[Illustration: MRS. GASKELL FROM THE PORTRAIT BY GEORGE RICHMOND,
R.A. MRS. GASKELL'S "LIFE OF BRONTE" IS ONE OF THE FINEST
BIOGRAPHIES IN THE LANGUAGE]
The success of _Jane Eyre_ opened wide the doors of London to the
unknown author. For a time her identity was hidden, but when it was
revealed she was induced to go up to London and see the great world.
Thackeray was especially kind to her, but his efforts to entertain
this Yorkshire recluse were dismal failures. Nothing is more amusing
than his daughter's story of the great novelist, slipping out of the
house one night, when he had asked several celebrities to meet
Charlotte Bronte. The party was a terrible fiasco, and so he escaped,
putting his finger to his lips as he opened the front door to warn his
daughter that she must not reveal his flight. Charlotte's
correspondence with her publisher is also full of pathos. It shows how
keenly she felt her aloofness from the world, which she could not
overcome.
The story of _Villette_ is the real story of Charlotte's experiences
in a Brussels boarding school, where she first tasted the delights of
literary study and her genius first found adequate expression. The
original draft of this novel was called _The Professor_. Charlotte
knew that it contained good material. So, after the death of her
sisters, she took up the subject, and with all her mature power
produced _Villette_--one of those novels struck off at a white heat,
like George Sand's _Indiana_ or Balzac's _Seraphita_.
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