Brontës

by Juliet Barker

  19. CB to EN, [?12 Apr 1850]: MS BS 75.6 p.2, BPM [LCB, ii, 384].

  20. LM, 6Apr 1950 p.5.

  21. CB to EN, [?12 Apr 1850]: MS BS 75.6 pp.2–4, BPM [LCB, ii, 384]; CB to Lady Kay Shuttleworth, 18 May 1850: MS BS 76 p.2, BPM [LCB, ii, 399].

  22. CB to EN, [?15 Apr 1850]: MS HM 24470 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, ii, 385–6].

  23. Ibid.; CB to EN, [?24 Apr 1850]: MS Gr. E18 p.1, BPM [LCB, ii, 388]; CB to Amelia Ringrose, [?28 Apr 1850]: MS p.1, Brotherton [LCB, ii, 390].

  24. CB to EN, [?24 Apr 1850]: MS Gr. E18 pp.1–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 387]; CB to EN, [?31 Jan 1850]: MS p.2, Pforzheimer [LCB, ii, 338–9].

  25. CB to EN, [7 Feb 1850]: MS pp.1–3, Kentucky [LCB, ii, 341–2].

  26. CB to Amelia Ringrose, 31 Mar 1850: MS p.4, Brotherton [LCB, ii, 373]; CB to Amelia Ringrose, 6Apr 1850: MS p.3, Brotherton [LCB, ii, 381–2].

  27. CB to EN, [?12 Apr 1850]: MS BS 75.6 p.4, BPM [LCB, ii, 384]; CB to EN, [29 Apr 1850]: MS Bon 219 p.3, BPM [LCB, ii, 395].

  28. Ibid., pp.1–3[LCB, ii, 394–5].

  29. CB to EN, 11 May 1850: MS pp.3–4, Princeton [LCB, ii, 366]; CB to John Driver, 16 May 1850: MS in Maine. For John Driver, formerly of Haworth but now of Liverpool, see above, p.339.

  30. CB to Lady Kay Shuttleworth, 18 May 1850: MS BS 76 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 399]; CB to EN, [24 May 1850]: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 405]; CB to Lady Kay Shuttleworth, 21 May 1850: MS pp.1–2, Harvard [LCB, ii, 401].

  31. CB to [?WSW], 22 May 1850: MS p.2, Princeton [LCB, ii, 402].

  32. Ibid, pp.3–4 [LCB, ii, 403].

  33. CB to Mrs Smith, 25 May 1850: MS SG 5b p.3, BPM [LCB, ii, 406]. The baby-socks (wrongly stored with MS SG 6b, BPM) are referred to in a postscript to CB to Mrs Smith, 9 Jan 1850: MS SG 4b pp.3–4, BPM [LCB, ii, 327]. Charlotte had offered Smith ‘my excessive sympathy in that painful operation of a “Removal” to which you allude – and a much sincerer sympathy to your Mother and Sisters … for you I daresay have not been allowed to suffer much’: CB to GS, 16 Mar 1850: MS SG 34 p.4, BPM [LCB, ii, 359].

  34. CB to Mrs Smith, 25 May 1850: MS SG 5b p.3, BPM [LCB, ii, 406]; CB to Lady Kay Shuttleworth, 29 May 1850: MS BS 77 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 408].

  35. CB to EN, 3June 1850: MS pp.1–2, Princeton [LCB, ii, 408–9].

  36. CB to GS, 18 Apr 1850: MS SG 35 p.1, BPM [LCB, ii, 386]; CB to GS, 27 July 1850: MS SG 38 p.2, BPM [LCB, ii, 430]; CB to WSW, 6 May 1850: MS pp.1–2, Harvard [LCB, ii, 396].

  37. CB to Martha Brown, 12 June 1850: MS Law [LCB, ii, 417]; CB to PB, 4 June 1850: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 411]. Though Charlotte tailored her news to suit her recipients, Martha’s letter is the only one to say anything more than the bare fact that she attended the opera – she does not even indicate which opera she saw.

  38. CB to EN, [12 June 1850]: MS HM 24471 p.2, Huntington [LCB, ii, 414]; Smith, A Memoir, 92.

  39. CB to EN, [12 June 1850]: MS HM 24471 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, ii, 414]; Smith, A Memoir, 92.

  40. Ibid., 101; G.H. Lewes to GS, n.d.: MS n.l. [L&L, iii, 118].

  41. CB to EN, [12 June 1850]: MS HM 24471 p.3, Huntington [LCB, ii, 414]. For reasons which are unclear, 15 months later Charlotte’s attitude to Lewes had completely changed; displaying again her ability to rewrite the past, Charlotte said of him: ‘I felt what he was through the very first letter he sent me – and had no wish ever to hear from – or write to him again –You appear to me something very different – not hard – not insolent – not coarse – not to be distrusted – all the contrary’: CB to GS, 15 Sept 1851: MS SG 56 p.3, BPM [LCB, ii, 691].

  42. G.W. Cross (ed.), George Eliot’s Life: As Related in her Letters and Journals (Edinburgh, 1885), i, 307.

  43. CB to EN, [12 June 1850]: MS HM 24471 pp.3–4, Huntington [LCB, ii, 414–5].

  44. Ibid., pp.5–6[LCB, ii, 415]. Charlotte mysteriously remarked ‘others do not see – or at least do not mention – what I seem to see in that family … I confess there is something about all except the father him-self and the eldest daughter –from which I feel inclined to shrink’.

  45. Ibid., p.2[LCB, ii, 414]; Thackeray, ‘The Last Sketch’, 487; Smith, A Memoir, 92, 100.

  46. Anne Thackeray Ritchie, Chapters From Some Memoirs (London, 1894), 62; Charles and Frances Brookfield, Mrs Brookfield and her Circle (London, 1905), ii, 355–6. Though Charlotte surprisingly did not mention it, both Ritchie and Brookfield said that Thomas and Jane Carlyle were also present: Charlotte did mention the presence of their close friend the Manchester novelist Geraldine Jewsbury and Mrs Crowe: CB to EN, [15 July 1850: MS p.3, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 425].

  47. Ritchie, Chapters From Some Memoirs, 60–1. As it was now over a year since Anne’s death, Charlotte would have come out of mourning a few days before her trip to London.

  48. Brookfield, Mrs Brookfield and her Circle, ii, 305. Brookfield confuses the various meetings of Thackeray and Charlotte: she describes the hairpiece in relation to their first meeting in December 1849 but it was not purchased until the end of April 1850. She also wrongly places the Young Street dinner party after Thackeray’s lectures in 1851: Ritchie places it in 1850 and Charlotte herself refers to going to dine there on the evening of 12 June 1850 in CB to EN, [12 June 1850]: MS HM 24471 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, ii, 414–5]. For the purchase of the hairpiece see CB to EN, [29 Apr 1850]: MS Bon 219 p.4, BPM [LCB, ii, 395]; CB to EN, 11 May 1850: MS p.4, Princeton [LCB, ii, 397].

  49. Ritchie, Chapters From Some Memoirs, 61–2; Brookfield, Mrs Brookfield and her Circle, ii, 305.

  50. Ritchie, Chapters From Some Memoirs, 62–5; Smith, A Memoir, 98.

  51. Ritchie, Chapters From Some Memoirs, 64; Smith, A Memoir, 98–9.

  52. Foister, ‘The Brontë Portraits’, BST:18:95:350.

  53. A.M.W. Stirling, The Richmond Papers (London, 1926), 60.

  54. Smith, A Memoir, 104.

  55. MT to ECG, [1857]: MS n.l. [Stevens, 133].

  56. Sidney Lee, ‘Charlotte Brontë in London’, BST:4:19:116. The commission did not prevent requests for permission to publish the portrait: she wrote refusing one such request the very day she sat to Richmond: CB to James Hogg, 13 June 1850: MS Egerton 2697 p.28, BL [LCB, ii, 418].

  57. CB to EN, 21 June 1850: MS Gr. E19 p.1, BPM [LCB, ii, 419].

  58. Ibid., p.2[LCB, ii, 419].

  59. CB to EN, 19 Dec [1849]: MS p.2, Berg [LCB, ii, 311]. Aware of the criticisms of Jane Eyre, Mrs Smith had expected Charlotte to be a man-eater – and was disappointed. ‘Mrs Smith is rather a stern woman – but she has sense and discrimination – She watched me very narrowly – when I was surrounded by gentlemen – she never took her eye from me – I liked the surveillance – both when it kept guard over me amongst many or only with her cherished and valued Son – She soon – I am convinced – saw in what light I viewed both her George and all the rest – Thackeray included.’

  60. CB to EN, 21 June 1850: MS Gr. E19 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 419].

  61. Smith, A Memoir, 91, 92, 96, 101.

  62. CB to Mrs Smith, 28 June 1850: MS SG 8b pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 421–2].

  63. CB to Laetitia Wheelwright, 30 July 1850: MS p.2, Berg [LCB, ii, 431]; CB to GS, 27 June 1850: MS SG 36 p.1, BPM [LCB, ii, 420–1].

  64. Smith, A Memoir, 104; CB to WSW, 20 July 1850: MS Bon 221 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 427].

  65. CB to Laetitia Wheelwright, 30 July 1850: MS pp.2–3, Berg [LCB, ii, 431].

  66. CB to EN, [5 July 1850]: MS in Eton College Library [LCB, ii, 422].

  67. PB to EN, 12 July 1850: MS BS 194 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 423]; [Benjamin Binns], BO, 17 Feb 1894 p.6. See also CB to Martha Brown, [12 June 1850]: MS in Law [LCB, ii, 417].

  68. PB to EN, 12 July 1850: MS BS 194 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 423].

  69. CB to EN, [15 July 1850]: MS pp.2–3, Law, photograph in MCP [LCB, ii, 424–5].

  70. PB to EN, 12 July 1850: MS BS 194 p.4, BPM [LCB, ii, 423].

  71. CB to EN, 18 July 1850: MS Bon 220 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 427]; CB to WSW, 20 July 1850: MS Bon 221 p.2, BP
M [LCB, ii, 427–88]; CB to GS, 27 July 1850: MS SG 38 p.2, BPM [LCB, ii, 430].

  72. CB to EN, 1 Aug 1850: MS Bon 222 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 432–3]; PB to GS, 2 Aug 1850: MS File 10 no.1, JMA [LCB, ii, 435]. Richmond’s portrait of Charlotte is now in the National Portrait Gallery; the portrait of Wellington, returned to its original position in the parsonage dining-room, is HAOBP:P44, BPM.

  73. CB to GS, [1Aug 1850]: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 434].

  74. Ibid.; PB to GS, 2Aug 1850: MS File 10 no.1pp.2–3, JMA [LCB, ii, 435].

  75. CB to GS, [1Aug 1850]: MS n.l. [LCB, ii, 366]; CB to GS, 5[Aug] 1850: MS SG 37 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 436].

  76. CB to EN, 7 Aug 1850: MS Bon 223 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 438]. The actual subject of Charlotte’s embargo is not mentioned but I have presumed it is the question of a possible marriage with George Smith because of Patrick’s anxiety on the subject and Charlotte’s refusal to give an unspecified promise to Ellen in an earlier letter on the grounds that ‘Who that does not know the future can make promises –? Not I’: CB to EN, 1Aug 1850: MS Bon 222 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, ii, 433].

  77. CB to EN, 23 Oct 1850: MS HM 24476 p.4, Huntington [LCB, ii, 487].

  78. CB to EN, 26 Aug 1850: MS part HM 24473 p.4, Huntington, part in Berg [LCB, ii, 451]; CB to WSW, 27 Aug 1850: MS E.2006.6 p.3, BPM. Manners published his English Ballads and Other Poems in 1850; Smythe was a brilliant journalist: both were models for Disraeli’s ideal Conservative in his novel Coningsby (1844).

  79. CB to EN, 16 Aug 1850: MS HM 24472 p.4, Huntington [LCB, ii, 444].

  80. CB to PB, [20 Aug 1850]: MS BS 79 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, ii, 445]. For descriptions of the drive and house, which has been demolished and replaced, see ECG to Catherine Winkworth, [25 Aug 1850]: MS p.2, Brotherton [C&P, 123].

  81. Ibid., p.3 [C&P, 123].

  82. Ibid., pp.5–11 [C&P, 124–5].

  83. Ibid., pp.8, 10–12 [C&P, 125–6]. Gaskell characteristically must have exaggerated what Charlotte had told her, saying Charlotte expected a lonely death because she had no friend or relative in the world to nurse her and her father ‘dreaded the sick room above all places’. This was patently untrue: Patrick was an assiduous visitor of the sick and dying, witness, for example, his daily attendance on Weightman and Charlotte herself; Charlotte could also call on Ellen who would willingly have nursed her through sickness, mortal or not.

  84. ECG to Eliza Fox, [27] Aug 1850 [C&P, 130]; CB to EN, 26 Aug 1850: MS HM 24473 p.4, Huntington [LCB, ii, 450].

  85. ECG to Catherine Winkworth, [25 Aug 1850]: MS p.4, Brotherton [C&P, 124]; ECG to Eliza Fox, [27] Aug 1850 [C&P, 130]; ECG to Charlotte Froude, [c.25 Aug 1850] [C&P, 129]. Francis Newman, who later became a Unitarian like Gaskell, was an opponent of his Roman Catholic brother and both ladies liked his book The Soul published the previous year.

  86. CB to James Taylor, 6 Nov 1850: MS p.4, Texas [LCB, ii, 496].

  87. CB to James Taylor, 15 Jan 1851: MS pp.2–3, Texas [LCB, ii, 553–4]; Mary Wordsworth to Mary Hutchinson, [early Sept 1850] [Mary E. Burton (ed.), The Letters of Mary Wordsworth (Oxford, 1958), 319]. The phrase is Mary’s but follows ‘Here comes Mrs Arnold’, so I think it likely that she is reporting the Arnolds’ view: as the Wordsworth family called Charlotte ‘Jane Eyre’ (see below, p.1106, n.16) I suspect she is referring to Charlotte herself, rather than her novel.

  88. CB to EN, 26 Aug 1850: MS HM 24473 p.1, Huntington [LCB, ii, 450]; CB to MW, 27 Sept 1850: MS FM 9 pp.2–3, Fitzwilliam [LCB, ii, 477]. See also CG to WSW, 27 Aug 1850: MS E.2006.6, BPM [LCB, ii, 453–4 part].

  89. ECG to Eliza Fox, [27] Aug 1850 [C&P, 130]; CB to EN, 26 Aug 1850: MS HM 24473 pp.3–4, Huntington [LCB, ii, 451].

  90. Ibid., p.1 [LCB, ii, 450].

  91. CB to ECG, 27 Aug 1850: MS Chatsworth [LCB, ii, 456].

  92. CB to EN, 2 Sept 1850: MS HM 24474 pp.2–4, Huntington [LCB, ii, 459]. Charlotte’s opinion coincided with Mary Taylor’s: ‘His passion for marrying seems just to have come because it is the only thing serious enough to excite him – if that were done what would there be left?’: MT to CB, 5 Apr 1850: MS p.1, Texas [LCB, ii, 378].

  93. CB to EN, 2Sept 1850: MS HM 24474 p.2, Huntington [LCB, ii, 459]; CB to EN, 14 Sept 1850: MS HM 24475 p.1, Huntington [LCB, ii, 366]; CB to James Taylor, 5Sept 1850: MS pp.2–3, Texas [LCB, ii, 460].

  94. [Sydney Dobell], Palladium, Sept 1850 pp.161–75 [Allott, 277–83]. In the light of Charlotte’s comment to Gaskell that Shirley was a portrayal of Emily as she might have been had she had health and fortune, it is surprising that she did not react to Dobell’s remark ‘To make Shirley Keeldar repulsive, you have only to fancy her poor.’ [Allott, 282]

  95. CB to WSW, 5Sept 1850: MS pp.3–4, Princeton [LCB, ii, 463].

  96. CB to GS, 3 Dec 1850: MS SG 42 p.2, BPM [LCB, ii, 523]. For further details of the negotiations with Newby see CB to GS, 18 Sept 1850: MSS SG 39 and 40, BPM [LCB, ii, 470–3]; CB to GS, 31 Oct 1850: MS SG 41 pp.4–5, BPM [LCB, ii, 492].

  97. CB, Biographical Notice, 364–5. Charlotte withdrew a more explicit condemnation of the critics in her last paragraph ‘for I believe it was not expressed with the best grace in the world’: CB to WSW, 16 Oct 1850: MS Bon 277 p.1, BPM [LCB, ii, 483].

  98. EJB, ‘I do not weep, I would not weep’, 19 Dec 1841: MS Add 43483 pp.43–4, BL [Encouragement, 1850, l.14]; EJB, ‘A Little while, a little while’, 4Dec 1838: MS in Law [facsimile in Poems 1934, 303–4] [Stanzas, 1850, l.40].

  99. EJB, ‘Loud without the wind was roaring’, 11 Nov 1838: MS in Law [facsimile in Poems 1934, 301–2] [Stanzas, 1850, l.32]; EJB, ‘In summer’s mellow midnight’, 11 Sept 1840: MS in Law [facsimile in Poems 1934, 308–9] [The Night-Wind, 1850, ll.33–6].

  100. EJB, ‘Silent is the House – all are laid asleep’, 9Oct 1845: MS Add 43483 pp.59–62, BL [The Visionary, 1850]. There was a precedent for this in that Emily had used ll.13–44 in Poems 1846, rounding off the extract with a newly composed verse. The other 3poems to which Charlotte added new lines are EJB, ‘Aye there it is! it wakes tonight’, 6 July 1841: MS in Law [facsimile in Poems 1934, 309] [‘Ay – there it is – it wakes tonight’, 1850, to which CB added 5ll at the end]; EJB, ‘Listen! when your hair like mine’, 11 Nov 1844: MS Add 43483 pp.46–7, BL [The Elder’s Rebuke, 1850, CB printing only the first 28 lines, adding 6of her own at the end]; EJB, ‘Child of Delight! with sunbright hair’, [28 May 1845]: MS Add 43483 pp.57–8, BL [‘Child of delight, with sun-bright hair’, 1850, in which CB inserted 4ll before Emily’s last verse].

  101. AB, ‘I have gone backward in the work’, 20 Dec 1841: MS Bon 134(2), BPM [Despondency, 1850, in which CB omitted the fifth verse].

  102. AB, ‘Blessed be Thou for all the Joy’, 10 Nov 1842: MS Bon 134(1), BPM [In Memory of a Happy Day in February, 1850, l.47]; AB, ‘My God! O let me call Thee mine!’, 13 Oct 1844: MS Bon 133 pp.72–3, BPM [A Prayer, 1850, l.9]. Charlotte presumably intended a parallel with William Cowper’s famous poem, ‘The Castaway’, with which all the family were familiar.

  103. AB, ‘A dreadful darkness closes in’, 7–28 Jan 1849: MS Bon 137, BPM [‘I hoped that with the brave and strong’, 1850, omitting ll.1–16, 29–36, 41–52 and substituting ll.25–8].

  104. CB to EN, 23 Oct 1850: MS HM 24476 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, ii, 487].

  105. CB to WSW, [?c.19 Nov 1850]: MS HM 24397 p.2, Huntington [LCB, ii, 513–4].

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: RUNNING AWAY FROM HOME

  Title: CB to ECG, 6Nov 1851: MS EL fB91 p.2, Rylands [LCB, ii, 710].

  1. [Jane Forster] to ECG, 3Oct 1850 [ECG, Life, 363–4]. Gaskell does not identify the author of this letter but I have assumed it is Jane Forster because she uses ‘W—’ to refer to her husband William and was a friend of both Gaskell and Martineau (either of whom could have sent her an introduction to Charlotte) as well as daughter of Thomas Arnold, whose family Charlotte had just visited in the Lakes: see above, p.769–70. 1106 NOTES TO PAGES 778–84 Charlotte refers to the Forsters making ‘another of their sudden calls here’ in CB to EN, 5
Oct 1852: MS in Berg [LCB, iii, 69].

  2. CB to John Stores Smith, 25 July 1850: MS 2696 R-V, PM [LCB, ii, 428–9]. See also BST:16:81:22–3 for Smith’s own account of his visit, written in 1868.

  3. Ibid, 25–8. Smith’s description of Patrick is suspect: he ‘remembered’ him being blind, which he was not, and that he rambled on in senile fashion about his daughters’ deaths and Charlotte’s unexpected success. Smith also noted that Charlotte had told him she had met Dickens during her recent visit to London (a fact not recorded elsewhere) and, while admiring his genius, disliked him personally.

  4. ’K.T.’ to CB, [c.8 Nov 1850]: MS Bon 230(1) p.2, BPM [LCB, ii, 497]; CB to ‘K.T.’, 9 Nov 1850: MS HM 20069 p.2, Huntington [LCB, ii, 500].

  5. ’K.T.’ to CB, [13 Nov 1850]: MS Bon 230(2) pp.4, 8, 9, BPM [LCB, ii, 504–7]; CB to ‘K.T.’, 6 Dec 1850: MS pp.1–2, Harvard [LCB, ii, 515]. See also CB to ‘K.T.’, 21 Nov 1850: MS p.2, Princeton [LCB, ii, 460]; ‘K.T.’ to CB, 25 Nov 1850: MS Bon 230(4) BPM [LCB, ii, 519–21]. In his final letter, ‘K.T.’ to CB, 11 Dec 1850: MS Bon 231 p.2, BPM [LCB, ii, 529–21], ‘K.T.’ admits to being 30 but still does not reveal his name. Drafts of Charlotte’s letters to ‘K.T.’ are MSS Bon 230(3) and 231, BPM.

  6. CB to EN, [?14 Oct 1850]: MS Bon 226 p.2, BPM [LCB, ii, 483]; CB to EN, 16 Aug 1850: MS HM 24472 p.3, Huntington [LCB, ii, 444].

  7. CB to G.H. Lewes, 17 Oct 1850: MS Add 39763(9) p.2, BL [LCB, ii, 485]; Charlotte returned the books in the same box as those lent her by Smith, Elder & Co.: CB to [?WSW], 21 Oct 1850: MS in private hands [LCB, ii, 486].

  8. CB to James Taylor, 6Nov 1850: MS pp.3–4, Texas [LCB, ii, 496]. See also WSW, 25 Oct 1850: MS HM 24398 p.1, Huntington [LCB, ii, 488–9].

  9. CB to WSW, 9Nov 1850: MS p.1, Brotherton [LCB, ii, 501].

  10. PB in LI, 19 Oct 1850 p.6[LRPB, 204]. For examples of speculation about Papal intentions see articles and editorials in BO, 1 Aug 1850 p.5; HG, 23 Nov 1850 pp.3, 4.

  11. LI, 23 Nov 1850 p.5. Patrick and Nicholls are not listed among the signatories calling for the meeting but Nicholls attended it and presumably gave his sanction to the resolution: ibid., 30 Nov 1850 pp.7–8.