CHAPTER XVII

: THE REV. ARTHUR BELL NICHOLLS

Without the kindly assistance of Mr. Arthur Bell Nicholls, this book could not have been written, and I might therefore be supposed to guide my pen with appalling discretion in treating of the married life of Charlotte Bronte. There are, however, no painful secrets to reveal, no skeletons to lay bare. Mr. Nicholls's story is a very simple one; and that it is entirely creditable to him, there is abundant evidence. Amid the full discussion to which the lives of the Brontes have necessarily been subjected through their ever-continuous fame, it was perhaps inevitable that a contrary opinion should gain ground. Many of Mr. Nicholls's relatives in his own country have frequently sighed over the perverted statements which have obtained currency. 'It is cruel that your uncle Arthur, the best of men, as we know, should be thus treated,' was the comment of Mr. Nicholls's brother to his daughter after reading an unfriendly article concerning Charlotte's husband. Yet it was not unnatural that such an estimate should get abroad; and I may frankly admit that until I met Mr. Nicholls I believed that Charlotte Bronte's marriage had been an unhappy one--an opinion gathered partly from Mrs. Gaskell, partly from current tradition in Yorkshire. Mrs. Gaskell, in fact, did not like Mr. Nicholls, and there were those with whom she came in contact while writing Miss Bronte's Life who were eager to fan that feeling in the usually kindly biographer. Mr. Nicholls himself did not work in the direction of conciliation. He was, as we shall see, a Scotchman, and Scottish taciturnity brought to bear upon the genial and jovial Yorkshire folk did not make for friendliness. Further, he would not let Mrs. Gaskell 'edit' and change _The Professor_, and here also he did wisely and well. He hated publicity, and above all things viewed the attempt to pierce the veil of his married life with almost morbid detestation. Who shall say that he was not right, and that his retirement for more than forty years from the whole region of controversy has not abundantly justified itself? One at least of Miss Bronte's friends has been known in our day to complain bitterly of all the trouble to which she has been subjected by the ill-considered zeal of Bronte enthusiasts. Mr. Nicholls has escaped all this by a judicious silence. Now that forty years and more have passed since his wife's death, it cannot be inopportune to tell the public all that they can fairly ask to know.

Mr. Nicholls was born in Co. Antrim in 1817, but of Scottish parents on both sides. He was left at the age of seven to the charge of an uncle--the Rev. Alan Bell--who was headmaster of the Royal School at Banagher, in King's Co. Mr. Nicholls afterwards entered Trinity College, Dublin, and it was thence that he went to Haworth, his first curacy. He succeeded a fellow countryman, Mr. Peter Augustus Smith, in 1844. The first impression we have of the new curate in Charlotte's letters is scarcely more favourable than that of his predecessors.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_October_ 9_th_, 1844.

'DEAR ELLEN,--We are getting on here the same as usual, only that Branwell has been more than ordinarily troublesome and annoying of late; he leads papa a wretched life. Mr. Nicholls is returned just the same. I cannot for my life see those interesting germs of goodness in him you discovered; his narrowness of mind always strikes me chiefly. I fear he is indebted to your imagination for his hidden treasure.--Yours,

'C. B.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_July_ 10_th_, 1846.

'DEAR ELLEN,--Who gravely asked you whether Miss Bronte was not going to be married to her papa's curate? I scarcely need say that never was rumour more unfounded. A cold faraway sort of civility are the only terms on which I have ever been with Mr. Nicholls. I could by no means think of mentioning such a rumour to him even as a joke. It would make me the laughing-stock of himself and his fellow curates for half a year to come. They regard me as an old maid, and I regard them, one and all, as highly uninteresting, narrow, and unattractive specimens of the coarser sex.

'Write to me again soon, whether you have anything particular to say or not. Give my sincere love to your mother and sisters.

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_November_ 17_th_, 1846.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I will just write a brief despatch to say that I received yours and that I was very glad to get it. I do not know when you have been so long without writing to me before. I had begun to imagine you were gone to your brother Joshua's.

'Papa continues to do very well. He read prayers twice in the church last Sunday. Next Sunday he will have to take the whole duty of the three services himself, as Mr. Nicholls is in Ireland. Remember me to your mother and sisters. Write as soon as you possibly can after you get to Oundle. Good luck go with you.

'C. BRONTE.'

That Scotch reticence held sway, and told against Mr. Nicholls for many a day to come.

[Picture: THE REV. ARTHUR BELL NICHOLLS]

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_October_ 7_th_, 1847.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I have been expecting you to write to me; but as you don't do it, and as, moreover, you may possibly think it is my turn, and not yours, though on that point I am far from clear, I shall just send you one of my scrubby notes for the express purpose of eliciting a reply. Anne was very much pleased with your letter; I presume she has answered it before now. I would fain hope that her health is a little stronger than it was, and her spirits a little better, but she leads much too sedentary a life, and is continually sitting stooping either over a book or over her desk. It is with difficulty we can prevail upon her to take a walk or induce her to converse. I look forward to next summer with the confident intention that she shall, if possible, make at least a brief sojourn at the sea-side.

'I am sorry I inoculated you with fears about the east wind; I did not feel the last blast so severely as I have often done. My sympathies were much awakened by the touching anecdote. Did you salute your boy-messenger with a box on the ear the next time he came across you? I think I should have been strongly tempted to have done as much. Mr. Nicholls is not yet returned. I am sorry to say that many of the parishioners express a desire that he should not trouble himself to recross the Channel. This is not the feeling that ought to exist between shepherd and flock. It is not such as is prevalent at Birstall. It is not such as poor Mr. Weightman excited.

'Give my best love to all of them, and--Believe me, yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

The next glimpse is more kindly.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_January_ 28_th_, 1850.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I cannot but be concerned to hear of your mother's illness; write again soon, if it be but a line, to tell me how she gets on. This shadow will, I trust and believe, be but a passing one, but it is a foretaste and warning of what _must come_ one day. Let it prepare your mind, dear Ellen, for that great trial which, if you live, it _must_ in the course of a few years be your lot to undergo. That cutting asunder of the ties of nature is the pain we most dread and which we are most certain to experience. Lewes's letter made me laugh; I cannot respect him more for it. Sir J. K. Shuttleworth's letter did not make me laugh; he has written again since. I have received to-day a note from Miss Alexander, daughter, she says, of Dr. Alexander. Do you know anything of her? Mary Taylor seems in good health and spirits, and in the way of doing well. I shall feel anxious to hear again soon.

'C. B.

'_P.S._--Mr. Nicholls has finished reading _Shirley_; he is delighted with it. John Brown's wife seriously thought he had gone wrong in the head as she heard him giving vent to roars of laughter as he sat alone, clapping his hands and stamping on the floor. He would read all the scenes about the curates aloud to Papa. He triumphed in his own character. {468} What Mr. Grant will say is another thing. No matter.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _July_ 27_th_, 1851.

'DEAR NELL,--I hope you have taken no cold from your wretched journey home; you see you should have taken my advice and stayed till Saturday. Didn't I tell you I had a "presentiment" it would be better for you to do so?

'I am glad you found your mother pretty well. Is she disposed to excuse the wretched petrified condition of the bilberry preserve, in consideration of the intent of the donor? It seems they had high company while you were away. You see what you lose by coming to Haworth. No events here since your departure except a long letter from Miss Martineau. (She did not write the article on "Woman" in the _Westminster_; by the way, it is the production of a man, and one of the first philosophers and political economists and metaphysicians of the day.) {469} Item, the departure of Mr. Nicholls for Ireland, and his inviting himself on the eve thereof to come and take a farewell tea; good, mild, uncontentious. Item, a note from the stiff-like chap who called about the epitaph for his cousin. I inclose this--a finer gem in its way it would be difficult to conceive. You need not, however, be at the trouble of returning it. How are they at Hunsworth yet? It is no use saying whether I am solitary or not; I drive on very well, and papa continues pretty well.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

I print the next letter here because, although it contains no reference to Mr. Nicholls, it has a bearing upon the letter following it. Dr. Wheelwright shared Mr. Bronte's infirmity of defective eyesight.

TO MISS LAETITIA WHEELWRIGHT

'HAWORTH, _April_ 12_th_, 1852.

'DEAR LAETITIA,--Your last letter gave me much concern. I had hoped you were long ere this restored to your usual health, and it both pained and surprised me to hear that you still suffer so much from debility. I cannot help thinking your constitution is naturally sound and healthy. Can it be the air of London which disagrees with you? For myself, I struggled through the winter and the early part of spring often with great difficulty. My friend stayed with me a few days in the early part of January--she could not be spared longer. I was better during her visit, but had a relapse soon after she left me, which reduced my strength very much. It cannot be denied that the solitude of my position fearfully aggravated its other evils. Some long, stormy days and nights there were when I felt such a craving for support and companionship as I cannot express. Sleepless, I lay awake night after night; weak and unable to occupy myself, I sat in my chair day after day, the saddest memories my only company. It was a time I shall never forget, but God sent it and it must have been for the best.

'I am better now, and very grateful do I feel for the restoration of tolerable health; but, as if there was always to be some affliction, papa, who enjoyed wonderful health during the whole winter, is ailing with his spring attack of bronchitis. I earnestly trust it may pass over in the comparatively ameliorated form in which it has hitherto shown itself.

'Let me not forget to answer your question about the cataract. Tell your papa my father was seventy at the time he underwent an operation; he was most reluctant to try the experiment--could not believe that at his age and with his want of robust strength it would succeed. I was obliged to be very decided in the matter and to act entirely on my own responsibility. Nearly six years have now elapsed since the cataract was extracted (it was not merely depressed). He has never once, during that time, regretted the step, and a day seldom passes that he does not express gratitude and pleasure at the restoration of that inestimable privilege of vision whose loss he once knew.

'I hope the next tidings you hear of your brother Charles will be satisfactory for his parents' and sisters' sake as well as his own. Your poor mamma has had many successive trials, and her uncomplaining resignation seems to offer us all an example worthy to be followed. Remember me kindly to her, to your papa, and all your circle, and--Believe me, with best wishes to yourself, yours sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO REV. P. BRONTE, HAWORTH, YORKS

'CLIFF HOUSE, FILEY, _June_ 2_nd_, 1852.

'DEAR PAPA,--Thank you for your letter, which I was so glad to get that I think I must answer it by return of post. I had expected one yesterday, and was perhaps a little unreasonably anxious when disappointed, but the weather has been so very cold that I feared either you were ill or Martha worse. I hope Martha will take care of herself. I cannot help feeling a little uneasy about her.

'On the whole I get on very well here, but I have not bathed yet as I am told it is much too cold and too early in the season. The sea is very grand. Yesterday it was a somewhat unusually high tide, and I stood about an hour on the cliffs yesterday afternoon watching the tumbling in of great tawny turbid waves, that made the whole shore white with foam and filled the air with a sound hollower and deeper than thunder. There are so very few visitors at Filey yet that I and a few sea-birds and fishing-boats have often the whole expanse of sea, shore, and cliff to ourselves. When the tide is out the sands are wide, long, and smooth, and very pleasant to walk on. When the high tides are in, not a vestige of sand remains. I saw a great dog rush into the sea yesterday, and swim and bear up against the waves like a seal. I wonder what Flossy would say to that.

'On Sunday afternoon I went to a church which I should like Mr. Nicholls to see. It was certainly not more than thrice the length and breadth of our passage, floored with brick, the walls green with mould, the pews painted white, but the paint almost all worn off with time and decay. At one end there is a little gallery for the singers, and when these personages stood up to perform they all turned their backs upon the congregation, and the congregation turned _their_ backs on the pulpit and parson. The effect of this manoeuvre was so ludicrous, I could hardly help laughing; had Mr. Nicholls been there he certainly would have laughed out. Looking up at the gallery and seeing only the broad backs of the singers presented to their audience was excessively grotesque. There is a well-meaning but utterly inactive clergyman at Filey, and Methodists flourish.

'I cannot help enjoying Mr. Butterfield's defeat; and yet in one sense this is a bad state of things, calculated to make working people both discontented and insubordinate. Give my kind regards, dear papa, to Mr. Nicholls, Tabby, and Martha. Charge Martha to beware of draughts, and to get such help in her cleaning as she shall need. I hope you will continue well.--Believe me, your affectionate daughter,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_December_ 15_th_, 1852.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I return the note, which is highly characteristic, and not, I fear, of good omen for the comfort of your visit. There must be something wrong in herself as well as in her servants. I inclose another note which, taken in conjunction with the incident immediately preceding it, and with a long series of indications whose meaning I scarce ventured hitherto to interpret to myself, much less hint to any other, has left on my mind a feeling of deep concern. This note you will see is from Mr. Nicholls.

'I know not whether you have ever observed him specially when staying here. Your perception is generally quick enough--_too_ quick, I have sometimes thought; yet as you never said anything, I restrained my own dim misgivings, which could not claim the sure guide of vision. What papa has seen or guessed I will not inquire, though I may conjecture. He has minutely noticed all Mr. Nicholls's low spirits, all his threats of expatriation, all his symptoms of impaired health--noticed them with little sympathy and much indirect sarcasm. On Monday evening Mr. Nicholls was here to tea. I vaguely felt without clearly seeing, as without seeing I have felt for some time, the meaning of his constant looks, and strange, feverish restraint. After tea I withdrew to the dining-room as usual. As usual, Mr. Nicholls sat with papa till between eight and nine o'clock; I then heard him open the parlour door as if going. I expected the clash of the front door. He stopped in the passage; he tapped; like lightning it flashed on me what was coming. He entered; he stood before me. What his words were you can guess; his manner you can hardly realise, nor can I forget it. Shaking from head to foot, looking deadly pale, speaking low, vehemently, yet with difficulty, he made me for the first time feel what it costs a man to declare affection where he doubts response.

'The spectacle of one ordinarily so statue-like thus trembling, stirred, and overcome, gave me a kind of strange shock. He spoke of sufferings he had borne for months, of sufferings he could endure no longer, and craved leave for some hope. I could only entreat him to leave me then and promise a reply on the morrow. I asked him if he had spoken to papa. He said he dared not. I think I half led, half put him out of the room. When he was gone I immediately went to papa, and told him what had taken place. Agitation and anger disproportionate to the occasion ensued; if I had _loved_ Mr. Nicholls, and had heard such epithets applied to him as were used, it would have transported me past my patience; as it was, my blood boiled with a sense of injustice. But papa worked himself into a state not to be trifled with: the veins on his temples started up like whip-cord, and his eyes became suddenly bloodshot. I made haste to promise that Mr. Nicholls should on the morrow have a distinct refusal.

'I wrote yesterday and got this note. There is no need to add to this statement any comment. Papa's vehement antipathy to the bare thought of any one thinking of me as a wife, and Mr. Nicholls's distress, both give me pain. Attachment to Mr. Nicholls you are aware I never entertained, but the poignant pity inspired by his state on Monday evening, by the hurried revelation of his sufferings for many months, is something galling and irksome. That he cared something for me, and wanted me to care for him, I have long suspected, but I did not know the degree or strength of his feelings. Dear Nell, good-bye.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.

'I have letters from Sir J. K. Shuttleworth and Miss Martineau, but I cannot talk of them now.'

With this letter we see the tragedy beginning. Mr. Bronte, with his daughter's fame ringing in his ears, thought she should do better than marry a curate with a hundred pounds per annum. For once, and for the only time in his life there is reason to believe, his passions were thoroughly aroused. It is to the honour of Mr. Nicholls, and says much for his magnanimity, that he has always maintained that Mr. Bronte was perfectly justified in the attitude he adopted. His present feeling for Mr. Bronte is one of unbounded respect and reverence, and the occasional unfriendly references to his father-in-law have pained him perhaps even more than when he has been himself the victim.

'Attachment to Mr. Nicholls you are aware I never entertained.' A good deal has been made of this and other casual references of Charlotte Bronte to her slight affection for her future husband. Martha Brown, the servant, used in her latter days to say that Charlotte would come into the kitchen and ask her if it was right to marry a man one did not entirely love--and Martha Brown's esteem for Mr. Nicholls was very great. But it is possible to make too much of all this. It is a commonplace of psychology to say that a woman's love is of slow growth. It is quite certain that Charlotte Bronte suffered much during this period of alienation and separation; that she alone secured Mr. Nicholls's return to Haworth, after his temporary estrangement from Mr. Bronte; and finally, that the months of her married life, prior to her last illness, were the happiest she was destined to know.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _December_ 18_th_, 1852.

'DEAR NELL,--You may well ask, how is it? for I am sure I don't know. This business would seem to me like a dream, did not my reason tell me it has long been brewing. It puzzles me to comprehend how and whence comes this turbulence of feeling.

'You ask how papa demeans himself to Mr. Nicholls. I only wish you were here to see papa in his present mood: you would know something of him. He just treats him with a hardness not to be bent, and a contempt not to be propitiated. The two have had no interview as yet; all has been done by letter. Papa wrote, I must say, a most cruel note to Mr. Nicholls on Wednesday. In his state of mind and health (for the poor man is horrifying his landlady, Martha's mother, by entirely rejecting his meals) I felt that the blow must be parried, and I thought it right to accompany the pitiless despatch by a line to the effect that, while Mr. Nicholls must never expect me to reciprocate the feeling he had expressed, yet, at the same time, I wished to disclaim participation in sentiments calculated to give him pain; and I exhorted him to maintain his courage and spirits. On receiving the two letters, he set off from home. Yesterday came the inclosed brief epistle.

'You must understand that a good share of papa's anger arises from the idea, not altogether groundless, that Mr. Nicholls has behaved with disingenuousness in so long concealing his aim. I am afraid also that papa thinks a little too much about his want of money; he says the match would be a degradation, that I should be throwing myself away, that he expects me, if I marry at all, to do very differently; in short, his manner of viewing the subject is on the whole far from being one in which I can sympathise. My own objections arise from a sense of incongruity and uncongeniality in feelings, tastes, principles.

'How are you getting on, dear Nell, and how are all at Brookroyd? Remember me kindly to everybody.--Yours, wishing devoutly that papa would resume his tranquillity, and Mr. Nicholls his beef and pudding,

'C. BRONTE.

'I am glad to say that the incipient inflammation in papa's eye is disappearing.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_January_ 2_nd_, 1853.

'DEAR NELL,--I thought of you on New Year's night, and hope you got well over your formidable tea-making. I trust that Tuesday and Wednesday will also pass pleasantly. I am busy too in my little way preparing to go to London this week, a matter which necessitates some little application to the needle. I find it is quite necessary I should go to superintend the press, as Mr. Smith seems quite determined not to let the printing get on till I come. I have actually only received three proof-sheets since I was at Brookroyd. Papa wants me to go too, to be out of the way, I suppose; but I am sorry for one other person whom nobody pities but me. Martha is bitter against him; John Brown says "he should like to shoot him." They don't understand the nature of his feelings, but I see now what they are. He is one of those who attach themselves to very few, whose sensations are close and deep, like an underground stream, running strong, but in a narrow channel. He continues restless and ill; he carefully performs the occasional duty, but does not come near the church, procuring a substitute every Sunday. A few days since he wrote to papa requesting permission to withdraw his resignation. Papa answered that he should only do so on condition of giving his written promise never again to broach the obnoxious subject either to him or to me. This he has evaded doing, so the matter remains unsettled. I feel persuaded the termination will be his departure for Australia. Dear Nell, without loving him, I don't like to think of him suffering in solitude, and wish him anywhere so that he were happier. He and papa have never met or spoken yet. I am very glad to learn that your mother is pretty well, and also that the piece of challenged work is progressing. I hope you will not be called away to Norfolk before I come home: I should like you to pay a visit to Haworth first. Write again soon.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_March_ 4_th_, 1853.

'DEAR ELLEN,--We had the parsons to supper as well as to tea. Mr. N. demeaned himself not quite pleasantly. I thought he made no effort to struggle with his dejection but gave way to it in a manner to draw notice; the Bishop was obviously puzzled by it. Mr. Nicholls also showed temper once or twice in speaking to papa. Martha was beginning to tell me of certain "flaysome" looks also, but I desired not to hear of them. The fact is, I shall be most thankful when he is well away. I pity him, but I don't like that dark gloom of his. He dogged me up the lane after the evening service in no pleasant manner. He stopped also in the passage after the Bishop and the other clergy were gone into the room, and it was because I drew away and went upstairs that he gave that look which filled Martha's soul with horror. She, it seems, meantime, was making it her business to watch him from the kitchen door. If Mr. Nicholls be a good man at bottom, it is a sad thing that nature has not given him the faculty to put goodness into a more attractive form. Into the bargain of all the rest he managed to get up a most pertinacious and needless dispute with the Inspector, in listening to which all my old unfavourable impressions revived so strongly, I fear my countenance could not but shew them.

'Dear Nell, I consider that on the whole it is a mercy you have been at home and not at Norfolk during the late cold weather. Love to all at Brookroyd.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_March_ 9_th_, 1853.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I am sure Miss Wooler would enjoy her visit to you, as much as you her company. Dear Nell, I thank you sincerely for your discreet and friendly silence on the point alluded to. I had feared it would be discussed between you two, and had an inexpressible shrinking at the thought; now less than ever does it seem a matter open to discussion. I hear nothing, and you must quite understand that if I feel any uneasiness it is not that of confirmed and fixed regard, but that anxiety which is inseparable from a state of absolute uncertainty about a somewhat momentous matter. I do not know, I am not sure myself, that any other termination would be better than lasting estrangement and unbroken silence. Yet a good deal of pain has been and must be gone through in that case. However, to each his burden.

'I have not yet read the papers; D.V. I will send them to-morrow.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.

'Understand that in whatever I have said above, it was not for pity or sympathy. I hardly pity myself. Only I wish that in all matters in this world there was fair and open dealing, and no underhand work.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _April_ 6_th_, 1853.

'DEAR ELLEN,--My visit to Manchester is for the present put off by Mr. Morgan having written to say that since papa will not go to Buckingham to see him he will come to Yorkshire to see papa; when, I don't yet know, and I trust in goodness he will not stay long, as papa really cannot bear putting out of his way. I must wait, however, till the infliction is over.

'You ask about Mr. Nicholls. I hear he has got a curacy, but do not yet know where. I trust the news is true. He and papa never speak. He seems to pass a desolate life. He has allowed late circumstances so to act on him as to freeze up his manner and overcast his countenance not only to those immediately concerned but to every one. He sits drearily in his rooms. If Mr. Grant or any other clergyman calls to see, and as they think, to cheer him, he scarcely speaks. I find he tells them nothing, seeks no confidant, rebuffs all attempts to penetrate his mind. I own I respect him for this. He still lets Flossy go to his rooms, and takes him to walk. He still goes over to see Mr. Sowden sometimes, and, poor fellow, that is all. He looks ill and miserable. I think and trust in Heaven that he will be better as soon as he fairly gets away from Haworth. I pity him inexpressibly. We never meet nor speak, nor dare I look at him; silent pity is just all that I can give him, and as he knows nothing about that, it does not comfort. He is now grown so gloomy and reserved that nobody seems to like him. His fellow-curates shun trouble in that shape; the lower orders dislike it. Papa has a perfect antipathy to him, and he, I fear, to papa. Martha hates him. I think he might almost be _dying_ and they would not speak a friendly word to or of him. How much of all this he deserves I can't tell; certainly he never was agreeable or amiable, and is less so now than ever, and alas! I do not know him well enough to be sure that there is truth and true affection, or only rancour and corroding disappointment at the bottom of his chagrin. In this state of things I must be, and I am, _entirely passive_. I may be losing the purest gem, and to me far the most precious, life can give--genuine attachment--or I may be escaping the yoke of a morose temper. In this doubt conscience will not suffer me to take one step in opposition to papa's will, blended as that will is with the most bitter and unreasonable prejudices. So I just leave the matter where we must leave all important matters.

'Remember me kindly to all at Brookroyd, and--Believe me, yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_May_ 16th, 1853.

'DEAR ELLEN,--The east winds about which you inquire have spared me wonderfully till to-day, when I feel somewhat sick physically, and not very blithe mentally. I am not sure that the east winds are entirely to blame for this ailment. Yesterday was a strange sort of a day at church. It seems as if I were to be punished for my doubts about the nature and truth of poor Mr. Nicholls's regard. Having ventured on Whit Sunday to stop the sacrament, I got a lesson not to be repeated. He struggled, faltered, then lost command over himself--stood before my eyes and in the sight of all the communicants white, shaking, voiceless. Papa was not there, thank God! Joseph Redman spoke some words to him. He made a great effort, but could only with difficulty whisper and falter through the service. I suppose he thought this would be the last time; he goes either this week or the next. I heard the women sobbing round, and I could not quite check my own tears. What had happened was reported to papa either by Joseph Redman or John Brown; it excited only anger, and such expressions as "unmanly driveller." Compassion or relenting is no more to be looked for than sap from firewood.

'I never saw a battle more sternly fought with the feelings than Mr. Nicholls fights with his, and when he yields momentarily, you are almost sickened by the sense of the strain upon him. However, he is to go, and I cannot speak to him or look at him or comfort him a whit, and I must submit. Providence is over all, that is the only consolation.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_May_ 19_th_, 1853.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I cannot help feeling a certain satisfaction in finding that the people here are getting up a subscription to offer a testimonial of respect to Mr. Nicholls on his leaving the place. Many are expressing both their commiseration and esteem for him. The Churchwardens recently put the question to him plainly: Why was he going? Was it Mr. Bronte's fault or his own? "His own," he answered. Did he blame Mr. Bronte? "No! he did not: if anybody was wrong it was himself." Was he willing to go? "No! it gave him great pain." Yet he is not always right. I must be just. He shows a curious mixture of honour and obstinacy--feeling and sullenness. Papa addressed him at the school tea-drinking, with _constrained_ civility, but still with _civility_. He did not reply civilly; he cut short further words. This sort of treatment offered in public is what papa never will forget or forgive, it inspires him with a silent bitterness not to be expressed. I am afraid both are unchristian in their mutual feelings. Nor do I know which of them is least accessible to reason or least likely to forgive. It is a dismal state of things.

'The weather is fine now, dear Nell. We will take these sunny days as a good omen for your visit to Yarmouth. With kind regards to all at Brookroyd, and best wishes to yourself,--I am, yours sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _May_ 27_th_, 1853.

'DEAR ELLEN,--You will want to know about the leave-taking? The whole matter is but a painful subject, but I must treat it briefly. The testimonial was presented in a public meeting. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Grant were there. Papa was not very well and I advised him to stay away, which he did. As to the last Sunday, it was a cruel struggle. Mr. Nicholls ought not to have had to take any duty.

'He left Haworth this morning at six o'clock. Yesterday evening he called to render into papa's hands the deeds of the National School, and to say good-bye. They were busy cleaning--washing the paint, etc., in the dining-room, so he did not find me there. I would not go into the parlour to speak to him in papa's presence. He went out, thinking he was not to see me; and indeed, till the very last moment, I thought it best not. But perceiving that he stayed long before going out at the gate, and remembering his long grief, I took courage and went out, trembling and miserable. I found him leaning against the garden door in a paroxysm of anguish, sobbing as women never sob. Of course I went straight to him. Very few words were interchanged, those few barely articulate. Several things I should have liked to ask him were swept entirely from my memory. Poor fellow! But he wanted such hope and such encouragement as I could not give him. Still, I trust he must know now that I am not cruelly blind and indifferent to his constancy and grief. For a few weeks he goes to the south of England, afterwards he takes a curacy somewhere in Yorkshire, but I don't know where.

'Papa has been far from strong lately. I dare not mention Mr. Nicholls's name to him. He speaks of him quietly and without opprobrium to others, but to me he is implacable on the matter. However, he is gone--gone, and there's an end of it. I see no chance of hearing a word about him in future, unless some stray shred of intelligence comes through Mr. Sowden or some other second-hand source. In all this it is not I who am to be pitied at all, and of course nobody pities me. They all think in Haworth that I have disdainfully refused him. If pity would do Mr. Nicholls any good, he ought to have, and I believe has it. They may abuse me if they will; whether they do or not I can't tell.

'Write soon and say how your prospects proceed. I trust they will daily brighten.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS LAETITIA WHEELWRIGHT

'HAWORTH, _March_ 18_th_, 1854.

'MY DEAR LAETITIA,--I was very glad to see your handwriting again; it is, I believe, a year since I heard from you. Again and again you have recurred to my thoughts lately, and I was beginning to have some sad presages as to the cause of your silence. Your letter happily does away with all these; it brings, on the whole, good tidings both of your papa, mamma, your sister, and, last but not least, your dear respected English self.

'My dear father has borne the severe winter very well, a circumstance for which I feel the more thankful, as he had many weeks of very precarious health last summer, following an attack from which he suffered last June, and which for a few hours deprived him totally of sight, though neither his mind, speech, nor even his powers of motion were in the least affected. I can hardly tell you how thankful I was, dear Laetitia, when, after that dreary and almost despairing interval of utter darkness, some gleam of daylight became visible to him once more. I had feared that paralysis had seized the optic nerve. A sort of mist remained for a long time, and indeed his vision is not yet perfectly clear, but he can read, write, and walk about, and he preaches _twice_ every Sunday, the curate only reading the prayers. _You_ can well understand how earnestly I pray that sight may be spared him to the end; he so dreads the privation of blindness. His mind is just as strong and active as ever, and politics interest him as they do _your_ papa. The Czar, the war, the alliance between France and England--into all these things he throws himself heart and soul. They seem to carry him back to his comparatively young days, and to renew the excitement of the last great European struggle. Of course, my father's sympathies, and mine too, are all with justice and Europe against tyranny and Russia.

'Circumstanced as I have been, you will comprehend that I had neither the leisure nor inclination to go from home much during the past year. I spent a week with Mrs. Gaskell in the spring, and a fortnight with some other friends more recently, and that includes the whole of my visiting since I saw you last. My life is indeed very uniform and retired, more so than is quite healthful either for mind or body; yet I feel reason for often renewed feelings of gratitude in the sort of support which still comes and cheers me from time to time. My health, though not unbroken, is, I sometimes fancy, rather stronger on the whole than it was three years ago; headache and dyspepsia are my worst ailments. Whether I shall come up to town this season for a few days I do not yet know; but if I do I shall hope to call in Phillimore Place. With kindest remembrances to your papa, mamma, and sisters,--I am, dear Laetitia, affectionately yours,

'C. BRONTE.'

Mr. Nicholls's successor did not prove acceptable to Mr. Bronte. He complained again and again, and one day Charlotte turned upon her father and told him pretty frankly that he was alone to blame--that he had only to let her marry Mr. Nicholls, with whom she corresponded and whom she really loved, and all would be well. A little arrangement, the transfer of Mr. Nicholls's successor, Mr. De Renzi, to a Bradford church, and Mr. Nicholls left his curacy at Kirk-Smeaton and returned once more to Haworth as an accepted lover.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _March_ 28_th_, 1854.

'MY DEAR ELLEN,--The inclosure in yours of yesterday puzzled me at first, for I did not immediately recognise my own hand-writing; when I did, the sensation was one of consternation and vexation, as the letter ought by all means to have gone on Friday. It was intended to relieve him of great anxiety. However, I trust he will get it to-day; and on the whole, when I think it over, I can only be thankful that the mistake was no worse, and did not throw the letter into the hands of some indifferent and unscrupulous person. I wrote it after some days of indisposition and uneasiness, and when I felt weak and unfit to write. While writing to him, I was at the same time intending to answer your note, which I suppose accounts for the confusion of ideas, shown in the mixed and blundering address.

'I wish you could come about Easter rather than at another time, for this reason: Mr. Nicholls, if not prevented, proposes coming over then. I suppose he will stay at Mr. Grant's, as he has done two or three times before, but he will be frequently coming here, which would enliven your visit a little. Perhaps, too, he might take a walk with us occasionally. Altogether it would be a little change, such as, you know, I could not always offer.

'If all be well he will come under different circumstances to any that have attended his visits before; were it otherwise, I should not ask you to meet him, for when aspects are gloomy and unpropitious, the fewer there are to suffer from the cloud the better.

'He was here in January and was then received, but not pleasantly. I trust it will be a little different now.

'Papa breakfasts in bed and has not yet risen; his bronchitis is still troublesome. I had a bad week last week, but am greatly better now, for my mind is a little relieved, though very sedate, and rising only to expectations the most moderate.

'Sometime, perhaps in May, I may hope to come to Brookroyd, but, as you will understand from what I have now stated, I could not come before.

'Think it over, dear Nell, and come to Haworth if you can. Write as soon as you can decide.--Yours affectionately,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_April_ 1_st_, 1854.

'MY DEAR ELLEN,--You certainly were right in your second interpretation of my note. I am too well aware of the dulness of Haworth for any visitor, not to be glad to avail myself of the chance of offering even a slight change. But this morning my little plans have been disarranged by an intimation that Mr. Nicholls is coming on Monday. I thought to put him off, but have not succeeded. As Easter now consequently seems an unfavourable period both from your point of view and mine, we will adjourn it till a better opportunity offers. Meantime, I thank you, dear Ellen, for your kind offer to come in case I wanted you. Papa is still very far from well: his cough very troublesome, and a good deal of inflammatory action in the chest. To-day he seems somewhat better than yesterday, and I earnestly hope the improvement may continue.

'With kind regards to your mother and all at Brookroyd,--I am, dear Ellen, yours affectionately,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _April_ 11_th_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--Thank you for the collar; it is very pretty, and I will wear it for the sake of her who made and gave it.

'Mr. Nicholls came on Monday, and was here all last week. Matters have progressed thus since July. He renewed his visit in September, but then matters so fell out that I saw little of him. He continued to write. The correspondence pressed on my mind. I grew very miserable in keeping it from papa. At last sheer pain made me gather courage to break it. I told all. It was very hard and rough work at the time, but the issue after a few days was that I obtained leave to continue the communication. Mr. Nicholls came in January; he was ten days in the neighbourhood. I saw much of him. I had stipulated with papa for opportunity to become better acquainted. I had it, and all I learnt inclined me to esteem and affection. Still papa was very, very hostile, bitterly unjust.

'I told Mr. Nicholls the great obstacle that lay in his way. He has persevered. The result of this, his last visit, is, that papa's consent is gained, that his respect, I believe, is won, for Mr. Nicholls has in all things proved himself disinterested and forbearing. Certainly, I must respect him, nor can I withhold from him more than mere cool respect. In fact, dear Ellen, I am engaged.

'Mr. Nicholls, in the course of a few months, will return to the curacy of Haworth. I stipulated that I would not leave papa; and to papa himself I proposed a plan of residence which should maintain his seclusion and convenience uninvaded, and in a pecuniary sense bring him gain instead of loss. What seemed at one time impossible is now arranged, and papa begins really to take a pleasure in the prospect.

'For myself, dear Ellen, while thankful to One who seems to have guided me through much difficulty, much and deep distress and perplexity of mind, I am still very calm, very inexpectant. What I taste of happiness is of the soberest order. I trust to love my husband. I am grateful for his tender love to me. I believe him to be an affectionate, a conscientious, a high-principled man; and if, with all this, I should yield to regrets that fine talents, congenial tastes and thoughts are not added, it seems to me I should be most presumptuous and thankless.

'Providence offers me this destiny. Doubtless, then, it is the best for me. Nor do I shrink from wishing those dear to me one not less happy.

'It is possible that our marriage may take place in the course of the summer. Mr. Nicholls wishes it to be in July. He spoke of you with great kindness, and said he hoped you would be at our wedding. I said I thought of having no other bridesmaid. Did I say rightly? I mean the marriage to be literally as quiet as possible.

'Do not mention these things just yet. I mean to write to Miss Wooler shortly. Good-bye. There is a strange half-sad feeling in making these announcements. The whole thing is something other than imagination paints it beforehand; cares, fears, come mixed inextricably with hopes. I trust yet to talk the matter over with you. Often last week I wished for your presence and said so to Mr. Nicholls--Arthur, as I now call him, but he said it was the only time and place when he could not have wished to see you. Good-bye.--Yours affectionately,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_April_ 15_th_, 1854.

'MY OWN DEAR NELL,--I hope to see you somewhere about the second week in May.

'The Manchester visit is still hanging over my head. I have deferred it, and deferred it, but have finally promised to go about the beginning of next month. I shall only stay three days, then I spend two or three days at Hunsworth, then come to Brookroyd. The three visits must be compressed into the space of a fortnight, if possible.

'I suppose I shall have to go to Leeds. My purchases cannot be either expensive or extensive. You must just resolve in your head the bonnets and dresses; something that can be turned to decent use and worn after the wedding-day will be best, I think.

'I wrote immediately to Miss Wooler and received a truly kind letter from her this morning. If you think she would like to come to the marriage I will not fail to ask her.

'Papa's mind seems wholly changed about the matter, and he has said both to me and when I was not there, how much happier he feels since he allowed all to be settled. It is a wonderful relief for me to hear him treat the thing rationally, to talk over with him themes on which once I dared not touch. He is rather anxious things should get forward now, and takes quite an interest in the arrangement of preliminaries. His health improves daily, though this east wind still keeps up a slight irritation in the throat and chest.

'The feeling which had been disappointed in papa was ambition, paternal pride--ever a restless feeling, as we all know. Now that this unquiet spirit is exorcised, justice, which was once quite forgotten, is once more listened to, and affection, I hope, resumes some power.

'My hope is that in the end this arrangement will turn out more truly to papa's advantage than any other it was in my power to achieve. Mr. Nicholls in his last letter refers touchingly to his earnest desire to prove his gratitude to papa, by offering support and consolation to his declining age. This will not be mere talk with him--he is no talker, no dealer in professions.--Yours affectionately,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_April_ 28_th_, 1854.

'MY DEAR ELLEN,--I have delayed writing till I could give you some clear notion of my movements. If all be well, I go to Manchester on the 1st of May. Thence, on Thursday, to Hunsworth till Monday, when (D.V.) I come to Brookroyd. I must be at home by the close of the week. Papa, thank God! continues to improve much. He preached twice on Sunday and again on Wednesday, and was not tired; his mind and mood are different to what they were, so much more cheerful and quiet. I trust the illusions of ambition are quite dissipated, and that he really sees it is better to relieve a suffering and faithful heart, to secure its fidelity, a solid good, than unfeelingly to abandon one who is truly attached to his interest as well as mine, and pursue some vain empty shadow.

'I thank you, dear Ellen, for your kind invitation to Mr. Nicholls. He was asked likewise to Manchester and Hunsworth. I would not have opposed his coming had there been no real obstacle to the arrangement--certain little awkwardnesses of feeling I would have tried to get over for the sake of introducing him to old friends; but it so happens that he cannot leave on account of his rector's absence. Mr. C. will be in town with his family till June, and he always stipulates that his curate shall remain at Kirk-Smeaton while he is away.

'How did you get on at the Oratorio? And what did Miss Wooler say to the proposal of being at the wedding? I have many points to discuss when I see you. I hope your mother and all are well. With kind remembrances to them, and true love to you,--I am, dear Nell, faithfully yours,

'C. BRONTE.

'When you write, address me at Mrs. Gaskell's, Plymouth Grove, Manchester.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_May_ 22_nd_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I wonder how you are, and whether that harassing cough is better. Be scrupulously cautious about undue exposure. Just now, dear Ellen, an hour's inadvertence might cause you to be really ill. So once again, take care. Since I came home I have been very busy stitching. The little new room is got into order, and the green and white curtains are up; they exactly suit the papering, and look neat and clean enough. I had a letter a day or two since announcing that Mr. Nicholls comes to-morrow. I feel anxious about him, more anxious on one point than I dare quite express to myself. It seems he has again been suffering sharply from his rheumatic affection. I hear this not from himself, but from another quarter. He was ill while I was at Manchester and Brookroyd. He uttered no complaint to me, dropped no hint on the subject. Alas! he was hoping he had got the better of it, and I know how this contradiction of his hopes will sadden him. For unselfish reasons he did so earnestly wish this complaint might not become chronic. I fear, I fear. But, however, I mean to stand by him now, whether in weal or woe. This liability to rheumatic pain was one of the strong arguments used against the marriage. It did not weigh somehow. If he is doomed to suffer, it seems that so much the more will he need care and help. And yet the ultimate possibilities of such a case are appalling. You remember your aunt. Well, come what may, God help and strengthen both him and me. I look forward to to-morrow with a mixture of impatience and anxiety. Poor fellow! I want to see with my own eyes how he is.

'It is getting late and dark. Write soon, dear Ellen. Goodnight and God bless you.--Yours affectionately,

'C. BRONTE.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _May_ 27_th_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--Your letter was very welcome, and I am glad and thankful to learn you are better. Still, beware of presuming on the improvement--don't let it make you careless. Mr. Nicholls has just left me. Your hopes were not ill-founded about his illness. At first I was thoroughly frightened. However, inquiring gradually relieved me. In short, I soon discovered that my business was, instead of sympathy, to rate soundly. The patient had wholesome treatment while he was at Haworth, and went away singularly better; perfectly unreasonable, however, on some points, as his fallible sex are not ashamed to be.

'Man is, indeed, an amazing piece of mechanism when you see, so to speak, the full weakness of what he calls his strength. There is not a female child above the age of eight but might rebuke him for spoilt petulance of his wilful nonsense. I bought a border for the table-cloth and have put it on.

'Good-bye, dear Ellen. Write again soon, and mind and give a bulletin.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_June_ 12_th_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--Papa preached twice to-day as well and as strongly as ever. It is strange how he varies, how soon he is depressed and how soon revived. It makes me feel so thankful when he is better. I am thankful too that you are stronger, dear Nell. My worthy acquaintance at Kirk-Smeaton refuses to acknowledge himself better yet. I am uneasy about not writing to Miss Wooler. I fear she will think me negligent, while I am only busy and bothered. I want to clear up my needlework a little, and have been sewing against time since I was at Brookroyd. Mr. Nicholls hindered me for a full week.

'I like the card very well, but not the envelope. I should like a perfectly plain envelope with a silver initial.

'I got my dresses from Halifax a day or two since, but have not had time to have them unpacked, so I don't know what they are like.

'Next time I write, I hope to be able to give you clear information, and to beg you to come here without further delay. Good-bye, dear Nell.--Yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.

'I had almost forgotten to mention about the envelopes. Mr. Nicholls says I have ordered far too few; he thinks sixty will be wanted. Is it too late to remedy this error? There is no end to his string of parson friends. My own list I have not made out.'

Charlotte Bronte's list of friends, to whom wedding-cards were to be sent, is in her own handwriting, and is not without interest:--

SEND CARDS TO

The Rev. W. Morgan, Rectory, Hulcott, Aylesbury, Bucks. Joseph Branwell, Esq., Thamar Terrace, Launceston. Cornwall.

Dr. Wheelwright, 29 Phillimore Place, Kensington, London.

George Smith, Esq., 65 Cornhill, London.

Mrs. and Misses Smith, 65 Cornhill, London.

W. S. Williams, Esq., 65 Cornhill, London.

R. Monckton Milnes, Esq.

Mrs. Gaskell, Plymouth Grove, Manchester.

Francis Bennoch, Esq., Park, Blackheath, London.

George Taylor, Esq., Stanbury.

Mrs. and Miss Taylor.

H. Merrall, Esq., Lea Sykes, Haworth.

E. Merrall, Esq., Ebor House, Haworth.

R. Butterfield, Esq., Woodlands, Haworth.

R. Thomas, Esq., Haworth.

J. Pickles, Esq., Brow Top, Haworth.

Wooler Family.

Brookroyd. {491}

The following was written on her wedding day, June 29th, 1854.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_Thursday Evening_.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I scribble one hasty line just to say that after a pleasant enough journey we have got safely to Conway; the evening is wet and wild, though the day was fair chiefly, with some gleams of sunshine. However, we are sheltered in a comfortable inn. My cold is not worse. If you get this scrawl to-morrow and write by return, direct to me at the post-office, Bangor, and I may get it on Monday. Say how you and Miss Wooler got home. Give my kindest and most grateful love to Miss Wooler whenever you write. On Monday, I think, we cross the Channel. No more at present.--Yours faithfully and lovingly,

'C. B. N.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _August_ 9_th_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I earnestly hope you are by yourself now, and relieved from the fag of entertaining guests. You do not complain, but I am afraid you have had too much of it.

'Since I came home I have not had an unemployed moment. My life is changed indeed: to be wanted continually, to be constantly called for and occupied seems so strange; yet it is a marvellously good thing. As yet I don't quite understand how some wives grow so selfish. As far as my experience of matrimony goes, I think it tends to draw you out of, and away from yourself.

'We have had sundry callers this week. Yesterday Mr. Sowden and another gentleman dined here, and Mr. and Mrs. Grant joined them at tea.

'I do not think we shall go to Brookroyd soon, on papa's account. I do not wish again to leave home for a time, but I trust you will ere long come here.

'I really like Mr. Sowden very well. He asked after you. Mr. Nicholls told him we expected you would be coming to stay with us in the course of three or four weeks, and that he should then invite him over again as he wished us to take sundry rather long walks, and as he should have his wife to look after, and she was trouble enough, it would be quite necessary to have a guardian for the other lady. Mr. Sowden seemed perfectly acquiescent.

'Dear Nell, during the last six weeks, the colour of my thoughts is a good deal changed: I know more of the realities of life than I once did. I think many false ideas are propagated, perhaps unintentionally. I think those married women who indiscriminately urge their acquaintance to marry, much to blame. For my part, I can only say with deeper sincerity and fuller significance what I always said in theory, "Wait God's will." Indeed, indeed, Nell, it is a solemn and strange and perilous thing for a woman to become a wife. Man's lot is far, far different. Tell me when you think you can come. Papa is better, but not well. How is your mother? give my love to her.--Yours faithfully,

'C. B. NICHOLLS.

'Have I told you how much better Mr. Nicholls is? He looks quite strong and hale; he gained 12 lbs. during the four weeks we were in Ireland. To see this improvement in him has been a main source of happiness to me, and to speak truth, a subject of wonder too.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _August_ 29_th_.

'DEAR ELLEN,--Can you come here on Wednesday week (Sept. 6th)? Try to arrange matters to do so if possible, for it will be better than to delay your visit till the days grow cold and short. I want to see you again, dear Nell, and my husband too will receive you with pleasure; and he is not diffuse of his courtesies or partialities, I can assure you. One friendly word from him means as much as twenty from most people.

'We have been busy lately giving a supper and tea-drinking to the singers, ringers, Sunday-school teachers, and all the scholars of the Sunday and National Schools, amounting in all to some 500 souls. It gave satisfaction and went off well.

'Papa, I am thankful to say, is much better; he preached last Sunday. How does your mother bear this hot weather? Write soon, dear Nell, and say you will come.--Yours faithfully,

'C. B. N.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _September_ 7_th_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I send a French paper to-day. You would almost think I had given them up, it is so long since one was despatched. The fact is, they had accumulated to quite a pile during my absence. I wished to look them over before sending them off, and as yet I have scarcely found time. That same Time is an article of which I once had a large stock always on hand; where it is all gone now it would be difficult to say, but my moments are very fully occupied. Take warning, Ellen, the married woman can call but a very small portion of each day her own. Not that I complain of this sort of monopoly as yet, and I hope I never shall incline to regard it as a misfortune, but it certainly exists. We were both disappointed that you could not come on the day I mentioned. I have grudged this splendid weather very much. The moors are in glory, I never saw them fuller of purple bloom. I wanted you to see them at their best; they are just turning now, and in another week, I fear, will be faded and sere. As soon as ever you can leave home, be sure to write and let me know.

'Papa continues greatly better. My husband flourishes; he begins indeed to express some slight alarm at the growing improvement in his condition. I think I am decent, better certainly than I was two months ago, but people don't compliment me as they do Arthur--excuse the name, it has grown natural to use it now. I trust, dear Nell, that you are all well at Brookroyd, and that your visiting stirs are pretty nearly over. I compassionate you from my heart for all the trouble to which you must be put, and I am rather ashamed of people coming sponging in that fashion one after another; get away from them and come here.--Yours faithfully,

'C. B. NICHOLLS.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _November_ 7_th_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--Arthur wishes you would burn my letters. He was out when I commenced this letter, but he has just come in. It is not "old friends" he mistrusts, he says, but the chances of war--the accidental passing of letters into hands and under eyes for which they were never written.

'All this seems mighty amusing to me; it is a man's mode of viewing correspondence. Men's letters are proverbially uninteresting and uncommunicative. I never quite knew before why they made them so. They may be right in a sense: strange chances do fall out certainly. As to my own notes, I never thought of attaching importance to them or considering their fate, till Arthur seemed to reflect on both so seriously.

'I will write again next week if all be well to name a day for coming to see you. I am sure you want, or at least ought to have, a little rest before you are bothered with more company; but whenever I come, I suppose, dear Nell, under present circumstances, it will be a quiet visit, and that I shall not need to bring more than a plain dress or two. Tell me this when you write.--Believe me faithfully yours,

'C. B. NICHOLLS.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _November_ 14_th_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I am only just at liberty to write to you; guests have kept me very busy during the last two or three days. Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth and a friend of his came here on Saturday afternoon and stayed till after dinner on Monday.

'When I go to Brookroyd, Arthur will take me there and stay one night, but I cannot yet fix the time of my visit. Good-bye for the present, dear Nell.--Yours faithfully,

'C. B. NICHOLLS.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _November_ 21_st_, 1854,

'DEAR ELLEN,--You ask about Mr. Sowden's matter. He walked over here on a wild rainy day. We talked it over. He is quite disposed to entertain the proposal, but of course there must be close inquiry and ripe consideration before either he or the patron decide. Meantime Mr. Sowden {495} is most anxious that the affairs be kept absolutely quiet; in the event of disappointment it would be both painful and injurious to him if it should be rumoured at Hebden Bridge that he has had thoughts of leaving. Arthur says if a whisper gets out these things fly from parson to parson like wildfire. I cannot help somehow wishing that the matter should be arranged, if all on examination is found tolerably satisfactory.

'Papa continues pretty well, I am thankful to say; his deafness is wonderfully relieved. Winter seems to suit him better than summer; besides, he is settled and content, as I perceive with gratitude to God.

'Dear Ellen, I wish you well through every trouble. Arthur is not in just now or he would send a kind message.--Believe me, yours faithfully,

'C. B. NICHOLLS.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _November_ 29_th_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--Arthur somewhat demurs about my going to Brookroyd as yet; fever, you know, is a formidable word. I cannot say I entertain any apprehensions myself further than this, that I should be terribly bothered at the idea of being taken ill from home and causing trouble; and strangers are sometimes more liable to infection than persons living in the house.

'Mr. Sowden has seen Sir J. K. Shuttleworth, but I fancy the matter is very uncertain as yet. It seems the Bishop of Manchester stipulates that the clergyman chosen should, if possible, be from his own diocese, and this, Arthur says, is quite right and just. An exception would have been made in Arthur's favour, but the case is not so clear with Mr. Sowden. However, no harm will have been done if the matter does not take wind, as I trust it will not. Write very soon, dear Nell, and,--Believe me, yours faithfully,

'C. B. NICHOLLS.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _December_ 7_th_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I shall not get leave to go to Brookroyd before Christmas now, so do not expect me. For my own part I really should have no fear, and if it just depended on me I should come. But these matters are not quite in my power now: another must be consulted; and where his wish and judgment have a decided bias to a particular course, I make no stir, but just adopt it. Arthur is sorry to disappoint both you and me, but it is his fixed wish that a few weeks should be allowed yet to elapse before we meet. Probably he is confirmed in this desire by my having a cold at present. I did not achieve the walk to the waterfall with impunity. Though I changed my wet things immediately on returning home, yet I felt a chill afterwards, and the same night had sore throat and cold; however, I am better now, but not quite well.

'Did I tell you that our poor little Flossy is dead? He 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.

'Papa continues pretty well, I am happy to say, and my dear boy flourishes. I do not mean that he continues to grow stouter, which one would not desire, but he keeps in excellent condition.

'You would wonder, I dare say, at the long disappearance of the French paper. I had got such an accumulation of them unread that I thought I would not wait to send the old ones; now you will receive them regularly. I am writing in haste. It is almost inexplicable to me that I seem so often hurried now; but the fact is, whenever Arthur is in I must have occupations in which he can share, or which will not at least divert my attention from him--thus a multitude of little matters get put off till he goes out, and then I am quite busy. Goodbye, dear Ellen, I hope we shall meet soon.--Yours faithfully,

'C. B. NICHOLLS.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _December_ 26_th_, 1854.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I return the letter. It is, as you say, very genuine, truthful, affectionate, maternal--without a taint of sham or exaggeration. Mary will love her child without spoiling it, I think. She does not make an uproar about her happiness either. The longer I live the more I suspect exaggerations. I fancy it is sometimes a sort of fashion for each to vie with the other in protestations about their wonderful felicity, and sometimes they--FIB. I am truly glad to hear you are all better at Brookroyd. In the course of three or four weeks more I expect to get leave to come to you. I certainly long to see you again. One circumstance reconciles me to this delay--the weather. I do not know whether it has been as bad with you as with us, but here for three weeks we have had little else than a succession of hurricanes.

'In your last you asked about Mr. Sowden and Sir James. I fear Mr. Sowden has little chance of the living; he had heard nothing more of it the last time he wrote to Arthur, and in a note he had from Sir James yesterday the subject is not mentioned.

'You inquire too after Mrs. Gaskell. She has not been here, and I think I should not like her to come now till summer. She is very busy with her story of _North and South_.

'I must make this note short that it may not be overweight. Arthur joins me in sincere good wishes for a happy Christmas, and many of them to you and yours. He is well, thank God, and so am I, and he is "my dear boy," certainly dearer now than he was six months ago. In three days we shall actually have been married that length of time! Good-bye, dear Nell.--Yours faithfully,

'C. B. NICHOLLS.'

At the beginning of 1855 Mr. and Mrs. Nicholls visited Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth at Gawthorpe. I know of only four letters by her, written in this year.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'HAWORTH, _January_ 19_th_, 1855.

'DEAR ELLEN,--Since our return from Gawthorpe we have had a Mr. Bell, one of Arthur's cousins, staying with us. It was a great pleasure. I wish you could have seen him and made his acquaintance; a true gentleman by nature and cultivation is not after all an everyday thing.

'As to the living of Habergham or Padiham, it appears the chance is doubtful at present for anybody. The present incumbent wishes to retract his resignation, and declares his intention of appointing a curate for two years. I fear Mr. Sowden hardly produced a favourable impression; a strong wish was expressed that Arthur could come, but that is out of the question.

'I very much wish to come to Brookroyd, and I hope to be able to write with certainty and fix Wednesday, the 31st January, as the day; but the fact is I am not sure whether I shall be well enough to leave home. At present I should be a most tedious visitor. My health has been really very good since my return from Ireland till about ten days ago, when the stomach seemed quite suddenly to lose its tone; indigestion and continual faint sickness have been my portion ever since. Don't conjecture, dear Nell, for it is too soon yet, though I certainly never before felt as I have done lately. But keep the matter wholly to yourself, for I can come to no decided opinion at present. I am rather mortified to lose my good looks and grow thin as I am doing just when I thought of going to Brookroyd. Dear Ellen, I want to see you, and I hope I shall see you well. My love to all.--Yours faithfully,

'C. B. NICHOLLS.'

There were three more letters, but they were written in pencil from her deathbed. Two of them are printed by Mrs. Gaskell--one to Miss Nussey, the other to Miss Wheelwright. Here is the third and last of all.

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'MY DEAR ELLEN,--Thank you very much for Mrs. Hewitt's sensible clear letter. Thank her too. In much her case was wonderfully like mine, but I am reduced to greater weakness; the skeleton emaciation is the same. I cannot talk. Even to my dear, patient, constant Arthur I can say but few words at once.

'These last two days I have been somewhat better, and have taken some beef-tea, a spoonful of wine and water, a mouthful of light pudding at different times.

'Dear Ellen, I realise full well what you have gone through and will have to go through with poor Mercy. Oh, may you continue to be supported and not sink. Sickness here has been terribly rife. Kindest regards to Mr. and Mrs. Clapham, your mother, Mercy. Write when you can.--Yours,

'C. B. NICHOLLS.'

Little remains to be said. This is not a biography but a bundle of correspondence, and I have only to state that Mrs. Nicholls died of an illness incidental to childbirth on March 31st 1855, and was buried in the Bronte tomb in Haworth church. Her will runs as follows:--

Extracted from the District Probate Registry at York attached to Her Majesty's High Court of Justice.

_In the name of God_. _Amen_. _I_, CHARLOTTE NICHOLLS, _of Haworth in the parish of Bradford and county of York_, _being of sound and disposing mind_, _memory_, _and understanding_, _but mindful of my own mortality_, _do this seventeenth day of February_, _in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five_, _make this my last Will and Testament in manner and form following_, _that is to say_: _In case I die without issue I give and bequeath to my husband all my property to be his absolutely and entirely_, _but_, _In case I leave issue I bequeath to my husband the interest of my property during his lifetime_, _and at his death I desire that the principal should go to my surviving child or children_; _should there be more than one child_, _share and share alike_. _And I do hereby make and appoint my said husband_, _Arthur Bell Nicholls_, _clerk_, _sole executor of this my last Will and Testament_; _In witness whereof I have to this my last Will and Testament subscribed my hand_, _the day and year first above written_--CHARLOTTE NICHOLLS. _Signed and acknowledged by the said testatrix_ CHARLOTTE NICHOLLS, _as and for her last Will and Testament in the presence of us_, _who_, _at her request_, _in her presence and in presence of each other_, _have at the same time hereunto_ _subscribed our names as witnesses thereto_: _Patrick Bronte_, B.A. _Incumbent of Haworth_, _Yorkshire_; _Martha Brown_.

_The eighteenth day of April_ 1855, _the Will of_ CHARLOTTE NICHOLLS, _late of Haworth in the parish of Bradford in the county of York_ (_wife of the Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls_, _Clerk in Holy Orders_) (_having bona notabilia within the province of York_). _Deceased was proved in the prerogative court of York by the oath of the said Arthur Bell Nicholls_ (_the husband_), _the sole executor to whom administration was granted_, _he having been first sworn duly to administer_.

Testatrix died 31st March 1855.

It is easy as fruitless to mourn over 'unfulfilled renown,' but it is not easy to believe that the future had any great things in store. Miss Bronte's four novels will remain for all time imperishable monuments of her power. She had touched with effect in two of them all that she knew of her home surroundings, and in two others all that was revealed to her of a wider life. More she could not have done with equal effect had she lived to be eighty. Hers was, it is true, a sad life, but such gifts as these rarely bring happiness with them. It was surely something to have tasted the sweets of fame, and a fame so indisputably lasting.

Mr. Nicholls stayed on at Haworth for the six years that followed his wife's death. When Mr. Bronte died he returned to Ireland. Some years later he married again--a cousin, Miss Bell by name. That second marriage has been one of unmixed blessedness. I found him in a home of supreme simplicity and charm, esteemed by all who knew him and idolised in his own household. It was not difficult to understand that Charlotte Bronte had loved him and had fought down parental opposition in his behalf. The qualities of gentleness, sincerity, unaffected piety, and delicacy of mind are his; and he is beautifully jealous, not only for the fair fame of Currer Bell, but--what she would equally have loved--for her father, who also has had much undue detraction in the years that are past. That Mr. Nicholls may long continue to enjoy the kindly calm of his Irish home will be the wish of all who have read of his own continuous devotion to a wife who must ever rank among the greatest of her sex.

FOOTNOTES

{8} Although so stated by Professor A. W. Ward in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. xxi.

{14} 'Mama's last days,' it runs, 'had been full of loving thought and tender help for others. She was so sweet and dear and noble beyond words.'

{17} 'Some of the West Ridingers are very angry, and declare they are half-a-century in civilisation before some of the Lancashire folk, and that this neighbourhood is a paradise compared with some districts not far from Manchester.'--Ellen Nussey to Mrs. Gaskell, April 16th, 1859.

{19} 'To this bold statement (i.e. that love-letters were found in Branwell's pockets) Martha Brown gave to me a flat contradiction, declaring that she was employed in the sick room at the time, and had personal knowledge that not one letter, nor a vestige of one, from the lady in question, was so found.'--Leyland. _The Bronte Family_, vol. ii. p. 284.

{22} Mrs. Gaskell had described Charlotte Bronte's features as 'plain, large, and ill-set,' and had written of her 'crooked mouth and large nose'--while acknowledging the beauty of hair and eyes.

{25} Mrs. Lawry of Muswell Hill, to whose courtesy in placing these and other papers at my disposal I am greatly indebted.

{28} 'Patrick Branty' is written in another handwriting in the list of admissions at St. John's College, Cambridge. Dr. J. A. Erskine Stuart, who has a valuable note on the subject in an article on 'The Bronte Nomenclature' (Bronte Society's Publications, Pt. III.), has found the name as Brunty, Bruntee, Bronty, and Branty--but never in Patrick Bronte's handwriting. There is, however, no signature of Mr. Bronte's extant prior to 1799.

{29} 'I translated this' (_i.e._ an Irish romance) 'from a manuscript in my possession made by one Patrick O'Prunty, an ancestor probably of Charlotte Bronte, in 1763.' _The Story of Early Gaelic Literature_, p. 49. By Douglas Hyde, LL.D. T. Fisher Uwin, 1895.

{33} Mrs. Gaskell says 'Dec. 29th'; but Miss Charlotte Branwell of Penzance writes to me as follows:--'My Aunt Maria Branwell, after the death of her parents, went to Yorkshire on a visit to her relatives, where she met the Rev. Patrick Bronte. They soon became engaged to be married. Jane Fennell was previously engaged to the Rev. William Morgan. And when the time arrived for their marriage, Mr. Fennell said he should have to give his daughter and niece away, and if so, he could not marry them; so it was arranged that Mr. Morgan should marry Mr. Bronte and Maria Branwell, and afterwards Mr. Bronte should perform the same kindly office towards Mr. Morgan and Jane Fennell. So the bridegrooms married each other and the brides acted as bridesmaids to each other. My father and mother, Joseph and Charlotte Branwell, were married at Madron, which was then the parish church of Penzance, on the same day and hour. Perhaps a similar case never happened before or since: two sisters and four first cousins being united in holy matrimony at one and the same time. And they were all happy marriages. Mr. Bronte was perhaps peculiar, but I have always heard my own dear mother say that he was devotedly fond of his wife, and she of him. These marriages were solemnised on the 18th of December 1812.'

{39} The passage in brackets is quoted by Mrs. Gaskell.

{49} The passage in brackets is quoted, not quite accurately, by Mrs. Gaskell.

{53} The following letter indicates Mr. Bronte's independence of spirit. It was written after Charlotte's death:

'HAWORTH, NR. KEIGHLEY, _January_ 16_th_, 1858.

'SIR,--Your letter which I have received this morning gives both to Mr. Nicholls and me great uneasiness. It would seem that application has been made to the Duke of Devonshire for money to aid the subscription in reference to the expense of apparatus for heating our church and schools. This has been done without our knowledge, and most assuredly, had we known it, would have met with our strongest opposition. We have no claim on the Duke. His Grace honour'd us with a visit, in token of his respect for the memory of the dead, and his liberality and munificence are well and widely known; and the mercenary, taking an unfair advantage of these circumstances, have taken a step which both Mr. Nicholls and I utterly regret and condemn. In answer to your query, I may state that the whole expense for both the schools and church is about one hundred pounds; and that after what has been and may be subscribed, there may fifty pounds remain as a debt. But this may, and ought, to be raised by the inhabitants, in the next year after the depression of trade shall, it is hoped, have passed away. I have written to His Grace on the subject--I remain, sir, your obedient servant,

'P. BRONTE.

'SIR JOSEPH PAXTON, BART., 'Hardwick Hall, 'Chesterfield.'

{56a} The vicar, the Rev. J. Jolly, assures me, as these pages are passing through the press, that he is now moving it into the new church.

{56b} _Baptisms solomnised in the Parish of Bradford and Chapelry of Thornton in the County of York_. _When _Child's _Parent's _Parent's _Abode_. _Quality_, _By whom the Baptized_. Christian Name_ Name_ _Trade or Ceremony was Name_. (_Christian_). (_Surname_). Profession_. Performed_. 1816 _Charlotte _The Rev. _Bronte_ _Thornton_ _Minister of _Wm. Morgan 29_th_ _June_ daughter of_ Patrick and Thornton_ Minster of Christ Maria_. Church Bradford_. 1817 _Patrick _Patrick and _Bronte_ _Thornton_ _Minister_ _Jno. Fennell _July_ 23 Branwell son Maria_. officiating of_ Minister_. 1818 _Emily Jane _The Rev. _Bronte_ A.B. _Thornton _Minister of _Wm. Morgan 20_th_ daughter of_ Patrick and Parsonage_ Thornton_ Minster of Christ _August_ Maria_. Church Bradford_. 1820 _Anne daughter _The Rev. _Bronte_ _Minister of _Wm. Morgan _March_ 25_th_ of_ Patrick and Haworth_ Minster of Christ Maria_. Church Bradford_.

{74} At the same time it is worth while quoting from a letter by 'A. H.' in August 1855. A. H. was a teacher who was at Cowan Bridge during the time of the residence of the little Brontes there.

'In July 1824 the Rev. Mr. Bronte arrived at Cowan Bridge with two of his daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, 12 and 10 years of age. The children were delicate; both had but recently recovered from the measles and whooping-cough--so recently, indeed, that doubts were entertained whether they could be admitted with safety to the other pupils. They were received, however, and went on so well that in September their father returned, bringing with him two more of his children--Charlotte, 9 [she was really but 8] and Emily, 6 years of age. During both these visits Mr. Bronte lodged at the school, sat at the same table with the children, saw the whole routine of the establishment, and, so far as I have ever known, was satisfied with everything that came under his observation.

'"The two younger children enjoyed uniformly good health." Charlotte was a general favourite. To the best of my recollection she was never under disgrace, however slight; punishment she certainly did _not _experience while she was at Cowan Bridge.

'In size, Charlotte was remarkably diminutive; and if, as has been recently asserted, she never grew an inch after leaving the Clergy Daughters' School, she must have been a _literal dwarf_, and could not have obtained a situation as teacher in a school at Brussels, or anywhere else; the idea is absurd. In respect of the treatment of the pupils at Cowan Bridge, I will say that neither Mr. Bronte's daughters nor any other of the children were denied a sufficient quantity of food. Any statement to the contrary is entirely false. The daily dinner consisted of meat, vegetables, and pudding, in abundance; the children were permitted, and expected, to ask for whatever they desired, and were never limited.

'It has been remarked that the food of the school was such that none but starving children could eat it; and in support of this statement reference is made to a certain occasion when the medical attendant was consulted about it. In reply to this, let me say that during the spring of 1825 a low fever, although not an alarming one, prevailed in the school, and the managers, naturally anxious to ascertain whether any local cause occasioned the epidemic, took an opportunity to ask the physician's opinion of the food that happened to be then on the table. I recollect that he spoke rather scornfully of a baked rice pudding; but as the ingredients of this dish were chiefly, rice, sugar, and milk, its effects could hardly have been so serious as have been affirmed. I thus furnish you with the simple fact from which those statements have been manufactured.

'I have not the least hesitation in saying that, upon the whole, the comforts were as many and the privations as few at Cowan Bridge as can well be found in so large an establishment. How far young or delicate children are able to contend with the necessary evils of a public school is, in my opinion, a very grave question, and does not enter into the present discussion.

'The younger children in all larger institutions are liable to be oppressed; but the exposure to this evil at Cowan Bridge was not more than in other schools, but, as I believe, far less. Then, again, thoughtless servants will occasionally spoil food, even in private families; and in public schools they are likely to be still less

## particular, unless they are well looked after.

'But in this respect the institution in question compares very favourably with other and more expensive schools, as from personal experience I have reason to know.--A.H., August 1855.'--From _A Vindication of the Clergy Daughters' School and the Rev. W. Carus Wilson from the Remarks in_ '_The Life of Charlotte Bronte_,' _by the Rev. H. Shepheard_, _M.A. London_: _Seeley_, _Jackson_, _and Halliday_, 1857.

{92} The Rev. William Weightman.

{95} It is interesting to note that Charlotte sent one of her little pupils a gift-book during the holidays. The book is lost, but the fly-leaf of it, inscribed 'Sarah Louisa White, from her friend C. Bronte, July 20, 1841,' is in the possession of Mr. W. Lowe Fleeming, of Wolverhampton.

{96} 'UPPERWOOD HOUSE, RAWDON, _September _29_th_, 1841.

'DEAR AUNT,--I have heard nothing of Miss Wooler yet since I wrote to her intimating that I would accept her offer. I cannot conjecture the reason of this long silence, unless some unforeseen impediment has occurred in concluding the bargain. Meantime, a plan has been suggested and approved by Mr. and Mrs. White, and others, which I wish now to impart to you. My friends recommend me, if I desire to secure permanent success, to delay commencing the school for six months longer, and by all means to contrive, by hook or by crook, to spend the intervening time in some school on the continent. They say schools in England are so numerous, competition so great, that without some such step towards attaining superiority we shall probably have a very hard struggle, and may fail in the end. They say, moreover, that the loan of 100 pounds, which you have been so kind as to offer us, will, perhaps, not be all required now, as Miss Wooler will lend us the furniture; and that, if the speculation is intended to be a good and successful one, half the sum, at least, ought to be laid out in the manner I have mentioned, thereby insuring a more speedy repayment both of interest and principal.

'I would not go to France or to Paris. I would go to Brussels, in Belgium. The cost of the journey there, at the dearest rate of travelling, would be 5 pounds; living is there little more than half as dear as it is in England, and the facilities for education are equal or superior to any other place in Europe. In half a year, I could acquire a thorough familiarity with French. I could improve greatly in Italian, and even get a dash of German, _i.e._, providing my health continued as good as it is now. Martha Taylor is now staying in Brussels, at a first-rate establishment there. I should not think of going to the Chateau de Kockleberg, where she is resident, as the terms are much too high; but if I wrote to her, she, with the assistance of Mrs. Jenkins, the wife of the British Consul, would be able to secure me a cheap and decent residence and respectable protection. I should have the opportunity of seeing her frequently, she would make me acquainted with the city; and, with the assistance of her cousins, I should probably in time be introduced to connections far more improving, polished, and cultivated, than any I have yet known.

'These are advantages which would turn to vast account, when we actually commenced a school--and, if Emily could share them with me, only for a single half-year, we could take a footing in the world afterwards which we can never do now. I say Emily instead of Anne; for Anne might take her turn at some future period, if our school answered. I feel certain, while I am writing, that you will see the propriety of what I say; you always like to use your money to the best advantage; you are not fond of making shabby purchases; when you do confer a favour, it is often done in style; and depend upon it 50, or 100 pounds, thus laid out, would be well employed. Of course, I know no other friend in the world to whom I could apply on this subject except yourself. I feel an absolute conviction that, if this advantage were allowed us, it would be the making of us for life. Papa will perhaps think it a wild and ambitious scheme; but who ever rose in the world without ambition? When he left Ireland to go to Cambridge University, he was as ambitious as I am now. I want us all to go on. I know we have talents, and I want them to be turned to account. I look to you, aunt, to help us. I think you will not refuse. I know, if you consent, it shall not be my fault if you ever repent your kindness. With love to all, and the hope that you are all well,--Believe me, dear aunt, your affectionate niece,

'MISS BRANWELL. C. BRONTE.'

_Mrs. Gaskell's_ '_Life_.' _Corrected and completed from original letter in the possession of Mr. A. B. Nicholls_.

{107} Miss Mary Dixon, the sister of Mr. George Dixon, M.P., is still alive, but she has unfortunately not preserved her letters from Charlotte Bronte.

{109a} 'The Brontes at Brussels,' by Frederika Macdonald.--_The Woman at Home_, July 1894.

{109b} This statement has received the separate endorsement of the Rev. A. B. Nicholls and of Miss Ellen Nussey.

{110} M. and Mme. Heger celebrated their golden wedding in 1888, but Mme. Heger died the next year. M. Constantin Heger lived to be eighty-seven years of age, dying at 72 Rue Nettoyer, Brussels, on the 6th of May 1896. He was born in Brussels in 1809, took part in the Belgian revolution of 1830, and fought in the war of independence against the Dutch. He was twice married, and it was his second wife who was associated with Charlotte Bronte. She started the school in the Rue d'Isabelle, and M. Heger took charge of the upper French classes. In an obituary article written by M. Colin of _L'Etoile Belge_ in _The Sketch_ (June 5, 1896), which was revised by Dr. Heger, the only son of M. Heger, it is stated that Charlotte Bronte was piqued at being refused permission to return to the Pensionnat a third time, and that _Villette_ was her revenge. We know that this was not the case. The Pensionnat Heger was removed in 1894 to the Avenue Louise. The building in the Rue d'Isabelle will shortly be pulled down.

{121} _Pictures of the Past_, by Francis H. Grundy, C.E: Griffith & Farran, 1879; _Emily Bronte_, by A. Mary F. Robinson: W. H. Allen, 1883; _The Bronte Family_, _with Special Reference to Patrick Branwell Bronte_, by Francis A. Leyland: Hurst & Blackett, 2 vols. 1886.

{123} After Mr. Bronte's death Mr. Nicholls removed it to Ireland. Being of opinion that the only accurate portrait was that of Emily, he cut this out and destroyed the remainder. The portrait of Emily was given to Martha Brown, the servant, on one of her visits to Mr. Nicholls, and I have not been able to trace it. There are three or four so-called portraits of Emily in existence, but they are all repudiated by Mr. Nicholls as absolutely unlike her. The supposed portrait which appeared in _The Woman at Home_ for July 1894 is now known to have been merely an illustration from a 'Book of Beauty,' and entirely spurious.

{138} There are two portraits of Branwell in existence, both of them in the possession of Mr. Nicholls. One of them is a medallion by his friend Leyland, the other the silhouette which accompanies this chapter. They both suggest, mainly on account of the clothing, a man of more mature years than Branwell actually attained to.

{142} In the _Mirror_, 1872, Mr. Phillips, under the pseudonym of 'January Searle,' wrote a readable biography of Wordsworth.

{145a} Charlotte writes from Dewsbury Moor (October 2, 1836):--'My sister Emily is gone into a situation as teacher in a large school of near forty pupils, near Halifax. I have had one letter from her since her departure--it gives an appalling account of her duties. Hard labour from six in the morning until near eleven at night, with only one half-hour of exercise between. This is slavery. I fear she will never stand it.'--Mrs. Gaskell's _Life_.

{145b} _Haworth Churchyard_, _April_ 1855, by Matthew Arnold. Macmillan & Co.

{158} See chap. xiii., page 346.

{159} A dog, referred to elsewhere as Flossie, junior.

{161} It was sent to Mr. Williams on six half-sheets of note-paper and was preserved by him.

{163} Although _Jane Eyre_ has been dramatised by several hands, the play has never been as popular as one might suppose from a story of such thrilling incident. I can find no trace of the particular version which is referred to in this letter, but in the next year the novel was dramatised by John Brougham, the actor and dramatist, and produced in New York on March 26, 1849. Brougham is rather an interesting figure. An Irishman by birth, he had a chequered experience of every phase of theatrical life both in London and New York. It was he who adapted 'The Queen's Motto' and 'Lady Audley's Secret,' and he collaborated with Dion Boucicault in 'London Assurance.' In 1849 he seems to have been managing Niblo's Garden in New York, and in the following year the Lyceum Theatre in Broadway. Miss Wemyss took the title role in _Jane Eyre_, J. Gilbert was Rochester, and Mrs. J. Gilbert was Lady Ingram; and though the play proved only moderately successful, it was revived in 1856 at Laura Keene's Varieties at New York, with Laura Keene as Jane Eyre. This version has been published by Samuel French, and is also in Dick's _Penny Plays_. Divided into five Acts and twelve scenes, Brougham starts the story at Lowood Academy. The second Act introduces us to Rochester's house, and the curtain descends in the fourth as Jane announces that the house is in flames. At the end of the fifth, Brougham reproduced _verbatim_ much of the conversation of the dialogue between Rochester and Jane. Perhaps the best-known dramatisation of the novel was that by the late W. G. Wills, who divided the story into four Acts. His play was produced on Saturday, December 23, 1882, at the Globe Theatre, by Mrs. Bernard-Beere, with the following cast:--

_Jane Eyre_ Mrs. Bernard-Beere _Lady Ingram_ Miss Carlotta Leclercq _Blanche Ingram_ Miss Kate Bishop _Mary Ingram_ Miss Maggie Hunt _Miss Beechey_ Miss Nellie Jordan _Mrs. Fairfax_ Miss Alexes Leighton _Grace Poole_ Miss Masson _Bertha_ Miss D'Almaine _Adele_ Mdlle. Clemente Colle _Mr. Rochester_ Mr. Charles Kelly _Lord Desmond_ Mr. A. M. Denison _Rev. Mr. Price_ Mr. H. E. Russel _Nat Lee_ Mr. H. H. Cameron _James_ Mr. C. Stevens

Mr. Wills confined the story to Thornfield Hall. One critic described the drama at the time as 'not so much a play as a long conversation.' A few years ago James Willing made a melodrama of _Jane Eyre_ under the title of _Poor Relations_. This piece was performed at the Standard, Surrey, and Park Theatres. A version of the story, dramatised by Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer, called _Die Waise von Lowood_, has been rather popular in Germany.

{168a} Alexander Harris wrote _A Converted Atheist's Testimony to the Truth of Christianity_, and other now forgotten works.

{168b} Julia Kavanagh (1824-1877). Her father, M. P. Kavanagh, wrote _The Wanderings of Lucan and Dinah_, a poetical romance, and other works. Miss Kavanagh was born at Thurles and died at Nice. Her first book, _The Three Paths_, a tale for children, was published in 1847. _Madeline_, a story founded on the life of a peasant girl of Auvergne, in 1848. _Women in France during the Eighteenth Century_ appeared in 1850, _Nathalie_ the same year. In the succeeding years she wrote innumerable stories and biographical sketches.

{173} It runs thus:--

'_December_ 9_th_, 1848.

'The patient, respecting whose case Dr. Epps is consulted, and for whom his opinion and advice are requested, is a female in her 29th year. A peculiar reserve of character renders it difficult to draw from her all the symptoms of her malady, but as far as they can be ascertained they are as follows:--

Her appetite failed; she evinced a continual thirst, with a craving for acids, and required a constant change of beverage. In appearance she grew rapidly emaciated; her pulse--the only time she allowed it to be felt--was found to be 115 per minute. The patient usually appeared worse in the forenoon, she was then frequently exhausted and drowsy; toward evening she often seemed better.

'Expectoration accompanies the cough. The shortness of breath is aggravated by the slightest exertion. The patient's sleep is supposed to be tolerably good at intervals, but disturbed by paroxysms of coughing. Her resolution to contend against illness being very fixed, she has never consented to lie in bed for a single day--she sits up from 7 in the morning till 10 at night. All medical aid she has rejected, insisting that Nature should be left to take her own course. She has taken no medicine, but occasionally, a mild aperient and Locock's cough wafers, of which she has used about 3 per diem, and considers their effect rather beneficial. Her diet, which she regulates herself, is very simple and light.

'The patient has hitherto enjoyed pretty good health, though she has never looked strong, and the family constitution is not supposed to be robust. Her temperament is highly nervous. She has been accustomed to a sedentary and studious life.

'If Dr. Epps can, from what has here been stated, give an opinion on the case and prescribe a course of treatment, he will greatly oblige the patient's friends.

'Address--Miss Bronte, Parsonage, Haworth, Bradford, Yorks.'

{183a} The original of this letter is lost, so that it is not possible to fill in the hiatus.

{183b} Emily--who was called the Major, because on one occasion she guarded Miss Nussey from the attentions of Mr. Weightman during an evening walk.

{190} In his next letter Mr. Williams informed her that Miss Rigby was the writer of the _Quarterly_ article.

{221} In Hathersage Church is the altar tomb of Robert Eyre who fought at Agincourt and died on the 21st of May 1459, also of his wife Joan Eyre who died on the 9th of May 1464. This Joan Eyre was heiress of the house of Padley, and brought the Padley estates into the Eyre family. There is a Sanctus bell of the fifteenth century with a Latin inscription, 'Pray for the souls of Robert Eyre and Joan his wife.'--Rev. Thomas Keyworth on 'Morton Village and _Jane Eyre_'--a paper read before the Bronte Society at Keighley, 1895.

{259a} _Miss Miles_, _or A Tale of Yorkshire Life Sixty Years Ago_, by Mary Taylor. Rivingtons, 1890.

{259b} _The First Duty of Women_. A Series of Articles reprinted from the _Victorian Magazine_, 1865 to 1870, by Mary Taylor. 1870.

{262} See letter to Ellen Nussey, page 78.

{275} Miss Bronte was paid 1500 pounds in all for her three novels, and Mr. Nicholls received an additional 250 pounds for the copyright of _The Professor_.

{280} A Mr. Hodgson is spoken of earlier, but he would seem to have been only a temporary help.

{282} Referring to a present of birds which the curate had sent to Miss Nussey.

{287} A Funeral Sermon for the late Rev. William Weightman, M.A., preached in the Church at Haworth on Sunday the 2nd of October 1842 by the Rev. Patrick Bronte, A.B., Incumbent. The profits, if any, to go in aid of the Sunday School. Halifax--Printed by J. U. Walker, George Street, 1842. Price sixpence.

{288} A little dog, called in the next letter 'Flossie, junr.,' which indicates its parentage. Flossy was the little dog given by the Robinsons to Anne.

{325} The originals are in the possession of Mr. Alfred Morrison of Carlton House Terrace, London.

{330} _De Quincey Memorials_, by Alexander H. Japp. 2 vols. 1891. William Heinemann.

{332a} _Agnes Grey_, a novel, by Acton Bell. Vol. III. London, Thomas Cautley Newby, publisher, 72 Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square.

{332b} And yet the error not infrequently occurs, and was recently made by Professor Saintsbury (_Nineteenth Century Literature_), of assuming that it was _Jane Eyre_ which met with many refusals.

{332c} Mr. Nicholls assures me that the manuscript was not rewritten after his marriage, although I had thought it possible, not only on account of its intrinsic merits, which have not been sufficiently acknowledged, but on account of the singular fact that Mlle. Henri, the charming heroine, is married in a white muslin dress, and that her going-away dress was of lilac silk. These were the actual wedding dresses of Mrs. Nicholls.

{333} Anne Marsh (1791-1874), a daughter of James Caldwell, J.P., of Linley Wood, Staffordshire, married a son of the senior partner in the London banking firm of Marsh, Stacey, & Graham. Her first volume appeared in 1834, and contained, under the title of _Two Old Men's Tales_, two stories, _The Admiral's Daughter_ and _The Deformed_, which won considerable popularity. _Emilia Wyndham_, _Time_, _the Avenger_, _Mount Sorel_, and _Castle Avon_, are perhaps the best of her many subsequent novels.

{335} _The Professor_ was published, with a brief note by Mr. Nicholls, two years after the death of its author. _The Professor_, a Tale, by Currer Bell, in two volumes. Smith, Elder & Co., 65 Cornhill, 1857.

{348} Lady Eastlake died in 1893.

{349} _Letters and Journals_ of Lady Eastlake, edited by her nephew, Charles Eastlake Smith, vol. i. pp. 221, 222 (John Murray).

{350} _Life of J. G. Lockhart_, by Andrew Lang. Published by John Nimmo. Mr. Lang has courteously permitted me to copy this letter from his proof-sheets.

{361} Name of place is erased in original.

{373} Thus in original letter.

{398} That Thackeray had written a certain unfavourable critique of _Shirley_.

{402} This article was by John Skelton (_Shirley_).

{403} Now in the possession of Mr. A. B. Nicholls.

{408} Thackeray writes to Mr. Brookfield, in October 1848, as follows:--'Old Dilke of the _Athenaeum_ vows that Procter and his wife, between them, wrote _Jane Eyre_; and when I protest ignorance, says, "Pooh! you know who wrote it--you are the deepest rogue in England, etc." I wonder whether it can be true? It is just possible. And then what a singular circumstance is the + fire of the two dedications' [_Jane Eyre_ to Thackeray, _Vanity Fair_ to Barry Cornwall].--_A Collection of Letters to W. M. Thackeray_, 1847-1855. Smith and Elder.

{423} _Chapters from Some Memories_, by Anne Thackeray Ritchie. Macmillan and Co. Mrs. Ritchie and her publishers kindly permit me to incorporate her interesting reminiscence in this chapter.

{432} George Henry Lewes (1817-1878). Published _Biographical History of Philosophy_, 1845-46; _Ranthorpe_, 1847; _Rose_, _Blanche_, _and Violet_, 1848; _Life of Goethe_, 1855. Editor of the _Fortnightly Review_, 1865-66. _Problems of Life and Mind_, 1873-79; and many other works.

{434} Richard Hengist Horne (1803-1884). Published _Cosmo de Medici_, 1837; _Orion_, an epic poem in ten books, passed through six editions in 1843, the first three editions being issued at a farthing; _A New Spirit of the Age_, 1844; _Letters of E. B. Browning to R. H. Horne_, 1877.

{444} Printed by the kind permission of the Rev. C. W. Heald, of Chale, I.W.

{446} Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth (1804-1877). A doctor of medicine, who was made a baronet in 1849, on resigning the secretaryship of the Committee of Council on Education; assumed the name of Shuttleworth on his marriage, in 1842, to Janet, the only child and heiress of Robert Shuttleworth of Gawthorpe Hall, Burnley (died 1872). His son, the present baronet, is the Right Hon. Sir Ughtred James Kay-Shuttleworth.

{457a} Some experiments on a farm of two acres.

{457b} Letters of Matthew Arnold, collected and arranged by George W. E. Russell.

{468} Mr. Nicholls is the Mr. Macarthey of _Shirley_. Here is the reference which not unnaturally gratified him:--'Perhaps I ought to remark that, on the premature and sudden vanishing of Mr. Malone from the stage of Briarfield parish . . . there came as his successor, another Irish curate, Mr. Macarthey. I am happy to be able to inform you, _with truth_, that this gentleman did as much credit to his country as Malone had done it discredit; he proved himself as decent, decorous, and conscientious, as Peter was rampant, boisterous, and--(this last epithet I choose to suppress, because it would let the cat out of the bag). He laboured faithfully in the parish; the schools, both Sunday and day-schools, flourished under his sway like green bay-trees. Being human, of course he had his faults; these, however, were proper, steady-going, clerical faults: the circumstance of finding himself invited to tea with a dissenter would unhinge him for a week; the spectacle of a Quaker wearing his hat in the church, the thought of an unbaptized fellow-creature being interred with Christian rites--these things could make strange havoc in Mr. Macarthey's physical and mental economy; otherwise he was sane and rational, diligent and charitable.'--_Shirley_, chap. xxxvii.

{469} John Stuart Mill, who, however, attributed the authorship of this article to his wife.

{491} The Nusseys.

{495} The Rev. George Sowden, vicar of Hebden Bridge, Halifax, and honorary canon of Wakefield, is still alive.

INDEX

ABBOTSFORD, 453-4.

Academy of Arts Royal, 14, 15, 124.

_Agnes Grey_--its publication, 161, 184, 331, 332; reprint, 364, 365; Charlotte on, 162, 336, 337, 388; value of, 181.

Ahaderg, County Down, 28.

Alexander, Miss, 468.

Ambleside, 126, 205, 442, 454, 457.

_Amy Herbert_, 260.

Antwerp, 102.

Appleby, 285, 287.

Arnold, Matthew, 145, 457, 458, 459.

Arnold, Dr., 263, 400, 442, 454, 456, 457, 458, 459.

Arnold, Mrs. Thomas, 456, 458.

_Athanaeum_, 178, 334, 340, 404, 408, 431, 459.

Atkinson, Mr., 211, 312, 313.

_Atlas_, 414, 415.

Austen, Jane, 399, 445.

Aylott & Jones, 325-9, 331.

BANGOR, 491.

'Beck, Madame.' _See_ Heger, Madame.

Bedford, Mr., 40, 47.

Bell, Rev. Alan, 465.

Bell Chapel, Thornton, 56.

_Bengal Hurkaru_, 362.

Bennoch, Francis, 491.

Bernard-Beere, Mrs., 164.

_Berwick Warder_, 165.

Bierly, 47.

Birch-Pfeiffer, Charlotte, 164.

Birrell, Augustine, 29, 30.

Birstall, 3, 107, 116, 210, 214, 224, 239, 261, 312, 457.

'Black Bull,' Haworth, 143, 361.

_Blackwood's Magazine_, 121, 139, 141, 147.

Blake Hall, 84, 149, 182, 296.

Blanche, Mdlle., 114, 117.

Bolitho, Sons, & Co, 103.

_Bombay Gazette_, 323.

Borrow's _Bible in Spain_, 189.

Bowling Green Inn, Bradford, 106.

Bradford, 41, 42, 46, 51, 58, 124, 150, 206, 211, 284, 292.

_Bradford Observer_, 168, 407.

_Bradford Review_, 54.

Bradley, Rev. Richard, 291.

Branwells of Cornwall, 30.

Branwell, Anne, 34.

Branwell, Charlotte, 33, 34.

Branwell, Eliza, 217.

Branwell, Elizabeth, 34, 51, 52, 61, 92, 96, 102, 103-4, 105, 112, 147.

Branwell, John, 217.

Branwell, Joseph, 34, 491.

Branwell, Margaret, 34.

Branwell, Maria. _See_ Bronte, Mrs.

Branwell, Thomas, 33.

Branty, 28.

Braxborne, 395.

Bremer, Frederika, 187.

'Bretton Mrs.' _See_ Smith, Mrs.

Brewster, Sir David, 268, 463.

Briery, Windermere, 5.

Britannia, 358.

'Brocklehurst Mr.' _See_ Wilson, Carus.

Bromsgrove, 134.

Bronte, Anne