The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-01 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Lije of Charlotte Bronte, author of "Jane
Eyre," " Shirley," &c. By E. C. Gaskell, au-
thor of "Mary Barton," "Ruth," &c. 2 vols.
Chapman and dal!.
The names upon the title page of this work will
at once excite the interest, and secure the attention
of a large circle of nnders. There has always been
great in'e a=t Mt in Miss Bronte from the time
when " Jane Eyre " first startled the world of
novel readers with its vivid originality, its vigorous
sketches of character, its bitter knowledge of human
life, and the moving power of its pathos. In spite
of The objections raised by many to the plot, the
style, the persons, all felt that a new and mighty
competi!or had entered the lists, and that what-
ever the faults or drawbacks of the work, the pen
that had written " Jane Eyre" was guided by the
hand of a nias'er. The general excitement was la-
m eased by the strictly preserved incognito. The
very publiclers of the book were ignorant of the
re-.l name of. the author. Two subsequent works,
qf varying merits, only confirmed the iinpr,ssion of
the writer's powers, and by degrees the literary
world were compeled to believe that th 3 author,
who had attained such an eminence among them
by the force of unaided genius, was the daughter
of a country clergyman, residing ondesolate moors,
whoie experience of life and means of knowledge,
her position, charac'er, and circumstanceP, had
combine! to reduce to very limited boundaries. It
was rumoured that her life had been desolate and

lonely as those bleak Yorkshire hills ; it was whis-
pered that the dark and gloomy views of life
and me❑ were drawn from the forced acquaintance
with trouble and crime ; it was`said that death and
sickness had been busy round the hearth of the
gifted writer, an I the shadovis of sadness and de-
spondency on her pacres were reflected from the
clouds that darkened her own skies. It remained
to be shown chat the wonderful powers of intelle3t
were not her noblest part, that the spirit of self-
sacrifice, of ftmily devotion, of an earnest and un-

flinching resolve to perform all her duties, upheld
her again3t care and anxiety and disappo ntrae.it,
a suffering body and a troubled m;nd. From her
earliest youth she had mtny and painful causes of
private anxiety and sorrow--causes th it public
curiosity, however much it may be blended with

kindly i'literes h, seems :ea,reely entitled to inquire
int:\ Some of those are however naturally well

known.

The early death of her sisters, Em iy and

Anne, which took place within afew. months of

each other, was a deep afft aim' to her. They hid
been friends, cmipanions, critics, all in all to each
other, and their deaths left her almost alone.
Her two eLlest sisters hal del when qutte children,

the health of all of them havitg been much injure
by th-ir rasidemle at Cowan's Bridge—a school
established for the benefit of poor clergymen's
_ _

daughters. This school, founded from tlebea of
motives, was mi-erably mismanaged during the
first years of iti existence, and we can hardy agree
with Mr.,. Gaikell in regretting the severe censures
passed on it, as those who undertook the entire

charge of helples3 children cannot plead ignoranc3
or misplaced confi.lcncn in palliation of misused re-
sponsibility. Ono of ti.e sufferers hid an uninten-
tional revenge. All readers of "Jane Eyre" will
re-newber anal Helen Burns. Th-y were

portaits of Cowan's Bridge and Mafa Bronte.
Many Scars lat,or, bell-1g desirous of qualifying her-

self for opening a's:h 01, Charlotte Bronte and her
s'ster Early weut to Brussels. They rem tined some
►i►ne, and male striking progress under the tuition

of a kind and appreciailtfg master. The sisters at

liffvrent tinteA,Mcing milieus to increase their
iwited income, alt filled situations as pvernesses,

but in spite of their uncommon talents and infor-
mation they were not qualified by nitare fur such

a position. They subsequently 'intended oprniog
a school, but the idea was abandoue 1. They were
in a dilemma which is, unfortunately, not ram
They were conscious of unusual powers and de,irous
of employing them to advantage, but were ignorant
how to do so. Tbeir literary labours for a bug

time brought them neither profit nor fame,. but they
were a source of iuterest, and were resolutely. pur-

sued notwithstanding ali discouragenaents. Their
united poems were first patlished. ; of erwards ea‘la
p-epared a tale and endeavoured to find a pub-
lisher. Charlotte's st3ry, "The Professor," is
no.w announced for publication. Of this tale Mrs.
Gaskell speaks as follows :
" The plot in itself is of no great interest ; bat it is a
poor kind of interest that depends upon startling incidents
rather than upon dramatic development of character ; and
Charlotte Broute never excelled one or two sketches of
portraits which she has given in " The Professor," nor, in
grace of womanhood aver sur..assed ono of the female
characters there described. By the time she wrote this
tale, her taste and judgment hal revolted against the ex-
aggerated idealisms of her early girlhood, and she went to
the extreme of reality, clo-ely depicting characters as they
had shown themselves to her in actual life.: if there they
were strong even to coarseness—as was the case with some
that she had met with in flesh and blood existence—she
wrote them down an ass ;if the scenery of such life as
she saw was ler the most part wild and grothsqne, instead
of plessant er picturesque, she described it line ft,r
The grace of the one or two scenes and characters, when
nro drawn rather from her own imagination than from
absolute fact, 'stand out in exquisite relief horn the deep
shadows and wayward lines of others, which call to mind
some of the portraits of Rembrandt."
" Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey" were
the companions of " The Profess sr," and the three
stur.es were despatchid. t 3 LOlld m t ,gether.
Mtanwhile, a heavier anxiety was pres,ing on the
writers, for their father's sight, which had loog
been failing, ha-1 left him ; and it was at this
' period that, accompanied by his eldest daughter, he
went to Manchester, to submit to an oper ition on
his eyes. A sbron4_, proof of the firmness and per-
severance of AIL•s Bronte's disposition is afforded itx

the fo lowing
The three tales had tried their fate in vain tog.ther,
at length they were sent forth separately. and for many
months with still-continued ill-success. I have mentioned
this here, because, among the dispiritin; circumstances
connected with her anxious visit to Mauchester, CharlAte
told tne that her tale came back upon her hands, curtly
rejected by some publisher, on the very day when her
father was to sub nit to his oiler Mon. But she bad the
heart of Robert Bruce within her, and failure upon failure
danet d her no more than him. Not only did " The
Prafessor" return again to try his chance amorg the
London pnb'ishers, but she began, in this time cf c.rc
and depressing inquietude—in those grey, weary, uniform
streets, where all faces, save that of her kind doctor, were
strange and untouched with sunlight to her—there and
then, di 1 the bravo genius begin " Jane Eyre." Rad
what she herself says :--" Cut rar Bell's book found acee4-
awe nowhere, nor any aelenowledgment of merit, so that
something like the chill of despair began to invade his
heart." An 1, rem:ember, it was not the heart of a person
who, disappointed in one hope, can turn with redoubled
affection to the many certain blessings tbatremair. Think
of her home, and the black shadow of remorse lying over
one in it, till his very brain was mazed, and his gifts and
his life were lost ; think of her father's sight hanging on a
thread ;—of her Eistet's delicate health, and dependence
on her care;—an.l then admire it as it deserves to be ad-
mired, the steady courage which could work away at
' Jane Eyre,' all the time tlfat the on volume was
plodding its weary round in London."'
In tlto compostion of her next book she was atil
more unfortunate :

"Miss Bronte took extreme pains with ' Shirley.' She
felt that the fame she had acquired imposed upon her a
double responsibility. She tried to make her navel liko
a piece of actual life—feeling sure that, if she but repre-
sented the product of personal experience and observation
trelr, good would come out of it in the long run. She
carefully studied the different reviews and criticisms that
had appeared on ' Jane .Eyre,' in hopes of extracting
precepts and advice from which to prat.
" Down into the very midst of her writing came the
bolts of death. She had nearly finished the second volume
of 11,r tale-when Branwell died—after him Emily—after
her Anne—the pen, laid down when there were three
sisters living and loving, was taken up when ono alone re-
mained. Well might she call the first chapter that she
wrote after this, ' The Valley of the Shadow of Death."'
The character of Shirley Keeldar was drawn
from her si-ter Emily. It was intended to repre-
sent what she would have been in health and pros-
perity.
perity. It is difficult to reconcile what we learn of
Emily Route's stern reserved nature with the
frank decision of Shirley. Mrs. Gaskell remarks,
" I mention this, because all that I, a stranger,
have been able ,to learn about her, has
not tended to give either me or my readers a
pleasant impression of her. But we must rernem-
how
little we know of her compared to that sister
who out of her more intimate knowledge says that
" she was genuinely good and truly gt att." The
passage in Shirley in which she is bitten by a mad
dog, and, walling into the laundry, herself eauter.ses
the wound with a hot iron, was drawn from life.
The accident really occurred to Emily with a simi-
lar result. In alluding to Mi-s Bronte's life after
her first success, Mrs. Gaskell writes as follows
with that true feeling and correct judgment that
distingui-h the biographer no less than the subject
of the memoirs.
" Henceforward Charlotte Bronte's existence becomes
divided into two parallel currents—her life as Curter Bell,
the author; her life as Charlotte Bronte, tke woman.
There were separate duties belonging to each character—
not opposing each other ; not impossible, but difficult to
to be reconciled. When a man becomes au author, it is
probably reer,ly a change of employment to him. He
takes a portion of that time which has hitherto been de-
voted to some other study or pursuit ; he gives uo sow«.
thing of the legal or medical profession, in which he has
hitherto endeavoured to serve others, or relinquishe-t port
of the trade or business by which he has been stri' lug to
gain a livelihood ' • and another merchant or lawyer, or
doctor, steps into his vacant place, and probably does as
well as he. But no other can take up the quiet, regular
duties of the daughter, the wife, or the mother, as well as
1
she whom God bas appointed to fill that particular place:
a woman's principal work in life is hardly left to her elm
choice; nor can she drop the domestic charges devolving
on her as au individual, for the exercise of the most splen-
did talents that were ever bestowed. And yet she must
not shrink from the extra responsibility implied by the
very fact of her possessing such talents. She mus toot
bide her gift in a napkin ; it was meant for the use and
service of others. In an humble and faithful spirit must
sho labour to do what is not impossible, or God would not
have set her to do it.
" I put into words what Charlotte Bronte put into
i actions. 1-
" The year 18

d domestic disitrno,

is necessary, however painful, to remind the render con-
stantly of what was always present to the hearts of father
and sisters at this time. It is well that the thoughtless
critics, who spoke of the sad and gloomy views of life pre-
sented by the Brontes in their tales, should know how
such words were wrung out of them by the living recollec-
tion of the long agony they suffered. It is well, too, that
they who have objected to the representation of coarse-
ness and shrank from it with repugnance, as if such con-
ceptions arose out of the writers, should learn, that, not
from the imagination—but hem the hard cruel facts,
pressed down, by external life, up sn their very senses, for
long months and years tcgether, did they write ont what
they saw, obeying the stern dictates of their consciences.
They might be mistaken. They might err in writing at
all, when their afflictions were so great that they could
not write otherwise than they did of life. It is possible
that it would have, been better to have described only
&sod and pleasant people, doing only good and pleasant
things (in which case they could hardly have written at
any time) : all I Fay is, that never, 1 believe, did women,
possessed of such wonderful gifts, exercise them with a
fuller feeling of responsibility for their use. As to mis-
takes, they stand now—as authors as well as women—
bdore the judgment-seat of God."

The composition of Villette was delayed by fre-
quent atticks of ill-health and depression of spirits.
The winter succeeding her I,rother's and sisters'
d€aths was very trying to Miss Bronte. Her fa-
ther's age and secluded habits left her almost con-
st ntly alone, and the monotony of Ler solitude
had become overwhelming to lior exhausted nerves
and excitable imagination. She had no longer the
physical strength to resist it and an alarming at •ack
of illness resulted. At an earlier period of her life
she had found the loneliness almost unendurable.
Her active faculties longed for the means of exer-
cise, but with the resolution of a strong mind she
forced her: elf to becontent with her narrow sphere,
and so kng as duty called her nothing could induce
her to seek a more congenial life. A friend of
her's was going to the colonies, and thus describes
their final interview

" When I last saw Charlotte (January, 1845), shertold
me she had quite decided to stay at home. She owned she
did not like at. Her health was weak. She said she should
like any change at first, as she had liked Brussels at first,
and she thought that there must be some possibility for
some people of having a life of more variety and more
communion with human kind, but she saw none for her.
I told her very warmly, that she ought not to stay at
home; that to spend the next five years at home, in soli•
tale and weak health, would ruin her; that she would
never recover it. Such a dark shadow came over her face
when I said, Tnink of what you'll be five years hence 1'
that I stopped, and said, 'Don't cry, Charlotte!' She
did not cry, but went on walking up and down the
room, and said in a little But I intend to stay,
Polly.'"

It is a testimony to the sterling worth of Miss
Bronte's character that, in spite of her reserve, the
friendships she formed were life-long. It is a satis-
faction to know that at least she met occasionally
with congenial minds and heartit, that their
sympathy cheered her hours of depression, and
their memories peopled her solitude. It •is a
greater satisfaction to know that the close of her
life was its happiest ; that affection and sympathy
solaced her dying hours, and that it was permitted
her to see one hope realised, to taste for a brief
period the cup of domestic happiness unembittered.
It is to be questioned, notwithstanding the general
interest felt in the personal history of Mis Bronte,
whether the public should have been gratified by
the narrative of her dotne,t'c life. Tits dates are
so recent, she whom we regret has so lately paved
from among us, leaving surviving friends to de-
plore her, that it seems scarcely fitting to expose
her troubles to the world. A few years hence wo
might have learned them without the painful sense
of intrusion. The footsteps of years must tread
down the grave of the departed beford we feel that
the dead are a part of the past. But the task has
been committed to a worthy hand. With discri-
mination and feeling Mrs. Gaskell has discharged
the difficult duty ; and though she scarcely ever
alludes to the fact, it is impossible for the reader
to forget that she is als) one of the foremost of our
writers. The volumes now before us, while they
point out the true source of all that was dark and
repulsive in the works of Curer Bell, show us the
authoress in her nobler character as daughter, sister,
and fr:end. While re-awakening the regret felt by
the public that a great genius has plssed from
among us, they lay the tribute of admiration and
respect on the grave of a self-sacrificing and suffer-
ing woman.

The Eve of St. Mark : a Romance of Venice. By
Thomas Doubleday. 2 vols. Smith and Elder.
In these volumes Mr. Doubleday hss given us
in every way a striking romance, presenting a pic-
ture of some of those remarkable pa,sages of medi-
aeval hist ry which so forcibly arrfst the attention
and enchain the regard. It is very interesting to
trace the career of the young Rtywond Del (ney.
In consequence of the reltious divisions t .at then
raged in England, he was compelled to reside in a
country and among a people, who were widely dif-
ferent 'from his own, and with whose habits ani
manners he could not assmilate. He was not d .s-
-tined to remain in obscurity, however. His talents
and his high birth, together with his natural gifts
and accomplishments, precluded the p( ssibility of
such a chance. lie paid the price of ( elebrity in
its hardest form. He soon became surrounded with
enemies, and that word, in such a place, at such an
epoch, was one of terrible significance. His for-
tune would have been very different, notwithstand-
ing all these d fficulties, l ad he possessed more
prudence and foresight, an I not suffered himself
to b 3 led away by any attraction, ho never dazzling,
till he hail fiat ascertained its merits, nor listened
to arguments, however specious and ph usi ale,
without sounding their depth% and 'weighing their
validity. The plot of the tale is very skilfully
constructed, and the startling events are intro-
duced in SO dexterous a style, that they appear
not improbable, although of such a nature as
to render their recurrence in these days a
matt r of impossibility. Ludolfo is one of
those marvellous beings whose whole exidence
Perms a puzzle to those who attempt to analyse
it. Though now not often met with in those
days to which this tale bears reference the earth
was walked by many who might have a :rued for
his prototype. By the power of their in'ellec!s
they ruled kingdoms with a secret sway, influ-
enced the most mighty of potentates with their
irresistible volition, and in th-ir machin ttions
were the hidden links that connected persens and
things apparently diametrically opposed to each
other. Gteat though they were, these individuals
generally failel in a signal manner, sooner or later,
and in their downfall involved the ru'n of many.
Such was the case with Ludolfo, among the first
of whose sacrifices fell the hopes of the noble f anily
of the De'ancy's, and the prospects of the Countess
of Luchtsiui, long one of the fairest ornaments of
Venice, whose talents rendered her at times an im-
portant member of society. The Princess of Santa
Croce saves to display the sad fate apt tvtaining
to those gifted with sense and reason to foresee the
course of human events and purpose 4, but who
are debarred from the privilege of using their ad-
vantages from the barriers by which a cruel con-
ventien bas hemmed them in. The padre Momoro
furnishes an instance of what craft and cunning
will descend to, in furtherance of their unchecked
desires; and it is curious to notice how the tortu-
ous course of his Machiavelian policy produced
results other than those he bad expected. It may
be presumed that this episode of the "younger
ages, when St. Mark's fair city ran its race of
fame," will be welcomed by those who would gaze
into the past through the vistas of retrospective
romance.