I have heard
imperfectly of farther printing on the subject. As to the mutilated
edition that is to come, I am sorry for it. Libellous or not, the
first edition was all true, and except the declamation all, in my
opinion, useful to be published. Of course I don't know how far
necessity may make Mrs. Gaskell give them up. You know one dare not
always say the world moves.'
We who do know the whole story in fullest detail will understand that it
was desirable to 'mutilate' the book, and that, indeed, truth did in some
measure require it. But with these letters of Mary Taylor's before us,
let us not hear again that the story of Charlotte Bronte's life was not,
in its main features, accurately and adequately told by her gifted
biographer.
Why then, I am naturally asked, add one further book to the Bronte
biographical literature? The reply is, I hope, sufficient. Forty years
have gone by, and they have been years of growing interest in the
subject. In the year 1895 ten thousand people visited the Bronte Museum
at Haworth. Interesting books have been written, notably Sir Wemyss
Reid's _Monograph_ and Mr. Leyland's _Bronte Family_, but they have gone
out of print. Many new facts have come to light, and many details,
moreover, which were too trivial in 1857 are of sufficient importance
to-day; and many facts which were rightly suppressed then may honestly
and honourably be given to the public at an interval of nearly half a
century.
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