Charlotte’s well-known portrait.
The engraving.
Mr. Nicholls asked me to step into the parlor and look at Charlotte’s portrait. It is the one from which the engraving in the ‘Life’ (Mrs. Gaskell’s) is made; but the latter does no justice to the picture, which Mr. Nicholls said was a perfect likeness of the original. I remarked that the engraving gives to the face, and especially to the eyes, a weird, sinister and unpleasant expression which did not appear in the portrait. He said he had observed it, and that nothing could be more unjust, for Charlotte’s eyes were as soft and affectionate in their expression as could possibly be conceived.
Account of an Interview with Mr. Brontë and Mr. Nicholls, quoted by T. W. Reid.
Personal traits: Miss Martineau’s notes.
Slightly morbid.
Between the appearance of ‘Shirley’ and that of ‘Villette’ she came to me;—in December, 1850. Our intercourse then confirmed my deep impression of her integrity, her noble conscientiousness about her vocation, and her consequent self-reliance in the moral conduct of her life. I saw at the same time tokens of a morbid condition of mind, in one or two directions;—much less than might have been expected, or than would have been seen in almost any one else under circumstances so unfavorable to health of body and mind as those in which she lived.
Unspoilable.
She was not only unspoiled by her sudden and prodigious fame, but obviously unspoilable. She was somewhat amazed by her fame, but oftener annoyed; at least when obliged to come out into the world to meet it, instead of its reaching her in her secluded home in the wilds of Yorkshire.