It was a flattering proposal, but I felt compelled to decline it. I was well aware that I could not put myself into competition with Mrs. Gaskell, even if I desired to do so, and I had no wish to appear to attack a book which I regarded as one of the masterpieces of English biography. But Miss Nussey was persistent, and she offered me the use of all Charlotte's correspondence with her, including the letters relating to her courtship and marriage, which Mrs. Gaskell had never even seen. After I had read these letters and other documents with which Miss Nussey furnished me, I suggested that, if I could not write a book, I might still make one or two interesting magazine articles out of the materials in my possession. Miss Nussey embraced this idea with enthusiasm, protesting that so long as she could see Charlotte "set right" in the eyes of the world, she would be perfectly satisfied with anything I chose to do. Accordingly, in the spring of 1866, I wrote three articles which appeared in _Macmillan's Magazine_. I wrote them with fear and trembling, and I must add that I wrote them without any kind of encouragement from outside, other than that which I received from Miss Nussey herself. The general impression among the editors and critics of the day was that there was nothing new to be said about the Brontës, and that, even if there were, the public would not care to hear it. The kind and genial editor of _Macmillan's Magazine_ himself--Sir George Grove--shared this conviction, and it was only at the urgent request of William Black, through whom I approached him, that he agreed to look at my articles. However, having seen them, he liked them, and wrote to me warmly in their praise. Nor did the public like them less, if Sir George Grove was correct in his statement that these contributions of mine about the author of "Jane Eyre" had done more to increase the sale of the magazine than any article since Mrs. Stowe's famous defamation of Lord Byron.