"You charge me to write about myself. What can I say on that precious topic? My health is pretty good. My spirits are not always alike. Nothing happens to me. I hope and expect little in this world, and am thankful that I do not despond and suffer more. Thank you for inquiring after our old servant; she is pretty well; the little shawl, etc., pleased her much. Papa likewise, I am glad to say, is pretty well; with his and my kindest regards to you and Mr. Gaskell--Believe me sincerely and affectionately yours, C. BRONTE."Before the autumn was far advanced, the usual effects of her solitary life, and of the unhealthy situation of Haworth Parsonage, began to appear in the form of sick headaches, and miserable, starting, wakeful nights. She does not dwell on this in her letters; but there is an absence of all cheerfulness of tone, and an occasional sentence forced out of her, which imply far more than many words could say. There was illness all through the Parsonage household--taking its accustomed forms of lingering influenza and low fever; she herself was outwardly the strongest of the family, and all domestic exertion fell for a time upon her shoulders.
TO W. S. WILLIAMS, ESQ.
"Sept. 26th.
"As I laid down your letter, after reading with interest the graphic account it gives of a very striking scene, I could not help feeling with renewed force a truth, trite enough, yet ever impressive; viz., that it is good to be attracted out of ourselves--to be forced to take a near view of the sufferings, the privations, the efforts, the difficulties of others. If we ourselves live in fulness of content, it is well to be reminded that thousands of our fellow-creatures undergo a different lot;it is well to have sleepy sympathies excited, and lethargic selfishness shaken up. If, on the other hand, we be contending with the special grief,--the intimate trial,--the peculiar bitterness with which God has seen fit to mingle our own cup of existence,--it is very good to know that our overcast lot is not singular; it stills the repining word and thought,--it rouses the flagging strength, to have it vividly set before us that there are countless afflictions in the world, each perhaps rivalling--some surpassing--the private pain over which we are too prone exclusively to sorrow.
"All those crowded emigrants had their troubles,--their untoward causes of banishment; you, the looker-on, had 'your wishes and regrets,'--your anxieties, alloying your home happiness and domestic bliss; and the parallel might be pursued further, and still it would be true,--still the same; a thorn in the flesh for each; some burden, some conflict for all.
"How far this state of things is susceptible of amelioration from changes in public institutions,--alterations in national habits,--may and ought to be earnestly considered: but this is a problem not easily solved. The evils, as you point them out, are great, real, and most obvious; the remedy is obscure and vague;yet for such difficulties as spring from over-competition, emigration must be good; the new life in a new country must give a new lease of hope; the wider field, less thickly peopled, must open a new path for endeavour. But I always think great physical powers of exertion and endurance ought to accompany such a step.
. . . I am truly glad to hear that an ORIGINAL writer has fallen in your way. Originality is the pearl of great price in literature,--the rarest, the most precious claim by which an author can be recommended. Are not your publishing prospects for the coming season tolerably rich and satisfactory? You inquire after 'Currer Bell.' It seems to me that the absence of his name from your list of announcements will leave no blank, and that he may at least spare himself the disquietude of thinking he is wanted when it is certainly not his lot to appear.
"Perhaps Currer Bell has his secret moan about these matters; but if so, he will keep it to himself. It is an affair about which no words need be wasted, for no words can make a change: it is between him and his position, his faculties and his fate."My husband and I were anxious that she should pay us a visit before the winter had set completely in; and she thus wrote, declining our invitation:--"Nov. 6th.
"If anybody would tempt me from home, you would; but, just now, from home I must not, will not go. I feel greatly better at present than I did three weeks ago. For a month or six weeks about the equinox (autumnal or vernal) is a period of the year which, I have noticed, strangely tries me. Sometimes the strain falls on the mental, sometimes on the physical part of me; I am ill with neuralgic headache, or I am ground to the dust with deep dejection of spirits (not, however, such dejection but I can keep it to myself). That weary time has, I think and trust, got over for this year. It was the anniversary of my poor brother's death, and of my sister's failing health: I need say no more.
"As to running away from home every time I have a battle of this sort to fight, it would not do besides, the 'weird' would follow.
As to shaking it off, that cannot be. I have declined to go to Mrs. ----, to Miss Martineau, and now I decline to go to you. But listen do not think that I throw your kindness away; or that it fails of doing the good you desire. On the contrary, the feeling expressed in your letter,--proved by your invitation--goes RIGHTHOME where you would have it to go, and heals as you would have it to heal.