The Express.
London, England, 1855-04-06 00:00:00

DEATH. OF

" Cones likul." is deid! The early death of the
ism fimily of whom she was the sole miniver, pre-
pared all who keew the einumstanems te upset the lass
of this gifted creature at any time: bet not the leis
deep will be the grief of society that bee genius will
yield as nothing more. We have three works fres
her which will hold their place in he Westin
of our century : and, bat for her frail health
then might have been three times three ;
for she was under forty; and her genies win
not of an exhaustible bad. If it had bun
exhaustible, it would have been exhimsted
some time since. She had every inducanent
that could have availed with one lees high-minded to
publish two or three novels a year. Fame waited
upon all she did; and she might have enriched her-
self by very slight exertion : but her steady convic-
tion was that the publication of a book is a solemn
act of conscience—in the case of a novel as much as
any other kind of book. She was not food of spook-
iog of herself and her conscience; but she now and
then uttered to her very few friends things which
may, alas! be told now, without fear of hurting her
sensitive nature ; things which ought to be told in her
honour. Among these sayings was one which ex-
plains the long interval between her works. She said
that else thought every serious delineation of life ought
to be the product of personal experience and observe-
tios ; experience naturally occurring, and observation
of a normal, and not of a forced or special hied. I
have not accumulated, since I published Shirley,'"
she said, " whit makes it needful for me to speak
again; and, till I do, may GOD give me grace to be
dumb !" She had a conscientiousness which could
not be relaxed by praise or even sympathy—dear as
sympathy was to her sensitive nature. She had ao
vanity which praise Gould aggravate or censure mor-
tify. She calmly read all adverse reviews of her
books, for the make of instruction; and when she
mould not reseguise the aptness of criticism, she was
men pealed than hurt or angry. The common
!stinks whisk wait upon literary success she
opined with a charming grace ; and any occa-
sieusl severity, such as literary women are
favoured with at the beginning of their course,
she accepted with a humility which was full of dig-
nity and charm. From her feeble constitution of
body, her sufferings by the death of her whole
family, and the secluded and monotonous life she
led, she became morbidly sensitive in some rupecta ;
but in her high vocation, she had, in addition to the
deep intuitions of a gifted woman, the strength of a
man, the patience of a hero, and the conscientious-
nam of a saint. In the points in which women are
iseally most weak—in regard to opinion, to appre-
ciation, to applause—her moral strength fell not a
whit behind the intellectual force manifested in her
works. Though passion occupies too prominent a
place in her pictures of life, though women have to
complain that she represent' love as the whole
and sole concern of their lives, and though
goy/roamed especially have reason to remonstrate,
and do remonstrate, that their share of human con-
flict is laid open somewhat rudely and inconsider►tely
and very sweepingly to social observation, it is a true
social blessing that we have had a female writer who
has discountenanced sentimentalism and feeble ego-
tism with such practical force as is apparent in the
limb of Commit BELL. Her heroines love too
readily, too vehemently, and sometimes after a
hellion which their female readers may resent : but
they do their duty through every thing, and are
healthy in action, however morbid in passion.
How admirable this strength is—how wonderful
this force of integrity—am hardly be understood
by any bat the few who know the story of
this remarkable woman's life. The account of the
school in "Jane Eyre "u only too true. The
"SAW of that tale is—not precisely the eldest
skews, who died there—but more like her than
may other real person. She is that sister,
"with a difference." Another sister died at home
sees after leaving the school, and in consequence of
its hardships ; and " eerier Bell" (CUARLOTrE
/horn) was never free while there (fora year and a
bolt) from the gnawing sensation or consequent fee-
NSW'S of downright hunger : and she never grew
as inch from that time. She was the smallest of
women; and it was that school which stunted her
growth. As she tells us in " Jane Eyre," the visita-
tion of an epidemic caused a total change and radical
reform in the establishment, which was even re-
moved to another site. But the reform came too late
to reverse the destiny of the doomed family of the
Brontis.

These wonderful girls were the daughters of a
clergyman who, now very aged and infirm, survives'
his wife and all his many children. The name
MOM (an abbreviation of Ilitortuntax) is Irish, and
very ancient. The mother died many years ago, and
several of her children. When the reading world
began to have an interest in their existence, thus
were three sisters and a brother living with their
father at Haworth, near Keighley, in Yorkshire.
The girls had been out u governeesse—CauttOTll,
at Brussels, as is no secret to the readers of "
VO-
lette." They rejoiced to meet again at home—Crt,►i
LOTTE, EXILT, and ANN (" Curer," " Ellis," and
"Acton.") In her obituary notice of her two sista%
" Curet " reveals something of their presses of
authorship, and their experience of failure and
nooses. How terrible some of their experience of
life was, in the midst of the domestic freedom and
indulgence afforded them by their studious father,
may be seen by the fearful representatioas
elmeaculine nature and character found in the novels
and tales of MOLT and ANN. They considered it
drir duty, they told us, to present life as they knew
II; and they gave us "Withering Heigh.," saes
*The Tenant of Wildhll Hall." Such an experience
IN this indicates is really perplexing to English people
be general ; and all that we have to do with it is to
boar it in mind when disposed to pass criticism on
the coarseness which, to • certain degree, pervades
the works of all the sisters, and the repulsiveness
which makes the tales by EMILY and ANN really
horrible to people who have not iron nerves:
"Jane Eyre" was naturally and universally sup-
posed to be CHAILLOITE herself; but she always
denied it, calmly, cheerfully, and with the obvious
sincerity which characterised all she said. She
declared that there was no more ground for the
assertion than this. She once told her sisters that they
were wrong—even morally wrong—in making their
heroines beautiful, as a matter of course. They re-
plied that it was impossible to make a heroine inte-
resting on other terms. Her answer was, "I will
prove to you that you are wrong. I will show you a
heroine as small and as plain as myself who shall be
as interesting as any of yours." " Hence, 'lone
Byre,' "said she, in telling the anecdote " but she is
not myself, any farther than that." As the work
went on the interest deepened to the writer. When
she cams to " Thonfleld." she could not stop. Being
siarteightei to excess, she wrote in little square paper
books, bald dose to her eyes, and (the firm copy) in
pensil. On she went, writing incessantly for three
weeks; by which time she had carried her heroine
away from Thornfield, and was herself in • bur,
Which compelled her to panes. The rest was written
with less vehemence, and with mete anxious ears.
The world adds, with less vigour and interest. She
iedi wittily bet dal*: MIR% is mad