The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 1

“If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love our friends for their sakes rather than for our own.””

— Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

“[Charlotte Brontë] once told her sisters that they were wrong - even morally wrong - in making their heroines beautiful as a matter of course. They replied that it was impossible to make a heroine interesting on any other terms. Her answer was, 'I will prove to you that you are wrong; I will show you a heroine as plain and as small as myself, who shall be as interesting as any of yours.””

— Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

“And besides, in the matter of friendship, I have observed that the disappointment here arises chiefly, from liking our friends too well, or thinking of them too highly, but rather from an over-estimate of liking for and opinion of ; and that if we guard ourselves with sufficient scrupulousness of care from error in this direction, and can be content, and even happy to give more affection than we receive -- can make just comparison of circumstances, and be severely accurate in drawing inferences thence, and never let self-love blind our eyes -- I think we may manage to get through life with consistency and constancy, unembittered by that misanthropy which springs from revulsions of feeling. All this sounds a little metaphysical, but it is good sense of if you consider it. The moral of it is, that if we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love our friends for sakes rather than for ; we must look at their truth to , full as much as their truth to . In the latter case, every wound to self-love would be a cause of coldness; in the former, only some painful change in the friend's character and disposition -- some fearful breach in his allegiance to his better self -- could alienate the heart.””

— Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

“She continued her own studies, principally attending to German, and to Literature; and every Sunday she went alone to the German and English chapels. Her walks too were solitary, and principally taken in the allée défendue, where she was secure from intrusion. This solitude was a perilous luxury to one of her temperament; so liable as she was to morbid and acute mental suffering.””

— Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

“A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.””

— Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

“As far as she could see, her life was ordained to be lonely, and she must subdue her nature to her life, and, if possible, bring the two into harmony. When she could employ herself in fiction, all was comparatively well. The characters were her companions in the quiet hours, which she spent utterly alone, unable often to stir out of doors for many days together.””

— Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

“About Emily : "she never showed regard to any human creature; all her love was reserved for animals".””

— Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

“I read for the same reason that I ate or drank; because it was a real craving of nature. I wrote on the same principle as I spoke”

— Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

“It is not right to anticipate evil, and to be always looking forward with an apprehensive spirit; but I think grief is a two–edged sword, it cuts both ways; the memory of one loss is the anticipation of another.””

— Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell