It must have been about 1835 that Miss Mitford first saw Miss Barrett, and to this period the following portrait in the “Recollections of a Literary Life” doubtless referred:—“My first acquaintance with Elizabeth Barrett commenced about fifteen years ago. She was certainly one of the most interesting persons I had ever seen. Everybody who then saw her said the same; so it is not merely the impression of my partiality or my enthusiasm. Of a slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark curls falling on either side of a most expressive face, large tender eyes richly fringed by dark eyelashes, a smile like a sunbeam, and such a look of youthfulness, that I had some difficulty in persuading a friend, in whose carriage we went together to Chiswick, that the translatress of the “Prometheus” of Æschylus, the authoress of the “Essay on Mind,” was old enough to be introduced into company; in technical language—was out.” But although not strikingly fair to look upon, her nature was so gentle, and her manners so interesting, that they stood her in the stead of health and beauty.
Mrs. Browning was endowed with the highest imaginative and intellectual qualities. In her poems are passages which admit of being compared with those of the few sovereigns of literature; touches which only the mightiest give. We admire and reverence the breadth and versatility of her genius; no sameness; no one idea; no type character; a woman of great acuteness and originality—one of the prime spirits of this century.
Our poetess laid her splendid powers on the altar of God. Deep chastened affection, and nobleness of faith glow and sparkle in her life as well as in her verse, with a rare brilliancy. “She is a Christian,” to quote the words of a popular writer, “not in the sense of appreciating, like Carlyle, the loftiness of the Christian type of character; not in the sense of adopting, like Goethe, a Christian machinery for artistic self-worship; nor even in the sense of approaching, like Wordsworth, an august but abstract morality; but in the sense of finding, like Cowper, the whole hope of humanity bound up in Christ, and taking all the children of her mind to Him, that He may lay His hand on them and bless them. It is well that Mrs. Browning is a Christian. It is difficult, but possible, to bear the reflection that many great female writers have rejected that gospel which has done more for woman than any other civilizing agency; but it is well that the greatest woman of all looks up in faith and love to that eye which fell on Mary from the cross.”
SECTION VII.—CHARLOTTE NICHOLLS.
[CURRER BELL.]
“I turn from the critical unsympathetic, public,—inclined to judge harshly because they have only seen superficially and not thought deeply. I appeal to that larger and more solemn public, who know how to look with tender humility at faults and errors; how to admire generously extraordinary genius, and how to reverence with warm, full hearts, all noble virtue.”
E. C. Gaskell.
WORKS OF FICTION.
There are few things more worthy of notice than those strange mutations of opinion, and returning circuits of belief, to which the human mind is subject. The same tastes and habits, the same fashions and follies, the same delusions and the same doubts, seem to have their periodical cycles of recurrence. Theories which have been solemnly buried, suddenly rear their unexpected heads, and are received with all the more favour because of the contempt and derision which followed them to the grave. How many things are taken for granted which want thinking about! The wholesale condemnation of works of fiction is consummate absurdity. When all are condemned, people are apt to suppose that any may be read with impunity. Some novelists have sought for their heroes and heroines among thieves and desperadoes; flagitiously indifferent alike to fact and morality, they have laboured with pernicious success to invest these wretched characters with a halo of romantic interest and dignity: but if on this account we give up the principle, then we must give up poetry, fable, allegory, and all kinds of imaginative literature. The society of our highest intellects must be renounced. Fictitious literature has been condemned on the ground that those novels which are taken up with a description of the world in its most vain and frivolous aspects, are the most popular. This is not true. The works of our modern fictionists are exceedingly popular; and no one acquainted with them will dare to say they are open to such a charge. Not a few object to works of fiction because they make them discontented with real life. It is true the Bible teaches us that it is wrong to murmur at the allotments of Providence; and the Episcopal Church beautifully prays every day, “Give us always minds contented with our present condition.” But it is equally true that the Scriptures teach us to aim at a higher standard than we have yet attained, and clergymen inculcate the necessity for progress. We ought to be dissatisfied with ourselves, and with many things that we see in others. Let us seek to rise to the lofty ideal presented in good novels, and if we do not find that our ascending steps lead us into a purer atmosphere, and into regions where grow perennial fruit—then complain.
BIOGRAPHY.
Charlotte Brontë was born at Thornton, in the parish of Bradford, on the 21st of April, 1816. Her father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, was a native of the County Down, in Ireland; and her mother, Maria, was the third daughter of Mr. Thomas Branwell, Penzance, Cornwall. In 1820, Mr. Brontë removed to Haworth, a chapelry in the West Riding, and Mrs. Brontë died the following year. Charlotte in after-years could but dimly recall the remembrance of her mother. The servants were impressed with the cleverness of the little Brontës, and often said they had never seen such a clever child as Charlotte. Mr. Brontë’s account of his children is exceedingly interesting:—