Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (608 page)

‘The Governesses’ Institution may be an excellent thing in some points of view, but it is both absurd and cruel to attempt to raise still higher the standard of acquirements.  Already governesses are not half nor a quarter paid for what they teach, nor in most instances is half or a quarter of their attainments required by their pupils.  The young teacher’s chief anxiety, when she sets out in life, always is to know a great deal; her chief fear that she should not know enough.  Brief experience will, in most instances, show her that this anxiety has been misdirected.  She will rarely be found too ignorant for her pupils; the demand on her knowledge will not often be larger than she can answer.  But on her patience — on her self-control, the requirement will be enormous; on her animal spirits (and woe be to her if these fail!) the pressure will be immense.

‘I have seen an ignorant nursery-maid who could scarcely read or write, by dint of an excellent, serviceable, sanguine, phlegmatic temperament, which made her at once cheerful and unmoveable; of a robust constitution and steady, unimpassionable nerves, which kept her firm under shocks and unharassed under annoyances — manage with comparative ease a large family of spoilt children, while their governess lived amongst them a life of inexpressible misery: tyrannised over, finding
 
her efforts to please and teach utterly vain, chagrined, distressed, worried — so badgered, so trodden on, that she ceased almost at last to know herself, and wondered in what despicable, trembling frame her oppressed mind was prisoned, and could not realise the idea of ever more being treated with respect and regarded with affection — till she finally resigned her situation and went away quite broken in spirit and reduced to the verge of decline in health.

‘Those who would urge on governesses more acquirements, do not know the origin of their chief sufferings.  It is more physical and mental strength, denser moral impassibility that they require, rather than additional skill in arts or sciences.  As to the forcing system, whether applied to teachers or taught, I hold it to be a cruel system.

‘It is true the world demands a brilliant list of accomplishments.  For £20 per annum, it expects in one woman the attainments of several professors — but the demand is insensate, and I think should rather be resisted than complied with.  If I might plead with you in behalf of your daughters, I should say, “Do not let them waste their young lives in trying to attain manifold accomplishments.  Let them try rather to possess thoroughly, fully, one or two talents; then let them endeavour to lay in a stock of health, strength, cheerfulness.  Let them labour to attain self-control, endurance, fortitude, firmness; if possible, let them learn from their mother something of the precious art she possesses — these things, together with sound principles, will be their best supports, their best aids through a governess’s life.

‘As for that one who, you say, has a nervous horror of exhibition, I need not beg you to be gentle with her; I am sure you will not be harsh, but she must be firm with herself, or she will repent it in after life.  She should begin by degrees to endeavour to overcome her diffidence.  Were she destined to enjoy an independent, easy existence, she might respect her natural disposition to seek retirement, and even cherish it as a shade-loving virtue; but since that is not her lot, since she is fated to make her way in the crowd, and to depend on herself,
 
she should say: I will try and learn the art of self-possession, not that I may display my accomplishments, but that I may have the satisfaction of feeling that I am my own mistress, and can move and speak undaunted by the fear of man.  While, however, I pen this piece of advice, I confess that it is much easier to give than to follow.  What the sensations of the nervous are under the gaze of publicity none but the nervous know; and how powerless reason and resolution are to control them would sound incredible except to the actual sufferers.

‘The rumours you mention respecting the authorship of
Jane Eyre
amused me inexpressibly.  The gossips are, on this subject, just where I should wish them to be,
i.e.
, as far from the truth as possible; and as they have not a grain of fact to found their fictions upon, they fabricate pure inventions.  Judge Erle must, I think, have made up his story expressly for a hoax; the other
fib
is amazing — so circumstantial! called on the author, forsooth!  Where did he live, I wonder?  In what purlieu of Cockayne?  Here I must stop, lest if I run on further I should fill another sheet. — Believe me, yours sincerely,

‘Currer Bell.

‘
P.S.
— I must, after all, add a morsel of paper, for I find, on glancing over yours, that I have forgotten to answer a question you ask respecting my next work.  I have not therein so far treated of governesses, as I do not wish it to resemble its predecessor.  I often wish to say something about the “condition of women” question, but it is one respecting which so much “cant” has been talked, that one feels a sort of repugnance to approach it.  It is true enough that the present market for female labour is quite overstocked, but where or how could another be opened?  Many say that the professions now filled only by men should be open to women also; but are not their present occupants and candidates more than numerous enough to answer every demand?  Is there any room for female lawyers, female doctors, female engravers, for more female artists, more authoresses?  One can see where the evil lies, but who can point out the remedy?  When a woman has
 
a little family to rear and educate and a household to conduct, her hands are full, her vocation is evident; when her destiny isolates her, I suppose she must do what she can, live as she can, complain as little, bear as much, work as well as possible.  This is not high theory, but I believe it is sound practice, good to put into execution while philosophers and legislators ponder over the better ordering of the social system.  At the same time, I conceive that when patience has done its utmost and industry its best, whether in the case of women or operatives, and when both are baffled, and pain and want triumph, the sufferer is free, is entitled, at last to send up to Heaven any piercing cry for relief, if by that cry he can hope to obtain succour.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘
June
2, 1848.

‘My dear Sir, — I snatch a moment to write a hasty line to you, for it makes me uneasy to think that your last kind letter should have remained so long unanswered.  A succession of little engagements, much more importunate than important, have quite engrossed my time lately, to the exclusion of more momentous and interesting occupations.  Interruption is a sad bore, and I believe there is hardly a spot on earth, certainly not in England, quite secure from its intrusion.  The fact is, you cannot live in this world entirely for one aim; you must take along with some single serious purpose a hundred little minor duties, cares, distractions; in short, you must take life as it is, and make the best of it.  Summer is decidedly a bad season for application, especially in the country; for the sunshine seems to set all your acquaintances astir, and, once bent on amusement, they will come to the ends of the earth in search thereof.  I was obliged to you for your suggestion about writing a letter to the
Morning Chronicle
, but I did not follow it up.  I think I would rather not venture on such a step at present.  Opinions I would not hesitate to express to you — because you are indulgent — are not mature or cool enough for the public; Currer Bell is not Carlyle, and must not imitate him.

 
‘Whenever you can write to me without encroaching too much on your valuable time, remember I shall always be glad to hear from you.  Your last letter interested me fully as much as its two predecessors; what you said about your family pleased me; I think details of character always have a charm even when they relate to people we have never seen, nor expect to see.  With eight children you must have a busy life; but, from the manner in which you allude to your two eldest daughters, it is evident that they at least are a source of satisfaction to their parents; I hope this will be the case with the whole number, and then you will never feel as if you had too many.  A dozen children with sense and good conduct may be less burdensome than one who lacks these qualities.  It seems a long time since I heard from you.  I shall be glad to hear from you again. — Believe me, yours sincerely,

‘C. Bell.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘Haworth,
June
15
th
, 1848.

‘My dear Sir, — Thank you for your two last letters.  In reading the first I quite realised your May holiday; I enjoyed it with you.  I saw the pretty south-of-England village, so different from our northern congregations of smoke-dark houses clustered round their soot-vomiting mills.  I saw in your description, fertile, flowery Essex — a contrast indeed to the rough and rude, the mute and sombre yet well-beloved moors over-spreading this corner of Yorkshire.  I saw the white schoolhouse, the venerable school-master — I even thought I saw you and your daughters; and in your second letter I see you all distinctly, for, in describing your children, you unconsciously describe yourself.

‘I may well say that your letters are of value to me, for I seldom receive one but I find something in it which makes me reflect, and reflect on new themes.  Your town life is somewhat different from any I have known, and your allusions to its advantages, troubles, pleasures, and struggles are often full of significance to me.

‘I have always been accustomed to think that the necessity of
 
earning one’s subsistence is not in itself an evil, but I feel it may become a heavy evil if health fails, if employment lacks, if the demand upon our efforts made by the weakness of others dependent upon us becomes greater than our strength suffices to answer.  In such a case I can imagine that the married man may wish himself single again, and that the married woman, when she sees her husband over-exerting himself to maintain her and her children, may almost wish — out of the very force of her affection for him — that it had never been her lot to add to the weight of his responsibilities.  Most desirable then is it that all, both men and women, should have the power and the will to work for themselves — most advisable that both sons and daughters should early be inured to habits of independence and industry.  Birds teach their nestlings to fly as soon as their wings are strong enough, they even oblige them to quit the nest if they seem too unwilling to trust their pinions of their own accord.  Do not the swallow and the starling thus give a lesson by which man might profit?

‘It seems to me that your kind heart is pained by the thought of what your daughter may suffer if transplanted from a free and indulged home existence to a life of constraint and labour amongst strangers.  Suffer she probably will; but take both comfort and courage, my dear sir, try to soothe your anxiety by this thought, which is not a fallacious one.  Hers will not be a barren suffering; she will gain by it largely; she will “sow in tears to reap in joy.”  A governess’s experience is frequently indeed bitter, but its results are precious: the mind, feeling, temper are there subjected to a discipline equally painful and priceless.  I have known many who were unhappy as governesses, but not one who regretted having undergone the ordeal, and scarcely one whose character was not improved — at once strengthened and purified, fortified and softened, made more enduring for her own afflictions, more considerate for the afflictions of others, by passing through it.

‘Should your daughter, however, go out as governess, she should first take a firm resolution not to be too soon daunted by difficulties, too soon disgusted by disagreeables; and if she
 
has a high spirit, sensitive feelings, she should tutor the one to submit, the other to endure,
for the sake of those at home
.  That is the governess’s best talisman of patience, it is the best balm for wounded susceptibility.  When tried hard she must say, “I will be patient, not out of servility, but because I love my parents, and wish through my perseverance, diligence, and success, to repay their anxieties and tenderness for me.”  With this aid the least-deserved insult may often be swallowed quite calmly, like a bitter pill with a draught of fair water.

‘I think you speak excellent sense when you say that girls without fortune should be brought up and accustomed to support themselves; and that if they marry poor men, it should be with a prospect of being able to help their partners.  If all parents thought so, girls would not be reared on speculation with a view to their making mercenary marriages; and, consequently, women would not be so piteously degraded as they now too often are.

‘Fortuneless people may certainly marry, provided they previously resolve never to let the consequences of their marriage throw them as burdens on the hands of their relatives.  But as life is full of unforeseen contingencies, and as a woman may be so placed that she cannot possibly both “guide the house” and earn her livelihood (what leisure, for instance, could Mrs. Williams have with her eight children?), young artists and young governesses should think twice before they unite their destinies.

‘You speak sense again when you express a wish that Fanny were placed in a position where active duties would engage her attention, where her faculties would be exercised and her mind occupied, and where, I will add, not doubting that my addition merely completes your half-approved idea, the image of the young artist would for the present recede into the background and remain for a few years to come in modest perspective, the finishing point of a vista stretching a considerable distance into futurity.  Fanny may feel sure of this: if she intends to be an artist’s wife she had better try an apprenticeship with Fortune as a governess first; she cannot undergo a better
 
preparation for that honourable (honourable if rightly considered) but certainly not luxurious destiny.