my angel Edmund: see Margaret Smith’s note 6, CB to EN, 17 June 1846, LCB 1, 479. The account books are in the Robinson Papers at BPM.
What I shall do I know not: BB to J. B. Leyland, June 1846, LCB 1, 476.
an image he drew: a pen and ink sketch, enclosed with this letter to Leyland (Brotherton Collection) and reproduced in SHB 2, 97.
pretext to throw all about him…[he] declares now: CB to EN, 17 June 1846, LCB 1, 477–8.
The right path: CB to EN, 10 July 1846, LCB 1, 482–3.
Miss Brontë was…going to be married: CB to EN, 10 July 1846, LCB 1, 483.
though others had: Life, 238.
I scarcely need say: CB to EN, 10 July 1846, LCB 1, 483.
as she expressed in a letter to Ellen: CB to EN, 29 June 1847, LCB 1, 532.
A pencil-drawing exists: Pierpont Morgan Library, Bonnell Collection, MA 2696. See also “Sketch of Mr. Nicholls,” Art of the Brontës, 281.
search out an operator: CB to EN, 9 August 1846, LCB 1, 491.
numerous similar streets: Life, 242. For more about the lodgings see Brian Kay and James Knowles, “Where Jane Eyre and Mary Barton were Born,” BST, 15:2 (1967).
hints about how to manage…For ourselves I could contrive: CB to EN, 21 August 1846, LCB 1, 493.
feeling of strangeness: CB to EN, 21 August 1846, LCB 1, 492.
Belladonna, a virulent poison: BST, 15:2 (1967).
He is very patient: CB to EN, 31 August 1846, LCB 1, 496.
ELEVEN That Intensely Interesting Novel, 1846–8
it was not every day: Life, 245–6.
something more imaginative and poetical: CB, “Preface,” The Professor, 3.
to go all lengths: Jane Eyre, 12.
Nobody knows how many rebellions: Jane Eyre, 109.
it seemed as if my tongue: Jane Eyre, 27.
Ere I had finished this reply: Jane Eyre, 37.
[A]t eighteen most people wish to please: Jane Eyre, 91.
I sometimes regretted: Jane Eyre, 98.
I have but a field or two to traverse…every nerve I have is unstrung: Jane Eyre, 244.
There was every article of furniture: Jane Eyre, 228.
I stopped: I could not trust myself: Jane Eyre, 384.
I sometimes have a queer feeling: Jane Eyre, 252.
It is not agreeable: CB to EN, 13 December 1846, LCB 1, 507.
it is said: John Greenwood told this dramatic story in his notebooks, with Anne discovering the fire and failing to rouse Branwell to the danger. Emily is the heroine of the hour, behaving very much as Jane Eyre does in the novel: “she tore the blazing bedding from the bed and threw it into the middle of the room—the safest place. Rushing downstairs into the kitchen, she seized a large can, which happened to be full of water at the time. Dashing upstairs she threw the water on the blazing pile and quenched it at once,” Albert H. Preston, “John Greenwood and the Brontës,” BST, 12:1 (1951).
after he became an inebriate: EN to J. A. Erskine Stuart, 24 February 1894, transcripts of letters to Dr. J. A. Erskine Stuart, BPM.
dragging his way home: “The Brontës and the Brontë Country: A Chat with One Who Knew Them,” The Bradford Observer, 17 February 1894.
a new lifes battle: BB to J. B. Leyland, 24 January 1847, LCB 1, 512.
in more than competence…live at leisure: BB to J. B. Leyland, 24 January 1847, LCB 1, 512.
ghastly dying eye: BB to J. B. Leyland, 24 January 1847, LCB 1, 514.
cost what it may: BB to J. B. Leyland, 24 January 1847, LCB 1, 512.
Sir My Relatives, Ellis and Acton Bell and myself: CB to Thomas De Quincey, 16 June 1847, LCB 1, 529–30.
Florence Nightingale: in the early 1860s, Nightingale asked Milnes if she could borrow the book (Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell) that he had read aloud to her in 1846, so that she could transcribe some of the poems into a notebook of favourites. See Mark Bostridge, Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend (London, 2008), 106 and 415–16.
Gentlemen I beg to submit: CB to Messrs Smith, Elder & Co., 15 July 1847, LCB 1, 533.
This was not calculated…evinced great literary power…[the writer] could produce a book: George Smith, “Charlotte Brontë,” Interviews, 87.
it declined, indeed, to publish that tale: CB, “Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell” (1850), LCB 2, 744.
accustom the public: CB to Messrs Smith, Elder & Co., 7 August 1847, LCB 1, 535.
Presently the servant came: Interviews, 90.
may suit the public taste: CB to Messrs Smith, Elder & Co., 12 September 1847, LCB 1, 539.
one hundred pounds is a small sum: CB to Messrs Smith, Elder & Co., 12 September 1847, LCB 1, 540.
to walk invisible: “What author would be without the advantage of being able to walk invisible? One is thereby enabled to keep such a quiet mind.” CB to WSW, 4 January 1848, LCB 2, 4.
as to choice of subject or style: CB to Messrs Smith, Elder & Co., 12 September 1847, LCB 1, 540.
One of the freshest and most genuine books: Howitt’s Journal of Literature and Popular Progress, 20 November 1847, see LCB 1, 565 n2.
very clever and striking: The Manchester Examiner and Times, 16 November 1847, see LCB 1, 565 n4.
like the Cartoons of Raphael…true, bold, well-defined: Era, 14 November 1847, see LCB 1, 564 n1.
This is not merely a work: Atlas, 23 October 1847, Critical Heritage, 67.
psychological intuition…It reads like a page: Fraser’s Magazine, December 1847, Critical Heritage, 86.
that intensely interesting novel: Queen Victoria’s diary, 13 May 1858, Critical Heritage, 389.
lost (or won if you like): William Makepeace Thackeray to WSW, 23 October 1847, Critical Heritage, 70.
true, sound, and original…Whatever faults…as an analysis of a single mind: The Examiner, 27 November 1847, Critical Heritage, 76–7.
There are moments: CB to WSW, 11 December 1847, LCB 1, 571.
heaven knows: CB to EN, ?29 October or early November 1847, LCB 1, 556.
but his suspicions: Life, 263.
Papa I’ve been writing a book…Children, Charlotte has been writing a book: ECG to Catherine Winkworth, 25 August 1850, LCB 2, 448–9. ECG had just heard this anecdote from CB when they met at Briery Close, and reports to Catherine Winkworth, “I think I can remember the exact words.” In the version she put into her biography of Brontë seven years later, there are significant tidyings and augmentations, but she still says, “I wrote down her words the day after I heard them; and I am pretty sure they are quite accurate” (Life, 263).
though clever in their kind: PB to ECG, 20 June 1855, LPB, 234.
abominable paganism: “abominably pagan” is what the reviewer (Elizabeth Rigby) in Quarterly Review for December 1848 thought of Wuthering Heights, Critical Heritage, 111.
of limited experience: Britannia, 15 January 1848, Critical Heritage, 224.
wants but the practised skill: Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper, 15 January 1848, Critical Heritage, 228.
all the emotions…talent of no common order: Critical Heritage, 243–4.
left no painful impression: Atlas, 22 January 1848, Critical Heritage, 233.
brothers of the weaving order: J. G. Lockhart to Elizabeth Rigby, 13 November 1848, quoted in LCB 1, 562 n5.
social regenerator…comes before the great ones…the very master of that working corps: CB, “Preface,” Jane Eyre, 4.
very, very sorry: CB to WSW, 28 January 1848, LCB 2, 22.
I feel that your cup of life: CB to WSW, 22 June 1848, LCB 2, 79.
as good as I can write: CB to WSW, 14 December 1847, LCB 1, 574.
It is my wish to do my best: CB to WSW, 18 December 1847, LCB 1, 579.
He saw my heart’s woe: PCB, 340. The poem was not published until 1915.
[It] is with difficulty one can prevail on her: CB to EN, 7 October 1847, LCB 1, 547.
The motives which dictated this choice: CB, “Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell”
(1850), LCB 2, 745.
great pleasure in making arrangements…I would not hurry its completion…much depends: T. C. Newby to EJB, 15 February 1848, LCB 2, 26.
unromantic as Monday morning…real, cool, and solid: Shirley, 5.
with respect to a proposed story: Ivy Holgate, “The Structure of Shirley,” BST, 14:2 (1962).
which at that time: Harry Speight was the “chronicler of old Bingley,” interviewed in 1898, Ivy Holgate, “The Structure of Shirley,” BST, 14:2 (1962).
do such men sway the public mind: CB to WSW, 28 February 1848, LCB 2, 35.
I wish I had written it in a cool moment: CB to WSW, 11 March 1848, LCB 2, 41.
their rational and justifiable efforts for liberty: CB to WSW, 29 March 1848, LCB 2, 45.
[E]arthquakes roll lower than the ocean: CB to WSW, 29 March 1848, LCB 2, 45.
I have still no doubt: CB to MW, 31 March 1848, LCB 2, 48.
I believe that “the people”: Shirley, 275.
old maids: Shirley, 329.
a lover feminine can say nothing…Take the matter as you find it: Shirley, 89–90.
in some region of the southern hemisphere: Shirley, 128.
I remember once: Shirley, 230.
If…the authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed to me: “Note to the Third Edition,” 13 April 1848, Jane Eyre, 6.
insanely bent: CB to WSW, 13 March 1848, LCB 2, 42.
your great world—your London…a glimpse of what I might call loathsome: CB to WSW, 15 February 1848, LCB 2, 27.
capricious: “The visit strikes me as an odd whim: I consider it quite a caprice, prompted probably by curiosity,” CB to EN, 26 June 1848, LCB 2, 81.
quite a fureur: SHB 2, 228.
was as though Charlotte Brontë herself was present: SHB 2, 228.
we do not subscribe: CB to EN, 26 June 1848, LCB 2, 81.
Dear John: BB to John Brown, “Sunday noon,” Brotherton MS 19c Brontë, B.4/22.
There is a phase of insanity…The sole aim and desire of the being thus possessed: CB to WSW, 4 January 1848, LCB 2, 3.
no domestic demon: Francis H. Grundy, “The Decline and Fall of Branwell Brontë,” Interviews, 57.
the cheeks yellow and hollow: Francis H. Grundy, “The Decline and Fall of Branwell Brontë,” Interviews, 56.
We washed ourselves…we went in: CB to Mary Taylor, 4 September 1848, LCB 2, 112.
shuffling scamp: CB to Mary Taylor, 4 September 1848, LCB 2, 111.
a pale, mild, stooping man of fifty…a long, nervous shaking of hands: CB to Mary Taylor, 4 September 1848, LCB 2, 112.
[Y]ou must go to the Italian opera…[To] all the rest of the world: CB to Mary Taylor, 4 September 1848, LCB 2, 113.
The desire to see some of the personages: CB to Mary Taylor, 4 September 1848, LCB 2, 113.
They must have thought us queer, quizzical looking beings: CB to Mary Taylor, 4 September 1848, LCB 2, 113–14.
You know I am not accustomed: Life, 287.
a couple of odd-looking country-women…to see their elegant, handsome son: CB to Mary Taylor, 4 September 1848, LCB 2, 114.
A more jaded wretch than I looked: CB to Mary Taylor, 4 September 1848, LCB 2, 115.
TWELVE Across the Abyss, 1848–9
intolerable mental wretchedness: BB to J. B. Leyland, ?17 June 1848, LCB 2, 77.
infatuated slave: CB to EN, 18 August 1848, LCB 2, 194.
latterly consumptive: CB to Laetitia Wheelwright, 15 March 1849, LCB 2, 190.
a constitution still so strong: BB to J. B. Leyland, 24 January 1847, LCB 1, 513.
and…catch hold to the door side: C. Holmes Cautley, “Old Haworth Folk Who Knew the Brontës” (1910), Interviews, 207.
the first…that she had ever attended: “the crisis was hastened by the awe and trouble of the death-scene—the first I had ever witnessed,” CB to WSW, 2 October 1848, LCB 2, 122.
the bar of eternity: see “Extracts from a Funeral Sermon for the late Rev. William Weightman,” Appendix XIII, LPB 364.
the depth and tenderness…Oh, John, I am dying!…In all my past life: Francis A. Leyland, The Brontë Family (1886), LCB 2, 278–9.
How unusual that word…painful, mournful joy: CB to WSW, 6 October 1848, LCB 2, 124.
My Son! My Son!…My poor Father: CB to WSW, 2 October 1848, LCB 2, 122.
impressions experienced: CB to WSW, 25 June 1849, LCB 2, 224.
I do not weep from a sense of bereavement: CB to WSW, 2 October 1848, LCB 2, 122.
When I looked on the noble face: CB to WSW, 6 October 1848, LCB 2, 124.
The final separation: CB to EN, 9 October 1848, LCB 2, 126.
I feel much more uneasy: CB to EN, 29 October 1848, LCB 2, 130.
Emily’s cold and cough…Her reserved nature: CB to EN, 29 October 1848, LCB 2, 130.
[M]y sister Emily: CB to WSW, 2 November 1848, LCB 2, 132.
you must look on: CB to WSW, 2 November 1848, LCB 2, 132.
I have again and again: CB to WSW, 7 December 1848, LCB 2, 148.
When she is ill…I think a certain harshness: CB to WSW, 2 November 1848, LCB 2, 132–3.
forced, total neglect: CB to EN, c. 29 January 1849, LCB 2, 173.
Stern selfishness: “Her conduct was the very essence of stern selfishness,” a passage deleted by ECG from her manuscript; see Angus Easson, “Two Suppressed Opinions in Mrs. Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë,” BST, 16:4 (1974).
has never consented: CB to WSW, 9 December 1848, LCB 2, 151.
The weather that autumn: recorded by a local man, William Shackleton of Keighley: W. Shackleton, “Meterological Journal 1844–50,” Cliffe Castle Museum, Keighley.
comparative inferiority: unsigned review of Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (1848), Spectator, 11 November 1848, Critical Heritage, 65.
blind…as any bat: CB to WSW, 16 November 1848, LCB 2, 140.
Jane Eyre fever: identified by “E. P.” [Edwin Percy Whipple] in North American Review, October 1848; see Critical Heritage, 97.
seems to take a morose satisfaction: Critical Heritage, 97.
Acton Bell succeeded: Critical Heritage, 262.
As I sat between them: CB to WSW, 22 November 1848, LCB 2, 142.
the marks of more than one mind…Strange patch-work: CB to WSW, 22 November 1848, LCB 2, 143.
[S]he is very ill…God only knows: CB to EN, 23 November 1848, LCB 2, 145.
the first glance at her face: CB to WSW, 25 June 1849, LCB 2, 225.
dying all the time: reported by ECG in her letter to ?John Forster, ?after 29 September 1853, LCB 3, 200.
the conflict of the strangely strong spirit: CB to WSW, 25 December 1848, LCB 2, 159.
If you will send for a doctor: Life, 293.
in the arms of those who loved her: CB to ?WSW, 20 December 1848, LCB 2, 155.
Emily suffers no more: CB to EN, 23 December 1848, LCB 2, 157.
calm and sustained…sweetly pretty and flushed…My dear little Anne: all reminiscences by EN, in her typescript copy of “The Story of the Brontës,” Hatfield Papers, BPM.
A dreadful darkness closes in: Edward Chitham (ed.), The Poems of Anne Brontë: A New Text and Commentary, 163.
unused any of us: CB to WSW, ?13 January 1849, LCB 2, 168.
like train oil: CB to EN, 10 January 1849, LCB 2, 166.
It is well known: Thomas John Graham, Modern Domestic Medicine (1826), 247.
[L]ife has become very void: CB to WSW, 2 January 1849, LCB 2, 165.
When we lost Emily: CB to WSW, ?13 January 1849, LCB 2, 168.
merely photographed from the life: CB to WSW, 2 February 1849, LCB 2, 181.
sanguine hopes: CB to EN, c. 29 January 1849, LCB 2, 173.
[T]here have been hours: CB to Laetitia Wheelwright, 15 March 1849, LCB 2, 190–91.
consequently obliged: CB to EN, 29 March 1849, LCB 2, 194.
we creep rather than walk: CB to EN, 1 May 1849, LCB 2, 205.
in a semi-lethargic state: CB to MW, 16 May 18
49, LCB 2, 210.
dreary mockery…Oh—if it would please God: CB to EN, c. 12 & 14 May 1849, LCB 2, 209.
the pious courage and fortitude: EN’s reminiscence, reported by ECG in Life, 307.
baby fashion…nervously angry…I am not hurt: EN’s notes to her typescript copy of “The Story of the Brontës,” Hatfield Papers, BPM.
deeply assured: CB to WSW, 4 June 1849, LCB 2, 216.
Take courage, Charlotte…The door to the room: Life, 309–10.
burst forth in agonised strength: EN’s notes to “The Story of the Brontës,” Hatfield Papers, BPM.
Anne, from her childhood…wise—perfect—merciful…Why life is so blank: CB to WSW, 4 June 1849, LCB 2, 216.
but half consoles…Anne had had enough: CB to WSW, 13 June 1849, LCB 2, 220.
There must be Heaven or we must despair: CB to WSW, 13 June 1849, LCB 2, 220.
in strange ecstasy: CB to EN, 23 June 1849, LCB 2, 222.
may look wistfully round: CB to WSW, 25 June 1849, LCB 2, 224.
I left Papa soon: CB to EN, 23 June 1849, LCB 2, 222–3.
THIRTEEN Conquering the Big Babylon, 1849–51
his anxiety harasses me: CB to EN, 14 July 1849, LCB 2, 230.
spirit…strong enough: CB to WSW, 4 June 1849, LCB 2, 216.
two persons whom it would not suit: CB to WSW, 26 July 1849, LCB 2, 232.
Lonely as I am: CB to WSW, 3 July 1849, LCB 2, 227.
hereafter I look for no great earthly comfort: CB to WSW, 26 July 1849, LCB 2, 232.
what Emily Brontë would have been: Life, 315.
the most prominent and peculiar: CB to WSW, 21 August 1849, LCB 2, 237.
Men of England!: Shirley, 330.
What on earth is the matter with you?: Shirley, 162.
I feel weaker than formerly: Shirley, 163.
I read the leading articles: Shirley, 276.
necessary occupation: quoted in Mark Bostridge, Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend (London, 2008), 145.
what are they to do: Lynn McDonald (ed.), Collected Works of Florence Nightingale (16 vols.; Ontario, 2001–12), 7, 494.
may well have been uppermost: Mark Bostridge, Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend (London, 2008), 145.
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