>*i-'ii '■^.'5 m-^ 'hdifr> -m^. BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENIX)WMENT FUND THE G[FT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 Cornell University Library PR 4166. W95 A Charlotte Bronte anthology, 3 1924 013 439 579 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3439579 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY BY jrC. WRIGHT AUTHOR OF "liJe'» many colours," "in the good old times," " CHANGES or A CENTURY," ETC. PRINTED BY THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS, LD. TONBRIDGE 1921 FOREWORD Though more than a century has elapsed since the birth of Charlotte Bronte, she remains a well-known figure in the world of literature. Her books are still read and appreciated, but few realise the fact that they were produced by one who lived nearly the whole of her life in a moorland village and had few opportunities of know- ing the world. These excerpts from her four books reveal the breadth of her vision and her strength of purpose in life, and will, it is believed, be read with pleasure even by those who know her least. It may also be interesting to contrast the thought of to-day with that of seventy years ago. J. C. WRIGHT. "HOLMEDENE," ARUNDEL RoAD, Eastbourne. CONTENTS JANE EYRE THE PROFESSOR VILLETTE SHIRLEY . PAGE r 3; JANE EYRE A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY JANE EYRE The Best of Life. Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world ; but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies, when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain. Crime and the Criminal. I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime ; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last : revenge never worries my heart, degrada- tion never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low ; I live in calm, looking to the end. 4 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY Action. It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity ; they must have action, and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally, but women feel just as men feel ; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do ; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer ; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. Trusting in Providence. A deal of people are for trusting all to Providence ; but I say Providence will not dispense with the means, though He often blesses them when they are used discreetly. JANE EYRE 5 Strength of Character. I can live alone if self-respect and cir- cumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give. Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to the wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are ; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things ; but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind, earth- quake-shock, and fire may pass by ; but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience. Presentiments, Sympathies and Signs. Presentiments are strange things : and so are sympathies ; and so are signs ; and the three combined makfe one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I 6 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY never laughed at presentiments in my life, because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives asserting, notwithstand- ing their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose work- ings baffle mortal comprehension. And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies of Nature with man. Judgment and Feeling. True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a wast- ing drought indeed: but judgment un- tempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition. Without Soul. The women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts — when they open to me a perspective of flatness. JANE EYRE 7 triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarse- ness and ill-temper : but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break — at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent — I am ever tender and true. Grandeur of Nature. Night was come, and her planets were risen : a safe, still night : too serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere : but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us ; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude. His omni- potence, His omnipresence. . . . Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-way. Remembering what it was — what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light — I felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made ; convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. 8 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY I turned my prayer to thanksgiving : the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits. ... I again nestled to the breast of the hill : and ere long in sleep forgot sorrow. Nature — a Source of Joy. I saw the fascination of the locality. I felt the consecration of its loneliness ; my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep — on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant btacken, and mellow granite crag. These details were just to me what they were to them — so many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the soft breeze ; the rough and halcyon day ; the hours of sun- rise and sunset ; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions, the same attraction as for them — wound round my faculties the same spell that entranced theirs. To make our own Fate. It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of Nature; JANE EYRE 9 but that it may be done, I know from, experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate ; and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get — when our will strains after a path we may not follow — we need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair ; we have but to seek another nourishment from the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to taste — and perhaps purer ; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it. The Spiritual is Supreme. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost ; nor has mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay ; they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful Angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed ? Genius banished ? No ! Mediocrity, no ; do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No ; they not only Uve, but reign and 10 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY redeem : and without their divine influence spread everywhere you would be in hell — the hell of your own meanness. Good Qualities. I honour endurance, perseverance, in- dustry, talent ; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence. I watch your career with interest, because I consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman : not because I deeply compas- sionate what you have gone through, or what you still suffer. Changed Circumstances. It is a fine thing to be lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth — a very fine thing ; but not a matter one can compre- hend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then there are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving : this, is sohd, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it : all its associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same. One does not jump, and spring, and JANE EYRE ii shout hurrah ! at hearing one has got a fortune ; one begins to consider respon- sibihties, and to ponder business ; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow. Good Fortune. Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully ; and to give some- what when we have largely received is but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the senses. No Middle Course. I know no medium ; I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt. A Powerful Prayer.. He supplicated strength for the weak- hearted, guidance for wanderers from the fold : a return, even at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were luring from the 12 A CHARLOTTE BRONTfi ANTHOLOGY narrow path. He asked, he urged, he claimed the boon of a brand snatched from the burning. Earnestness is ever deeply solemn : first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his ; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed. He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely ; others who heard him plead for it, could not but feel it too. A Great Character. Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labours for his race ; he clears their painful way to improvement ; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it. He may be stern ; he may be exacting ; he may be ambitious yet ; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of ApoUyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says — " Whosoever will come after nie, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." His is the ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in JANE EYRE 13 the first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth — ^who stand without fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful. THE PROFESSOR THE PROFESSOR Facing Difficulties. No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of his pro- fession, and every man, worthy of the name, will row long against wind and tide before he allows himself to cry out, " I am baffled !" and submits to be floated passively back to land. Reckless Men. A reckless man is my aversion, and nothing should ever persuade me to meddle with the concerns of such a one. Those who are reckless for themselves are generally ten times more so for their friends. Steadfastness. God knows I am not by nature vindic- tive ; I would not hurt a man because I can no longer trust or like him ; but neither my reason nor feelings are of the i8 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY vacillating order — they are not of that sand-like sort where impressions, if soon made, are as soon effaced. Overcoming Difficulties. I was young ; I had good health ; pleasure and I had never met ; no indul- gence of hers had enervated or sated one faculty of my nature. Liberty I clasped in my arms for the first time, and the influence of her smile and embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind. Yes, at that epoch I felt like a morning traveller who doubts not that from the hill he is ascending he shall behold a glorious sun- rise ; what if the track be straight, steep, and stony ? he sees it not ; his eyes are fixed on that summit, flushed already, flushed and gilded, and having gained it he is certain of the scene beyond. He knows that the sun will face him, that his chariot is even now coming over the eastern horizon, and that the herald breeze he feels on his cheek is opening for the god's career a clear, vast path of azure, amidst clouds soft as pearl and warm as flame. Difficulty and toil were to be my lot, but sustained by THE PROFESSOR 19 energy, drawn on by hopes as bright as vague, I deemed such a lot no hardship. I mounted now the hill in shade ; there were pebbles, inequalities, briars in my path, but my eyes were fixed on the crimson peak above ; my imagination was with the reful- gent firmament beyond, and I thought nothing of the stones turning under my feet, or of the thorns scratching my face and my hands. To DEVELOP Character. Constancy of attention — a kindness as mute as watchful, always standing by her, cloaked in the rough garb of austerity, and making its real nature known only by a rare glance of interest, or a cordial and gentle word ; real respect masked with seeming imperiousness, directing, urging her actions, yet helping her too, and that with devoted care : these were the means I used, for these means best suited Frances' feelings, as susceptible as deep-vibrating-r-her nature at once proud and shy. No Despair. The man of regular life and rational mind never despairs. He loses his property — ^it 20 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY is a blow — he staggers a moment ; then, his energies, roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy ; activity soon mitigates regret. Sickness affects him ; he tg,kes patience — endures what he cannot^ cure. Acute pain racks him ; his writhing Hmbs know not where to find rest ; he leans on Hope's anchors. Death takes from him what he loves ; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his affections were twined — a dark, dismal time, a fright- ful wrench — ^but some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred again. The Great Choice. As I walked fast along the road, there rose upon me a strange, inly-felt idea of some Great Being, unseen, but all-present, who in His beneficence desired only m^' welfare, and now watched the struggle of good and evil in my heart, and waited to see whether I should obey His voice, heard in the whispers of my conscience, or lend an ear to the sophisms by which His enemy and mine — ^the Spirit of Evil — sought to lead THE PROFESSOR 21 me astray. Rough and steep was the path indicated by Divine suggestion ; mossy and dedining the green way along which Temptation strewed flowers ; but whereas, methought, the Deity of Love, the Friend of all that exists, would smile well-pleased were I to gird up my loins and address myself to the rude ascent ; so, on the other hand, each inclination to the velvet declivity seemed to kindle a gleam of triumph on the brow of the man-hating, God-defying demon. Short and sharp I turned round : fast I retraced my steps. VILLETTE VILLETTE The Hopes of Youth. I possess just now the hours, thoughts, the hopes of my youth. I renew the love of my Ufe — its only love — almost its only affection ; for I am not a particularly good woman : I am not amiable. Yet I have had my feelings, strong and concentrated ; and these feelings had their object ; which, in its single self, was dear to me, as, to the majority of men and women, are all the unnumbered points on which they dissipate their regard. While I loved, and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed ! What a glorious year I can recall — ^how bright it comes back to me ! What a living spring — what a warm, glad summer — ^what soft moonlight, silvering the autumn evenings — what strength of hope under the ice-bound waters and frost-hoar fields of that year's winter ! 26 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY A Day of Joy. Prodigious was the amount of life I lived that morning. Finding myself before St. Paul's, I went in ; I mounted to the dome : I saw thence London, with its river, and its bridges, and its churches ; I saw antique Westminster, and the green Temple Gar- dens, with sun upon them, and a glad, blue sky, of early spring above ; and between them and it, not too dense a cloud of haze. Liberty and Hope. When I recall the tranquil, and even happy mood in which I passed those hours, and remember, at the same time, the posi- tion in which I was placed — its hazardous — some would have said its hopeless — charac- ter ; I feel that as Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage, so peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy, and the faculties are employed ; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her star. VILLETTE 2; The Charms of a Garden. Independently of romantic rubbish, how- ever, that old garden had its charms. On summer mornings I used to rise early, to enjoy them alone ; on summer evenings, to linger solitary, to keep tryst with the rising moon, or taste the kiss of the evening breeze, or fancy rather than feel the freshness of dew descending. The turf was verdant, the gravelled walks were white ; sunbright nasturtiums clustered beautiful about the roots of the doddered orchard giants. There was a large herce.au, above which spread the shade of an acacia ; there was a smaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran all along a high and grey wall, and gathered their tendrils in a knot of beauty, and hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured spot where jasmine and ivy met and married them, A Night Scene. A moon was in the sky, not a full moon, but a young crescent. I saw her through a space in the boughs overhead. She and the stars, visible beside her, were no strangers 28 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY where all else was strange : my childhood knew them. I had seen that golden sign with the dark globe in its curve leaning back on azure, beside an old thorn at the top of an old field, in Old England, in long past days, just as it now leaned back beside a stately spire in this commercial capital. Light in Darkness. As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, your equal, weak as you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence : take it to your Maker — show Him the secrets of the spirit He gave — ask Him how you are to bear the pains He has appointed — kneel in His presence, and pray with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for patience in extreme need. Certainly, at some hour, though perhaps not your hour, the waiting waters will stir ; in some shape, though perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for which it bled, the heahng herald will descend, the cripple and the blind, and the dumb and the possessed, will be led to bathe. Herald, come quickly ! Thousands lie round the pool, weeping and VILLETTE 29 despairing, to see it, through slow years, stagnant. Long are the " times " of Heaven : the orbits of angel messengers seem wide to mortal vision ; they may en-ring ages ; the cycle of one departure and return may clasp unnumbered generations ; and dust, kindling to brief suffering life, and, through pain, passing back to dust, may meanwhile perish out of memory again, and yet again. To how many maimed and mourning millions is the first and sole angel visitant, him Easterns call Azrael. Appearances Disappoint. By whomsoever majesty is beheld for the first time, there will always be experienced a vague surprise, bordering on disappoint- ment, that the same does not appear seated, en permanence, on a throne, bonneted with a crown, and furnished, as to the hand, with a sceptre. Looking out for a king and queen, and seeing only a middle-aged soldier, and a rather young lady, I felt half cheated, half pleased. A Good Angel. When I bend the knee to other than God, it shall be at thy white and winged feet. 30 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY beautiful on mountains or on plain. Temples have been reared to the Sun, altars dedi- cated to the Moon. Oh, greater glory ! To thee neither hands build, nor lips consecrate : but hearts, through ages, are faithful to thy worship. A dwelling thou hast, too wide for walls, too high for dome — a temple whose floors are space, rites whose mysteries transpire in presence, to the kindling, the harmony of worlds ! On Happiness. No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean ? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise. ' Experience and Heredity. There are people whom a lowered position degrades morally, to whom loss of connec- tion costs loss of self-respect : are not these VILLETTE 31 justified in placing the highest value on that station and association which is their safe- guard from debasement ? If a man feels that he would become contemptible in his own eyes were it generally known that his ancestry were simple and not gentle, poor and not rich, workers and not capitalists, would it be right severely to blame him for keeping these fatal facts out of sight — for starting, trembling, quailing at the chance which threatens exposure ? The longer we live, the more our experience widens ; the less prone are we to judge our neighbour's conduct, to question the world's wisdom : wherever an accumulation of small defences is found, whether surrounding the prude's virtue or the man of the world's respect- ability, there, be sure, it is needed. Women of Intellect. A " woman of intellect," it appeared, was a sort of " lusus natures," a luckless accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in the first office. He believed in his soul that lovely, placid, and passive feminine medio- 32 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY crity was the only pillow on which manly thought and sense could find rest for its aching temples ; and as to work, male mind alone could work to any good practical result. Living for Others. With self-denial and economy now, and steady exertion by and by, an object in life need not fail you. Venture not to complain that such an object is too selfish, too limited, and lacks interest ; be content to labour for independence until you have proved, by winning that prize, your right to look higher. But afterwards, is there nothing more for me in life — ^no true home — nothing to be dearer to me than myself, and by its paramount preciousness to draw from me better things than^ I care to culture for myself only ? Nothing, at whose feet I can willingly lay down the whole burden of human egotism, and gloriously take up the nobler charge of labouring and living for others ? Is THIS Despair ? Life is said to be full of pain to some. I have read biographies where the way- VILLETTE 33 farer seemed to journey on from suffering to suffering ; where Hope flew before him fast, never aUghting so near, or Ungering so long, as to give his hand a chance of one reaUsing grasp. I have read of those who sowed in tears, and whose harvest, so far from being reaped in joy, perished by untimely blight, or was borne off by sudden whirlwind ; and, alas ! some of these met the winter with empty garners, and died of , utter want in the darkest and coldest of the year. We shall not Die. His will be done, as done it surely will be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not. The impulse of creation forwards it ; the strength of powers, seen and unseen, has its fulfilment in charge. Proof of a life to come must be given. In fire and in blood, if needful, must that pvooi be written. In fire and in blood do we trace the record throughout nature. In fire and in blood does it cross our own experience. Sufferer, faint not through terror of this burning evidence. Tired wayfarer, gird up thy loins ; look upward, march onward. Pilgrims and 34 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY brother mourners, join in friendly company. Dark through the wilderness of this world stretches the way for most of us : equal and steady be our tread ; be our cross our banner. For staff we have His promise, whose " word is tried, whose way is per- fect " ; for present hope His providence, " who gives the shield of salvation, whose gentleness makes great " ; for final home His bosom, who " dwells in the height of Heaven " ; for crowning prize a glory, exceeding and eternal. Let us so run that we may obtain ; let us endure hardness as good soldiers ; let us finish our course and keep the faith, reliant in the issue to come off more than conquerors : " Art thou not from everlasting mine Holy One ? We shall not die ! " The Love that laughs at Passion. The love born of beauty was not mine : I had nothing in common with it : I could not dare to meddle with it, but another lave, venturing diffidently into life after long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped by constancy, consolidated by affection's pure and durable alloy, sub- VILLETTE 35 mitted by intellect to intellect's own tests, and finally wrought up by his own process to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed at Passion, his fast frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction, in this Love I had a vested interest, for whatever tended either to its culture or its destruc- tion, I could not view impassibly. Bearing the Test. Must I render some account of that Free- dom and Renovation which I won on the fete-night ? Must I tell how I and the two stalwart companions I brought home from the illuminated park bore the test of inti- mate acquaintance ? I tried them the very next day.. They had boasted their strength loudly when they reclaimed me from love and its bondage, but upon my demanding deeds, not words, some evidence of better comfort, some experience of a relieved life — Freedom excused himself, as for the present, im- poverished and disabled to assist ; and Renovation never spoke ; he had died in the night suddenly. I had nothing left for it then but to trust 36 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY secretly that conjecture might have hurried me too fast and too far, to sustain the oppressive hour by reminders of the dis- torting and discolouring magic of jealousy. After a short and vain struggle, I found myself brought back captive to the old rack of suspense, tied down and strained anew. Crises not Easily Recalled. Certain junctures of our lives must always be difficult of recall to memory. Certain points, crises, certain feelings, joys, griefs, and amazements, when reviewed, must strike us as things wildered and whirling, dim as a wheel fast spun. SHIRLEY SHIRLEY Our Inner Thoughts. Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things with- out and around us. The Beginning of Reality. At that time — at eighteen — drawing near the confines of illusive, void dreams. Elf land lies behind us, the shores of Reality rise in front. These shores are yet distant : they look so blue, soft, gentle, we long to reach them. In sunshine we see a greenness beneath the azure, as of spring meadows ; we catch glimpses of silver lines, and imagine the roll of living waters. Could we but reach this land, we think to hunger and thirst no more : whereas many a wilderness, and often the flood of Death is to be crossed ere true bliss can be tasted. Every joy that life gives must be earned ere it is secured ; 40 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY and how hardly earned, those only know who have wrestled for great prizes. The heart's blood must gem with red beads the brow of the combatant, before the wreath of victory rustles over it. Materialism. When a man has been brought up only to make money, and lives to make it, and for nothing else, and scarcely breathes any other air than that of mills and markets, it seems odd to utter his name in a prayer, or to mix his idea with anything divine ; and very strange it seems that a good, pure heart should take him in and harbour him, as if he had any claim to that sort of nest. If I could guide that benignant heart, I believe I should counsel it to exclude one who does not profess to have any higher aim in life than that of patching up his broken fortune and wiping clean from his bourgeois scut- cheon the foul stain of bankruptcy. The Power of Mammon. The surface of England began to look pleasant ; her fields grew green, her hills fresh, her gardens blooming ; but at heart she SHIRLEY 41 was no better : still her poor were wretched, still their employers were harassed : commerce in some of its branches, seemed threatened with paralysis, for the war continued ; England's blood was shed and her wealth lavished ; all, it seemed, to attain most inadequate ends. Some tidings there were indeed occasionally of successes in the Peninsula, but these came in slowly ; long intervals occurred between, in which no note was heard but the insolent self-felici- tations of Bonaparte on his continued triumphs. Those who suffered from the results of the war felt this tedious, and — as they thought — ^hopeless, struggle against what their fears or their interests taught them to regard as an invincible power, most insufferable : they demanded peace on any terms. They held meetings ; they made speeches ; they got up petitions to extort this boon : on what terms it was made they cared not. Selfishness. All men, taken singly, are more or less selfish ; and taken in bodies they are intensely so. The British merchant is no 42 A CHARLOTTE BRONTfi ANTHOLOGY exception to this rule : the mercantile classes illustrate it strikingly. These classes certainly think too exclusively of making money : they are too oblivious of every national consideration but that of extend- ing England's {i.e. their own) commerce. Chivalrous feeling, disinterestedness, pride in honour, is too dead in their hearts. A land ruled by them alone would too often make ignominious submission — ^not at all from the motives Christ teaches, but rather from those Mammon instils. During the late war, the tradesmen of England would have endured buffets from the French on the right cheek and on the left ; their cloak they would have given to Napoleon, and then have politely offered him their coat also, nor would they have withheld their waist- coat, if urged ; they would have prayed permission only to retain their one other garment, for the sake of the purse in its pocket. Not one spark of spirit, not one symptom of resistance would they have shown till the hand of the Corsican bandit had grasped that beloved purse : then, per- haps, transfigured at once into British bull- dogs, they would have sprung at the robber's , SHIRLEY ■ 43 throat, and there they would have fastened, and there hung — inveterate, insatiable, till the treasure had been restored. Giving Way to Others. " Your place is to do good to others, to be helpful whenever help is wanted." That is right in some measure and a very con- venient doctrine for the people who hold it ; but I perceive that certain sets of human beings are very apt to maintain that other sets should give up their lives to them and their service, and then they requite them by praise : they call them devoted and virtuous. Is this enough ? Is it to live ? Is there not a terrible hoUowness, mockery, want, craving, in that existence which is given away to others, for want of something of your own to bestow it on ? I suspect there is. Does virtue lie in abnegation of self ? I do not believe it. Undue humility makes tyranny ; weak concession creates selfishness. Struggling Alone. Men and women never struggle so hard as when they struggle alone, without witness. 44 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY eounsellor, or confidant ; unencouraged, unadvised, and unpitied. Strange Hallucinations. Women are incomprehensible. They have the strangest knack of startUng you with unpleasant surprises. To-day you see them bouncing, buxom, red as cherries, and round as apples ; to-morrow they exhibit them- selves effete as dead weeds, blanched and broken down. And the reason of it all ? that's the puzzle. She has her meals, her liberty, a good house to live in, and good clothes to wear as usual ; a while since that sufficed to keep her handsome and cheery, and there she sits now, a poor little, pale, puling chit enough. Provoking ! Then comes the question, what is to be done ? Undesirable " Young " Ladies. Commonplace young ladies can be quite as hard as commonplace young gentlemen — quite as worldly and selfish. Those who suffer should always avoid them ; grief and calamity they despise : they seem to regard them as the judgments of God on the lowly. With them, to " love " is merely to con- SHIRLEY 45 trive a scheme for achieving a good match : to be " disappointed " is to have their scheme seen through and frustrated. They think the feeUngs and projects of others on the subject of love similar to their own, and judge them accordingly. Spring-cleaning. The parlour was lined with oak : fine, dark, glossy panels compassed the walls gloomily and grandly. Very handsome, reader, these shining brown panels are ; very mellowing in colouring and tasteful in effect, but — ^if you know what a " Spring-clean " is — ^very execrable and inhuman. Who- ever, having the bowels of humanity, has seen servants scrubbing at these polished wooden walls with bees-wax cloths on a warm May day, must allow that they are " intolerable and not to be endured " ; and I cannot but secretly applaud the benevo- lent barbarian who had painted another and larger apartment of Fieldhead — ^the draw- ing-room, to wit, formerly also an oak-room — of a delicate pinky white ; thereby earn- ing for himself the character of a Hun, but mightily enhancing the cheerfulness of that 46 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY portion of his abode, and saving future housemaids a world of toil, A Yorkshire Scene. They both halted on the green brow of the common : they looked down on the deep valley robed in May raiment ; on varied meads, some pearled with daisies, and some golden with king-cups : to-day all this young verdure smiled clear in sunlight ; transparent emerald and amber gleams played over it. On Nunnwood — the sole remnant of antique British forest in a region whose lowlands were once all sylvan chase, as its highlands were breast-deep heather — slept the shadow of a cloud ; the distant hills were dappled, the horizon was shaded and tinted like mother-of-pe^arl ; silvery blues, soft purples, evanescent greens and rose-shades, all melting into fleeces of white cloud, pure as azury snow, allured the eye as with a remote glimpse of heaven's founda- tions. Unmarried ! Nothing irks me like the idea of being a burden and a bore — an inevitable burden — SHIRLEY 47 a ceaseless bore ! Now, when I feel my company superfluous, I can comfortably fold my independence round me like a mantle, and drop my pride like a veil, and with- draw to solitude. If married, that could not be. A Man's Merits. He is kind to us likewise — ^good — con- siderate : he does not flatter women, but he is patient with them, and he seems to be easy in their presence, and to find their company genial. He likes them not only for vain and selfish reasons, but as we like him — because we like him. Then we observe . that he is just — ^that he always speaks the truth — ^that he is conscientious. We feel joy and peace when he comes into a room : we feel sadness and trouble when he leaves it. We know that this man has been a kind son, that he is a kind brother : will any one dare to tell me that he will not be a kind husband ? Old Maids. And what does it signify, whether un- married and never-to-be-raarried women Missing Page Missing Page 50 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY who think themselves refined ladies and gentlemen, and on whose lips the word " vulgarity " is for ever hovering, cannot mention " love " without betraying their own innate and imbecile d£gradation ; it is a low feeling in their estimation connected only with low ideas for them. Hoping against Hope. Most people have had a period or periods in their lives when they have felt thus for- saken ; when, having long hoped against hope, and still seen the day of fruition deferred, their hearts have truly sickened within them. This is a terrible hour, but it is often that darkest point which precedes the rise of day ; that turn of the year when the icy January wind carries over the waste at once the dirge of departing winter, and the prophecy of coming spring. The perish- ing birds, however, cannot thus understand the blast before which they shiver ; and as little can the suffering soul recognise, in the climax of its affliction, the dawn of its deli- verance. Yet, let whoever grieves still cling fast to love and faith in God ; God will never deceive, never finally desert him. SHIRLEY 51 " Whom He loveth. He chasteneth." These words are true and should not be for- gotten. The Balm of Mercy. God mingles something of the balm of mercy even in vials of the most corrosive woe. He can so turn events, that from the very same blind, rash act whence sprang the curse of half our life, may flow the blessing of the remainder. The Grand Mystery. Where is the other world ? In what will another life consist ? Why do I ask ? Have I not cause to think that the hour is hasting but too fast when the veil must be rent for me ? Do I not know the Grand Mystery is likely to burst prematurely on me ? Great Spirit ! in whose goodness I confide ; whom, as my Father, I have petitioned night and morning from early infancy, help the weak creation of Thy hands ! Sustain me through the ordeal I dread and must undergo ! Give me strength ! Give me patience ! Give me — oh, give me faith ! 52 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY Freedom. Oh, for rest under my own vine and fig-tree ! Happy is the slave wife of the Indian chief, in that she has no drawing-room duty to perform, but can sit at ease weaving mats and stringing beads ! An Autumn Day. It was a peaceful Autumn day. The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed the pastures far and wide. The russet woods stood ripe to be stript, but were yet full of leaf. The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills. The beck wandered down to the Hollow, through a silent district ; no wind followed its course, or haunted its woody borders. Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay. On the walks, swept that morning, yellow leaves had fluttered down again. Its time of flowers and even of fruits was over ; but a scantling of apples enriched the trees ; only a blossom here and there expanded pale and delicate amidst a knot of faded leaves. SHIRLEY 53 True Bliss. For my part I am almost contented just now, and very thankful. Gratitude is a divine emotion : it fills the heart, but not to bursting ; it warms it, but not to fever. I like to taste leisurely of bliss : devoured in haste, I do not know its flavour. Solitude. I used rather to like Solitude — ^to fancy her a somewhat quiet and serious, yet fair nymph ; an Oread, descending to me from lone mountain-passes ; something of the blue mist of hills in her array and of their chill breeze in her breath — but much, also, of their solemn beauty in her mien. I once could court her serenely, and imagine my heart easier when I held her to it — all mute, but majestic. Three Terrible Archangels. The winter is over and gone : Spring has followed with beamy and shadowy, with flowery and showery flight ; we are now in the heart of Summer — ^in mid- June, — ^the June of 1812. It is burning weather ; the air is deep 54 A CHARLOTTE BRONTE ANTHOLOGY azure and red gold ; it fits the time ; it fits the age ; it fits the present spirit of the nations. The nineteenth century wantons in its giant adolescence : the Titan-boy up- roots mountains in his game and hurls rocks in his wild sport. This summer Bonaparte is in the saddle ; he and his host scour Rus- sian deserts ; he has with him Frenchmen and Poles, Italians and children of the Rhine, six hundred thousand strong. He marches on old Moscow ; under old Mos- cow's walls the rude Cossack waits him. Barbarian stoic ! he waits without fear of the boundless ruin rolling on. He puts his trust in a snow-cloud : the Wilderness, the Wind, the Hail-Storm are his refuge : his allies are the elements — ^Air, Fire, Water. And what are these ? Three terrible arch- angels ever stationed before the throne of Jehovah. They stand clothed in white, girdled with golden, girdles ; they uplift vials, brimming with the wrath of God. Their time is the day of vengeance, their signal the word of the Lord of Hosts, " thundering with the voice of His excel- lency." Printed ia Great Britaia by The Whitefriars Press, Ltd., London and Tonbridge. ^':J'\M, ^a"^ M^