The loss to literature has been forcibly brought home
to the present writer, who has in his possession a bundle of letters
written by Mrs. Gaskell to numerous friends of Charlotte Bronte during
the progress of the biography. They serve, all of them, to impress one
with the singular charm of the woman, her humanity and breadth of
sympathy. They make us think better of Mrs. Gaskell, as Thackeray's
letters to Mrs. Brookfield make us think better of the author of _Vanity
Fair_.
Apart from these letters, a journey in the footsteps, as it were, of Mrs.
Gaskell reveals to us the remarkable conscientiousness with which she set
about her task. It would have been possible, with so much fame behind
her, to have secured an equal success, and certainly an equal pecuniary
reward, had she merely written a brief monograph with such material as
was voluntarily placed in her hands. Mrs. Gaskell possessed a higher
ideal of a biographer's duties. She spared no pains to find out the
facts; she visited every spot associated with the name of Charlotte
Bronte--Thornton, Haworth, Cowan Bridge, Birstall, Brussels--and she
wrote countless letters to the friends of Charlotte Bronte's earlier
days.
But why, it may be asked, was Mrs. Gaskell selected as biographer? The
choice was made by Mr. Bronte, and not, as has been suggested, by some
outside influence.
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