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APPENDIX
Mrs Gaskell treated this letter as raw material for her dramatic reconstruction of the experience, but towards the end introduced what purported to be the actual text:
Charlotte says, in an account which she gives to her friend of this visit to London, describing the entrance of her party into the Opera House: — "Fine ladies and gentlement glanced at us, we stood by the box-door, which was not yet opened, with a slight, graceful superciliousness, quite warranted by the circumstances. Still I felt pleasurably excited in spite of headache, sickness, and conscious clownishness; and I saw Anne was calm and gentle, which she always is. The performance was Rossini's "Barber of Seville," — very brilliant, though I fancy there are things I should like better. We got home after one o'clock. We had never been in bed the night before; had been in constant excitement for twenty-four hours; you may imagine we were tired. The next day, Sunday, Mr Williams came early to take us to church; and in the afternoon Mr Smith and his mother fetched us in a carriage, and took us to his house to dine.
On Monday we went to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, the National Gallery, dined again at Mr Smith's, and then went home to tea with Mr Williams at his house.
On Tuesday morning, we left London, laden with books Mr Smith had given us, and got safely home. A more jaded wretch than I looked, it would be difficult to conceive. I was thin when I went, but I was meagre indeed when I returned, my face looking grey and very old, with strange deep lines ploughed in it — my eyes stared unnaturally. I was weak and yet restless. In a while, however, these bad effects of excitement went off, and I regained my normal condition.
The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857), II, pp. 69-70.
To this extract, Shorter in 1900 appended the following note:
"Haworth:
September 4, 1848.
"Dear Polly — I write you . . .
etc.
These words imply that the text which then follows in his footnote is the full and correct text of the original letter.
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