'At seven,' writes Mr. Arnold from Fox How (December 21, 1850), 'came
Miss Martineau and Miss Bronte (Jane Eyre); talked to Miss Martineau
(who blasphemes frightfully) about the prospects of the Church of
England, and, wretched man that I am, promised to go and see her
cow-keeping miracles {457a} to-morrow--I, who hardly know a cow from
a sheep. I talked to Miss Bronte (past thirty and plain, with
expressive grey eyes, though) of her curates, of French novels, and
her education in a school at Brussels, and sent the lions roaring to
their dens at half-past nine, and came to talk to you.' {457b}
By the light of this 'impression,' it is not a little interesting to see
what Miss Bronte, 'past thirty and plain,' thought of Mr. Matthew Arnold!
TO JAMES TAYLOR, CORNHILL,
'_January_ 15_th_, 1851.
'MY DEAR SIR,--I fancy the imperfect way in which my last note was
expressed must have led you into an error, and that you must have
applied to Mrs. Arnold the remarks I intended for Miss Martineau. I
remember whilst writing about "my hostess" I was sensible to some
obscurity in the term; permit me now to explain that it referred to
Miss Martineau.
'Mrs. Arnold is, indeed, as I judge from my own observations no less
than from the unanimous testimony of all who really know her, a good
and amiable woman, but the intellectual is not her forte, and she has
no pretensions to power or completeness of character.
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