Page:The life of Charlotte Brontë (IA lifeofcharlotteb02gaskrich).pdf/83

 deterioration of a character, whose profligacy and ruin took their rise in habits of intemperance, so slight as to be only considered "good fellowship"—was painfully discordant to one who would fain have sheltered herself from all but peaceful and religious ideas. "She had" (says her sister of that gentle "little one"), "in the course of her life, been called on to contemplate near at hand, and for a long time, the terrible effects of talents misused and faculties abused; hers was naturally a sensitive, reserved, and dejected nature; what she saw sunk very deeply into her mind; it did her harm. She brooded over it till she believed it to be a duty to reproduce every detail (of course, with fictitious characters, incidents, and situations), as a warning to others. She hated her work, but would pursue it. When reasoned with on the subject, she regarded such reasonings as a temptation to self-indulgence. She must be honest; she must not varnish, soften, or conceal. This well-meant resolution brought on her misconstruction, and some abuse, which she bore, as it was her custom to bear whatever was unpleasant, with mild steady patience. She was a very sincere and practical Christian, but the tinge of religious melancholy communicated a sad shade to her brief blameless life."

In the June of this year, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" was sufficiently near its completion to be submitted to the person who had previously published for Ellis and Acton Bell.