  Experience has taught me how absolutely devoid of foundations her stories may be.

‘With the sincere hope that your own health is better, and kind remembrances to all old friends whenever you see them or write to them (and whether or not their feeling to me has ceased to be friendly, which I fear is the case in some instances), — I am, my dear Miss Wooler, always yours, affectionately and respectfully,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO MISS WOOLER

‘Haworth,
July
14
th
, 1851.

‘My dear Miss Wooler, — My first feeling on receiving your note was one of disappointment; but a little consideration sufficed to show me that “all was for the best.”  In truth, it was a great piece of extravagance on my part to ask you and Ellen together; it is much better to divide such good things.  To have your visit in
prospect
will console me when hers is in
retrospect
.  Not that I mean to yield to the weakness of clinging dependently to the society of friends, however dear, but still as an occasional treat I must value and even seek such society
 
as a necessary of life.  Let me know, then, whenever it suits your convenience to come to Haworth, and, unless some change I cannot now foresee occurs, a ready and warm welcome will await you.  Should there be any cause rendering it desirable to defer the visit, I will tell you frankly.

‘The pleasures of society I cannot offer you, nor those of fine scenery, but I place very much at your command the moors, some books, a series of “curling-hair times,” and an old pupil into the bargain.  Ellen may have told you that I have spent a month in London this summer.  When you come you shall ask what questions you like on that point, and I will answer to the best of my stammering ability.  Do not press me much on the subject of the “Crystal Palace.”  I went there five times, and certainly saw some interesting things, and the
coup d’oeil
is striking and bewildering enough, but I never was able to get up any raptures on the subject, and each renewed visit was made under coercion rather than my own free-will.  It is an excessively bustling place; and, after all, it’s wonders appeal too exclusively to the eye and rarely touch the heart or head.  I make an exception to the last assertion in favour of those who possess a large range of scientific knowledge.  Once I went with Sir David Brewster, and perceived that he looked on objects with other eyes than mine.

‘Ellen I find is writing, and will therefore deliver her own messages of regard.  If papa were in the room he would, I know, desire his respects; and you must take both respects and a good bundle of something more cordial from yours very faithfully,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO MISS WOOLER

‘Haworth,
September
22
nd
, 1851.

‘My dear Miss Wooler, — Our visitor (a relative from Cornwall) having left us, the coast is now clear, so that whenever you feel inclined to come, papa and I will be truly glad to see you.  I
do
wish the splendid weather we have had and are having may accompany you here.  I fear I have somewhat grudged the fine days, fearing a change before you come. — Believe me, with papa’s regards, yours respectfully and affectionately,

‘C. Brontë.

‘Come soon; if you can, on Wednesday.’

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘
October
3
rd
, 1851.

‘Dear Nell, — Do not think I have forgotten you because I have not written since your last.  Every day I have had you more or less in my thoughts, and wondered how your mother was getting on; let me have a line of information as soon as possible.  I have been busy, first with a somewhat unexpected visitor, a cousin from Cornwall, who has been spending a few days with us, and now with Miss Wooler, who came on Monday.  The former personage we can discuss any time when we meet.  Miss Wooler is and has been very pleasant.  She is like good wine: I think time improves her; and really whatever she may be in person, in mind she is younger than when at Roe Head.  Papa and she get on extremely well.  I have just heard papa walk into the dining-room and pay her a round compliment on her good-sense.  I think so far she has been pretty comfortable and likes Haworth, but as she only brought a small hand-basket of luggage with her she cannot stay long.

‘How are
you
?  Write directly.  With my love to your mother, etc., good-bye, dear Nell. — Yours faithfully,

‘C. Brontë.

TO MISS WOOLER

‘
February
6
th
, 1852.

‘Ellen Nussey, it seems, told you I spent a fortnight in London last December; they wished me very much to stay a month, alleging that I should in that time be able to secure a complete circle of acquaintance, but I found a fortnight of such excitement quite enough.  The whole day was usually spent in sight-seeing, and often the evening was spent in society; it was more than I could bear for a length of time.  On one occasion I met a party of my critics — seven of them; some of them had been very bitter foes in print, but they were prodigiously civil face to face.  These gentlemen seemed infinitely
 
grander, more pompous, dashing, showy, than the few authors I saw.  Mr. Thackeray, for instance, is a man of quiet, simple demeanour; he is however looked upon with some awe and even distrust.  His conversation is very peculiar, too perverse to be pleasant.  It was proposed to me to see Charles Dickens, Lady Morgan, Mesdames Trollope, Gore, and some others, but I was aware these introductions would bring a degree of notoriety I was not disposed to encounter; I declined, therefore, with thanks.

‘Nothing charmed me more during my stay in town than the pictures I saw.  One or two private collections of Turner’s best water-colour drawings were indeed a treat; his later oil-paintings are strange things — things that baffle description.

‘I twice saw Macready act — once in
Macbeth
and once in
Othello
.  I astonished a dinner-party by honestly saying I did not like him.  It is the fashion to rave about his splendid acting.  Anything more false and artificial, less genuinely impressive than his whole style I could scarcely have imagined.  The fact is, the stage-system altogether is hollow nonsense.  They act farces well enough: the actors comprehend their parts and do them justice.  They comprehend nothing about tragedy or Shakespeare, and it is a failure.  I said so; and by so saying produced a blank silence — a mute consternation.  I was, indeed, obliged to dissent on many occasions, and to offend by dissenting.  It seems now very much the custom to admire a certain wordy, intricate, obscure style of poetry, such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes.  Some pieces were referred to about which Currer Bell was expected to be very rapturous, and failing in this, he disappointed.

‘London people strike a provincial as being very much taken up with little matters about which no one out of particular town-circles cares much; they talk, too, of persons — literary men and women — whose names are scarcely heard in the country, and in whom you cannot get up an interest.  I think I should scarcely like to live in London, and were I obliged to live there, I should certainly go little into company, especially I should eschew the literary coteries.

 
‘You told me, my dear Miss Wooler, to write a long letter.  I have obeyed you. — Believe me now, yours affectionately and respectfully,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO MISS WOOLER

‘Haworth,
March
12
th
, 1852.

‘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 became 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 proposing 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!

‘Ellen will probably go to the south about May to make a stay of two or three months; 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 Burlington would brace and strengthen.  However, I dare not lay plans at this distance of time.  For me so much must depend, first on papa’s health (which throughout the winter has been, I am thankful to say, really excellent), and second, on the progress of work, a matter not wholly contingent on wish or will, but lying in a great measure beyond the reach of effort and out of the pale of calculation.

‘I will not write more at present, as I wish to save this post.  All in the house would join in kind remembrances to you if they knew I was writing.  Tabby and Martha both frequently
 
inquire after Miss Wooler, and desire their respects when an opportunity offers of presenting the same. — Believe me, yours always affectionately and respectfully,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO MISS WOOLER

‘Haworth,
September
2
nd
, 1852.

‘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 a relapse, but I trust his convalescence may now be regarded as confirmed.  The acute inflammation 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.

‘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 sufficient for the occasion.  Solitary as I certainly was at Filey, I yet derived great benefit from the change.

‘It would be pleasant at the sea-side this fine 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.