On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    848 NOTICES OF BOOKS.

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    ¦ ^* Reprin Sail Ts . . B Mrs Y Acton . ...

    realism , and about each person's true history being more _interesting than romance . Accepting the book as half autobiographical , its

    general teaching is nevertheless not true . All rich people are not vulgar and cruel and inconsiderate any more than all poor people

    are patient and good ; nor are all children detestable . It is an exparte statement . The revilings of governesses by Lady Ingrave

    ( in " Jane Eyre" ) are equally true . The life of a governess is not a leasant lifeit is never entered upon for pleasure ; but it is only in

    p , exceptional cases that it is a life of absolute and continuous pain . Probably Ann Bronte was unfortunate in her experiences . On

    the other hand we have to consider that her temperament was exquisitely sensitive , she was the , most sensitive of a sensitive family .

    She was the youngest and the pet . Her health was very weak , and her shyness excessive . Perhaps no young ladies could be less fitted

    to undergo the trials of a governess ' s life than were these three sisters . They had no liking for children . Unamiable as it sounds

    the fact was only natural . They had never had properly a childhood of their ownthey had no childish feelings to look back to , and so

    no sympathy , with the childish feelings of their pupils . It was not that they actively disliked them . "We can fancy their feelings

    to-• wards them cool and observant like those of Jane Eyre for Adeleor of Lucy Snowe for little Polly . This exceeding

    sensitiveness , ; and this lack of sympathy with children must be held in remembrance while we read the sketches of governess-life as it truly

    appeared to the writer of " Agnes Grey . " There are many didactic in the way of conversation or commentin these pages

    which passages , thoug , h , neither new nor deep , are good to read , , inasmuch as they come straight from the heart , and therefore have a vital force .

    There is no sham here , no getting-up of goodness or of martyrdom , for the exaggeration and one-sidedness of view to which we have

    adverted is only a proof of honesty . We can praise this book much more absolutely than " Wuthering Heights , " and yet how different

    they are ! " The Tenant of WildfellHall" is a book of a higher class , much as it has been traduced . It decidedly claims kindred with

    " Wuthering Heights" and " Jane Eyre . " There are forcible descriptions in it which none out of the Bronte family could have

    written . Charlotte has told us why it was written , and how detail bdetail was essentially true . " She hadin the course of her life

    been y called on to contemplate , near at hand , and for a long time , the , terrible effects of talents misused and faculties abused . " She came

    to think it her duty to reproduce what she had seen , as a warning to others . Here it is the general moral , the essence of the book ,

    which is realistic rather than the incidents and characters . The degradation from sin to sin , step by step , Is painted from a living

    model . Hypercriticism may pronounce Gilbert Markham a prig , may sneer at a woman ' s notions of the terrible doings of " jolly

    companions , " and at certain drawing-room , scenes which could

    hardly have taken pletce in civilised society \ may protest that the

    848 Notices Of Books.

    848 NOTICES OF BOOKS .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1860, page 348, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011860/page/60/