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In the whole of English biographical literature there is no book that can compare in widespread interest with the Life of Charlotte Brontë by Mrs. Gaskell. It has held a position of singular popularity for forty years; and while biography after biography has come and gone, it still commands a place side by side with Boswell’s Johnson and Lockhart’s Scott. As far as mere readers are concerned, it may indeed claim its hundreds as against the tens of intrinsically more important rivals. There are obvious reasons for this success. Mrs. Gaskell was herself a popular novelist, who commanded a very wide audience, and Cranford, at least, has taken a place among the classics of our literature. She brought to bear upon the biography of Charlotte Brontë all those literary gifts which had made the charm of her seven volumes of romance. And these gifts were employed upon a romance of real life, not less fascinating than anything which imagination could have furnished. Charlotte Brontë’s success as an author turned the eyes of the world upon her. Thackeray had sent her his Vanity Fair before he knew her name or sex. The precious volume lies before me—

And Thackeray did not send many inscribed copies of his books even to successful authors. Speculation concerning the author of Jane Eyre was sufficiently rife during those seven sad years of literary renown to make a biography imperative when death came to Charlotte Brontë in 1855. All the world had heard something of the three marvellous sisters, daughters of a poor parson in Yorkshire, going one after another to their death with such melancholy swiftness, but leaving—two of them, at least—imperishable work behind them. The old blind father and the bereaved husband read the confused eulogy and criticism, sometimes with a sad pleasure at the praise, oftener with a sadder pain at the grotesque inaccuracy. Small wonder that it became impressed upon Mr. Brontë’s mind that an authoritative biography was desirable. His son-in-law, Mr. Arthur Bell Nicholls, who lived with him in the Haworth parsonage during the six weary years which succeeded Mrs. Nicholls’s death, was not so readily won to the unveiling of his wife’s inner life; and although we, who read Mrs. Gaskell’s Memoir, have every reason to be thankful for Mr. Brontë’s decision, peace of mind would undoubtedly have been more assured to Charlotte Brontë’s surviving relatives had the most rigid silence been maintained. The book, when it appeared in 1857, gave infinite pain to a number of people, including Mr. Brontë and Mr. Nicholls; and Mrs. Gaskell’s subsequent experiences had the effect of persuading her that all biographical literature was intolerable and undesirable. She would seem to have given instructions that no biography of herself should be written; and now that thirty years have passed since her death we have no substantial record of one of the most fascinating women of her age. The loss to literature has been forcibly brought home to the present writer, who has in his possession a bundle of letters written by Mrs. Gaskell to numerous friends of Charlotte Brontë during the progress of the biography. They serve, all of them, to impress one with the singular charm of the woman, her humanity and breadth of sympathy. They make us think better of Mrs. Gaskell, as Thackeray’s letters to Mrs. Brookfield make us think better of the author of Vanity Fair.

Apart from these letters, a journey in the footsteps, as it were, of Mrs. Gaskell reveals to us the remarkable conscientiousness with which she set about her task. It would have been possible, with so much fame behind her, to have secured an equal success, and certainly an equal pecuniary reward, had she merely written a brief monograph with such material as was voluntarily placed in her hands. Mrs. Gaskell possessed a higher ideal of a biographer’s duties. She spared no pains to find out the facts; she visited every spot associated with the name of Charlotte Brontë—Thornton, Haworth, Cowan Bridge, Birstall, Brussels—and she wrote countless letters to the friends of Charlotte Brontë’s earlier days.

But why, it may be asked, was Mrs. Gaskell selected as biographer? The choice was made by Mr. Brontë, and not, as has been suggested, by some outside influence. When Mr. Brontë had once decided that there should be an authoritative biography—and he alone was active in the matter—there could be but little doubt upon whom the task would fall. Among all the friends whom fame had brought to Charlotte, Mrs. Gaskell stood prominent for her literary gifts and her large-hearted sympathy. She had made the acquaintance of Miss Brontë when the latter was on a visit to Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, in 1850; and a letter from Charlotte to her father, and others to Mr. W. S. Williams, indicate the beginning of a friendship which was to leave so permanent a record in literary history:—

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

’20th November, 1849.

‘My dear Sir—You said that if I wished for any copies of Shirley to be sent to individuals I was to name the parties. I have thought of one person to whom I should much like a copy to be offered—Harriet Martineau. For her character—as revealed in her works—I have a lively admiration, a deep esteem. Will you inclose with the volume the accompanying note?

‘The letter you forwarded this morning was from Mrs. Gaskell, authoress of Mary Barton; she said I was not to answer it, but I cannot help doing so. The note brought the tears to my eyes. She is a good, she is a great woman. Proud am I that I can touch a chord of sympathy in souls so noble. In Mrs. Gaskell’s nature it mournfully pleases me to fancy a remote affinity to my sister Emily. In Miss Martineau’s mind I have always felt the same, though there are wide differences. Both these ladies are above me—certainly far my superiors in attainments and experience. I think I could look up to them if I knew them.—I am, dear sir, yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘November 29th, 1849.

‘Dear Sir—I inclose two notes for postage. The note you sent yesterday was from Harriet Martineau; its contents were more than gratifying. I ought to be thankful, and I trust I am, for such testimonies of sympathy from the first order of minds. When Mrs. Gaskell tells me she shall keep my works as a treasure for her daughters, and when Harriet Martineau testifies affectionate approbation, I feel the sting taken from the strictures of another class of critics. My resolution of seclusion withholds me from communicating further with these ladies at present, but I now know how they are inclined to me—I know how my writings have affected their wise and pure minds. The knowledge is present support and, perhaps, may be future armour.

‘I trust Mrs. Williams’s health and, consequently, your spirits are by this time quite restored. If all be well, perhaps I shall see you next week.—Yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘January 1st, 1850.

‘My dear Sir—May I beg that a copy of Wuthering Heights may be sent to Mrs. Gaskell; her present address is 3 Sussex Place, Regent’s Park. She has just sent me the Moorland Cottage. I felt disappointed about the publication of that book, having hoped it would be offered to Smith, Elder & Co.; but it seems she had no alternative, as it was Mr. Chapman himself who asked her to write a Christmas book. On my return home yesterday I found two packets from Cornhill directed in two well-known hands waiting for me. You are all very very good.

‘I trust to have derived benefit from my visit to Miss Martineau. A visit more interesting I certainly never paid. If self-sustaining strength can be acquired from example, I ought to have got good. But my nature is not hers; I could not make it so though I were to submit it seventy times seven to the furnace of affliction, and discipline it for an age under the hammer and anvil of toil and self-sacrifice. Perhaps if I was like her I should not admire her so much as I do. She is somewhat absolute, though quite unconsciously so; but she is likewise kind, with an affection at once abrupt and constant, whose sincerity you cannot doubt. It was delightful to sit near her in the evenings and hear her converse, myself mute. She speaks with what seems to me a wonderful fluency and eloquence. Her animal spirits are as unflagging as her intellectual powers. I was glad to find her health excellent. I believe neither solitude nor loss of friends would break her down. I saw some faults in her, but somehow I liked them for the sake of her good points. It gave me no pain to feel insignificant, mentally and corporeally, in comparison with her.

‘Trusting that you and yours are well, and sincerely wishing you all a happy new year—I am, my dear sir, yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

TO REV. P. BRONTË

‘The Briery, Windermere,

‘August 10th, 1850.

‘Dear Papa—I reached this place yesterday evening at eight o’clock, after a safe though rather tedious journey. I had to change carriages three times and to wait an hour and a half at Lancaster. Sir James came to meet me at the station; both he and Lady Shuttleworth gave me a very kind reception. This place is exquisitely beautiful, though the weather is cloudy, misty, and stormy; but the sun bursts out occasionally and shows the hills and the lake. Mrs. Gaskell is coming here this evening, and one or two other people. Miss Martineau, I am sorry to say, I shall not see, as she is already gone from home for the autumn.

‘Be kind enough to write by return of post and tell me how you are getting on and how you are. Give my kind regards to Tabby and Martha, and—Believe me, dear papa, your affectionate daughter,

‘C. Brontë.’

And this is how she writes to a friend from Haworth, on her return, after that first meeting:—

‘Lady Shuttleworth never got out, being confined to the house with a cold; but fortunately there was Mrs. Gaskell, the authoress of Mary Barton, who came to the Briery the day after me. I was truly glad of her companionship. She is a woman of the most genuine talent, of cheerful, pleasing, and cordial manners, and, I believe, of a kind and good heart.’

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

‘September 20th, 1850.

‘My dear Sir—I herewith send you a very roughly written copy of what I have to say about my sisters. When you have read it you can better judge whether the word “Notice” or “Memoir” is the most appropriate. I think the former. Memoir seems to me to express a more circumstantial and different sort of account. My aim is to give a just idea of their identity, not to write any narration of their simple, uneventful lives. I depend on you for faithfully pointing out whatever may strike you as faulty. I could not write it in the conventional form—that I found impossible.

‘It gives me real pleasure to hear of your son’s success. I trust he may persevere and go on improving, and give his parents cause for satisfaction and honest pride.

‘I am truly pleased, too, to learn that Miss Kavanagh has managed so well with Mr. Colburn. Her position seems to me one deserving of all sympathy. I often think of her. Will her novel soon be published? Somehow I expect it to be interesting.

‘I certainly did hope that Mrs. Gaskell would offer her next work to Smith & Elder. She and I had some conversation about publishers—a comparison of our literary experiences was made. She seemed much struck with the differences between hers and mine, though I did not enter into details or tell her all. Unless I greatly mistake, she and you and Mr. Smith would get on well together; but one does not know what causes there may be to prevent her from doing as she would wish in such a case. I think Mr. Smith will not object to my occasionally sending her any of the Cornhill books that she may like to see. I have already taken the liberty of lending her Wordsworth’s Prelude, as she was saying how much she wished to have the opportunity of reading it.

‘I do not tack remembrances to Mrs. Williams and your daughters and Miss Kavanagh to all my letters, because that makes an empty form of what should be a sincere wish, but I trust this mark of courtesy and regard, though rarely expressed, is always understood.—Believe me, yours sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

Miss Brontë twice visited Mrs. Gaskell in her Manchester home, first in 1851 and afterwards in 1853, and concerning this latter visit we have the following letter:—

TO MRS. GASKELL, Manchester

‘Haworth, April 14th, 1853.

‘My dear Mrs. Gaskell—Would it suit you if I were to come next Thursday, the 21st?

‘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. 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 cosy and pleasant than 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 Marianna. 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 diffident admirer. I am sorry I shall not see Meta.—Believe me, my dear Mrs. Gaskell, yours affectionately and sincerely,

‘C. Brontë.’

In the autumn of 1853 Mrs. Gaskell returned Charlotte Brontë’s visit at Haworth. She was not, however, at Charlotte’s wedding in Haworth Church. [8]

TO MISS WOOLER

‘Haworth, September 8th.

‘My dear Miss Wooler—Your letter was truly kind, and made me warmly wish to join you. 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 influenza rendered it impossible that I should receive or entertain her. Since that time she has been absent on the Continent with her husband and two 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 fix as soon as possible. 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 and affectionately,

‘C. Brontë.’

But the friendship, which commenced so late in Charlotte Brontë’s life, never reached the stage of downright intimacy. Of this there is abundant evidence in the biography; and Mrs. Gaskell was forced to rely upon the correspondence of older friends of Charlotte’s. Mr. George Smith, the head of the firm of Smith and Elder, furnished some twenty letters. Mr. W. S. Williams, to whom is due the credit of ‘discovering’ the author of Jane Eyre, lent others; and another member of Messrs. Smith and Elder’s staff, Mr. James Taylor, furnished half-a-dozen more; but the best help came from another quarter.

Of the two schoolfellows with whom Charlotte Brontë regularly corresponded from childhood till death, Mary Taylor and Ellen Nussey, the former had destroyed every letter; and thus it came about that by far the larger part of the correspondence in Mrs. Gaskell’s biography was addressed to Miss Ellen Nussey, now as ‘My dearest Nell,’ now simply as ‘E.’ The unpublished correspondence in my hands, which refers to the biography, opens with a letter from Mrs. Gaskell to Miss Nussey, dated July 6th, 1855. It relates how, in accordance with a request from Mr. Brontë, she had undertaken to write the work, and had been over to Haworth. There she had made the acquaintance of Mr. Nicholls for the first time. She told Mr. Brontë how much she felt the difficulty of the task she had undertaken. Nevertheless, she sincerely desired to make his daughter’s character known to all who took deep interest in her writings. Both Mr. Brontë and Mr. Nicholls agreed to help to the utmost, although Mrs. Gaskell was struck by the fact that it was Mr. Nicholls, and not Mr. Brontë, who was more intellectually alive to the attraction which such a book would have for the public. His feelings were opposed to any biography at all; but he had yielded to Mr. Brontë’s ‘impetuous wish,’ and he brought down all the materials he could find, in the shape of about a dozen letters. Mr. Nicholls, moreover, told Mrs. Gaskell that Miss Nussey was the person of all others to apply to; that she had been the friend of his wife ever since Charlotte was fifteen, and that he was writing to Miss Nussey to beg her to let Mrs. Gaskell see some of the correspondence.

But here is Mr. Nicholls’s actual letter, unearthed after forty years, as well as earlier letters from and to Miss Nussey, which would seem to indicate a suggestion upon the part of ‘E’ that some attempt should be made to furnish a biography of her friend—if only to set at rest, once and for all, the speculations of the gossiping community with whom Charlotte Brontë’s personality was still shrouded in mystery; and indeed it is clear from these letters that it is to Miss Nussey that we really owe Mrs. Gaskell’s participation in the matter:—

TO REV. A. B. NICHOLLS

‘Brookroyd, June 6th, 1855.

‘Dear Mr. Nicholls—I have been much hurt and pained by the perusal of an article in Sharpe for this month, entitled “A Few Words about Jane Eyre.” You will be certain to see the article, and I am sure both you and Mr. Brontë will feel acutely the misrepresentations and the malignant spirit which characterises it. Will you suffer the article to pass current without any refutations? The writer merits the contempt of silence, but there will be readers and believers. Shall such be left to imbibe a tissue of malignant falsehoods, or shall an attempt be made to do justice to one who so highly deserved justice, whose very name those who best knew her but speak with reverence and affection? Should not her aged father be defended from the reproach the writer coarsely attempts to bring upon him?

‘I wish Mrs. Gaskell, who is every way capable, would undertake a reply, and would give a sound castigation to the writer. Her personal acquaintance with Haworth, the Parsonage, and its inmates, fits her for the task, and if on other subjects she lacked information I would gladly supply her with facts sufficient to set aside much that is asserted, if you yourself are not provided with all the information that is needed on the subjects produced. Will you ask Mrs. Gaskell to undertake this just and honourable defence? I think she would do it gladly. She valued dear Charlotte, and such an act of friendship, performed with her ability and power, could only add to the laurels she has already won. I hope you and Mr. Brontë are well. My kind regards to both.—Believe me, yours sincerely,

‘E. Nussey.’

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘Haworth, June 11th, 1855.

‘Dear Miss Nussey—We had not seen the article in Sharpe, and very possibly should not, if you had not directed our attention to it. We ordered a copy, and have now read the “Few Words about Jane Eyre.” The writer has certainly made many mistakes, but apparently not from any unkind motive, as he professes to be an admirer of Charlotte’s works, pays a just tribute to her genius, and in common with thousands deplores her untimely death. His design seems rather to be to gratify the curiosity of the multitude in reference to one who had made such a sensation in the literary world. But even if the article had been of a less harmless character, we should not have felt inclined to take any notice of it, as by doing so we should have given it an importance which it would not otherwise have obtained. Charlotte herself would have acted thus; and her character stands too high to be injured by the statements in a magazine of small circulation and little influence—statements which the writer prefaces with the remark that he does not vouch for their accuracy. The many laudatory notices of Charlotte and her works which appeared since her death may well make us indifferent to the detractions of a few envious or malignant persons, as there ever will be such.

‘The remarks respecting Mr. Brontë excited in him only amusement—indeed, I have not seen him laugh as much for some months as he did while I was reading the article to him. We are both well in health, but lonely and desolate.

‘Mr. Brontë unites with me in kind regards.—Yours sincerely,

‘A. B. Nicholls.’

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

‘Haworth, July 24th, 1855.

‘Dear Miss Nussey—Some other erroneous notices of Charlotte having appeared, Mr. Brontë has deemed it advisable that some authentic statement should be put forth. He has therefore adopted your suggestion and applied to Mrs. Gaskell, who has undertaken to write a life of Charlotte. Mrs. Gaskell came over yesterday and spent a few hours with us. The greatest difficulty seems to be in obtaining materials to show the development of Charlotte’s character. For this reason Mrs. Gaskell is anxious to see her letters, especially those of any early date. I think I understood you to say that you had some; if so, we should feel obliged by your letting us have any that you may think proper, not for publication, but merely to give the writer an insight into her mode of thought. Of course they will be returned after a little time.

‘I confess that the course most consonant with my own feelings would be to take no steps in the matter, but I do not think it right to offer any opposition to Mr. Brontë’s wishes.

‘We have the same object in view, but should differ in our mode of proceeding. Mr. Brontë has not been very well. Excitement on Sunday (our Rush-bearing) and Mrs. Gaskell’s visit yesterday have been rather much for him.—Believe me, sincerely yours,

‘A. B. Nicholls.’

Mrs. Gaskell, however, wanted to make Miss Nussey’s acquaintance, and asked if she might visit her; and added that she would also like to see Miss Wooler, Charlotte’s schoolmistress, if that lady were still alive. To this letter Miss Nussey made the following reply:—

TO MRS. GASKELL, Manchester

‘Ilkley, July 26th, 1855.

‘My dear Madam—Owing to my absence from home your letter has only just reached me. I had not heard of Mr. Brontë’s request, but I am most heartily glad that he has made it. A letter from Mr. Nicholls was forwarded along with yours, which I opened first, and was thus prepared for your communication, the subject of which is of the deepest interest to me. I will do everything in my power to aid the righteous work you have undertaken, but I feel my powers very limited, and apprehend that you may experience some disappointment that I cannot contribute more largely the information which you desire. I possess a great many letters (for I have destroyed but a small portion of the correspondence), but I fear the early letters are not such as to unfold the character of the writer except in a few points. You perhaps may discover more than is apparent to me. You will read them with a purpose—I perused them only with interests of affection. I will immediately look over the correspondence, and I promise to let you see all that I can confide to your friendly custody. I regret that my absence from home should have made it impossible for me to have the pleasure of seeing you at Brookroyd at the time you propose. I am engaged to stay here till Monday week, and shall be happy to see you any day you name after that date, or, if more convenient to you to come Friday or Saturday in next week, I will gladly return in time to give you the meeting. I am staying with our schoolmistress, Miss Wooler, in this place. I wish her very much to give me leave to ask you here, but she does not yield to my wishes; it would have been pleasanter to me to talk with you among these hills than sitting in my home and thinking of one who had so often been present there.—I am, my dear madam, yours sincerely,

‘Ellen Nussey.’

Mrs. Gaskell and Miss Nussey met, and the friendship which ensued was closed only by death; and indeed one of the most beautiful letters in the collection in my hands is one signed ‘Meta Gaskell,’ and dated January 22, 1866. It tells in detail, with infinite tenderness and pathos, of her mother’s last moments. [14] That, however, was ten years later than the period with which we are concerned. In 1856 Mrs. Gaskell was energetically engaged upon a biography of her friend which should lack nothing of thoroughness, as she hoped. She claimed to have visited the scenes of all the incidents in Charlotte’s life, ‘the two little pieces of private governess-ship excepted.’ She went one day with Mr. Smith to the Chapter Coffee House, where the sisters first stayed in London. Another day she is in Yorkshire, where she makes the acquaintance of Miss Wooler, which permitted, as she said, ‘a more friendly manner of writing towards Charlotte Brontë’s old schoolmistress.’ Again she is in Brussels, where Madame Héger refused to see her, although M. Héger was kind and communicative, ‘and very much indeed I both like and respect him.’ Her countless questions were exceedingly interesting. They covered many pages of note-paper. Did Branwell Brontë know of the publication of Jane Eyre,’ she asks, ‘and how did he receive the news?’ Mrs. Gaskell was persuaded in her own mind that he had never known of its publication, and we shall presently see that she was right. Charlotte had distinctly informed her, she said, that Branwell was not in a fit condition at the time to be told. ‘Where did the girls get the books which they read so continually? Did Emily accompany Charlotte as a pupil when the latter went as a teacher to Roe Head? Why did not Branwell go to the Royal Academy in London to learn painting? Did Emily ever go out as a governess? What were Emily’s religious opinions? Did she ever make friends?’ Such were the questions which came quick and fast to Miss Nussey, and Miss Nussey fortunately kept her replies.

TO MRS. GASKELL, Manchester

‘Brookroyd, October 22nd, 1856.

‘My dear Mrs. Gaskell—If you go to London pray try what may be done with regard to a portrait of dear Charlotte. It would greatly enhance the value and interest of the memoir, and be such a satisfaction to people to see something that would settle their ideas of the personal appearance of the dear departed one. It has been a surprise to every stranger, I think, that she was so gentle and lady-like to look upon.

‘Emily Brontë went to Roe Head as pupil when Charlotte went as teacher; she stayed there but two months; she never settled, and was ill from nothing but home-sickness. Anne took her place and remained about two years. Emily was a teacher for one six months in a ladies’ school in Halifax or the neighbourhood. I do not know whether it was conduct or want of finances that prevented Branwell from going to the Royal Academy. Probably there were impediments of both kinds.

‘I am afraid if you give me my name I shall feel a prominence in the book that I altogether shrink from. My very last wish would be to appear in the book more than is absolutely necessary. If it were possible, I would choose not to be known at all. It is my friend only that I care to see and recognise, though your framing and setting of the picture will very greatly enhance its value.—I am, my dear Mrs. Gaskell, yours very sincerely,

‘Ellen Nussey.’

The book was published in two volumes, under the title of The Life of Charlotte Brontë, in the spring of 1857. At first all was well. Mr. Brontë’s earliest acknowledgment of the book was one of approbation. Sir James Shuttleworth expressed the hope that Mr. Nicholls would ‘rejoice that his wife would be known as a Christian heroine who could bear her cross with the firmness of a martyr saint.’ Canon Kingsley wrote a charming letter to Mrs. Gaskell, published in his Life, and more than once reprinted since.

‘Let me renew our long interrupted acquaintance,’ he writes from St. Leonards, under date May 14th, 1857, ‘by complimenting you on poor Miss Brontë’s Life. You have had a delicate and a great work to do, and you have done it admirably. Be sure that the book will do good. It will shame literary people into some stronger belief that a simple, virtuous, practical home life is consistent with high imaginative genius; and it will shame, too, the prudery of a not over cleanly though carefully white-washed age, into believing that purity is now (as in all ages till now) quite compatible with the knowledge of evil. I confess that the book has made me ashamed of myself. Jane Eyre I hardly looked into, very seldom reading a work of fiction—yours, indeed, and Thackeray’s, are the only ones I care to open. Shirley disgusted me at the opening, and I gave up the writer and her books with a notion that she was a person who liked coarseness. How I misjudged her! and how thankful I am that I never put a word of my misconceptions into print, or recorded my misjudgments of one who is a whole heaven above me.

‘Well have you done your work, and given us the picture of a valiant woman made perfect by suffering. I shall now read carefully and lovingly every word she has written, especially those poems, which ought not to have fallen dead as they did, and which seem to be (from a review in the current Fraser) of remarkable strength and purity.’

It was a short-lived triumph, however, and Mrs. Gaskell soon found herself, as she expressed it, ‘in a veritable hornet’s nest.’ Mr. Brontë, to begin with, did not care for the references to himself and the suggestion that he had treated his wife unkindly. Mrs. Gaskell had associated him with numerous eccentricities and ebullitions of temper, which during his later years he always asserted, and undoubtedly with perfect truth, were, at the best, the fabrications of a dismissed servant. Mr. Nicholls had also his grievance. There was just a suspicion implied that he had not been quite the most sympathetic of husbands. The suspicion was absolutely ill-founded, and arose from Mr. Nicholls’s intense shyness. But neither Mr. Brontë nor Mr. Nicholls gave Mrs. Gaskell much trouble. They, at any rate, were silent. Trouble, however, came from many quarters. Yorkshire people resented the air of patronage with which, as it seemed to them, a good Lancashire lady had taken their county in hand. They were not quite the backward savages, they retorted, which some of Mrs. Gaskell’s descriptions in the beginning of her book would seem to suggest. Between Lancashire and Yorkshire there is always a suspicion of jealousy. It was intensified for the moment by these sombre pictures of ‘this lawless, yet not unkindly population.’ [17] A son-in-law of Mr. Redhead wrote to deny the account of that clergyman’s association with Haworth. ‘He gives another as true, in which I don’t see any great difference.’ Miss Martineau wrote sheet after sheet explanatory of her relations with Charlotte Brontë. ‘Two separate householders in London each declares that the first interview between Miss Brontë and Miss Martineau took place at her house.’ In one passage Mrs. Gaskell had spoken of wasteful young servants, and the young servants in question came upon Mr. Brontë for the following testimonial:—

‘Haworth, August 17th, 1857.

‘I beg leave to state to all whom it may concern, that Nancy and Sarah Garrs, during the time they were in my service, were kind to my children, and honest, and not wasteful, but sufficiently careful in regard to food, and all other articles committed to their charge.

P. Brontë, A.B.,

‘Incumbent of Haworth, Yorkshire.’

Three whole pages were devoted to the dramatic recital of a scandal at Haworth, and this entirely disappears from the third edition. A casual reference to a girl who had been seduced, and had found a friend in Miss Brontë, gave further trouble. ‘I have altered the word “seduced” to “betrayed,” ’ writes Mrs. Gaskell to Martha Brown, ‘and I hope that this will satisfy the unhappy girl’s friends.’ But all these were small matters compared with the Cowan Bridge controversy and the threatened legal proceedings over Branwell Brontë’s suggested love affairs. Mrs. Gaskell defended the description in Jane Eyre of Cowan Bridge with peculiar vigour. Mr. Carus Wilson, the Brocklehurst of Jane Eyre, and his friends were furious. They threatened an action. There were letters in the Times and letters in the Daily News. Mr. Nicholls broke silence—the only time in the forty years that he has done so—with two admirable letters to the Halifax Guardian. The Cowan Bridge controversy was a drawn battle, in spite of numerous and glowing testimonials to the virtues of Mr. Carus Wilson. Most people who know anything of the average private schools of half a century ago are satisfied that Charlotte Brontë’s description was substantially correct. ‘I want to show you many letters,’ writes Mrs. Gaskell, ‘most of them praising the character of our dear friend as she deserves, and from people whose opinion she would have cared for, such as the Duke of Argyll, Kingsley, Greig, etc. Many abusing me. I should think seven or eight of this kind from the Carus Wilson clique.’

The Branwell matter was more serious. Here Mrs. Gaskell had, indeed, shown a singular recklessness. The lady referred to by Branwell was Mrs. Robinson, the wife of the Rev. Edmund Robinson of Thorp Green, and afterwards Lady Scott. Anne Brontë was governess in her family for two years, and Branwell tutor to the son for a few months. Branwell, under the influence of opium, made certain statements about his relations with Mrs. Robinson which have been effectually disproved, although they were implicitly believed by the Brontë girls, who, womanlike, were naturally ready to regard a woman as the ruin of a beloved brother. The recklessness of Mrs. Gaskell in accepting such inadequate testimony can be explained only on the assumption that she had a novelist’s satisfaction in the romance which the ‘bad woman’ theory supplied. She wasted a considerable amount of rhetoric upon it. ‘When the fatal attack came on,’ she says, ‘his pockets were found filled with old letters from the woman to whom he was attached. He died! she lives still—in May Fair. I see her name in county papers, as one of those who patronise the Christmas balls; and I hear of her in London drawing-rooms’—and so on. There were no love-letters found in Branwell Brontë’s pockets. [19] When Mrs. Gaskell’s husband came post-haste to Haworth to ask for proofs of Mrs. Robinson’s complicity in Branwell’s downfall, none were obtainable. I am assured by Mr. Leslie Stephen that his father, Sir James Stephen, was employed at the time to make careful inquiry, and that he and other eminent lawyers came to the conclusion that it was one long tissue of lies or hallucinations. The subject is sufficiently sordid, and indeed almost redundant in any biography of the Brontës; but it is of moment, because Charlotte Brontë and her sisters were so thoroughly persuaded that a woman was at the bottom of their brother’s ruin; and this belief Charlotte impressed upon all the friends who were nearest and dearest to her. Her letters at the time of her brother’s death are full of censure of the supposed wickedness of another. It was a cruel infamy that the word of this wretched boy should have been so powerful for mischief. Here, at any rate, Mrs. Gaskell did not show the caution which a masculine biographer, less prone to take literally a man’s accounts of his amours, would undoubtedly have displayed.

Yet, when all is said, Mrs. Gaskell had done her work thoroughly and well. Lockhart’s Scott and Froude’s Carlyle are examples of great biographies which called for abundant censure upon their publication; yet both these books will live as classics of their kind. To be interesting, it is perhaps indispensable that the biographer should be indiscreet, and certainly the Branwell incident—a matter of two or three pages—is the only part of Mrs. Gaskell’s biography in which indiscretion becomes indefensible. And for this she suffered cruelly. ‘I did so try to tell the truth,’ she said to a friend, ‘and I believe now I hit as near to the truth as any one could do.’ ‘I weighed every line with my whole power and heart,’ she said on another occasion, ‘so that every line should go to its great purpose of making her known and valued, as one who had gone through such a terrible life with a brave and faithful heart.’ And that clearly Mrs. Gaskell succeeded in doing. It is quite certain that Charlotte Brontë would not stand on so splendid a pedestal to-day but for the single-minded devotion of her accomplished biographer.

It has sometimes been implied that the portrait drawn by Mrs. Gaskell was far too sombre, that there are passages in Charlotte’s letters which show that ofttimes her heart was merry and her life sufficiently cheerful. That there were long periods of gaiety for all the three sisters, surely no one ever doubted. To few people, fortunately, is it given to have lives wholly without happiness. And yet, when this is acknowledged, how can one say that the picture was too gloomy? Taken as a whole, the life of Charlotte Brontë was among the saddest in literature. At a miserable school, where she herself was unhappy, she saw her two elder sisters stricken down and carried home to die. In her home was the narrowest poverty. She had, in the years when that was most essential, no mother’s care; and perhaps there was a somewhat too rigid disciplinarian in the aunt who took the mother’s place. Her second school brought her, indeed, two kind friends; but her shyness made that school-life in itself a prolonged tragedy. Of the two experiences as a private governess I shall have more to say. They were periods of torture to her sensitive nature. The ambition of the three girls to start a school on their own account failed ignominiously. The suppressed vitality of childhood and early womanhood made Charlotte unable to enter with sympathy and toleration into the life of a foreign city, and Brussels was for her a further disaster. Then within two years, just as literary fame was bringing its consolation for the trials of the past, she saw her two beloved sisters taken from her. And, finally, when at last a good man won her love, there were left to her only nine months of happy married life. ‘I am not going to die. We have been so happy.’ These words to her husband on her death-bed are not the least piteously sad in her tragic story. That her life was a tragedy, was the opinion of the woman friend with whom on the intellectual side she had most in common. Miss Mary Taylor wrote to Mrs. Gaskell the following letter from New Zealand upon receipt of the Life:—

‘Wellington, 30th July 1857.

‘My dear Mrs. Gaskell—I am unaccountably in receipt by post of two vols. containing the Life of C. Brontë. I have pleasure in attributing this compliment to you; I beg, therefore, to thank you for them. The book is a perfect success, in giving a true picture of a melancholy life, and you have practically answered my puzzle as to how you would give an account of her, not being at liberty to give a true description of those around. Though not so gloomy as the truth, it is perhaps as much so as people will accept without calling it exaggerated, and feeling the desire to doubt and contradict it. I have seen two reviews of it. One of them sums it up as “a life of poverty and self-suppression,” the other has nothing to the purpose at all. Neither of them seems to think it a strange or wrong state of things that a woman of first-rate talents, industry, and integrity should live all her life in a walking nightmare of “poverty and self-suppression.” I doubt whether any of them will.

‘It must upset most people’s notions of beauty to be told that the portrait at the beginning is that of an ugly woman. [22] I do not altogether like the idea of publishing a flattered likeness. I had rather the mouth and eyes had been nearer together, and shown the veritable square face and large disproportionate nose.

‘I had the impression that Cartwright’s mill was burnt in 1820 not in 1812. You give much too favourable an account of the black-coated and Tory savages that kept the people down, and provoked excesses in those days. Old Robertson said he “would wade to the knees in blood rather than the then state of things should be altered,”—a state including Corn law, Test law, and a host of other oppressions.

‘Once more I thank you for the book—the first copy, I believe, that arrived in New Zealand.—Sincerely yours,

‘Mary Taylor.’

And in another letter, written a little later (28th January 1858), Miss Mary Taylor writes to Miss Ellen Nussey in similar strain:—

‘Your account of Mrs. Gaskell’s book was very interesting,’ she says. ‘She seems a hasty, impulsive person, and the needful drawing back after her warmth gives her an inconsistent look. Yet I doubt not her book will be of great use. You must be aware that many strange notions as to the kind of person Charlotte really was will be done away with by a knowledge of the true facts of her life. I have heard imperfectly of farther printing on the subject. As to the mutilated edition that is to come, I am sorry for it. Libellous or not, the first edition was all true, and except the declamation all, in my opinion, useful to be published. Of course I don’t know how far necessity may make Mrs. Gaskell give them up. You know one dare not always say the world moves.’

We who do know the whole story in fullest detail will understand that it was desirable to ‘mutilate’ the book, and that, indeed, truth did in some measure require it. But with these letters of Mary Taylor’s before us, let us not hear again that the story of Charlotte Brontë’s life was not, in its main features, accurately and adequately told by her gifted biographer.

Why then, I am naturally asked, add one further book to the Brontë biographical literature? The reply is, I hope, sufficient. Forty years have gone by, and they have been years of growing interest in the subject. In the year 1895 ten thousand people visited the Brontë Museum at Haworth. Interesting books have been written, notably Sir Wemyss Reid’s Monograph and Mr. Leyland’s Brontë Family, but they have gone out of print. Many new facts have come to light, and many details, moreover, which were too trivial in 1857 are of sufficient importance to-day; and many facts which were rightly suppressed then may honestly and honourably be given to the public at an interval of nearly half a century. Added to all this, fortune has been kind to me.

Some three or four years ago Miss Ellen Nussey placed in my hands a printed volume of some 400 pages, which bore no publisher’s name, but contained upon its title-page the statement that it was The Story of Charlotte Brontë’s Life, as told through her Letters. These are the Letters—370 in number—which Miss Nussey had lent to Mrs. Gaskell and to Sir Wemyss Reid. Of these letters Mrs. Gaskell published about 100, and Sir Wemyss Reid added as many more as he considered circumstances justified twenty years back.

It was explained to me that the volume had been privately printed under a misconception, and that only some dozen copies were extant. Miss Nussey asked me if I would write something around what might remain of the unpublished letters, and if I saw my way to do anything which would add to the public appreciation of the friend who from early childhood until now has been the most absorbing interest of her life. A careful study of the volume made it perfectly clear that there were still some letters which might with advantage be added to the Brontë story. At the same time arose the possibility of a veto being placed upon their publication. An examination of Charlotte Brontë’s will, which was proved at York by her husband in 1855, suggested an easy way out of the difficulty. I made up my mind to try and see Mr. Nicholls. I had heard of his disinclination to be in any way associated with the controversy which had gathered round his wife for all these years; but I wrote to him nevertheless, and received a cordial invitation to visit him in his Irish home.

It was exactly forty years to a day after Charlotte died—March 31st, 1895—when I alighted at the station in a quiet little town in the centre of Ireland, to receive the cordial handclasp of the man into whose keeping Charlotte Brontë had given her life. It was one of many visits, and the beginning of an interesting correspondence. Mr. Nicholls placed all the papers in his possession in my hands. They were more varied and more abundant than I could possibly have anticipated. They included MSS. of childhood, of which so much has been said, and stories of adult life, one fragment indeed being later than the Emma which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for 1856, with a note by Thackeray. Here were the letters Charlotte Brontë had written to her brother and to her sisters during her second sojourn in Brussels—to ‘Dear Branwell’ and ‘Dear E. J.,’ as she calls Emily—letters even to handle will give a thrill to the Brontë enthusiast. Here also were the love-letters of Maria Branwell to her lover Patrick Brontë, which are referred to in Mrs. Gaskell’s biography, but have never hitherto been printed.

‘The four small scraps of Emily and Anne’s manuscript,’ writes Mr. Nicholls, ‘I found in the small box I send you; the others I found in the bottom of a cupboard tied up in a newspaper, where they had lain for nearly thirty years, and where, had it not been for your visit, they must have remained during my lifetime, and most likely afterwards have been destroyed.’

Some slight extracts from Brontë letters in Macmillan’s Magazine, signed ‘E. Balmer Williams,’ brought me into communication with a gifted daughter of Mr. W. S. Williams. Mrs. Williams and her husband generously placed the whole series of these letters of Charlotte Brontë to their father at my disposal. It was of some of these letters that Mrs. Gaskell wrote in enthusiastic terms when she had read them, and she was only permitted to see a few. Then I have to thank Mr. Joshua Taylor, the nephew of Miss Mary Taylor, for permission to publish his aunt’s letters. Mr. James Taylor, again, who wanted to marry Charlotte Brontë, and who died twenty years afterwards in Bombay, left behind him a bundle of letters which I found in the possession of a relative in the north of London. [25] I discovered through a letter addressed to Miss Nussey that the ‘Brussels friend’ referred to by Mrs. Gaskell was a Miss Lætitia Wheelwright, and I determined to write to all the Wheelwrights in the London Directory. My first effort succeeded, and the Miss Wheelwright kindly lent me all the letters that she had preserved. It is scarcely possible that time will reveal many more unpublished letters from the author of Jane Eyre. Several of those already in print are forgeries, and I have actually seen a letter addressed from Paris, a city which Miss Brontë never visited. I have the assurance of Dr. Héger of Brussels that Miss Brontë’s correspondence with his father no longer exists. In any case one may safely send forth this little book with the certainty that it is a fairly complete collection of Charlotte Brontë’s correspondence, and that it is altogether a valuable revelation of a singularly interesting personality. Steps will be taken henceforth, it may be added, to vindicate Mr. Nicholls’s rights in whatever may still remain of his wife’s unpublished correspondence.