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418 NOTICES OF BOOKS \ .
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.
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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.
^».Reprints Hall. . B Mrs Y Ac . Graskel...
spondent , seeing the dark , not tlie bright side of tilings , hopeless of joy , taking sorrow as her appointed lot . There is inueh in her
character which seems to combine or to lie midway between the docility characters Emil of her ' s self two -concentration sisters . She with had Emil Anne y ' ' s s predominatin strength with g Anne 1 sense ' s
, y of duty _, Emily's nioral strength with Anne ' s physical weakness . Her despondency was terrible . No one can read certain of her
letters and certain sombre passages in her books without having heart-felt pity for the writer . It must be remembered , too , that
these were _written by a person not given to weak complainings , a person who had more self-restraint than most of us . Hypochondria
took her at times "to her death-cold bosom , " and held her " -with arms of bone . " Supernatural terrors added their weiglit to try yet more
the overstrung nerves , and Nature herself smote these tense nerves unitinglyracking them to agony by her doleful winds and weary
p rain y s and , iron _frosts . Butwhile thus a martyr to these diseased nerves , she performed her little , course of daily duties with a true
martyr-like quietness . The early death of her elder sisters had an _effect on her different to that which it had on the younger ones of the
family . The cares and solicitudes of an elder sister devolved on her before she was nine years old , and , since these children had lost
their mother , Charlotte had to occupy the place of a mother likewise . The way in which all three sisters performed their household
duties and homely offices strikes us with no little admiration . "We like to hear of Emily making * the bread , or of Charlotte cutting the
eyes out of the potatoes , and to _pictiire these geniuses waiting on poor old Tabby . These princesses by divine right—by God ' s own
letters patent , could not see the degradation of helping themselves . Pity and forgive themye fine ladies ! ye exquisite pieces of waxen
, art-workmanship , who never come out of your silver-paper enwrapments lest the common air and the common sunlight shonld
contaminate your beauty ! The " Professor " sought for a publisher in vain ; but while it was
still going the round of the London publishing-houses Currer Bell was loyed upon another _work" Jane Eyre . " This book was
emp , finished and printed before " Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey" ( long * ago acceptedbut delayed in the press ) appeared .
, Charlotte accompanied her father to Manchester whither he went to have an operation performed for cataract , and at Manchester _" Jane
Eyre " was commenced . To criticise tliis novel which has been criticised so oftenwould be superfluous . Instead of this we shall
, attempt to call our reader ' s attention to the manner in which it was written , and the principles which directed its authoress . Mrs .
Gaskell tells us of her solicitude in the choice of words , and how in her manuscri scraps of pt ( her first covered manuscri with pt microscop that is , ic which writing consisted 1 ) there of are small no
paper obliterations of words and expressions , but of whole sentences only .
She made out her thought , and the fit words to clothe it fully , com-
418 Notices Of Books \ .
418 NOTICES OF BOOKS \ .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1860, page 416, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021860/page/56/
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