The Books: The Life of Charlotte Brontë, by Elizabeth Gaskell

Daily Book Excerpt: Biography

Next biography on this shelf is The Life of Charlotte Brontë, by Elizabeth Gaskell

“It is a fascinating book. Perhaps because it is so full of mystery — the mystery of those three strange Bronte women — those ‘gray sisters’ and their weird lives.
Emily Bronte is a mysterious figure. The impression left of her from reading The Life is not a pleasant one. She seemed to have no friends. Yet Charlotte loved her devotedly. The picture drawn of her stubborn gallant senseless heroic fight against death is a wonderful one. Nothing in literature is more poignant and pathetic than her sudden useless capitulation at the last moment — ‘If you call a doctor, I will see him now.’ Too late — too late … Her genius was really greater than Charlotte’s — and even narrower. But the world did not know it when she died. Strange Emily Bronte.”
— entry in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s journal about Elizabeth Gaskell’s book

Charlotte Brontë died in 1855, and this biography, by someone who knew the Brontë family, novelist Elizabeth Gaskell (or, just, Mrs. Gaskell), came out in 1857. It is still in print. For the biography genre, this is nothing less than extraordinary. Styles and trends in biography change very quickly, and updated information often renders earlier biographies on a certain subject null and void. But Mrs. Gaskell’s book remains. If you walk into any well-stocked bookstore (I was going to say Borders, but never mind), and look for a biography of Charlotte Brontë, you will find Mrs. Gaskell’s book on the shelf. It is incredible, the lasting power of this book. Mrs. Gaskell almost single-handedly created “the Brontë myth”: the isolated wild moors, the misery of much of the Brontë children’s existence, the harshness of the landscape, the weirdness of the Brontë children. Much of this has since been, if not debunked, then certainly modified by Juliet Barker’s giant game-changing biography in 1996. A controversial volume – Barker pierced through the mist of Mrs. Gaskell’s enduring myths, backing up her research with voluminous documentation. Barker was the curator and librarian at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, and lived very close to Haworth. But I’ll get to that book when I get to it. The point being: anyone who writes a biography of any one of the Brontës, still has to deal with the authority of Mrs. Gaskell’s book. Again, this is so rare as to be almost unheard of. It was published in 1857. Due to the mores of the time, Mrs. Gaskell left a lot of stuff out (Brontës love affair with a married man) because it would hurt Charlotte’s father and widow. Mrs. Gaskell has a “take” on the Brontës and nothing will sway her from that take. But it took over a century for someone to come along with enough documentation, and the patience to methodically list it out for the reader, to take on Mrs. Gaskell’s “take”, and essentially say, “Let’s look at what it REALLY was like for them.”

The tone of Mrs. Gaskell’s book is often gossipy. Mrs. Gaskell says stuff like, “When I knew Charlotte …”, inserting herself into the story. It is both charming and obnoxious.

As a trusted friend of the Brontë family, Mrs. Gaskell was given access to Charlotte Brontë’s personal papers, and the hundreds of fantastic letters she wrote, mainly to her dear friend Ellen Nussey. Much of the book is in Charlotte Brontë’s own voice.

The Brontë myth is so enduring because it is so attractive. The Brontë children, six of them, grew up in supposed isolation, and occupied themselves by writing plays and stories and newspapers, and long Tolkien-esque novels in miniscule print. They were all artists. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, obviously, all went on to write books of varying success. Charlotte and Emily’s books have endured longer than Anne’s. The public reaction to the books (written under male pseudonyms) at the time was varied, but, of course, Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights are now considered classics.

The oldest Brontë, Maria, died at the age of 11, after experiencing tremendous deprivation at her school (similar to the deprivations suffered by the fictional Jane Eyre). Then there was Elizabeth, who died at the age of 10, only a couple of weeks after Maria, also after attending the same school. It is an outrage how children were treated at such schools. The hunger and constant cold lowered their reserves, and the clustering of so many children in one place made the entire joint susceptible to disease. Charlotte’s evocation of “Lowood School” in Jane Eyre is an indictment of what happened to her two sisters. Then came Charlotte, the sole brother Branwell, Emily, and Anne. Branwell died in 1848 at the age of 31. Emily died in 1848 at the age of 30. Anne died in 1849 at the age of 29. Look at the ruthless nature of those dates. I can only imagine what Charlotte (and her father Patrick) experienced in those horrible horrible years. And Charlotte died at 39. It’s a brutal story.

But the Brontës certainly got a lot done in their short time on the planet. Maybe there was something inspirational in the water out at Haworth Parsonage.

Mrs. Gaskell’s book starts with an evocative chapter describing the isolation of the parsonage and the wildness of the surrounding moors. The cold, the damp, the insistence of the natural world all around them … the Parsonage a small stone building huddled into itself against the elements. Inside that house, four geniuses ran pretty free, allowed to do whatever they liked, and what they liked was making stuff up. Each surviving Brontë has his or her own qualities and characteristics, and Mrs. Gaskell paints each one for us, specifically. There are some chapters that are made up entirely of Charlotte’s chatty letters to her friends and also family, when she was away working as a governess.

Times may change, and trends come and go, but Mrs. Gaskell’s book, still going strong since 1857, will always be a classic of biography.

Here is an excerpt. The “yet in manuscript” volume of Charlotte Brontë’s that Mrs. Gaskell mentions here is Charlotte’s posthumous novel ‘The Professor’ (written before Jane Eyre, but published in 1857), which told the tale of Charlotte’s love affair with a married man. You can see how Mrs. Gaskell skirts the topic, as well as judges the book for its CONTENT. It was a different time. Or who knows, maybe Mrs. Gaskell has a point. (I have not read The Professor.) But here, in this excerpt, she describes the struggle to get Jane Eyre published.

I like this excerpt because it describes Charlotte Brontë’s meticulous process as a writer.

Excerpt from The Life of Charlotte Brontë

All this time, notwithstanding the domestic anxieties which were harassing them – notwithstanding the ill-success of their poems – the three sisters were trying that other literary venture, to which Charlotte made allusion in one of her letters to the Messrs. Aylott. Each of them had written a prose tale, hoping that the three might be published together. ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Agnes Grey’ are before the world. The third – Charlotte’s contribution – is yet in manuscript, but will be published shortly after the appearance of this memoir. The plot in itself is of no great interest; but it is a poor kind of interest that depends upon startling incidents rather than upon dramatic development of character; and Charlotte Brontë never excelled one or two sketches of portraits which she has given in ‘The Professor’, nor, in grace of womanhood, ever surpassed one of the female characters there described. By the time she wrote this tale, her taste and judgment had revolted against the exaggerated idealisms of her early girlhood, and she went to the extreme of reality, closely depicting characters as they had shown themselves to her in actual life; if there they were strong even to coarseness, – as was the case with some that she had met with in flesh and blood existence, – she ‘wrote them down an ass,’ if the scenery of such life as she saw was for the most part wild and grotesque, instead of pleasant or picturesque, she described it line for line. The grace of the one or two scenes and characters, which are drawn rather from her own imagination than from absolute fact, stand out in exquisite relief from the deep shadows and wayward lines of others, which call to mind some of the portraits of Rembrandt.

The three tales had tried their fate in vain together, at length they were sent forth separately, and for many months with still-continued ill success. I have mentioned this here, because, among the dispiriting circumstances connected with her anxious visit to Manchester, Charlotte told me that her tale came back upon her hands, curtly rejected by some publisher, on the very day when her father was to submit to his operation. But she had the heart of Robert Bruce within her, and failure upon failure daunted her no more than him. Not only did ‘The Professor’ return again to try his chance among the London publishers, but she began, in this time of care and depressing inquietude, – in those grey, weary, uniform streets, where all faces, save that of her kind doctor, were strange and untouched with sunlight to her, – there and then, did the brave genius begin ‘Jane Eyre’. Read what she herself says: — ‘Currer Bell’s book found acceptance nowhere, nor any acknowledgement of merit, so that something like the chill of despair began to invade his heart.’ And, remember, it was not the heart of a person who, disappointed in one hope, can turn with redoubled affection to the many certain blessings that remain. Think of her home, and the black shadow of remorse lying over one in it, till his very brain was mazed, and his gifts and his life were lost; – think of her father’s sight hanging on a thread; – of her sisters’ delicate health, and dependence on her care; – and then admire as it deserves to be admired, the steady courage which could work away at ‘Jane Eyre’, all the time ‘that the one-volume tale was plodding its weary round in London.’

I believe I have already mentioned, that some of her surviving friends consider that any incident which she heard, when at school at Miss Wooler’s, was the germ of the story of Jane Eyre/ But of this nothing can be known, except by conjecture. Those to whom she spoke upon the subject of her writings are dead and silent; and the reader may probably have noticed, that in the correspondence from which I have quoted, there has been no allusion whatever to the publication of her poems, nor is there the least hint of the intention of the sisters to publish any tales. I remember, however, many little particulars which Miss Brontë gave me, in answer to my inquiries respecting her mode of composition, &c. She said, that it was not every day that she could write. Sometimes weeks or even months elapsed before she felt that she had anything to add to that portion of her story which was already written. Then, some morning, she would waken up, and the progress of her tale lay clear and bright before her, in distinct vision. When this was the case, all her care was to discharge her household and filial duties, so as to obtain leisure to sit down and write out the incidents and consequent thoughts, which were, in fact, more present to her mind at such times than her actual life itself. Yet notwithstanding this ‘possession’ (as it were), those who survive, of her daily and household companions, are clear in their testimony, that never was the claim of any duty, never was the call of another for help, neglected for an instant. It had become necessary to give Tabby – now nearly eighty years of age – the assistance of a girl. Tabby relinquished any of her work with jealous reluctance, and could not bear to be reminded, though ever so delicately, that the acuteness of her senses was dulled by age. The other servant might not interfere with what she chose to consider her exclusive work. Among other things, she reserved to herself the right of peeling the potatoes for dinner; but as she was growing blind, she often left in those black specks, which we in the North call the ‘eyes’ of the potato. Miss Brontë was too dainty a housekeeper to put up with this; yet she could not bear to hurt the faithful old servant, by bidding the younger maiden go over the potatoes again, and so reminding Tabby that her work was less effectual than formerly. Accordingly she would steal into the kitchen, and quietly carry off the bowl of vegetables, without Tabby’s being aware, and breaking off in the full flow of interest and inspiration in her writing, carefully cut out the specks in the potatoes, and noiselessly carry them back to their place. This little proceeding may show how orderly and fully she accomplished her duties, even at those times when the ‘possession’ was upon her.

Anyone who has studied her writings, – whether in print or in her letters; any one who has enjoyed the rare privilege of listening to her talk, must have noticed her singular felicity in the choice of words. She herself, in writing her books, was solicitous on this point. One set of words was the truthful mirror of her thoughts; no others, however apparently identical in meaning, could do. She had that strong practical regard for the simple holy truth of expression, which Mr. Trench had enforced, as a duty too often neglected. She would wait patiently searching for the right term, until it presented itself to her. it might be provincial, it might be derived from the Latin; so that it accurately represented her idea, she did not mind whence it came; but this care makes her style present in the finish of a piece of mosaic. Each component part, however small, has been dropped into the right place. She never wrote down a sentence until she clearly understood what she wanted to say, had deliberately chosen the words, and arranged them in their right order. Hence it comes that, in the scraps of paper covered with her pencil writing which I have seen, there will occasionally be a sentence scored out, but seldom, if ever, a word or an expression. She wrote on those bits of paper in a minute hand, holding each against a piece of board, such as is used in binding books, for a desk. This plan was necessary for one so short-sighted as she was; and, besides, it enabled her to use pencil and paper, as she sat near the fire in the twilight hours, or if (as was too often the case) she was wakeful in the hours of the night. Her finished manuscripts were copied from these pencil scraps, in clear, legible, delicate traced writing, almost as easy to read as print.

The sisters retained the old habit, which was begun in their aunt’s life-time, of putting away their work at nine o’clock, and beginning their study, pacing up and down the sitting-room. At this time, they talked over the stories they were engaged upon, and described their plots. Once or twice a week, each read to the others what she had written, and heard what they had to say about it. Charlotte told me, that the remarks made had seldom any effect in inducing her to alter her work, so possessed was she with the feeling that she had described reality; but the readings were of great and stirring interest to all, taking them out of the gnawing pressure of daily-recurring cares, and setting them in a free place. It was on one of these occasions, that Charlotte determined to make her heroine plain, small, and unattractive, in defiance of the accepted custom.

The writer of the beautiful obituary article on ‘the death of Currer Bell’, most likely learnt from herself what is there stated, and which I will take the liberty of quoting, about Jane Eyre.

‘She once told her sisters that they were wrong – even morally wrong – in making their heroines beautiful as a matter of course. They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine interesting on any other terms. Her answer was, “I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.” Hence “Jane Eyre,” said she in telling the anecdote: “but she is not myself, any further from that.” As the work went on, the interest deepened to the writer. When she came to “Thornfield” she could not stop. Being short-sighted to excess, she wrote in little square paper-books, held close to her eyes, and (the first copy) in pencil. On she went, writing incessantly for three weeks; by which time she had carried her heroine away from Thornfield, and was herself in a fever which compelled her to pause.’

This is all, I believe, which can now be told respecting the conception and composition of this wonderful book, which was, however, only at its commencement when Miss Brontë returned with her father to Haworth, after their anxious expedition to Manchester.