Lot 280: BRONTË, CHARLOTTE

BRONTË, CHARLOTTE Autograph letter signed ("C. Brontë"), 4 pages (7 1/8 x 4 5/8 in.; 180 x 118 mm), Haworth, Yorkshire, 25 August 1852, to Ellen Nussey; horizontal fold, minor soiling, small rust stain on last page of letter affecting one word, narrow glue stain along right margin of last page.

"I am a lonely woman and likely to be lonely." In this letter written to Ellen Nussey two years before her marriage and three years before her death, Charlotte Brontë speaks of her domestic unhappiness and her lonliness and alludes to her work on the novel Villette (completed 20 November 1852; pub. 1853).

After discussing the illnesses of her father and one of the servants, Brontë asks to know why Nussey is not open and forthcoming in her letters: "I can hardly guess what checks you in writing to me—There is certainly no one in this house or elsewhere to whom I should show your notes—and I do not imagine they are in any peril in passing through the Post-Offices. Perhaps you think that as I generally write with some reserve—you ought to do the same. My reserve, however, has its foundation not in design, but in necessity—I am silent because I have literally nothing to say. I might indeed repeat over and over again that my life is a pale blank and often a very weary burden—but what end would be unanswered by such repetition except to weary you and enervate myself? The evils that now and then wring a groan from my heart—lie in position—not that I am a single woman and likely to remain a single woman—but because I am a lonely woman and likely to be lonely. But it cannot be helped and therefore imperatively must be borne—and borne too with as few words about it as may be.

"I write all this just to prove to you that whatever you would freely say to me—you may just as freely write."

Brontë ends the letter with an affirmation of the importance of finishing Villette in the coming months: "Understand—that I remain just as resolved as ever not to allow myself the holiday of a visit from you—till I have done my work. After labour—pleasure—but while work is lying at the need undone—I never yet could enjoy recreation."

A fine letter written late in Charlotte's Brontë's life.