In a letter to William Smith Williams, the literary advisor to her publisher and a close correspondent, Charlotte Brontë discusses the characters in her own and her sisters’ work and praises William Thackeray as a genius of his time. Brontë refers to herself and her sisters as the Bells, their pseudonym; they had revealed their true identities to their publisher only a month before.
[Haworth]
My dear Sir
My sister Anne thanks you, as well as myself, for your just critique on “Wildfell Hall.” It appears to me that your observations exactly hit both the strong and weak points of the book, and the advice which accompanies them, is worthy of, and shall receive our most careful attention.
The first duty of an Author is—I conceive—a faithful allegiance to Truth and Nature; his second, such a conscientious study of Art as shall enable him to interpret eloquently and effectively the oracles delivered by those two great deities. The “Bells” are very sincere in their worship of Truth, and they hope so to apply themselves to the consideration of Art to attain, one day, the power of speaking the language of conviction in the accents of persuasion; though they rather apprehend that whatever pains they take to modify and soften, an abrupt word or vehement tone will now and then occur to startle ears polite, whenever the subject shall chance to be such as moves their spirits within them.
I have already told you, I believe, that I regard Mr. Thackeray as the first of Modern Masters, as the legitimate High Priest of Truth; I study him accordingly with reverence: he—I see—keeps the mermaid’s tail below water, and only hints at the dead men’s bones and noxious slime amidst which it wriggles; but—his hint is more vivid than other men’s elaborate explanations, and never is his satire whetted to so keep an edge as when with quiet mocking irony he modestly recommends to the approbation of the Public his own exemplary discretion and forbearance. The world begins to know Thackeray rather better than it did two years—or even a year ago—but as yet it only half knows him. His mind seems to me a fabric as simple and unpretending as it is deep-founded and enduring—there is no meretricious ornament to attract or be fully appreciated with time. There is something, a sort of “still profound” revealed in the concluding part of “Vanity Fair” which the discernment of one generation will not suffice to fathom—a hundred years hence—if he only lives to do justice to himself—he will be better known than he is now. A hundred years hence, some thoughtful critic—standing and looking down on the deep waters—will see shining through them the pearl without price of a purely original mind—such a mind as the Bulwers &c. his contemporaries—have not: not acquirements gained from study—but the thing that came into the world with him—his inherent genius: the thing that made him—I doubt not different as a child from other children, that caused him, perhaps, peculiar griefs and struggles in life—and that now makes him as a writer, unlike other writers. Excuse me for recurring to this theme—I do not wish to bore you.
You say, Mr Huntingdon reminds you of Mr. Rochester—does he? Yet there is no likeness between the two; the foundation of each character is entirely different. Huntingdon is a specimen of the naturally selfish sensual, superficial man whose one merit of a joyous temperament only avails him while he is young and healthy, whose best days are his earliest, who never profits by experience, who is sure to grow worse, the older he grows. Mr. Rochester has a thoughtful nature and a very feeling heart; he is neither selfish nor self-indulgent; he is ill-educated, mis-guided, errs, when he does err, through rashness and inexperience: he lives for a time as too many other men live—but being radically better than most men he does not like that degraded life, and is never happy in it. He is taught the severe lessons of Experience and has sense to learn wisdom from them—years improve him—the effervescence of youth foamed away, what is really good in him still remains—his nature is like wine of a good vintage, time cannot sour—but only mellows him. Such at least was the character I meant to pourtray.
Heathcliffe, again, of “Wuthering Heights,” is quite another creation. He exemplifies the effects which a life of continued injustice and hard usage may produce on a naturally perverse, vindictive and inexorable disposition. Carefully trained and kindly treated, the black gypsey-cub might possibly have been reared into a human being, but tyranny and ignorance made of him a mere demon. The worst of it is, some of his spirit seems breathed through the whole narrative in which he figures: it haunts every moor and glen, and beckons in every fir-tree of the “Heights.”…
I hope Mrs. Williams health is more satisfactory than when you last wrote—with every good wish to yourself & your family
Believe me, my dear Sir,
Yours sincerely
C Brontë
From Selected Letters of Charlotte Brontë. Edited by Margaret Smith. Oxford University Press, 2007. 259 pp.
FURTHER READING
Charlotte Brontë so admiredWilliam Thackeray that she dedicated Jane Eyre to him, unaware that he, like the novel’s Mr. Rochester, was estranged from his insane wife; luckily, Thackeray was gracious about it. To view an excerpt of the dedication and other documents in an interactive exhibit on Thackeray, click here.
Though Mr. Rochester is often deemed abusive and unlovable, many readers share his creator’s sympathetic attitude. Click here for Penny Vincenzi’s defense of Jane Eyre‘s hero and here for Lucasta Miller’s discussion of the novel as a whole.