'were not disposed to publish the MS.,' and, instead, she took out of the envelope a letter of two pages.She read it trembling.It declined, indeed, to publish that tale, for business reasons, but it discussed its merits and demerits so courteously, so considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so enlightened, that this very refusal cheered the author better than a vulgarly expressed acceptance would have done.It was added, that a work in three volumes would meet with careful attention.
I was then just completing 'Jane Eyre,' at which I had been working while the one-volume tale was plodding its weary round in London:
in three weeks I sent it off; friendly and skilful hands took it in.This was in the commencement of September, 1847; it came out before the close of October following, while 'Wuthering Heights'
and 'Agnes Grey,' my sisters' works, which had already been in the press for months, still lingered under a different management.
They appeared at last.Critics failed to do them justice.The immature but very real powers revealed in 'Wuthering Heights' were scarcely recognised; its import and nature were misunderstood; the identity of its author was misrepresented; it was said that this was an earlier and ruder attempt of the same pen which had produced 'Jane Eyre.' Unjust and grievous error! We laughed at it at first, but I deeply lament it now.Hence, I fear, arose a prejudice against the book.That writer who could attempt to palm off an inferior and immature production under cover of one successful effort, must indeed be unduly eager after the secondary and sordid result of authorship, and pitiably indifferent to its true and honourable meed.If reviewers and the public truly believed this, no wonder that they looked darkly on the cheat.
Yet I must not be understood to make these things subject for reproach or complaint; I dare not do so; respect for my sister's memory forbids me.By her any such querulous manifestation would have been regarded as an unworthy and offensive weakness.
It is my duty, as well as my pleasure, to acknowledge one exception to the general rule of criticism.One writer, endowed with the keen vision and fine sympathies of genius, has discerned the real nature of 'Wuthering Heights,' and has, with equal accuracy, noted its beauties and touched on its faults.Too often do reviewers remind us of the mob of Astrologers, Chaldeans, and Soothsayers gathered before the 'writing on the wall,' and unable to read the characters or make known the interpretation.We have a right to rejoice when a true seer comes at last, some man in whom is an excellent spirit, to whom have been given light, wisdom, and understanding; who can accurately read the 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin' of an original mind (however unripe, however inefficiently cultured and partially expanded that mind may be);and who can say with confidence, 'This is the interpretation thereof.
Yet even the writer to whom I allude shares the mistake about the authorship, and does me the injustice to suppose that there was equivoque in my former rejection of this honour (as an honour Iregard it).May I assure him that I would scorn in this and in every other case to deal in equivoque; I believe language to have been given us to make our meaning clear, and not to wrap it in dishonest doubt?
'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' by Acton Bell, had likewise an unfavourable reception.At this I cannot wonder.The choice of subject was an entire mistake.Nothing less congruous with the writer's nature could be conceived.The motives which dictated this choice were pure, but, I think, slightly morbid.She had, in the course of her life, been called on to contemplate, near at hand, and for a long time, the terrible effects of talents misused and faculties abused: hers was naturally a sensitive, reserved, and dejected nature; what she saw sank very deeply into her mind;it did her harm.She brooded over it till she believed it to be a duty to reproduce every detail (of course with fictitious characters, incidents, and situations), as a warning to others.
She hated her work, but would pursue it.When reasoned with on the subject, she regarded such reasonings as a temptation to self-indulgence.She must be honest; she must not varnish, soften, nor conceal.This well-meant resolution brought on her misconstruction, and some abuse, which she bore, as it was her custom to bear whatever was unpleasant, with mild, steady patience.
She was a very sincere, and practical Christian, but the tinge of religious melancholy communicated a sad shade to her brief, blameless life.
Neither Ellis nor Acton allowed herself for one moment to sink under want of encouragement; energy nerved the one, and endurance upheld the other.They were both prepared to try again; I would fain think that hope and the sense of power were yet strong within them.But a great change approached; affliction came in that shape which to anticipate is dread; to look back on, grief.In the very heat and burden of the day, the labourers failed over their work.