Miss Mary Taylor wrote to Mrs.
Gaskell the following letter from New Zealand upon receipt of the
_Life_:--
'WELLINGTON, 30_th_ _July_ 1857.
'MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,--I am unaccountably in receipt by post of two
vols. containing the Life of C. Bronte. I have pleasure in
attributing this compliment to you; I beg, therefore, to thank you
for them. The book is a perfect success, in giving a true picture of
a melancholy life, and you have practically answered my puzzle as to
how you would give an account of her, not being at liberty to give a
true description of those around. Though not so gloomy as the truth,
it is perhaps as much so as people will accept without calling it
exaggerated, and feeling the desire to doubt and contradict it. I
have seen two reviews of it. One of them sums it up as "a life of
poverty and self-suppression," the other has nothing to the purpose
at all. Neither of them seems to think it a strange or wrong state
of things that a woman of first-rate talents, industry, and integrity
should live all her life in a walking nightmare of "poverty and
self-suppression." I doubt whether any of them will.
'It must upset most people's notions of beauty to be told that the
portrait at the beginning is that of an ugly woman.
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