800 Years of Women's Letters (39 page)

My poor father naturally thought more of his
only
son than of his daughters, and, much and long as he had suffered on his account, he cried out of his loss like David for that of Absalom – my son! my son! – and refused at first to be comforted. And then when I ought to have been able to collect my strength and be at hand to support him, I fell with the illness whose approaches I had felt for some time previously, and of which the crisis was hastened by the awe and trouble of the death-scene – the first I had ever witnessed. The past has seemed to me a strange week. Thank God, for my father's sake, I am better now, though still feeble. I wish indeed I had more general physical strength – the want of it is sadly in my way. I cannot do what I would do for want of sustained animal spirits and efficient bodily vigour.

My unhappy brother never knew what his sisters had done in literature – he was not aware that they had ever published a line. We could not tell him of our efforts for fear of causing him too deep a pang of remorse for his own time misspent, and talents misapplied. Now he will
never
know. I cannot dwell longer on the subject at present – it is too painful.

I thank you for your kind sympathy, and pray earnestly that your sons may all do well, and that you may be spared the sufferings my father has gone through. – Yours sincerely,

C. Brontë

EDS. T.J. WISE AND J.A. SYMINGTON,
THE BRONTËS: THEIR LIVES, FRIENDSHIPS AND CORRESPONDENCE IN FOUR VOLUMES
(1932)

When George Eliot was editing
Westminster Review
it caused her many headaches. In 1854 when she became attracted to George Lewes, she was completing her translation of Feuerbach's
Das Wesen des Christenthums?
‘Poor Lewes' fell ill and she probably completed all his articles, as well as her own. That summer she wrote to her sympathetic friend Cara Bray about her own ailments.

1854

My various aches determined themselves into an attack of rheumatism which sent me to bed yesterday; but I am better this morning and, as you see, able to sit up and write. My troubles are purely psychical – self-dissatisfaction and despair of achieving anything worth the doing. I can truly say, they vanish into nothing before any fear for the happiness of those I love. . . . When I spoke of myself as an island, I did not mean that I was so exceptionally. We are all islands –

‘Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe,

Our hermit spirits dwell and roam apart' –

and this seclusion is sometimes the most intensely felt at the very moment your friend is caressing you or consoling you. But this gradually becomes a source of satisfaction instead of repining. When we are young we think our troubles a mighty business – that the world is spread out expressly as a stage for the particular drama of our lives and that we have a right to rant and foam at the mouth if we are crossed. I have done enough of that in my time. But we begin at last to understand that these things are important only to one's own consciousness, which is but as a globule of dew on a rose-leaf that at midday there will be no trace of. This is no high-flown sentimentality, but a simple reflection which I find useful to me every day.

ED. G. HAIGHT,
SELECTED LETTERS OF GEORGE ELIOT
(1968)

Queen Victoria found greater strength to face Prince Albert's final illness than his death a few weeks later. Here she writes to the King of the Belgians.

Windsor Castle, 11th December 1861

Dearest Uncle, I can report another good night, and
no
loss of strength, and continued satisfactory symptoms. But more we dare
not
expect for some days;
not
losing ground is a
gain, now
, of
every
day.

It is very sad and trying for me, but I am well, and I think really
very
courageous; for it is the first time that
I
ever witnessed anything of this kind though
I
suffered from the same at Ramsgate, and was much worse. The trial in every way is so very trying, for I have lost my guide, my support, my all,
for a time
– as we can't ask or tell him anything. Many thanks for your kind letter received yesterday. We have been and are reading Von Ense's book to Albert; but it is
not
worth much. He likes very much being read to as it soothes him. W. Scott is also read to him. You shall hear again to-morrow, dearest Uncle, and, please God! each day will be more cheering.

Ever your devoted Niece,

Victoria R.

Windsor Castle, 12th December 1861

My Beloved Uncle, – I can again report favourably of our
most
precious invalid. He maintains his ground well – had another very good night, takes plenty of nourishment, and shows surprising strength. I am constantly in and out of his room, but since the
first four dreadful
nights,
last
week,
before
they had declared it to be
gastric fever
– I do not sit up with him at nights as I could be of no use; and there is nothing to cause alarm. I go out twice a day for about an hour. It is a very trying time, for a fever with its despondency, weakness, and occasional and
invariable
wanding, is most painful to witness – but we have
never
had
one unfavourable
symptom; to-morrow, reckoning from the 22nd, when dear Albert first fell ill – after going on a wet day to look at some buildings – having likewise been unusually depressed with worries of different kinds – is the
end
of the
third week
; we
may
hope for improvement
after
that, but the Doctors say they should
not
be a
t all disappointed if
this did
not
take place till the
end
of the
fourth week
. I cannot sufficiently praise the skill, attention, and devotion of Dr Jenner, who is the
first fever
Doctor in Europe, one may say – and good old Clark is here every day; good Brown is also
most
useful. . . . We have got Dr Watson (who succeeded Dr Chambers) and Sir H. Holland has also been here. But I have kept clear of these two. Albert sleeps a good deal in the day. He is moved every day into the next room on a sofa which is made up as a bed. He has only
kept
his bed entirely since Monday. Many, many thanks for your dear, kind letter of the 11th. I knew how
you
would
feel
for and think of me. I am very wonderfully supported, and excepting on three occasions, have borne up very well. I am sure Clark will tell you so. Ever your most devoted Niece,

Victoria R.

ED. A.C. BENSON,
LETTERS OF QUEEN VICTORIA
(1907)

She could scarcely believe Prince Albert's death, however.

Osborne, 24th December 1861

My Beloved Uncle, – Though, please God! I am to see you so soon, I must write these few lines to prepare you for the trying, sad existence you will find it with your poor forlorn, desolate child – who drags on a weary, pleasureless existence! I am also anxious to repeat
one
thing, and
that one
is
my firm
resolve, my
irrevocable decision
, viz. that
his
wishes –
his
plans about everything,
his
views about
every
thing are to be
my law
! And
no human power
will make me swerve from
what he
decided and wished – and I look to you to
support
and
help
me in this. I apply this particularly as regards our children – Bertie, etc. – for whose future he had traced everything
so
carefully. I am
also determined
that
no one
person, may
he
be ever so good, ever so devoted among my servants – is to lead or guide or dictate
to me
. I know
how he
would disapprove it. And I live
on
with him, for him; in fact
I
am only
outwardly
separated from him, and
only
for a
time
.

No one
can tell you more of my feelings, and can put you more in possession of many touching facts than our excellent Dr Jenner, who has been and is my great comfort, and whom I would
entreat
you to
see
and
hear
before you see
any one else
. Pray do this, for
I fear much
others trying to see you first and say things and wish for things which I
should not
consent to.

Though miserably weak and utterly shattered, my spirit rises when I think
any
wish or plan of his is to be touched or changed, or I am to be
made to do
anything. I know you will help me in my utter darkness. It is but for a short time, and
then
I go –
never, never
to part! Oh! that blessed, blessed thought! He seems so
near
to
me
, so
quite my own
now, my precious darling! God bless and preserve you.

Ever your wretched but devoted Child,

Victoria R.

What a Xmas! I won't think of it.

ED. A.C. BENSON (1907)

George Sand (1804–76), the French novelist, born Aurore Dupin, maintained lifelong friendships with many well-known men. She often cheered the ageing Flaubert, seventeen years her junior, with her advice on how to deal with depression and pain.

5 July 1872 Nohant

My old troubadour,

I must write to you today. Sixty-eight years old. Perfect health in spite of the cough which lets me sleep now that I plunge daily in a furious little torrent, cold as ice. The doctor says it's madness. I let him talk, too; I am curing myself while his patients look after themselves and croak. I am like the grass of the fields: water and sun, that is all I need . . .

15 March 1873 Nohant

Well, my old troubadour, we can hope for you very soon, I was worried about you. I am always worried about you. To tell the truth, I am not happy over your ill tempers, and your
prejudices
. They last too long, and in effect they are like an illness, you recognize it yourself. Now, forget; don't you know how to forget? You live too much in yourself and you get to consider everything in relation to yourself. If you were an egoist, and a conceited person, I would say that it was a normal condition; but with you who are so good and so generous it is an anomaly, an evil that must be combatted. Rest assured that life is badly arranged, painful, irritating for everyone; but do not neglect the immense compensations which it is ungrateful to forget.

That you get angry with this or that person, is of little importance if it is a comfort to you; but that you remain furious, indignant for weeks, months, almost years, is unjust and cruel to those who love you, and who would like to spare you all anxiety and all deception.

You see that I am scolding you; but while embracing you, I shall think only of the joy and the hope of seeing you flourishing again. We are waiting for you with impatience, and we are counting on Turgeneff [to visit] whom we adore also.

I have been suffering a good deal lately with a series of very painful hemorrhages; but they have not prevented me from amusing myself writing tales and from playing with my
little children
. They are so dear, and my big children are so good to me, that I shall die, I believe, smiling at them. What difference does it make whether one has a hundred thousand enemies if one is loved by two or three good souls? Don't you love me too, and wouldn't you reproach me for thinking that of no account? When I lost Rollinat, didn't you write to me to love the more those who were left? Come, so that I may
overwhelm
you with reproaches; for you are not doing what you told me to do.

We are expecting you, we are preparing a mid-Lent fantasy; try to take part. Laughter is a splendid medicine. We shall give you a costume; they tell me that you were very good as a pastry cook at Pauline's! If you are better, be certain it is because you have gotten out of your rut and have distracted yourself a little. Paris is good for you, you are too much alone yonder in your lovely house. Come and work, at our house; how perfectly easy to send on a box of books!

ED. E. DREW,
LETTERS OF GEORGE SAND
(1930)

Harriet Martineau (1802–76) wrote on women's issues and supported herself from the proceeds of her numerous books and articles. She suffered from ill-health throughout her life and in 1854 developed heart disease, which her doctors predicted would soon prove fatal. Despite this incurable illness, she continued her prodigious activities for the rest of her life. She was brought up a Christian, but rejected the idea of salvation, believing in eternal and irreversible laws in the universe. In this letter, written to a close friend a month before her death, Martineau calmly faces her end.

My dearest Friend, I am very ill. I leave it to J—— to show you how nearly certain it is that the end of my long illness is at hand. The difficulty and distress to me are the state of my head. I will only add that the condition daily grows worse, so that I am scarcely able to converse or to read, and the cramp in the hands makes the writing difficult or impossible; so I must try to be content with a few lines I can send, till the few days become none. We believe that time to be near; and we shall not attempt to deceive you about it. My brain feels under the constant sense of being not myself, and the introduction of this new fear into my daily life makes each day sufficiently trying to justify the longing for death which grows upon me more and more. I feel sure of your sympathy about this. You enter into my longing for rest, I am certain, and when you hear, some day soon, that I have sunk into my long sleep, you will feel it as the removal of a care, and as a relief on my account.