"Gaskell, Elizabeth C - The Life Of Charlotte Bronte - vol 2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gaskell Elizabeth C)

Nicholls for Miss Bronte--Instance of her self-abnegation--She
again visits London--Impressions of this visit--Letter to Mrs.
Gaskell--Reception of the critiques on
"Villette"--Misunderstanding with Miss Martineau--Letter on Mr.
Thackeray's portrait--Visit of the Bishop of Ripon to Haworth
Parsonage--Her wish to see the unfavourable critiques on her
works--Her nervous shyness of strangers, and its cause--Letter on
Mr. Thackeray's lectures.

CHAPTER XIII.
Letter to Mrs. Gaskell on writing fiction, etc.--The biographer's
account of her visit to Haworth, and reminiscences of
conversations with Miss Bronte--Letters from Miss Bronte to her
friends--Her engagement to Mr. Nicholls, and preparations for the
marriage--The marriage ceremony and wedding tour--Her happiness
in the married state--New symptoms of illness, and their
cause--The two last letters written by Mrs. Nicholls--An alarming
change--Her death.

CHAPTER XIV.
Mourners at the funeral--Conclusion.




CHAPTER I

During this summer of 1846, while her literary hopes were waning,
an anxiety of another kind was increasing. Her father's eyesight
had become seriously impaired by the progress of the cataract
which was forming. He was nearly blind. He could grope his way
about, and recognise the figures of those he knew well, when they
were placed against a strong light; but he could no longer see to
read; and thus his eager appetite for knowledge and information
of all kinds was severely balked. He continued to preach. I have
heard that he was led up into the pulpit, and that his sermons
were never so effective as when he stood there, a grey sightless
old man, his blind eyes looking out straight before him, while
the words that came from his lips had all the vigour and force of
his best days. Another fact has been mentioned to me, curious as
showing the accurateness of his sensation of time. His sermons
had always lasted exactly half an hour. With the clock right
before him, and with his ready flow of words, this had been no
difficult matter as long as he could see. But it was the same
when he was blind; as the minute-hand came to the point, marking
the expiration of the thirty minutes, he concluded his sermon.

Under his great sorrow he was always patient. As in times of far
greater affliction, he enforced a quiet endurance of his woe upon
himself. But so many interests were quenched by this blindness