Currer Bell’s love of nature was remarkable. A Yorkshire moor is for the most part wild and grotesque, but her eye brims with a “purple light,” intense enough to perpetuate the brief flower-flush of August on the heather, or the rare sunset smile of June. We might quote in illustration of these remarks, pictures of nature, so detailed, definite, and fresh, that they give us an assurance as of eyesight. Take the following bit of woodland painting from “Shirley,” published in October, 1849: “I know all the pleasantest spots: I know where we could get nuts in nutting time; I know where wild strawberries abound; I know certain lonely, quite untrodden glades, carpeted with strange mosses, some yellow as if gilded, some sober grey, some gem green. I know groups of trees that ravish the eye with their perfect picture-like effects: rude oak, delicate birch, glossy beech, clustered in contrast; and ash trees stately as Saul, standing isolated, and superannuated wood giants clad in bright shrouds of ivy.” Many similar, and even superior passages might be cited from this brilliant novel.
Works of fiction belong to the province of imagination; and this faculty was largely developed in Currer Bell, and has spread the unmistakable splendour of its embellishment over her pages. There are passages in her works, not only distinct from their general texture, but from anything we know in English literature. The personification of nature in “Shirley” is perhaps the finest. “I saw—I now see—a woman Titan; her robe of blue air spreads to the outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing, a veil, white as an avalanche, sweeps from her head to her feet, and arabesques of lightning flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple like the horizon; through its blush shines the star of evening. The steady eyes I cannot picture. They are clear, they are deep as lakes, they are lifted and full of worship, they tremble with the softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark gathers; she reclines her bosom on the ridge of Stillbro’ Moor, her mighty hands are joined beneath it, so kneeling, face to face she speaks with God.” Apostrophic bursts are common enough in all our more imaginative prose writers; but the chiselling of the entire figure from the flameless marble, and the leaving it for ever in the loveliness of its beauty, is peculiar to the prose of Currer Bell.
In the delineation of one absorbing and tyrannizing passion, Currer Bell, is altogether sui generis. With a bold and steady hand she depicts passion in all its stages; we may weep and tremble, but her nerves do not quiver, neither do her eyes film. “Villette,” commenced in the autumn of 1850, and brought to a conclusion in November, 1851, is a tale of the affections. A burning heart glows throughout its pages, and so true to nature is the delineation, that it is impossible to doubt that living hearts have actually throbbed with like passion. The eloquence and graphic description which mark the closing scenes of this tale, the authoress has not equalled elsewhere.
There is much that is stirring and healthful in the works of Currer Bell. The idea of Johnson was that marriages might well enough be arranged by the chancellor! But although the Christian world very generally seems to be of the same opinion, she taught the sacredness of the natural affections in the formation of the marriage relationship—the absolute necessity of love. Poltroonery, pretentious feebleness, and cowardly falsehood, are crowned with the diadem of scorn; and all the stalwart virtues are signally honoured.
CHARACTER OF MRS. NICHOLLS.
The following personal description is from her Life by Mrs. Gaskell. “In 1831, she was a quiet, thoughtful girl, of nearly fifteen years of age, very small in figure—‘stunted’ was the word she applied to herself; but as her limbs and head were in just proportion to the slight, fragile body, no word in ever so slight a degree suggestive of deformity could properly be applied to her; with soft, thick, brown hair, and peculiar eyes, of which I find it difficult to give a description as they appeared to me in later life. They were large and well shaped; their colour a reddish brown; but if the iris were closely examined, it appeared to be composed of a great variety of tints. The usual expression was of quiet, listening intelligence; but now and then, on some just occasion for vivid interest or wholesome indignation, a light would shine out, as if some spiritual lamp had been kindled, which glowed behind those expressive orbs. I never saw the like in any other human creature. As for the rest of her features, they were plain, large, and ill set; but, unless you began to catalogue them, you were hardly aware of the fact; for the eyes and power of the countenance overbalanced every physical defect; the crooked mouth and the large nose were forgotten, and the whole face arrested the attention and presently attracted all those whom she herself would have cared to attract. Her hands and feet were the smallest I ever saw; when one of the former was placed in mine, it was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my palm. The delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensation, which was one reason why all her handiwork, of whatever kind—writing, sewing, knitting—was so clear in its minuteness. She was remarkably neat in her whole personal attire; but she was dainty as to the fit of her shoes and gloves.”
There are different classes of great minds. Some are great in collecting, others in creating. The former is talent, the latter is genius. Some have the power of absorbing what they see and hear in the external world: they “gather honey all the day from every opening flower;” but they add no new thoughts. Others are characterized by originality of thought; they investigate new subjects, form new worlds, and spin new creations out of their own minds. Currer Bell belonged to this class. Some are capable of receiving much knowledge, but are unable to turn it to any purpose; they have read the standard authors, and have plenty of facts, but they know not how to use them. Currer Bell could form a system, she knew how to write a book.
Through the whole of her life she had a sacred regard for the rules of morality. One of her school-fellows informs us that she could get on with those who had bumps at the top of their heads. An intelligent old man living at Haworth, said to her biographer:—“Charlotte would sit and inquire about our circumstances so kindly and feelingly!... Though I am a poor working man (which I never felt to be any degradation), I could talk with her with the utmost freedom. I always felt quite at home with her. Though I never had any school education, I never felt the want of it in her company.”