Chapter XXV
Conclusion
Well, Agnes, you must not take such long walks again before breakfast,” said my mother, observing that I drank an extra cup of coffee and ate nothing—pleading the heat of the weather, and the fatigue of my long walk as an excuse.
I certainly did feel feverish, and tired too.
“You always do things by extremes: now, if you had taken a short walk every morning, and would continue to do so, it would do you good.”
“Well, mamma, I will.”
“But this is worse than lying in bed, or bending over your books; you have quite put yourself into a fever.”
“I won’t do it again,” said I.
I was racking my brains with thinking how to tell her about Mr. Weston, for she must know he was coming to-morrow. However, I waited till the breakfast things were removed, and I was more calm and cool; and then, having sat down to my drawing, I began—
“I met an old friend on the sands to-day, mamma.”
“An old friend! Who could it be?”
“Two old friends indeed. One was a dog,” and then I reminded her of Snap whose history I had recounted before, and related the incident of his sudden appearance and remarkable recognition, “and the other,” continued I, “was Mr. Weston, the Curate of Horton.”
“Mr. Weston! I never heard of him before.”
“Yes, you have: I’ve mentioned him several times, I believe, but you don’t remember.”
“I’ve heard you speak of Mr. Hatfield.”
“Mr. Hatfield was the rector, and Mr. Weston the curate; I used to mention him sometimes in contradistinction to Mr. Hatfield, as being a more efficient clergyman. However, he was on the sands this morning with the dog—he had bought it, I suppose, from the rat-catcher; and he knew me as well as it did—probably through its means; and I had a little conversation with him, in the course of which, as he asked about our school, I was led to say something about you and your good management; and he said he should like to know you, and asked if I would introduce him to you, if he should take the liberty of calling to-morrow, so I said I would. Was I right?”
“Of course. What kind of man is he?”
“A very respectable man, I think; but you will see him to-morrow. He is the new vicar of F—, and as he has only been there a few weeks, I suppose he has made no friends yet, and wants a little society.”
The morrow came. What a fever of anxiety and expectation I was in from breakfast till noon—at which time he made his appearance.
Having introduced him to my mother, I took my work to the window, and sat down to await the result of the interview.
They got on extremely well together, greatly to my satisfaction, for I had felt very anxious about what my mother would think of him. He did not stay long that time; but when he rose to take leave, she said she should be happy to see him, whenever he might find it convenient to call again; and when he was gone, I was gratified by hearing her say,—
“Well! I think he’s a very sensible man. But why did you sit back there, Agnes,” she added, “and talk so little?”
“Because you talked so well, mamma, I thought you required no assistance from me; and, besides, he was your visiter, not mine.”
After that, he often called upon us—several times in the course of a week. He generally addressed most of his conversation to my mother; and no wonder, for she could converse. I almost envied the unfettered, vigorous fluency of her discourse, and the strong sense evinced by everything she said—and yet, I did not, for though I occasionally regretted my own deficiencies for his sake, it gave me very great pleasure to sit and hear the two beings, I loved and honoured above every one else in the world, discoursing together so amicably, so wisely, and so well.
I was not always silent, however; nor was I at all neglected. I was quite as much noticed as I would wish to be: there was no lack of kind words and kinder looks, no end of delicate attentions, too fine and subtle to be grasped by words, and, therefore, indescribable—but deeply felt at heart.
Ceremony was quickly dropped between us, Mr. Weston came as an expected guest, welcome at all times, and never deranging the economy of our household affairs. He even called me “Agnes;” the name had been timidly spoken at first, but, finding it gave no offence in any quarter, he seemed greatly to prefer that appellation to “Miss Grey,” and so did I.1
How tedious and gloomy were those days in which he did not come! and yet not miserable, for I had still the remembrance of the last visit and the hope of the next to cheer me. But when two or three days passed without my seeing him, I certainly felt very anxious—absurdly, unreasonably so, for, of course, he had his own business and the affairs of his parish to attend to: and I dreaded the close of the holidays, when my business also would begin, and I should be sometimes unable to see him, and sometimes ... when my mother was in the school-room ... obliged to be with him alone, a position I did not at all desire ... in the house, though to meet him out of doors, and walk beside him had proved by no means disagreeable.
One evening, however, in the last week of the vacation, he arrived—unexpectedly, for a heavy and protracted thunder-shower during the afternoon had almost destroyed my hopes of seeing him that day; but now the storm was over, and the sun was shining brightly.
“A beautiful evening, Miss Grey!” said he, as he entered. “Agnes, I want you to take a walk with me to” (he named a certain part of the coast ... a bold hill on the land side, and towards the sea, a steep precipice, from the summit of which a glorious view is to be had.) “The rain has laid the dust, and cooled and cleared the air, and the prospect will be magnificent. Will you come?”
“Can I go, mamma?”
“Yes, to be sure.”
I went to get ready, and was down again in a few minutes, though, of course, I took a little more pains with my attire than if I had merely been going out on some shopping expedition alone.
The thunder-shower had certainly had a most beneficial effect upon the weather, and the evening was most delightful. Mr. Weston would have me to take his arm: he said little during our passage through the crowded streets, but walked very fast, and appeared grave and abstracted.
I wondered what was the matter, and felt an indefinite dread that something unpleasant was on his mind; and vague surmises, concerning what it might be, troubled me not a little, and made me grave and silent enough. But these fantasies vanished upon reaching the quiet outskirts of the town, for as soon as we came within sight of the venerable old church, and the—hill, with the deep blue sea beyond it, I found my companion was cheerful enough.
“I’m afraid I’ve been walking too fast for you, Agnes,” said he; “in my impatience to be rid of the town, I forgot to consult your convenience; but now, we’ll walk as slowly as you please: I see, by those light clouds in the west, there will be a brilliant sunset, and we shall be in time to witness its effect upon the sea, at the most moderate rate of progression.”
When we had got about half way up the hill, we fell into silence again, which, as usual, he was the first to break.
“My house is desolate yet, Miss Grey,” he smilingly observed, “and I am acquainted now with all the ladies in my parish, and several in this town too; and many others I know by sight and by report; but not one of them will suit me for a companion ... in fact, there is only one person in the world that will; and that is yourself; and I want to know your decision?”
“Are you in earnest, Mr. Weston?”
“In earnest! How could you think I should jest on such a subject?”
He laid his hand on mine that rested on his arm: he must have felt it tremble ... but it was no great matter now.
“I hope I have not been too precipitate,” he said, in a serious tone. “You must have known that it was not my way to flatter and talk soft nonsense, or even to speak the admiration that I felt; and that a single word or glance of mine meant more than the honied phrases and fervent protestations of most other men.”
I said something about not liking to leave my mother, and doing nothing without her consent.
“I settled everything with Mrs. Grey while you were putting on your bonnet,” replied he. “She said I might have her consent if I could obtain yours; and I asked her, in case I should be so happy, to come and live with us—for I was sure you would like it better; but she refused, saying she could now afford to employ an assistant, and would continue the school till she could purchase an annuity sufficient to maintain her in comfortable lodgings; and meantime she would spend her vacations alternately with us and your sister, and should be quite contented if you were happy. And so now I have overruled your objections on her account. Have you any other?”
“No—none.”
“You love me then?” said he, fervently pressing my hand.
“Yes.”
Here I pause. My diary, from which I compiled these pages, goes but little farther. I could go on for years; but I will content myself with adding, that I shall never forget that glorious Summer evening, and always remember with delight that steep hill, and the edge of the precipice where we stood together watching the splendid sunset mirrored on the restless world of waters at our feet—with hearts filled with gratitude to Heaven, and happiness, and love—almost too full for speech.
A few weeks after that, when my mother had supplied herself with an assistant, I became the wife of Edward Weston, and never have found cause to repent it, and am certain that I never shall. We have had trials, and we know that we must have them again; but we bear them well together, and endeavour to fortify ourselves and each other against the final separation—that greatest of all afflictions to the survivor; but, if we keep in mind the glorious Heaven beyond, where both may meet again, and sin and sorrow are unknown, surely that too may be borne; and meantime, we endeavour to live to the glory of Him who has scattered so many blessings in our path.
Edward, by his strenuous exertions, has worked surprising reforms in his parish, and is esteemed and loved by its inhabitants—as he deserves—for whatever his faults may be as a man, (and no one is entirely without,) I defy anybody to blame him as a pastor, a husband, or a father.
Our children, Edward, Agnes, and little Mary, promise well; their education, for the time being, is chiefly committed to me; and they shall want no good thing that a mother’s care can give.
Our modest income is amply sufficient for our requirements; and by practising the economy we learnt in harder times, and never attempting to imitate our richer neighbours, we manage not only to enjoy comfort and contentment ourselves, but to have every year something to lay by for our children, and something to give to those who need it.
And now I think I have said sufficient.
Appendix: Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell
008
It has been thought that all the works published under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell were, in reality, the production of one person. This mistake I endeavoured to rectify by a few words of disclaimer prefixed to the third edition of ‘Jane Eyre.’ These, too, it appears, failed to gain general credence, and now, on the occasion of a reprint of ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Agnes Grey,’ I am advised distinctly to state how the case really stands.
Indeed, I feel myself that it is time the obscurity attending those two names—Ellis and Acton—was done away. The little mystery, which formerly yielded some harmless pleasure, has lost its interest; circumstances are changed. It becomes, then, my duty to explain briefly the origin and authorship of the books written by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell.
About five years ago, my two sisters and myself, after a somewhat prolonged period of separation, found ourselves reunited, and at home. Resident in a remote district, where education had made little progress, and where, consequently, there was no inducement to seek social intercourse beyond our own domestic circle, we were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we had known from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition; formerly we used to show each other what we wrote, but of late years this habit of communication and consultation had been discontinued; hence it ensued, that we were mutually ignorant of the progress we might respectively have made.
One day, in the autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my sister Emily’s handwriting. Of course, I was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse: I looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me—a deep conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like the poetry women generally write. I thought them condensed and terse, vigorous and genuine. To my ear they had also a peculiar music—wild, melancholy, and elevating.
My sister Emily was not a person of demonstrative character, nor one on the recesses of whose mind and feelings even those nearest and dearest to her could, with impunity, intrude unlicensed; it took hours to reconcile her to the discovery I had made, and days to persuade her that such poems merited publication. I knew, however, that a mind like hers could not be without some latent spark of honourable ambition, and refused to be discouraged in my attempts to fan that spark to flame.
Meantime, my younger sister quietly produced some of her own compositions, intimating that, since Emily’s had given me pleasure, I might like to look at hers. I could not but be a partial judge, yet I thought that these verses, too, had a sweet, sincere pathos of their own.
We had very early cherished the dream of one day becoming authors. This dream, never relinquished even when distance divided and absorbing tasks occupied us, now suddenly acquired strength and consistency: it took the character of a resolve. We agreed to arrange a small selection of our poems, and, if possible, to get them printed. Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because—without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called ‘feminine’ —we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.
The bringing out of our little book was hard work. As was to be expected, neither we nor our poems were at all wanted; but for this we had been prepared at the outset; though inexperienced ourselves, we had read the experience of others. The great puzzle lay in the difficulty of getting answers of any kind from the publishers to whom we applied. Being greatly harassed by this obstacle, I ventured to apply to the Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh, for a word of advice; they may have forgotten the circumstance, but I have not, for from them I received a brief and business-like, but civil and sensible reply, on which we acted, and at last made a way.
The book was printed1: it is scarcely known, and all of it that merits to be known are the poems of Ellis Bell. The fixed conviction I held, and hold, of the worth of these poems has not indeed received the confirmation of much favourable criticism; but I must retain it notwithstanding.
Ill-success failed to crush us: the mere effort to succeed had given a wonderful zest to existence; it must be pursued. We each set to work on a prose tale: Ellis Bell produced ‘Wuthering Heights,’ Acton Bell ‘Agnes Grey,’ and Currer Bell also wrote a narrative in one volume. These MSS. were perseveringly obtruded upon various publishers for the space of a year and a half; usually, their fate was an ignominious and abrupt dismissal.
At last ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Agnes Grey’ were accepted on terms somewhat impoverishing to the two authors; Currer Bell’s book found acceptance nowhere, nor any acknowledgment of merit, so that something like the chill of despair began to invade her heart. As a forlorn hope, she tried one publishing house more—Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. Ere long, in a much shorter space than that on which experience had taught her to calculate—there came a letter, which she opened in the dreary expectation of finding two hard, hopeless lines, intimating that Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co. ‘were not disposed to publish the MS.,’ and, instead, she took out of the envelope a letter of two pages. She read it trembling. It declined, indeed, to publish that tale, for business reasons, but it dismissed its merits and demerits so courteously, so considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so enlightened, that this very refusal cheered the author better than a vulgarly expressed acceptance would have done. It was added, that a work in three volumes would meet with careful attention.
I was then just completing ‘Jane Eyre,’ at which I had been working while the one-volume tale was plodding its weary round in London: in three weeks I sent it off; friendly and skilful hands took it in. This was in the commencement of September, 1847; it came out before the close of October following, while ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Agnes Grey,’ my sisters’ works, which had already been in the press for months, still lingered under a different management.
They appeared at last. Critics failed to do them justice. The immature but very real powers revealed in ‘Wuthering Heights’ were scarcely recognised; its import and nature were misunderstood; the identity of its author was misrepresented; it was said that this was an earlier and ruder attempt of the same pen which had produced ‘Jane Eyre.’ Unjust and grievous error! We laughed at it at first, but I deeply lament it now. Hence, I fear, arose a prejudice against the book. That writer who could attempt to palm off an inferior and immature production under cover of one successful effort, must indeed be unduly eager after the secondary and sordid result of authorship, and pitiably indifferent to its true and honourable meed. If reviewers and the public truly believed this, no wonder that they looked darkly on the cheat.
Yet I must not be understood to make these things subject for reproach or complaint; I dare not do so; respect for my sister’s memory forbids me. By her any such querulous manifestation would have been regarded as an unworthy and offensive weakness.
It is my duty, as well as my pleasure, to acknowledge one exception to the general rule of criticism. One writer,2 endowed with the keen vision and fine sympathies of genius, has discerned the real nature of ‘Wuthering Heights,’ and has, with equal accuracy, noted its beauties and touched on its faults. Too often do reviewers remind us of the mob of Astrologers, Chaldeans,cl and Soothsayers gathered before the ‘writing on the wall,’ and unable to read the characters or make known the interpretation. We have a right to rejoice when a true seer comes at last, some man in whom is an excellent spirit, to whom has been given light, wisdom, and understanding; who can accurately read the ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharson’cm of an original mind (however unripe, however inefficiently cultured and partially expanded that mind may be), and who can say with confidence, ‘This is the interpretation thereof.’”3
Yet even the writer to whom I allude shares the mistake about the authorship, and does me the injustice to suppose that there was equivoque in my former rejection of this honour (as an honour I regard it). May I assure him that I would scorn in this and in every other case to deal in equivoque; I believe language to have been given us to make our meaning clear, and not to wrap it in dishonest doubt?
‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,’ by Acton Bell, had likewise an unfavourable reception. At this I cannot wonder. The choice of subject was an entire mistake. Nothing less congruous with the writer’s nature could be conceived. The motives which dictated this choice were pure, but, I think, slightly morbid. She had, in the course of her life, been called on to contemplate, near at hand, and for a long time, the terrible effects of talents misused and faculties abused:4 hers was naturally a sensitive, reserved, and dejected nature; what she saw sank very deeply into her mind; it did her harm. She brooded over it till she believed it to be a duty to reproduce every detail (of course with fictitious characters, incidents, and situations), as a warning to others. She hated her work, but would pursue it. When reasoned with on the subject, she regarded such reasonings as a temptation to self-indulgence. She must be honest; she must not varnish, soften, nor conceal. This well-meant resolution brought on her misconstruction, and some abuse, which she bore, as it was her custom to bear whatever was unpleasant, with mild, steady patience. She was a very sincere and practical Christian, but the tinge of religious melancholy communicated a sad shade to her brief, blameless life.
Neither Ellis nor Acton allowed herself for one moment to sink under want of encouragement; energy nerved the one, and endurance upheld the other. They were both prepared to try again; I would fain think that hope and the sense of power were yet strong within them. But a great change approached; affliction came in that shape which to anticipate is dread; to look back on, grief. In the very heat and burden of the day,5 the labourers failed over their work.
My sister Emily first declined. The details of her illness are deep-branded in my memory, but to dwell on them, either in thought or narrative, is not in my power. Never in all her life had she lingered over any task that lay before her, and she did not linger now. She sank rapidly. She made haste to leave us. Yet, while physically she perished, mentally she grew stronger than we had yet known her. Day by day, when I saw with what a front she met suffering, I looked on her with an anguish of wonder and love. I have seen nothing like it; but, indeed, I have never seen her parallel in anything. Stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone. The awful point was, that while full of ruthcn for others, on herself she had no pity; the spirit was inexorable to the flesh; from the trembling hand, the unnerved limbs, the faded eyes, the same service was exacted as they had rendered in health. To stand by and witness this, and not dare to remonstrate, was a pain no words can render.
Two cruel months of hope and fear passed painfully by, and the day came at last when the terrors and pains of death were to be undergone by this treasure, which had grown dearer and dearer to our hearts as it wasted before our eyes. Towards the decline of that day, we had nothing of Emily but her mortal remainsas consumptionco left them. She died December 19, 1848.
We thought this enough: but we were utterly and presumptuously wrong. She was not buried ere Anne fell ill. She had not been committed to the grave a fortnight, before we received distinct intimation that it was necessary to prepare our minds to see the younger sister go after the elder. Accordingly, she followed in the same path with slower step, and with a patience that equalled the other’s fortitude. I have said that she was religious, and it was by leaning on those Christian doctrines in which she firmly believed, that she found support through her most painful journey. I witnessed their efficacy in her latest hour and greatest trial, and must bear my testimony to the calm triumph with which they brought her through. She died May 28, 1849.
What more shall I say about them? I cannot and need not say much more. In externals, they were two unobtrusive women; a perfectly secluded life gave them retiring manners and habits. In Emily’s nature the extremes of vigour and simplicity seemed to meet. Under an unsophisticated culture, inartificial tastes, and an unpretending outside, lay a secret power and fire that might have informed the brain and kindled the veins of a hero; but she had no worldly wisdom; her powers were unadapted to the practical business of life; she would fail to defend her most manifest rights, to consult her most legitimate advantage. An interpreter ought always to have stood between her and the world. Her will was not very flexible, and it generally opposed her interest. Her temper was magnanimous, but warm and sudden; her spirit altogether unbending.
Anne’s character was milder and more subdued; she wanted the power, the fire, the originality of her sister, but was well endowed with quiet virtues of her own. Long-suffering, self-denying, reflective, and intelligent, a constitutional reserve and taciturnity placed and kept her in the shade, and covered her mind, and especially her feelings, with a sort of nun-like veil, which was rarely lifted. Neither Emily nor Anne was learned6; they had no thought of filling their pitchers at the well-spring of other minds; they always wrote from the impulse of nature, the dictates of intuition, and from such stores of observation as their limited experience had enabled them to amass. I may sum up all by saying, that for strangers they were nothing, for superficial observers less than nothing; but for those who had known them all their lives in the intimacy of close relationship, they were genuinely good and truly great.
This notice has been written because I felt it a sacred duty to wipe the dust off their gravestones, and leave their dear names free from soil.
CURRER BELL
[Charlotte Bront?]
September 19, 1850.
Inspired by Agnes Grey
When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which, yet, we cannot, or will not wholly crush, we often, naturally, seek relief in poetry.
—FROM AGNES GREY
Anne Bront? was overshadowed by the legend and genius of her two sisters since before she died young of consumption. It has become commonplace to relegate her to a quaint corner of English letters, to give her the benefit of her last name. But many critics advocate for Anne, whose writing, they feel, has been denied serious consideration for too long. Lucasta Miller, in her 2001 book The Bront? Myth (see “For Further Reading”), argues that Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, though much more restrained in tone and conventional in storytelling mode than her sisters’ novels, are the most socially progressive of the Bront?’s literary output. Anne’s sisters excelled at pouring brutal passions onto the page, thereby inspiring scandal, the cutting remarks of critics, large book sales—in short, the lion’s share of the public’s esteem of the Bront? clan.
The tendency to overlook the youngest Bront? in all likelihood began with her sister Charlotte, who ran the Haworth parsonage with the well-intentioned but severe aspect of a governess. In her “Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell” (see Appendix) Charlotte struggles to make sense of her quiet sister: “[Anne’s] was naturally a sensitive, reserved, and dejected nature; what she saw sank very deeply into her mind; it did her harm” (p. 199). And again, when comparing her to Charlotte’s more beloved sister, Emily:
Anne’s character was milder and more subdued; she wanted the power, the fire, the originality of her sister, but was well endowed with quiet virtues of her own. Long-suffering, self-denying, reflective, and intelligent, a constitutional reserve and taciturnity placed and kept her in the shade, and covered her mind, and especially her feelings, with a sort of nun-like veil, which was rarely lifted (pp. 201-202).
Charlotte is most dismissive of her sister when discussing Anne’s second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: “The choice of subject was an entire mistake. Nothing less congruous with the writer’s nature could be conceived” (p. 199). This undervaluation of The Tenant, which is at odds with its much more favorable critical reception, suggests that Charlotte may not have known or understood her youngest sister as well as she thought she did.
Besides her novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, each of which contains a single poem, Anne Bront? is remembered primarily for her verse. Following the 1846 publication of Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell—which sold only two copies—the 1850, or second, edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey included a selection of Anne’s poetry, edited by Charlotte. There are a total of fifty-four extant poems by Anne Bront?; twenty-four of them were published during her lifetime. The publication of these verses in various magazines instilled in Anne a pride uncharacteristic of her usually reserved disposition. In many ways poetry was the most natural expression of her elegiac view of love, her deep-seated piety, and her quiet resignation, as well as her devotion to English religious poet William Cowper (1731-1800), to whom she dedicated some of her poems.
For better or worse, the versions of Anne’s poems most easily available are those altered by Charlotte. (The same is true of Emily Bront?’s powerful verses.) In her family biography The Bront?s (1995), Juliet Barker judges Charlotte harshly for her editorial approach to her sisters’ work: “It was on par with her many attempts to organize them during their lives. Nevertheless, Charlotte clearly believed that she was performing her ‘sacred duty’ in her self-appointed role as her sisters’ interpreter to the world and the task had not been pleasant.” Be that as it may, it is in her verses that Anne Bront?’s character—one resigned to death and isolation—begins to emerge. In a poem titled “Appeal” (originally “Lines Written at Thorp Green”; 1841), Anne appears to court death as she would a lover:
Oh, I am very weary,
Though tears no longer flow;
My eyes are tired of weeping,
My heart is sick of woe;
My life is very lonely,
My days pass heavily,
I’m weary of repining;
Wilt thou not come to me?
Oh, didst thou know my longings
For thee, from day to day,
My hopes, so often blighted,
Thou wouldst not thus delay!
Anne’s most famous poem may have been her last. Called by Charlotte “Last Lines,” the poem became a standard hymn in many churches throughout England. Written a few weeks after Emily’s death and a few months before her own, the poem completes a well-known Bront? anecdote: When asked what she most wanted, the four-year-old Anne replied, “Age and experience.” Within a relatively short time, she had had all the experience she wanted:
I hoped, that with the brave and strong,
My portioned task might lie;
To toil amid the busy throng,
With purpose pure and high.
But God has fixed another part,
And He has fixed it well;
I said so with my bleeding heart,
When first the anguish fell.
A dreadful darkness closes in
On my bewildered mind;
Oh, let me suffer and not sin,
Be tortured, yet resigned.
Shall I with joy thy blessings share
And not endure their loss?
Or hope the martyr’s crown to wear
And cast away the cross?
Thou, God, hast taken our delight,
Our treasured hope away;
Thou bidst us now weep through the night
And sorrow through the day.
These weary hours will not be lost,
These days of misery,
These nights of darkness, anguish-tost,
Can I but turn to Thee.
Weak and weary though I lie,
Crushed with sorrow, worn with pain,
I may lift to Heaven mine eye,
And strive to labour not in vain;
That inward strife against the sins
That ever wait on suffering
To strike zuhatever first begins:
Each ill that would corruption bring;
That secret labour to sustain
With humble patience every blow;
To gather fortitude from pain,
And hope and holiness from woe.
Thus let me serve Thee from my heart,
Whate‘er may be my written fate:
Whether thus early to depart,
Or yet a while to wait.
If thou shouldst bring me back to life,
More humbled I should be;
More wise, more strengthened for the strife,
More apt to lean on Thee.
Should death be standing at the gate,
Thus should I keep my vow;
But, Lord! whatever be my fate,
Oh, let me serve Thee now!
Comments & Questions
011
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the work’s history. In reviews contemporaneous with the 1847 publication of Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights, it is evident that Anne’s work was in many ways eclipsed by her sister Emily’s wildly original novel as well as Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, not to mention the mystery of authorship surrounding the “Bells. ”Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Agnes Grey through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of this enduring work.
COMMENTS
Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Newspaper
Of Agnes Grey, much need not be said, further than this, that it is the autobiography of a young lady during the time she was a governess in two different families; neither of which is a favourable specimen of the advantages of home education. We do not actually assert that the author must have been a governess himself, to describe as he does the minute torments and incessant tediums of her life, but he must have bribed some governess very largely, either with love or money, to reveal to him the secrets of her prison-house, or, he must have devoted extraordinary powers of observation and discovery to the elucidation of the subject. In either case, Agnes Grey is a tale well worth the writing and the reading. The heroine is a sort of younger sister to Jane Eyre, but inferior to her in every way.
—January 15, 1848
Atlas
Agnes Grey ... is a tale of every day life, and though not wholly free from exaggeration (there are some detestable young ladies in it), does not offend by any startling improbabilities. It is more level and more sunny. Perhaps we shall best describe it as a somewhat coarse imitation of one of Miss Austen’s charming stories. Like Jane Eyre, it sets forth some passages in the life of a governess; but the incidents, wound up with the heroine’s marriage to a country clergyman, are such as might happen to anyone in that situation of life, and, doubtless, have happened to many. There is a want of distinctness in the character of Agnes, which prevents the reader from taking much interest in her fate—but the story, though lacking the power and originality of Wuthering Heights, is infinitely more agreeable. It leaves no painful impression on the mind—some may think it leaves no impression at all. We are not quite sure that the next new novel will not efface it, but Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are not things to be forgotten.
—January 22, 1848
Clement K. Shorter
It can scarcely be doubted that Anne Bront?’s two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, would have long since fallen into oblivion but for the inevitable association with the romances of her two greater sisters. While this may be taken for granted, it is impossible not to feel, even at the distance of more than half a century, a sense of Anne’s personal charm. Gentleness is a word always associated with her by those who knew her. When Mr. Nicholls saw what professed to be a portrait of Anne in a magazine article, he wrote: “What an awful caricature of the dear, gentle Anne Bront?!” Mr. Nicholls had a portrait of Anne in his possession, drawn by Charlotte, which he pronounced to be an admirable likeness and this does convey the impression of a sweet and gentle nature.
—from Charlotte Bront? and Her Circle (1896)
Mary Ward
Anne Bront? serves a twofold purpose in the study of what the Bront?s wrote and were. In the first place, her gentle and delicate presence, her sad, short story, her hard life and early death, enter deeply into the poetry and tragedy that have always been entwined with the memory of the Bront?s, as women and as writers; in the second, the books and poems that she wrote serve as matter of comparison by which to test the greatness of her two sisters. She is the measure of their genius—like them, yet not with them....
But Anne was not strong enough, her gift was not vigorous enough, to enable her thus to transmute experience and grief. The probability is that when she left Thorp Green in 1845 she was already suffering from that religious melancholy of which Charlotte discovered such piteous evidence among her papers after death. It did not much affect the writing of Agnes Grey, which was completed in 1846, and reflected the minor pains and discomforts of her teaching experience, but it combined with the spectacle of Branwell’s increasing moral and physical decay to produce that bitter mandate of conscience under which she wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
—from her preface to The Life and Works of Charlotte Bront? and Her Sisters (1899-1900)
George Moore
Agnes Grey is a prose narrative simple and beautiful as a muslin dress.... When Agnes begins to tell us of her charges and their vulgar parents, we know that we are reading a master-piece. Nothing short of genius could have set them before us so plainly and yet with restraint—even the incident of the little boy who tears a bird’s nest out of some bushes and fixes fish hooks into the beaks of the young birds so that he may drag them about the stable-yard. Agnes’s reprimands, too, are low in tone, yet sufficient to bring her into conflict with the little boy’s mother, who thinks that her son’s amusement should not be interfered with. The story was written, probably, when Anne Bront? was but two or three and twenty, and it is the one story in English literature in which style, characters, and subject are in perfect keeping.
—from Conversations in Ebury Street (1924)
QUESTIONS
1. “It is foolish to wish for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves or care about it in others,” says Agnes Grey. Would you say these lines were written by Bront? to characterize Agnes, or do they sound to you like a message Bront? wants to communicate to the reader? Do you agree with this sentiment?
2. Do you feel that the religious concerns of Agnes Grey get in the way—or do they add something of importance?
3. Compare the situation of Agnes with that of a modern nanny. Who is worse off?—and not just financially?
4. What changes would you make if you were offered a lot of money to turn this novel into a comedy?
For Further Reading
BIOGRAPHY
Barker, Juliet. The Bront?s. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
Barker, Juliet, comp. The Bront?s: A Life in Letters. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1998.
Bentley, Phyllis. The Bront?s and Their World. New York: Viking Press, 1969.
Gérin, Winifred. Anne Bront?. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1959.
Langland, Elizabeth. Anne Bront?: The Other One. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1989.
Ratchford, Fannie. The Bront?s’ Web of Childhood. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941.
Spark, Muriel, ed. The Letters of the Bront?s. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954.
Winnifrith, Tom. The Bront?s and Their Background: Romance and Reality. London: Macmillan, 1973.
CRITICISM
Alexander, Christine, and Jane Sellars. The Art of the Bront?s. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Alexander, Christine, and Margaret Smith, eds. The Oxford Companion to the Bront?s. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Allott, Miriam, ed. The Bront?s: The Critical Heritage. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974.
Bront?, Anne. The Poems of Anne Bront?. Edited by Edward Chitham. London: Macmillan, 1979.
Craik, W. A. The Bront? Novels. London: Methuen, 1968.
Eagleton, Terry. Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Bront?s. London: Macmillan, 1975.
Ewbank, Inga-Stina. Their Proper Sphere: A Study of the Bront? Sisters as Early-Victorian Female Novelists. London: Edward Arnold, 1966.
Gregor, Ian, comp. The Bront?s: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970.
Miller, Lucasta. The Bront? Myth. London: Jonathan Cape, 2001.
Nash, Julie, and Barbara A. Suess, eds. New Approaches to the Literary Art of Anne Bront?. Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001.