The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 2Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
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The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 2
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Biography
I remember the good expression of disgust which Miss Brontë made use of
in speaking to me of some of Balzac's novels: "They leave such a bad
taste in my mouth."
The reader will notice that most of the letters from which I now quote
are devoted to critical and literary subjects. These were, indeed, her
principal interests at this time; the revision of her sister's works,
and writing a short memoir of them, was the painful employment of every
day during the dreary autumn of 1850. Wearied out by the vividness
of her sorrowful recollections, she sought relief in long walks on
the moors. A friend of hers, who wrote to me on the appearance of the
eloquent article in the Daily News upon the "Death of Currer Bell,"
gives an anecdote which may well come in here.
"They are mistaken in saying she was too weak to roam the hills for
the benefit of the air. I do not think any one, certainly not any
woman, in this locality, went so much on the moors as she did, when the
weather permitted. Indeed, she was so much in the habit of doing so,
that people, who live quite away on the edge of the common, knew her
perfectly well. I remember on one occasion an old woman saw her at a
little distance, and she called out, 'How! Miss Brontë! Hey yah (have
you) seen ought o' my cofe (calf)?' Miss Brontë told her she could not
say, for she did not know it. 'Well!' she said, 'Yah know, it's getting
up like nah (now), between a cah (cow) and a cofe--what we call a stirk,
yah know, Miss Brontë; will yah turn it this way if yah happen to see't,
as yah're going back, Miss Brontë; nah DO, Miss Brontë.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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