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 would not write to you immediately on my arrival at home, because
each return to this old house brings with it a phase of feeling which it
is better to pass through quietly before beginning to indite letters.
The six weeks of change and enjoyment are past, but they are not lost;
memory took a sketch of each as it went by, and, especially, a distinct
daguerreotype of the two days I spent in Scotland. Those were two
very pleasant days. I always liked Scotland as an idea, but now, as a
reality, I like it far better; it furnished me with some hours as happy
almost as any I ever spent. Do not fear, however, that I am going to
bore you with description; you will, before now, have received a pithy
and pleasant report of all things, to which any addition of mine would
be superfluous. My present endeavours are directed towards recalling my
thoughts, cropping their wings, drilling them into correct discipline,
and forcing them to settle to some useful work: they are idle, and
keep taking the train down to London, or making a foray over the
Border--especially are they prone to perpetrate that last excursion; and
who, indeed, that has once seen Edinburgh, with its couchant crag-lion,
but must see it again in dreams, waking or sleeping? My dear sir, I
do not think I blaspheme, when I tell you that your great London, as
compared to Dun-Edin, 'mine own romantic town,' is as prose compared
to poetry, or as a great rumbling, rambling, heavy epic compared to a
lyric, brief, bright, clear and vital as a flash of lightning. You have
nothing like Scott's monument, or, if you had that, and all the glories
of architecture assembled together, you have nothing like Arthur's Seat,
and, above all, you have not the Scotch national character; and it is
that grand character after all which gives the land its true charm, its
true greatness.
On her return from Scotland, she again spent a few days with her
friends, and then made her way to Haworth.
"July 15th.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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