Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (596 page)

‘Fare-thee-well.

‘C. B.’

Then there are these slighter inferences, that concerning Anne being particularly interesting.

‘Write long letters to me, and tell me everything you can think of, and about everybody.  “His young reverence,” as you tenderly call him, is looking delicate and pale; poor thing, don’t you pity him?  I do from my heart!  When he is well, and fat, and jovial, I never think of him, but when anything ails him I am always sorry.  He sits opposite to Anne at church,
 
sighing softly, and looking out of the corners of his eyes to win her attention, and Anne is so quiet, her look so downcast, they are a picture.’

‘
July
19
th
, 1841.

‘Our revered friend, W. W., is quite as bonny, pleasant, lighthearted, good-tempered, generous, careless, fickle, and unclerical as ever.  He keeps up his correspondence with Agnes Walton.  During the last spring he went to Appleby, and stayed upwards of a month.’

During the governess and Brussels episodes in Charlotte’s life we lose sight of Mr. Weightman, and the next record is of his death, which took place in September 1842, while Charlotte and Emily were in Brussels.  Mr. Brontë preached the funeral sermon,
  
stating by way of introduction that for the twenty years and more that he had been in Haworth he had never before read his sermon.  ‘This is owing to a conviction in my mind,’ he says, ‘that in general, for the ordinary run of hearers, extempore preaching, though accompanied with some peculiar disadvantages, is more likely to be of a colloquial nature, and better adapted, on the whole, to the majority.’  His departure from the practice on this occasion, he explains, is due to the request that his sermon should be printed.

Mr. Weightman, he told his hearers, was a native of Westmoreland, educated at the University of Durham.  ‘While he was there,’ continued Mr. Brontë, ‘I applied to the justly venerated Apostolical Bishop of this diocese, requesting his Lordship to send me a curate adequate to the wants and wishes of the parishioners.  This application was not in vain.  Our Diocesan, in the scriptural
 
character of the Overlooker and Head of his clergy, made an admirable choice, which more than answered my expectations, and probably yours.  The Church Pastoral Aid Society, in their pious liberality, lent their pecuniary aid, without which all efforts must have failed.’  ‘He had classical attainments of the first order, and, above all, his religious principles were sound and orthodox,’ concludes Mr. Brontë.  Mr. Weightman was twenty-six years of age when he died.  His successor was Mr. Peter Augustus Smith, whom Charlotte Brontë has made famous in
Shirley
as Mr. Malone, curate of Briarfield.  Mr. Smith was Mr. A. B. Nicholls’s predecessor at Haworth.  Here is Charlotte Brontë’s vigorous treatment of him in a letter to her friend.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘
January
26
th
, 1844.

‘Dear Nell, — We were all very glad to get your letter this morning. 
We
, I say, as both papa and Emily were anxious to hear of the safe arrival of yourself and the little
varmint
.
 

‘As you conjecture, Emily and I set to shirt-making the very day after you left, and we have stuck to it pretty closely ever since.  We miss your society at least as much as you miss ours, depend upon it.  Would that you were within calling distance, that you could as you say burst in upon us in an afternoon, and, being despoiled of your bonnet and shawl, be fixed in the rocking-chair for the evening once or twice every week.  I certainly cherished a dream during your stay that such might one day be the case, but the dream is somewhat dissipating.  I allude of course to Mr. Smith, to whom you do not allude in your letter, and I think you foolish for the omission.  I say the dream is dissipating, because Mr. Smith has not mentioned your name since you left, except once when papa said you were a nice girl, he said, “Yes, she is a nice girl — rather quiet.  I suppose she has money,” and that is all.  I think the words
 
speak volumes; they do not prejudice one in favour of Mr. Smith.  I can well believe what papa has often affirmed, and continues to affirm,
i.e.
, that Mr. Smith is a very fickle man, that if he marries he will soon get tired of his wife, and consider her as a burden, also that money will be a principal consideration with him in marrying.

‘Papa has two or three times expressed a fear that since Mr. Smith paid you so much attention he will perhaps have made an impression on your mind which will interfere with your comfort.  I tell him I think not, as I believe you to be mistress of yourself in those matters.  Still, he keeps saying that I am to write to you and dissuade you from thinking of him.  I never saw papa make himself so uneasy about a thing of the kind before; he is usually very sarcastic on such subjects.

‘Mr. Smith be hanged!  I never thought very well of him, and I am much disposed to think very ill of him at this blessed minute.  I have discussed the subject fully, for where is the use of being mysterious and constrained? — it is not worth while.

‘Be sure you write to me and immediately, and tell me whether you have given up eating and drinking altogether.  I am not surprised at people thinking you looked pale and thin.  I shall expect another letter on Thursday — don’t disappoint me.

‘My best regards to your mother and sisters. — Yours, somewhat irritated,

‘C. B.’

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘Dear Nell, — I did not “swear at the postman” when I saw another letter from you.  And I hope you will not “swear” at me when I tell you that I cannot think of leaving home at present, even to have the pleasure of joining you at Harrogate, but I am obliged to you for thinking of me.  I have nothing new about Rev. Lothario Smith.  I think I like him a little bit less every day.  Mr. Weightman was worth 200 Mr. Smiths tied in a bunch.  Good-bye.  I fear by what you say, “Flossy jun.” behaves discreditably, and gets his mistress into scrapes.

‘C. Brontë.’

 
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘
March
16
th
, 1844.

‘Dear Ellen, — I received your kind note last Saturday, and should have answered it immediately, but in the meantime I had a letter from Mary Taylor, and had to reply to her, and to write sundry letters to Brussels to send by opportunity.  My sight will not allow me to write several letters per day, so I was obliged to do it gradually.

‘I send you two more circulars because you ask for them, not because I hope their distribution will produce any result.  I hope that if a time should come when Emily, Anne, or I shall be able to serve you, we shall not forget that you have done your best to serve us.

‘Mr. Smith is gone hence.  He is in Ireland at present, and will stay there six weeks.  He has left neither a bad nor a good character behind him.  Nobody regrets him, because nobody could attach themselves to one who could attach himself to nobody.  I thought once he had a regard for you, but I do not think so now.  He has never asked after you since you left, nor even mentioned you in my hearing, except to say once when I purposely alluded to you, that you were “not very locomotive.”  The meaning of the observation I leave you to divine.

‘Yet the man is not without points that will be most useful to himself in getting through life.  His good qualities, however, are all of the selfish order, but they will make him respected where better and more generous natures would be despised, or at least neglected.

‘Mr. Grant fills his shoes at present decently enough — but one cares naught about these sort of individuals, so drop them.

‘Mary Taylor is going to leave our hemisphere.  To me it is something as if a great planet fell out of the sky.  Yet, unless she marries in New Zealand, she will not stay there long.

‘Write to me again soon and I promise to write you a regular long letter next time.

‘C. Brontë.’

The Mr. Grant here described had come to Haworth as master of the small grammar school in which Branwell had
 
received some portion of his education.  He is the Mr. Donne, curate of Whinbury, in
Shirley
.  Whinbury is Oxenhope, of which village and district Mr. Grant after a time became incumbent.  The district was taken out of Haworth Chapelry, and Mr. Grant collected the funds to build a church, schoolhouse, and parsonage.  He died at Oxenhope, many years ago, greatly respected by his parishioners.  He seems to have endured good-naturedly much chaff from Mr. Brontë and others, who always called him Mr. Donne.  It was the opinion of many of his acquaintances that the satire of
Shirley
had improved his disposition.

Mr. Smith left Haworth in 1844, to become curate of the parish church of Keighley.  He became, at a later date, incumbent of a district church, but, his health failing, he returned to his native country, where he died.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘
October
15
th
, 1844.

‘Dear Nell, — I send you two additional circulars, and will send you two more, if you desire it, when I write again.  I have no news to give you.  Mr. Smith leaves in the course of a fortnight.  He will spend a few weeks in Ireland previously to settling at Keighley.  He continues just the same: often anxious and bad-tempered, sometimes rather tolerable — just supportable.  How did your party go off?  How are you?  Write soon, and at length, for your letters are a great comfort to me.  We are all pretty well.  Remember me kindly to each member of the household at Brookroyd. — Yours,

‘C. B.’

The third curate of
Shirley
, Mr. Sweeting of Nunnely, was Mr. Richard Bradley, curate of Oakworth, an outlying district of Keighley parish.  He is at this present time vicar of Haxby, Yorkshire, but far too aged and infirm to have any memories of those old Haworth days.

Mr. Brontë’s one other curate was Mr. De Renzi, who occupied the position for a little more than a year, — during
 
the period, in fact, of Mr. Brontë’s quarrel with Mr. Nicholls for aspiring to become his son-in-law.  After he left Haworth, Mr. De Renzi became a curate at Bradford.  He has been dead for some years.  The story of Mr. Nicholls’s curacy belongs to another chapter.  It is sufficient testimony to his worth, however, that he was able to win Charlotte Brontë in spite of the fact that his predecessors had inspired in her such hearty contempt.  ‘I think he must be like all the curates I have seen,’ she writes of one; ‘they seem to me a self-seeking, vain, empty race.’

CHAPTER XII: CHARLOTTE BRONTË’S LOVERS

Charlotte Brontë was not beautiful, but she must have been singularly fascinating.  That she was not beautiful there is abundant evidence.  When, as a girl of fifteen, she became a pupil at Roe Head, Mary Taylor once told her to her face that she was ugly.  Ugly she was not in later years.  All her friends emphasise the soft silky hair, and the beautiful grey eyes which in moments of excitement seemed to glisten with remarkable brilliancy.  But she had a sallow complexion, and a large nose slightly on one side.  She was small in stature, and, in fact, the casual observer would have thought her a quaint, unobtrusive little body.  Mr. Grundy’s memory was very defective when he wrote about the Brontës; but, with the exception of the reference to red hair — and all the girls had brown hair — it would seem that he was not very wide of the mark when he wrote of ‘the daughters — distant and distrait, large of nose, small of figure, red of hair, prominent of spectacles, showing great intellectual development, but with eyes constantly cast down, very silent, painfully retiring.’

Charlotte was indeed painfully shy.  Miss Wheelwright, who saw much of her during her visits to London in the years of her literary success, says that she would never enter a room without sheltering herself under the wing of some taller friend.  A resident of Haworth, still alive, remembers the girls passing him frequently on the way down to the
 
shops, and their hands would involuntarily be lifted to the face on the side nearest to him, with a view to avoid observation.  This was not affectation; it was absolute timidity.  Miss Wheelwright always thought George Richmond’s portrait — for which Charlotte sat during a stay at Dr. Wheelwright’s in Phillimore Place — entirely flattering.  Many of Charlotte’s friends were pleased that it should be so, but there can be no doubt that the magnificent expanse of forehead was an exaggeration.  Charlotte’s forehead was high, but very narrow.

All this is comparatively unimportant.  Charlotte certainly was under no illusion; and we who revere her to-day as one of the greatest of Englishwomen need have no illusions.  It is sufficient that, if not beautiful, Charlotte possessed a singular charm of manner, and, when interested, an exhilarating flow of conversation which carried intelligent men off their feet.  She had at least four offers of marriage.  The three lovers she refused have long since gone to their graves, and there can be no harm now in referring to the actual facts as they present themselves in Charlotte’s letters.  Two of these offers of marriage were made in one year, when she was twenty-three years of age.  Her first proposal came from the brother of her friend Ellen Nussey.  Henry Nussey was a curate at Donnington when he asked Charlotte Brontë to be his wife.  Two letters on the subject, one of which is partly printed in a mangled form in Mrs. Gaskell’s Memoir, speak for themselves.

TO REV. HENRY NUSSEY

‘Haworth,
March
5
th
, 1839.

‘My dear Sir, — Before answering your letter I might have spent a long time in consideration of its subject; but as from the first moment of its reception and perusal I determined on what course to pursue, it seemed to me that delay was wholly unnecessary.  You are aware that I have many reasons to feel
 
grateful to your family, that I have peculiar reasons for affection towards one at least of your sisters, and also that I highly esteem yourself — do not therefore accuse me of wrong motives when I say that my answer to your proposal must be a
decided negative
.  In forming this decision, I trust I have listened to the dictates of conscience more than to those of inclination.  I have no personal repugnance to the idea of a union with you, but I feel convinced that mine is not the sort of disposition calculated to form the happiness of a man like you.  It has always been my habit to study the characters of those amongst whom I chance to be thrown, and I think I know yours and can imagine what description of woman would suit you for a wife.  The character should not be too marked, ardent, and original, her temper should be mild, her piety undoubted, her spirits even and cheerful, and her
personal attractions
sufficient to please your eyes and gratify your just pride.  As for me, you do not know me; I am not the serious, grave, cool-headed individual you suppose; you would think me romantic and eccentric; you would say I was satirical and severe.  However, I scorn deceit, and I will never, for the sake of attaining the distinction of matrimony and escaping the stigma of an old maid, take a worthy man whom I am conscious I cannot render happy.  Before I conclude, let me thank you warmly for your other proposal regarding the school near Donnington.  It is kind in you to take so much interest about me; but the fact is, I could not at present enter upon such a project because I have not the capital necessary to insure success.  It is a pleasure to me to hear that you are so comfortably settled and that your health is so much improved.  I trust God will continue His kindness towards you.  Let me say also that I admire the good-sense and absence of flattery and cant which your letter displayed.  Farewell.  I shall always be glad to hear from you as a
friend
. — Believe me, yours truly,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘Haworth,
March
12
th
, 1839.

‘My dearest Ellen, — When your letter was put into my
 
hands, I said, “She is coming at last, I hope,” but when I opened it and found what the contents were, I was vexed to the heart.  You need not ask me to go to Brookroyd any more.  Once for all, and at the hazard of being called the most stupid little wretch that ever existed, I
won’t
go till you have been to Haworth.  I don’t blame
you
, I believe you would come if you might; perhaps I ought not to blame others, but I am grieved.

‘Anne goes to Blake Hall on the 8th of April, unless some further unseen cause of delay should occur.  I’ve heard nothing more from Mrs. Thos. Brook as yet.  Papa wishes me to remain at home a little longer, but I begin to be anxious to set to work again; and yet it will be
hard work
after the indulgence of so many weeks, to return to that dreary “gin-horse” round.

‘You ask me, my dear Ellen, whether I have received a letter from Henry.  I have, about a week since.  The contents, I confess, did a little surprise me, but I kept them to myself, and unless you had questioned me on the subject, I would never have adverted to it.  Henry says he is comfortably settled at Donnington, that his health is much improved, and that it is his intention to take pupils after Easter.  He then intimates that in due time he should want a wife to take care of his pupils, and frankly asks me to be that wife.  Altogether the letter is written without cant or flattery, and in a common-sense style, which does credit to his judgment.

‘Now, my dear Ellen, there were in this proposal some things which might have proved a strong temptation.  I thought if I were to marry Henry Nussey, his sister could live with me, and how happy I should be.  But again I asked myself two questions: Do I love him as much as a woman ought to love the man she marries?  Am I the person best qualified to make him happy?  Alas! Ellen, my conscience answered
no
to both these questions.  I felt that though I esteemed, though I had a kindly leaning towards him, because he is an amiable and well-disposed man, yet I had not, and could not have, that intense attachment which would make me willing to die for
 
him; and, if ever I marry, it must be in that light of adoration that I will regard my husband.  Ten to one I shall never have the chance again; but
n’importe
.  Moreover, I was aware that Henry knew so little of me he could hardly be conscious to whom he was writing.  Why, it would startle him to see me in my natural home character; he would think I was a wild, romantic enthusiast indeed.  I could not sit all day long making a grave face before my husband.  I would laugh, and satirise, and say whatever came into my head first.  And if he were a clever man, and loved me, the whole world weighed in the balance against his smallest wish should be light as air.  Could I, knowing my mind to be such as that, conscientiously say that I would take a grave, quiet, young man like Henry?  No, it would have been deceiving him, and deception of that sort is beneath me.  So I wrote a long letter back, in which I expressed my refusal as gently as I could, and also candidly avowed my reasons for that refusal.  I described to him, too, the sort of character that would suit him for a wife. — Good-bye, my dear Ellen.

‘C. Brontë.’

Mr. Nussey was a very good man, with a capacity for making himself generally esteemed, becoming in turn vicar of Earnley, near Chichester, and afterwards of Hathersage, in Derbyshire.  It was honourable to his judgment that he had aspired to marry Charlotte Brontë, who, as we know, had neither money nor much personal attraction, and at the time no possible prospect of literary fame.  Her common-sense letter in reply to his proposal had the desired effect.  He speedily took the proffered advice, and six months later we find her sending him a letter of congratulation upon his engagement to be married.

TO REV. HENRY NUSSEY

‘Haworth,
October
28
th
, 1839.

‘Dear Sir, — I have delayed answering your last communication in the hopes of receiving a letter from Ellen, that I might be able to transmit to you the latest news from Brookroyd;
 
however, as she does not write, I think I ought to put off my reply no longer lest you should begin to think me negligent.  As you rightly conjecture, I had heard a little hint of what you allude to before, and the account gave me pleasure, coupled as it was with the assurance that the object of your regard is a worthy and estimable woman.  The step no doubt will by many of your friends be considered scarcely as a prudent one,
since
fortune is not amongst the number of the young lady’s advantages.  For my own part, I must confess that I esteem you the more for not hunting after wealth if there be strength of mind, firmness of principle, and sweetness of temper to compensate for the absence of that usually all-powerful attraction.  The wife who brings riches to her husband sometimes also brings an idea of her own importance and a tenacity about what she conceives to be her rights, little calculated to produce happiness in the married state.  Most probably she will wish to control when nature and affection bind her to submit — in this case there cannot, I should think, be much comfort.

‘On the other hand, it must be considered that when two persons marry without money, there ought to be moral courage and physical exertion to atone for the deficiency — there should be spirit to scorn dependence, patience to endure privation, and energy to labour for a livelihood.  If there be these qualities, I think, with the blessing of God, those who join heart and hand have a right to expect success and a moderate share of happiness, even though they may have departed a step or two from the stern maxims of worldly prudence.  The bread earned by honourable toil is sweeter than the bread of idleness; and mutual love and domestic calm are treasures far preferable to the possessions rust can corrupt and moths consume away.

‘I enjoyed my late excursion with Ellen with the greater zest because such pleasures have not often chanced to fall in my way.  I will not tell you what I thought of the sea, because I should fall into my besetting sin of enthusiasm.  I may, however, say that its glories, changes, its ebbs and flow, the sound of its restless waves, formed a subject for contemplation that never wearied either the eye, the ear, or the mind.  Our visit
 
at Easton was extremely pleasant; I shall always feel grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Hudson for their kindness.  We saw Agnes Burton, during our stay, and called on two of your former parishioners — Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Dalton.  I was pleased to hear your name mentioned by them in terms of encomium and sincere regard.  Ellen will have detailed to you all the minutia of our excursion; a recapitulation from me would therefore be tedious.  I am happy to say that her health appeared to be greatly improved by the change of air and regular exercise.  I am still at home, as I have not yet heard of any situation which meets with the approbation of my friends.  I begin, however, to grow exceedingly impatient of a prolonged period of inaction.  I feel I ought to be doing something for myself, for my health is now so perfectly re-established by this long rest that it affords me no further pretext for indolence.  With every wish for your future welfare, and with the hope that whenever your proposed union takes place it may contribute in the highest sense to your good and happiness, — Believe me, your sincere friend,

‘C. Brontë.

‘
P.S.
— Remember me to your sister Mercy, who, I understand, is for the present your companion and housekeeper.’

The correspondence did not end here.  Indeed, Charlotte was so excellent a letter-writer, that it must have been hard indeed for any one who had had any experience of her in that capacity to readily forgo its continuance.