Pen-portraits of literary women : $b by themselves and others, Volume 2 (of 2)

Authors, English -- Biography; Women authors, English -- Biography

solemn, full alike of resignation and of rapture, as wholly stripped
and cleared and lightened from all burdens and all bandages and all
incrustations of creed as it is utterly pervaded and possessed by the
sublime and irrefutable passion of belief.

A. C. SWINBURNE: ‘A Note on Charlotte Brontë.’

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: George Eliot on ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Villette.’]

I have read ‘Jane Eyre,’ and shall be glad to know what you admire
in it. All self-sacrifice is good, but one would like it to be in a
somewhat nobler cause than that of a diabolical law which chains a
man soul and body to a putrefying carcass. However, the book _is_
interesting; only I wish the characters would talk a little less like
the heroes and heroines of police reports.

GEORGE ELIOT: _Letter_ to Charles Bray, 1848.

       *       *       *       *       *

I am only just returned to a sense of the real world about me, for I
have been reading ‘Villette,’ a still more wonderful book than ‘Jane
Eyre.’ There is something almost preternatural in its power.

GEORGE ELIOT: _Letter_ to Mrs. Bray, in ‘George Eliot’s Life,’ 1853.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Thackeray on Charlotte Brontë’s works and life.]

Which of her readers has not become her friend? Who that has known her
books has not admired the artist’s noble English, the burning love
of truth, the bravery, the simplicity, the indignation at wrong, the
eager sympathy, the pious love and reverence, the passionate honor, so
to speak, of the woman? What a story is that of that family of poets
in their solitude yonder on the gloomy northern moors!... As one
thinks of that life so noble, so lonely--of that passion for truth--of
those nights and nights of eager study, swarming fancies, invention,
depression, elation, prayer; as one reads the necessarily incomplete,
though most touching and admirable, history of the heart that throbbed
in this one little frame--of this one among the myriads of souls that
have lived and died on this great earth--this great earth?--this little
speck in the infinite universe of God--with what wonder do we think
of to-day, with what awe await to-morrow, when that which is now but
darkly seen shall be clear!

WM. M. THACKERAY: ‘Roundabout Papers.’


FOOTNOTES:

[8] Haworth Churchyard.

[9] A name playfully applied to Emily by her sisters.




                     MARIAN EVANS (LEWES) (CROSS).

                            (GEORGE ELIOT.)

                              1819-1880.




                     MARIAN EVANS (LEWES) (CROSS).

                            (GEORGE ELIOT.)

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

General

Pen-portraits of literary women : $b by themselves and others, Volume 2 (of 2)

Authors, English -- Biography; Women authors, English -- Biography

solemn, full alike of resignation and of rapture, as wholly stripped
and cleared and lightened from all burdens and all bandages and all
incrustations of creed as it is utterly pervaded and possessed by the
sublime and irrefutable passion of belief.

A. C. SWINBURNE: ‘A Note on Charlotte Brontë.’

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: George Eliot on ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Villette.’]

I have read ‘Jane Eyre,’ and shall be glad to know what you admire
in it. All self-sacrifice is good, but one would like it to be in a
somewhat nobler cause than that of a diabolical law which chains a
man soul and body to a putrefying carcass. However, the book _is_
interesting; only I wish the characters would talk a little less like
the heroes and heroines of police reports.

GEORGE ELIOT: _Letter_ to Charles Bray, 1848.

       *       *       *       *       *

I am only just returned to a sense of the real world about me, for I
have been reading ‘Villette,’ a still more wonderful book than ‘Jane
Eyre.’ There is something almost preternatural in its power.

GEORGE ELIOT: _Letter_ to Mrs. Bray, in ‘George Eliot’s Life,’ 1853.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: Thackeray on Charlotte Brontë’s works and life.]

Which of her readers has not become her friend? Who that has known her
books has not admired the artist’s noble English, the burning love
of truth, the bravery, the simplicity, the indignation at wrong, the
eager sympathy, the pious love and reverence, the passionate honor, so
to speak, of the woman? What a story is that of that family of poets
in their solitude yonder on the gloomy northern moors!... As one
thinks of that life so noble, so lonely--of that passion for truth--of
those nights and nights of eager study, swarming fancies, invention,
depression, elation, prayer; as one reads the necessarily incomplete,
though most touching and admirable, history of the heart that throbbed
in this one little frame--of this one among the myriads of souls that
have lived and died on this great earth--this great earth?--this little
speck in the infinite universe of God--with what wonder do we think
of to-day, with what awe await to-morrow, when that which is now but
darkly seen shall be clear!

WM. M. THACKERAY: ‘Roundabout Papers.’


FOOTNOTES:

[8] Haworth Churchyard.

[9] A name playfully applied to Emily by her sisters.




                     MARIAN EVANS (LEWES) (CROSS).

                            (GEORGE ELIOT.)

                              1819-1880.




                     MARIAN EVANS (LEWES) (CROSS).

                            (GEORGE ELIOT.)

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Pen-portraits of literary women : $b by themselves and others, Volume 2 (of 2)

Pen-portraits of literary women : $b by themselves and others, Volume 2 (of 2)

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