The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 2 — John Shaqi
The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 2Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
General
The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 2
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Biography
"He gives no charming picture of London literary society, and especially
the female part of it; but all coteries, whether they be literary,
scientific, political, or religious, must, it seems to me, have a
tendency to change truth into affectation. When people belong to a
clique, they must, I suppose, in some measure, write, talk, think, and
live for that clique; a harassing and narrowing necessity. I trust,
the press and the public show themselves disposed to give the book the
reception it merits, and that is a very cordial one, far beyond anything
due to a Bulwer or D'Israeli production."
Let us return from Currer Bell to Charlotte Brontë. The winter in
Haworth had been a sickly season. Influenza had prevailed amongst the
villagers, and where there was a real need for the presence of the
clergyman's daughters, they were never found wanting, although they
were shy of bestowing mere social visits on the parishioners. They had
themselves suffered from the epidemic; Anne severely, as in her case it
had been attended with cough and fever enough to make her elder sisters
very anxious about her.
There is no doubt that the proximity of the crowded church-yard rendered
the Parsonage unhealthy, and occasioned much illness to its inmates.
Mr. Brontë represented the unsanitary state at Haworth pretty forcibly
to the Board of Health; and, after the requisite visits from their
officers, obtained a recommendation that all future interments in the
churchyard should be forbidden, a new graveyard opened on the hill-side,
and means set on foot for obtaining a water-supply to each house,
instead of the weary, hard-worked housewives having to carry every
bucketful, from a distance of several hundred yards, up a steep street.
But he was baffled by the rate-payers; as, in many a similar instance,
quantity carried it against quality, numbers against intelligence. And
thus we find that illness often assumed a low typhoid form in Haworth,
and fevers of various kinds visited the place with sad frequency.
In February, 1848, Louis Philippe was dethroned. The quick succession
of events at that time called forth the following expression of Miss
Brontë's thoughts on the subject, in a letter addressed to Miss Wooler,
and dated March 31st.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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