The life of Charlotte Brontë

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  The news of the wedding had slipt abroad before the little party came out of church, and many old and humble friends were there, seeing her look “like a snow-drop,” as they say. Her dress was white embroidered muslin, with a lace mantle, and white bonnet trimmed with green leaves, which perhaps might suggest the resemblance to the pale wintry flower.

  Mr. Nicholls and she went to visit his friends and relations in Ireland; and made a tour by Killarney, Glengariff, Tarbert, Tralee, and Cork, seeing scenery, of which she says, “some parts exceeded all I had ever imagined.” .... “I must say I like my new relations. My dear husband, too, appears in a new light in his own country. More than once I have had deep pleasure in hearing his praises on all sides. Some of the old servants and followers of the family tell me I am a most fortunate person; for that I have got one of the best gentlemen in the country.... I trust I feel thankful to God for having enabled me to make what seems a right choice; and I pray to be enabled to repay as I ought the affectionate devotion of a truthful, honourable man.”

  Henceforward the sacred doors of home are closed upon her married life. We, her loving friends, standing outside, caught occasional glimpses of brightness, and pleasant peaceful murmurs of sound, telling of the gladness within; and we looked at each other, and gently said, “After a hard and long struggle—after many cares and many bitter sorrows—she is tasting happiness now!” We thought of the slight astringencies of her character, and how they would turn to full ripe sweetness in that calm sunshine of domestic peace. We remembered her trials, and were glad in the idea that God had seen fit to wipe away the tears from her eyes. Those who saw her, saw an outward change in her look, telling of inward things.cn And we thought, and we hoped, and we prophesied, in our great love and reverence.

  But God’s ways are not as our ways!

  Hear some of the low murmurs of happiness we, who listened, heard:—

  “I really seem to have had scarcely a spare moment since that dim quiet June morning, when you, E—, and myself all walked down to Haworth Church. Not that I have been wearied or oppressed; but the fact is, my time is not my own now; somebody else wants a good portion of it, and says, ‘we must do so and so.’ We do so and so, accordingly; and it generally seems the right thing..... We have had many callers from a distance, and latterly some little occupation in the way of preparing for a small village entertainment. Both Mr. Nicholls and myself wished much to make some response for the hearty welcome and general goodwill shown by the parishioners on his return; accordingly, the Sunday and day scholars and teachers, the church-ringers, singers, &c., to the number of five hundred, were asked to tea and supper in the School-room. They seemed to enjoy it much, and it was very pleasant to see their happiness. One of the villagers, in proposing my husband’s health, described him as a ‘consistent Christian and a kind gendanan’ I own the words touched me deeply, and I thought (as I know you would have thought had you been present) that to merit and win such a character was better than to earn either wealth, or fame, or power. I am disposed to echo that high but simple eulogium. . . . . My dear father was not well when we returned from Ireland. I am, however, most thankful to say that he is better now. May God preserve him to us yet for some years! The wish for his continued life, together with a certain solicitude for his happiness and health, seems, I scarcely know why, even stronger in me now than before I was married. Papa has taken no duty since we returned; and each time I see Mr. Nicholls put on gown or surplice, I feel comforted to think that this marriage has secured papa good aid in his old age.”

  “September 19th.

  “Yes! I am thankful to say my husband is in improved health and spirits. It makes me content and grateful to hear him from time to time avow his happiness in the brief, plain phrase of sincerity. My own life is more occupied than it used to be: I have not so much time for thinking: I am obliged to be more practical, for my dear Arthur is a very practical, as well as a very punctual and methodical man. Every morning he is in the National School by nine o’clock; he gives the children religious instruction till half-past ten. Almost every afternoon he pays visits amongst the poor parishioners. Of course, he often finds a little work for his wife to do, and I hope she is not sorry to help him. I believe it is not bad for me that his bent should be so wholly towards matters of life and active usefulness; so little inclined to the literary and contemplative. As to his continued affection and kind attentions, it does not become me to say much of them; but they neither change nor diminish.”

  Her friend and bridesmaid came to pay them a visit in October. I was to have gone also, but I allowed some little obstacle to intervene, to my lasting regret.

  “I say nothing about the war; but when I read of its horrors, I cannot help thinking that it is one of the greatest curses that ever fell upon mankind. I trust it may not last long, for it really seems to me that no glory to be gained can compensate for the sufferings which must be endured. This may seem a little ignoble and unpatriotic; but I think that as we advance towards middle age, nobleness and patriotism have a different signification to us to that which we accept while young.

  “You kindly inquire after Papa. He is better, and seems to gain strength as the weather gets colder; indeed, of late years his health has always been better in winter than in summer. We are all indeed pretty well; and, for my own part, it is long since I have known such comparative immunity from headache, &c., as during the last three months. My life is different from what it used to be. May God make me thankful for it! I have a good, kind, attached husband; and every day my own attachment to him grows stronger.”

  Late in the autumn, Sir James Kay Shuttleworth crossed the border-hills that separate Lancashire from Yorkshire, and spent two or three days with them.

  About this time, Mr. Nicholls was offered a living of much greater value than his curacy at Haworth, and in many ways the proposal was a very advantageous one; but he felt himself bound to Haworth as long as Mr. Brontë lived. Still, this offer gave his wife great and true pleasure, as a proof of the respect in which her husband was held.

  “Nov. 29.

  “I intended to have written a line yesterday, but just as I was sitting down for the purpose, Arthur called to me to take a walk. We set off, not intending to go far; but, though wild and cloudy, it was fair in the morning; when we had got about half a mile on the moors, Arthur suggested the idea of the waterfall; after the melted snow, he said, it would be fine. I had often wished to see it in its winter power,—so we walked on. It was fine indeed; a perfect torrent racing over the rocks, white and beautiful! It began to rain while we were watching it, and we returned home under a streaming sky. However, I enjoyed the walk inexpressibly, and would not have missed the spectacle on any account.”

  She did not achieve this walk of seven or eight miles, in such weather, with impunity. She began to shiver soon after her return home, in spite of every precaution, and had a bad lingering sorethroat and cold, which hung about her, and made her thin and weak.

  “Did I tell you that our poor little Flossy is dead?co She drooped for a single day, and died quietly in the night without pain. The loss even of a dog was very saddening; yet, perhaps, no dog ever had a happier life, or an easier death.”

  On Christmas-day she and her husband walked to the poor old woman (whose calf she had been set to seek in former and less happy days), carrying with them a great spice-cake to make glad her heart. On Christmas-day many a humble meal in Haworth was made more plentiful by her gifts.

  Early in the new year (1855), Mr. and Mrs. Nicholls went to visit Sir James Kay Shuttleworth at Gawthorpe. They only remained two or three days, but it so fell out that she increased her lingering cold, by a long walk over damp ground in thin shoes.

  Soon after her return, she was attacked by new sensations of perpetual nausea, and ever-recurring faintness. After this state of things had lasted for some time, she yielded to Mr. Nicholl’s wish that a doctor should be sent for. He came, and assigned a natural cause for her miserable indispo
sition;7 a little patience, and all would go right. She who was ever patient in illness, tried hard to bear up and bear on. But the dreadful sickness increased and increased, till the very sight of food occasioned nausea. “A wren would have starved on what she ate during those last six weeks,” says one. Tabby’s health had suddenly and utterly given way, and she died in this time of distress and anxiety respecting the last daughter of the house she had served long. Martha tenderly waited on her mistress, and from time to time tried to cheer her with the thought of the baby that was coming. “I dare say I shall be glad sometime,” she would say; “but I am so ill—so weary—” Then she took to her bed, too weak to sit up. From that last couch she wrote two notes—in pencil. The first, which has no date, is addressed to her own “Dear Nell.”

  “I must write one line out of my dreary bed. The news of M——’s probable recovery came like a ray of joy to me. I am not going to talk of my sufferings—it would be useless and painful. I want to give you an assurance, which I know will comfort you—and that is, that I find in my husband the tenderest nurse, the kindest support, the best earthly comfort that ever woman had. His patience never fails, and it is tried by sad days and broken nights. Write and tell me about Mrs.—’s case; how long was she ill, and in what way? Papa—thank God!—is better. Our poor old Tabby is dead and buried. Give my kind love to Miss Wooler. May God comfort and help you.

  “C. B. NICHOLLS.”

  The other—also in faint, faint pencil marks—was to her Brussels schoolfellow.

  “Feb. 15th.

  “A few lines of acknowledgment your letter shall have, whether well or ill. At present I am confined to my bed with illness, and have been so for three weeks. Up to this period, since my marriage, I have had excellent health. My husband and I live at home with my father; of course, I could not leave him. He is pretty well, better than last summer. No kinder, better husband than mine, it seems to me, there can be in the world. I do not want now for kind companionship in health and the tenderest nursing in sickness. Deeply I sympathise in all you tell me about Dr.W and your excellent mother’s anxiety. I trust he will not risk another operation. I cannot write more now; for I am much reduced and very weak. God bless you all.—Yours affectionately,

  “C. B. NICHOLLS.”

  I do not think she ever wrote a line again. Long days and longer nights went by; still the same relentless nausea and faintness, and still borne on in patient trust. About the third week in March there was a change; a low wandering delirium came on; and in it she begged constantly for food and even for stimulants. She swallowed eagerly now; but it was too late. Wakening for an instant from this stupor of intelligence, she saw her husband’s woe-worn face, and caught the sound of some murmured words of prayer that God would spare her. “Oh!” she whispered forth, “I am not going to die, am I? He will not separate us, we have been so happy.”

  Early on Saturday morning, March 31st, the solemn tolling of Haworth church-bell spoke forth the fact of her death to the villagers who had known her from a child, and whose hearts shivered within them as they thought of the two sitting desolate and alone in the old grey house.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  I have always been much struck with a passage in Mr. Forster’s Life of Goldsmith.cp Speaking of the scene after his death, the writer says:—

  “The staircase of Brick Court is said to have been filled with mourners, the reverse of domestic; women without a home, without domesticity of any kind, with no friend but him they had come to weep for; outcasts of that great, solitary, wicked city, to whom he had never forgotten to be kind and charitable.”

  This came into my mind when I heard of some of the circumstances attendant on Charlotte’s funeral.

  Few beyond that circle of hills knew that she, whom the nations praised far off, lay dead that Easter morning. Of kith and kin she had more in the grave to which she was soon to be borne, than among the living. The two mourners, stunned with their great grief, desired not the sympathy of strangers. One member out of most of the families in the parish was bidden to the funeral; and it became an act of self-denial in many a poor household to give up to another the privilege of paying their last homage to her; and those who were excluded from the formal train of mourners thronged the churchyard and church, to see carried forth, and laid beside her own people, her whom, not many months ago, they had looked at as a pale white bride, entering on a new life with trembling happy hope.

  Among those humble friends who passionately grieved over the dead, was a village girl who had been seduced some little time before, but who had found a holy sister in Charlotte. She had sheltered her with her help, her counsel, her strengthening words; had ministered to her needs in her time of trial. Bitter, bitter was the grief of this poor young woman, when she heard that her friend was sick unto death, and deep is her mourning until this day. A blind girl, living some four miles from Haworth, loved Mrs. Nicholls so dearly that, with many cries and entreaties, she implored those about her to lead her along the roads, and over the moor-paths, that she might hear the last solemn words, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

  Such were the mourners over Charlotte Brontë’s grave.

  I have little more to say. If my readers find that I have not said enough, I have said too much. I cannot measure or judge of such a character as hers. I cannot map out vices, and virtues, and debateable land. One who knew her long and well,—the “Mary” of this Life—writes thus of her dead friend:—

  “She thought much of her duty, and had loftier and clearer notions of it than most people, and held fast to them with more success. It was done, it seems to me, with much more difficulty than people have of stronger nerves, and better fortunes. All her life was but labour and pain; and she never threw down the burden for the sake of present pleasure. I don’t know what use you can make of all I have said. I have written it with the strong desire to obtain appreciation for her. Yet, what does it matter? She herself appealed to the world’s judgment for her use of some of the faculties she had,—not the best,—but still the only ones she could turn to strangers’ benefit. They heartily, greedily enjoyed the fruits of her labours, and then found out she was much to be blamed for possessing such faculties. Why ask for a judgment on her from such a world?”

  But I turn from the critical, unsympathetic public,—inclined to judge harshly because they have only seen superficially and not thought deeply. I appeal to that larger and more solemn public, who know how to look with tender humility at faults and errors; how to admire generously extraordinary genius, and how to reverence with warm, full hearts all noble virtue. To that Public I commit the memory of Charlotte Brontë.

  THE END.

  ENDNOTES

  Volume I

  CHAPTER I

  1 (p. 14) A.D. sexcentissimo: This inscription suggests that a monastic community was established in Haworth in 600. Were this accurate, the community would have predated the arrival of Christianity in the region in the generally accepted year of 627, when the Roman missionary Paulinus, later archbishop of York, converted the Anglo-Saxon King Edwin of Northumbria.

  2 (p. 15) curate at Haworth: Thomas Dunham Whitaker (1759-1821), vicar of Blackburn and local antiquarian, casts doubt on the antiquity of the Haworth chapel by suggesting that a stone mason mis-read the original inscription. This debate is important to Gaskell because it allows her to establish the independent character of the locals and to explain the grounds for their unusual right of refusal of curates.

  CHAPTER II

  1 (p. 20) religious dictations of such men as Laud: William Laud (1573-1645), archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I, tried to impose a uniform standard of worship throughout England in an effort to deter religious dissent. Dissenters were members of sects that worshiped outside of the Church of England. These sects were historically well established in the northern manufacturing districts, Yorkshire among them. Gaskell, a Unitarian, w
as herself a dissenter.

  2 (p. 20) Commonwealth men: Gaskell turns social historian and explains the religious and economic forces that induced Yorkshire to support the Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell, which deposed and executed Charles I in 1649, and set about overturning the religious and trading restrictions the Stuarts had imposed.

  3 (p. 21) persecuting days of Charles II: Upon his restoration to the throne in 1660, Charles II attempted to rein in religious dissent with the Act of Uniformity (1662), which required all clergy to take an oath that they would adhere to Anglican doctrine as established in The Book of Common Prayer.

  4 (p. 21) “Life of Oliver Heywood”: Joseph Hunter wrote The Rise of the Old Dissent, Exemplified in the Life of Oliver Heywood, One of the Founders of the Presbyterian Congregations in the County of York (1842).

  5 (p. 26) scene of the ministrations of the Rev. William Grimshaw: The Reverend William Grimshaw (1708-1763), perpetual curate of Haworth from 1742 until his death and a major Evangelical figure, is credited with revitalizing the spiritual life of the town by introducing the Evangelical Revival. The Evangelical party comprised reform-minded clergy within the Church of England who believed in a religion based on personal revelation and social responsibility.

  6 (p. 26) Newton, Cowper’s friend: John Newton (1725-1807), a slave-ship captain who underwent a conversion and became an Evangelical clergyman, wrote Memoirs of the Life of the LateWilliam Grimshaw (1825). Newton and the poet William Cowper (1731-1800) collaborated on the Olney Hymns (1779). Cowper, a proto-Romantic, is best known for the expressive style of his poetry and its theme of religious doubt.