11 - Life Of Charlotte Brontë Volume 1 by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

Delve into the fascinating life of Charlotte Brontë, the eldest among the renowned Brontë sisters, recognized as pillars of English literature. Her most celebrated work, Jane Eyre, stands as an everlasting classic. Just two years post her demise, her close friend Elizabeth Gaskell penned down her biography. This compelling biography invites you to discover more about the extraordinary Charlotte Brontë. Please note that Volume 2 of this work is also available as a separate recording.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Volume one, Chapter eight of the Life of Charlotte Bronte.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. The Life of Charlotte Bronte by
Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Volume one, Chapter eight. The poetry enclosed

(00:22):
seems to me by no means equal to parts of
the letter. But as everyone likes to judge for himself,
I copy the six opening stanzas about a third of
the whole, and certainly not the worst. So where he
reigns in glory, bright above those starry skies of night,
amid his paradise of light, Oh, why may I not

(00:42):
be oft when awake on Christmas morn, in sleepless twilight,
laid forlorn? Strange thoughts have o'er my head been born?
How he has died for me? And oft within my chamber?
Lying have I awakened myself with crying from dreams where
I beheld him dying upon the accursed tree? And often

(01:03):
has my mother said, while on her lap I laid
my head, she feared for time. I was not made,
but for eternity. So I can read my title clear
to mansions in the skies, and let me bid farewell
to fear and wipe my weeping eyes. I'll lay me
down on this marble stone and set the world aside
to see upon her ebbenthrone the moon and glory ride.

(01:29):
Soon after Charlotte returned to Dewsbury More, she was distressed
by a hearing that her friend E was likely to
leave the neighborhood for a considerable length of time. February twentieth,
What shall I do without you? How long are we
likely to be separated? Why are we to be denied
each other's society? It is an inscrutable fatality. I long

(01:51):
to be with you, because it seems as if two
or three days or weeks spent in your company would
beyond measure, strengthen me in the enjoyment of those feelings
which I have so lately begun to cherish. You first
pointed out to me that way in which I am
so feebly endeavoring to travel, And now I cannot keep
you by my side. I must proceed sorrowfully alone. Why

(02:14):
are we to be divided? Surely it must be because
we are in danger of loving each other too well
of losing sight of the creator and idolatry of the creature.
At first I could not say thy will be done.
I felt rebellious, but I knew it was wrong to
feel so. Being left a moment alone, this morning, I
prayed fervently to be enabled to resign myself to every

(02:36):
decree of God's will, though it should be dealt forth
by a far severe hand than the present disappointment. Since
then I have felt calmer and humbler, and consequently happier.
Last Sunday I took up my Bible in a gloomy
state of mind. I began to read. A feeling stole
over me such as I have not known for many
long years, a sweet, placid sensation like those I am

(03:00):
which used to visit me when I was a little child.
And on Sunday evenings in the summer, stood by the
open window reading the life of a certain French nobleman
who attained a purer and higher degree of sanctity than
has been known since the days of the early martyrs.
EA's residence was equally within a walk from Dewsberry, more

(03:20):
as it had been from roe Head, and on Saturday afternoons,
both Mary and She used to call upon Charlotte, and
often endeavored to persuade her to return with them and
be the guest of one of them till Monday morning.
But this was comparatively seldom. Mary says she visited us
twice or thrice. When she was at missus W's, we

(03:42):
used to dispute about politics and religion. She a toryan
clergyman's daughter, was always in a minority of one in
our house of violent descent and radicalism. She used to
hear over again, delivered with authority, all the lectures I
had been used to give her at school on despotic aristocracy,
mercenary priesthood, et cetera. She had not energy to defend herself.

(04:05):
Sometimes she owed to a little truth in it, but
generally said nothing. Her feeble health gave her her yielding manner,
for she could never oppose anyone without gathering up all
her strength for the struggle. Thus she would let ME
advise and patronize most imperiously, sometimes picking out any grain
of sense there might be in what I said, but

(04:27):
never allowing anyone materially to interfere with her independence of
thought and action. Though her silence was sometimes left one
under the impression that she agreed when she did not.
She never gave a flattering opinion, and thus her words
were golden, whether for praise or blame. Mary's father was
a man of remarkable intelligence, but of strong, not to say,

(04:50):
violent prejudices, all running in favor of republicanism and dissent.
No other county but Yorkshire could have produced such a man.
His brother had been a deta agne in France, and
had afterwards voluntarily taking up his residence there. Mister t
himself had been much abroad, both on business and to
see the great continental galleries of paintings. He spoke French perfectly,

(05:15):
I have been told when need was, but delighted usually
in talking the broadest. Yorkshire he bought splendid engravings of
the pictures which he particularly admired, and his house was
full of works of art and of books. But he
rather liked to present his rough side to any stranger
or newcomer. He would speak his broadest, bring out his

(05:35):
opinions on church and state in their most startling forms,
and by and by, if he found his hearer could
stand the shock, he would involuntarily show his warm, kind
heart and his true taste and real refinement. His family
of four sons and two daughters were brought up on
Republican principles. Independence of thought and action were encouraged, no

(05:57):
shams tolerated. They are scattered far and a way. Martha,
the younger daughter, sleeps in the Protestant cemetery at Brussels.
Mary is in New Zealand. Mister t is dead, and
so life and death have dispersed the circle of violent
radicals and dissenters into which twenty years ago the little, quiet,
resolute clergyman's daughter was received, and by whom she was

(06:19):
truly loved and honoured. January and February of eighteen thirty
seven had passed away, and still there was no reply
from Suthe. Probably she had lost expectation and almost hope,
when at length in the beginning of March she received
the letter inserted in mister C. C. Southey's Life of

(06:40):
his Father, Volume four, page three hundred twenty seven, after
accounting for his delay in replying to hers by the
fact of a long absence from home, during which his
letters had accumulated. Whence it has lain unanswered till the
last of a numerous file not from disrespect or indifference
to its contents. But because in truth it is not

(07:02):
an easy task to answer it, nor a pleasant one
to cast a damp over the high spirits and the
generous desires of youth. He goes on to say, what
you are I can only infer from your letter, which
appears to be written in sincerity. Though I may suspect
that you have used a fictitious signature. Be that as
it may. The letter and the verses bear the same stamp,

(07:24):
and I can well understand the state of mind they indicate.
It is not my advice that you have asked as
to the direction of your talents, but my opinion of them.
And yet the opinion may be worth little, and the
advice much you evidently possess. And in no inconsiderable degree
what Wordsworth calls the faculty of verse, I am not

(07:47):
depreciating it when I say that in these times it
is not rare. Many volumes of poems are now published
every year without attracting public attention, any one of which,
if it happened, had appeared half a century ago, would
have obtained a high reputation for its author, whoever, therefore
is ambitious of distinction in this way ought to be

(08:08):
prepared for disappointment. But it is not with a view
to distinction that you should cultivate this talent. If you
consult your own happiness, I, who have made literature my
profession and devoted my life to it, and have never
for a moment repented of the deliberate choice, think to
myself nevertheless bound in duty to caution every young man

(08:31):
who applies as an aspirant to me for encouragement and
vice against taking so perilous a course. You will say
that a woman has no need of such a caution,
there can be no peril in it for her. In
a certain sense this is true. But there is a
danger of which I would, with all kindness and all earnestness,
warn you. The day dreams in which you habitually indulge

(08:53):
he likely to induce a distempered state of mind. And
in proportion as all the ordinary uses of the world
seem to you flat and unprofitable, you will be unfitted
for them, without becoming fitted for anything else. Literature cannot
be the business of a woman's life, and it ought
not to be. The more she is engaged in her

(09:14):
proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it,
even as an accomplishment and a recreation to those duties
you have not yet been called. And when you are,
you will be less eager for celebrity. You will not
seek in imagination for excitement of which the vicissitudes of
this life, and the anxieties from which you must not

(09:36):
hope to be exempted, be your state. What it will
bring with them but too much. But do not suppose
that I disparage the gift which you possess, nor that
I would discourage you from exercising it. I only exhort
you so to think of it and so to use it,
as to render it conducive to your own permanent good.

(09:59):
Write poetry for its own sake, not in a spirit
of emulation, and not with view to celebrity. The less
you aim at that, the more likely you will be
to deserve and finally to obtain it. So written, it
is wholesome both for the heart and soul. It may
be made the surest means next to religion, of soothing

(10:19):
the mind and elevating it. You may embody it in
your best thoughts, in your wisest feelings, and in so
doing discipline and strengthen them. Farewell, madam. It is not
because I have forgotten that I was once young myself
that I write to you in this strain, but because
I remember it. You will neither doubt my sincerity nor

(10:40):
my good will. And however, ill what has here been
said may accord with your present views and temper. The
longer you live, the more reasonable it will appear. To you.
Though I may be but an ungracious adviser, you will
allow me therefore to subscribe myself with the best wishes
for your happiness here and hereafter, your true friend. Robert Southe.

(11:06):
I was with Miss Bronte when she received Miss Cuthbert
Southe's note requesting her permission to insert the foregoing letter
in his father's life. She said to me, Mister Southey's
letter was kind and admirable, a little stringent, but it
did me good. It is partly because I think it
so admirable, and partly because it tends to bring out
her character, as shown in the following reply, that I

(11:28):
have taken the liberty of inserting the foregoing extracts from it, Sir,
March sixteenth, I cannot rest till I've answered your letter,
even though by addressing you a second time I should
appear a little intrusive. But I must thank you for
the kind and wise advice you have condescended to give me.

(11:48):
I have not ventured to hope for such a reply,
so considerate in its tone, so noble in its spirit.
I must suppress what I feel, or you will think
me foolishly enthusiastic. At the first perusal of your letter,
I felt only shame and regret that I had ever
ventured to trouble you with my crude rhapsody. I felt

(12:08):
a painful heat rise to my face when I thought
of the choirs of paper I had covered with won
with what once gave me so much delight, but which
now was only a source of confusion. But after I
had thought a little and read it again and again,
the prospects seemed to clear. You do not forbid me
to write. You do not say that what I write
is utterly destitute of merit. You only warn me against

(12:31):
the folly of neglecting real duties for the sake of
imaginative pleasures, of writing for the love of fame, for
the selfish excitement of emulation. You kindly allow me to
write poetry for its own sake, provided I leave undone
nothing which I ought to do in order to pursue
that single, absorbing, exquisite gratification. I am afraid, sir, you

(12:53):
think me very foolish. I know the first letter I
wrote to you was all senseless trash from beginning to end.
But I am not altogether the idle dreaming being it
would seem to denote. My father is a clergyman of
limited though competent income, and I am the eldest of
his children. He expended quite as much in my education
as he could afford, in justice to the rest. I

(13:16):
thought it therefore my duty when I left school to
become a governess. In that capacity, I find enough to
occupy my thoughts all day long, and my head and
hands too, without having a moment's time for one dream
of the imagination. In the evenings, I confess I do think,
but I never trouble anyone else with my thoughts. I

(13:36):
carefully avoid any appearance of preoccupation and eccentricity, which might
lead those I live amongst to suspect the nature of
my pursuits. Following my father's advice, who from my childhoods
had counseled me. Just in the wise and friendly tone
of your letter. I have endeavored not only attentively to
observe all the duties a woman ought to fulfill, but

(13:57):
to feel deeply interested in them. I don't always succeed,
for sometimes when I'm teaching or sewing, I would rather
be reading or writing. But I try to deny myself
and my father's approbation. Amply rewarded me for the privation.
Once more, allow me to thank you with sincere gratitude.
I trust I shall never more feel ambitious to see

(14:18):
my name in print. If the wish should rise, I'll
look at Celthy's letter and suppress it. It is honor
enough for me that I have written to him and
received an answer. That letter is consecrated. No one shall
ever see it but Papa and my brother and sisters. Again,
I thank you. This incident, I suppose, will be renewed
no more. If I live to be an old woman,

(14:39):
I shall remember it thirty years hence as a bright dream.
The signature which you suspected of being fictitious is my
real name. Again. Therefore I must sign myself see Bronte
p s pray, sir, excuse me for writing to you
a second time. I could not help writing, partly to
tell you how thankful I am for your kindness, and

(14:59):
partly to let you know that your advice shall not
be wasted, however sorrowfully and reluctantly it may be at
first followed c B. I cannot deny myself the gratification
of inserting Southy's reply, Keswick, March twenty second, eighteen thirty seven.
Dear Madame, your letter has given me great pleasure, and

(15:22):
I should not forgive myself if I did not tell
you so. You have received admonition as considerately and as
kindly as it was given. Let me now request that
if you ever should come to these lakes while I'm
living here, you will let me see you. You would
then think of me afterwards with the more goodwill, because
you would perceive that there is neither severity nor moroseness

(15:45):
in the state of mind to which years and observation
have brought me. It is by God's mercy in our
power to attain a degree of self government, which is
essential to our own happiness and contributes greatly to that
of those around us. Take care of over excitement, and
endeavor to keep a quiet mind, even for your health.
It is the best advice that can be given to you.

(16:07):
Your moral and spiritual improvement will then keep pace with
the culture of your intellectual powers. And now, Madame God
bless you, farewell, and believe me to be yours sincere friend.
Robert Southe of this second letter also, she spoke and
told me that it contained an invitation for her to
go and see the poet, if ever she visited the lakes.

(16:30):
But there was no money to spare, she said, nor
any prospect of my ever earning money enough to have
the chance of so great a pleasure. So I gave
up thinking of it. At the time we conversed together
on the subject, we were at the lakes, but Suthe
was dead. This stringent letter made her put aside for
a time any idea of literary enterprise. She bent her

(16:52):
whole energy towards the fulfillment of her duties in hand.
But her occupation was not sufficient food for her great
forces of intellect, and they cried out perpetually, give give,
While the comparatively less breezier of Dewsberry Moore told her
upon her health and spirits more and more. On August
twenty seventh, eighteen thirty seven, she writes, I am again

(17:14):
at Dewsbury, engaged in the old business. Teach, Teach, Teach,
When will you come home? Make haste? You have been
at bath long enough for all purposes. By this time
you have acquired polish enough. I'm sure if the varnish
is laid on much thicker, I am afraid the good
wood underneath will be quite concealed, and your Yorkshire friends
ones won't stand that. Come come. I'm getting really tired

(17:37):
of your absence. Saturday after Saturday comes around and I
can have no hope of hearing your knock at the
door and then being told that miss E is come.
Oh dear, in this monotonous life of mine, that was
a pleasant event. I wish it would recur again, but
it will take two or three interviews before the stiffness
the estrangement of this long separation will wear away. About

(18:01):
this time, she forgot to return a work bag she
had borrowed by a messenger, and in repairing her errors,
she says, these aberrations of memory warn me pretty intelligibly
that I am getting past my prime, And the same
tone of despondency runs through the following letter. I wish
exceedingly that I could come to you before Christmas, but

(18:22):
it is impossible. Another three weeks must elapse before I
shall again have my comforter beside me under the roof
of my own dear, quiet home. If I could always
live with you and daily read the Bible with you,
if your lips and mine could at the same time
drink the same draft from the same pure fountain of mercy,
I hope, I trust I might one day become better,

(18:45):
far better than my evil wandering thoughts. My corrupt heart,
gold to the spirit and warm to the flesh, will
now permit me to be. I often planned the pleasant
life which we might lead together, strengthening each other in
that power of self denial. That hallowed and glowing devotion
with the first Saints of God often attained to my

(19:05):
eyes fill with tears when I contrast the bliss of
such a state, brightened by hopes of the future, with
the melancholy state I now live in, uncertain that I
ever felt true contrition, wandering in thought and deed, longing
for holiness which I shall never never obtain, Smitten at
times to the heart with the conviction that ghastly Calvinistic

(19:28):
doctrines are true, darkened in short by the very shadows
of spiritual death. If Christian perfection be necessary to salvation,
I shall never be saved. My heart is a very
hot bed for sinful thoughts, and when I decide on
an action, I scarcely remember to look to my redeemer
for a direction. I know not how to pray. I

(19:49):
cannot bend my life to the grand end of doing good.
I go on constantly seeking my own pleasure, pursuing the
gratification of my own desires. I forget God, and will
not God forget me? And meantime, I know the greatness
of Jehovah. I acknowledged the perfection of his word. I
adore the purity of the Christian faith. My theory is right,

(20:11):
my practice horribly wrong. The Christmas holidays came, and she
and Anne returned to the parsonage and to that happy
home circle, in which alone their natures expanded. Amongst all
other people, they shriveled up more or less. Indeed, there
were only one or two strangers who could be admitted
among the sisters without producing the same result. Emily and

(20:35):
Anne were bound up in their lives in interests like twins,
the former from reserve, the latter from timidity, avoided all
friendships and intimacies beyond their family. Emily was impervious to influence.
She never came in contact with public opinion, and her
own decision of what was right and fitting was a
law for her conduct and appearance, with which she allowed

(20:57):
no one to interfere. Her love was poured out on
Anne as Charlotte's was on her, but the affection among
all three was stronger than either death or life. E
was eagerly welcomed by Charlotte, freely admitted by Emily, and
kindly received by Anne whenever she could visit them, and
this Christmas she had promised to do so, but her

(21:18):
coming had to be delayed on account of a little
domestic accident detailed in the following letter. December twenty ninth,
eighteen thirty seven. I am sure you will have thought
me very remiss in not sending my promised letter long
before now, But I have a sufficient and very melancholy excuse.
In an accident that befell our old faithful Tabby. A

(21:40):
few days after my return home, she was gone out
into the village on some errand when as she was
descending the steep street, her foot slipped on the ice
and she fell. It was dark and no one saw
her mischance till after a time her groans attracted the
attention of a passer by. She was lifted up and
carried into the druggists near and after the examination it

(22:02):
was discovered that she had completely shattered and dislocated one leg. Unfortunately,
the fracture cannot be set till six o'clock the next morning,
as no surgeon was to be had before that time,
and she now lies at our house in a very
doubtful and dangerous state. Of course, we are all exceedingly
distressed at the circumstance, for she was like one of

(22:25):
our own family. Since the event, we have been almost
without assistance. A person has dropped in now and then
to do the drudgery, but we have as yet been
able to procure no regular servant, and consequently the whole
work of the house, as well as the additional duty
of nursing Tabby, falls on ourselves. Under these circumstances, I

(22:46):
dare not press your visit here at least until she
is pronounced out of danger. It would be too selfish
of me. Aunt wished me to give you this information before,
but Papa and all the rest were anxious I should
delay until we saw weather. Matters took a more settled aspect,
and I myself kept putting it off from day to day,
most bitterly, reluctant to give up all the pleasure I

(23:08):
had anticipated so long. However, remembering what you told me,
namely that you had commended the matter to a higher
decision than ours, and that you were resolved to submit
with resignation to that decision, whatever it might be, I
hold it my duty to yield also, and to be silent,
and may be all for the best. I fear if

(23:30):
you had been here during this severe weather, your visit
would have been of no advantage to you, for the
moors are blockaded with snow, and you would never have
been able to get out. After this disappointment, I never
dare reckon with certainty on the enjoyment of a pleasure again.
It seems as if some fatality stood between you and me.

(23:50):
I am not good enough for you, and you must
be kept from the contamination of too intimate society. I
would urge your visit. Yet I would entreat an press it.
But the thought comes across me, should Tabby die while
you're in the house. I should never forgive myself. No,
it must not be. And in a thousand ways the
consciousness of that mortifies and disappoints me most keenly, and

(24:14):
I am not the only one who is disappointed. All
in the house we're looking to your visit with eagerness.
Papa says he highly approves of my friendship with you,
and he wishes me to continue it through life. A
good neighbor of the Brontes, a clever, intelligent Yorkshire woman
who keeps a druggist shop in Hawworth. From her occupation,
her experience and excellent sense holds the position of village

(24:38):
doctress and nurse, and as such has been a friend
in many a time of trial and sickness and death
in the households. Round told me a characteristic little incident
connected with Tabby's fractured leg. Mister Bronte is truly generous
and regardful of all deserving claims. Tabby had lived with
them for ten or twelve years and was, as Shar

(25:00):
expressed it, one of the family. But on the other hand,
she was past the age of any very active service,
being nearer seventy than sixty, and at the time of
the accident, she had a sister living in the village,
and the savings she had accumulated during many years service
formed a competency for one in her rank of life.
Or if, in this time of sickness she fell short

(25:22):
of any comforts which her state rendered necessary, the parsonage
should supply them. So reasoned Miss Branwell, the prudent, not
to say anxious, aunt, looked to the limited contents of
mister Bronte's purse and the unprovided for future of her nieces,
who were moreover losing the relaxation of the holidays. In
close attendance upon Tappy, Miss Branwell urged her views upon

(25:48):
mister Bronte as soon as the immediate danger to the
old servant's life was over. He refused at first to
listen to the careful advice. It was repugnant to his
liberal nature, but Miss branwe Well persevered, urged economical motives
pressed on his love for his daughters. He gave way.
Tabby was to be removed to her sisters, and there

(26:08):
nursed and cared for mister Bronte, coming in with his
aid when her own resources fell short. This decision was
communicated to the girls. There were symptoms of a quiet
but sturdy rebellion. That winter afternoon in the small precincts
of haw Worth Parsonage. They made one unanimous and stiff remonstrance.

(26:29):
Tabby had tended them in their childhood, they and none other,
should tend her in her infirmity and age. At tea
time they were sad and silent, and the meal went
away untouched by any of the three. So it was
at breakfast they did not waste many words on the subject,
but each word they did utter was weighty. They struck,
eating till the resolution was rescinded, and Tabby was allowed

(26:51):
to remain a helpless, invalid, entirely dependent upon them. Herein
was the strong feeling of duty being paramount to pleasure,
which lay at the foundation of Charlotte's character, made most apparent,
For we have seen how she yearned for her friend's company,
but it was to be obtained only by shrinking from
what she esteemed right, and that she never did, whatever

(27:11):
might be the sacrifice. She had another weight on her
mind this Christmas, I have said that the air of
Dewsberry Moore did not agree with her, though she herself
was hardly aware how much her life there was affecting
her health. But Anne had begun to suffer just before
the holidays, and Charlotte watched over her younger sisters with

(27:32):
a jealous vigilance of some wild creature that changes her
very nature if danger threatens her. Young Anne had a
slight cough, a pain at her side, a difficulty of breathing.
Miss W considered it as little more than a common cold,
but Charlotte felt every indication of incipient consumption as a

(27:53):
stab at her heart, remembering Maria and Elizabeth, whose places
once knew them, and should know them no more. Stung
by anxiety for this little sister, she upbraided Miss W
for her fancied indifference to Anne's state of health. Miss
W felt these reproaches keenly and wrote to mister Bronte
about them. He immediately replied, most kindly, expressing his fear

(28:16):
that Charlotte's apprehensions and anxieties respecting her sister had led
her to give utterance to over excited expressions of alarm.
Through Miss W's kind consideration, Anne was a year longer
at school than her friends intended. At the close of
the half year, Miss w sought for the opportunity of
an explanation of each other's words, and the issue proved

(28:39):
that falling out of faithful friend's renewing is of love.
And so I did the first, last and only difference
Charlotte ever had with good kind Miss W. Still, her
heart had received a shock in the perception of Anne's delicacy,
and all these holidays she watched over her with the
longing fond anxiety which is so full of and pangs

(29:00):
of fear. Emily had given up her situation in the
Halifax School at the expiration of six months of arduous
trial on account of her health, which could only be
re established by the bracing Moorland air and free life
of home. Tabby's illness had preyed on the family resources.
I doubt whether Branwell was maintaining himself at this time.

(29:22):
For some unexplained reason, he had given up the idea
of becoming a student of painting at the Royal Academy,
and his prospects in life were uncertain and had yet
to be settled. So Charlotte had quietly to take up
her burden of teaching again, and return to her previous,
monotonous life. End of chapter eight.