Charlotte Brontë was born 195 years ago today. After all those years we tend to have a larger-than-life image of her when reading her writings, but it's never out of place to recall that the baby bron 195 years ago today was actually a tiny woman, thus described by Elizabeth Gaskell:
She is (as she calls herself) undeveloped, thin, and more than half a head shorter than I am; soft brown hair, not very dark; eyes (very good and expressive, looking straight and open at you) of the same colour as her hair; a large mouth; the forehead square, broad and rather over-hanging. She has a very sweet voice; rather hesitates In choosing her expressions, but when chosen they seem without an effort admirable, and just befitting the occasion; there is nothing overstrained, but perfectly simple. (The Life of Charlotte Brontë, ch. XXIII)
That's why, in a way, it's so imposing, so sobering to stand in front of her mundane possessions at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. In spite of what she gave to literature, in spite of what she gave to millions of readers all over the world, she was just a 19th-century lady who, when a child, put pen to paper and never really let go of either of them ever again.
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Categories: Charlotte Brontë, Reminder
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