f Branwell's increasing moral and physical decay to
produce that bitter mandate of conscience under which she wrote 'The
Tenant of Wildfell Hall.'

'Hers was naturally a sensitive, reserved, and dejected nature. She
hated her work, but would pursue it. It was written as a warning,'--so
said Charlotte when, in the pathetic Preface of 1850, she was
endeavouring to explain to the public how a creature so gentle and so
good as Acton Bell should have written such a book as 'Wildfell Hall.'
And in the second edition of 'Wildfell Hall,' which appeared in 1848,
Anne Bronte herself justified her novel in a Preface which is reprinted
in this volume for the first time. The little Preface is a curious
document. It has the same determined didactic tone which pervades the
book itself, the same narrowness of view, and inflation of expression, an
inflation which is really due not to any personal egotism in the writer,
but rather to that very gentleness and inexperience which must yet nerve
itself under the stimulus of religion to its disagreeable and repulsive
task. 'I knew that such characters'--as Huntingdon and his
companions--'do exist, and if I have warned one rash youth from following
in their steps the book has not been written in vain.' If the story has
given more pain than pleasure to 'any honest reader,' the writer 'craves
his pardon, for such was far from my intention.' But at the same time
she cannot promise to limit her ambition to the giving of innocent
pleasure, or to the production of 'a perfect work of art.' 'Time and
talent so spent I should consider wasted and misapplied.' God has given
her unpalatable truths to speak, and she must speak them.

The measure of misconstruction and abuse, therefore, which her book
brought upon her she bore, says her sister, 'as it was her custom to bear
whatever was unpleasant, with mild, steady patience. She was a very
sincere and practical Christian, but the tinge of religious melancholy
communicated a sad shade to her brief, blameless life.'

In spite of misconstruction and abuse, however, 'Wildfell Hall' seems to
have attained more immediate success than anything else written by the
sisters before 1848, except 'Jane Eyre.' It went into a second edition
within a very short time of its publication, and Messrs. Newby informed
the American publishers with whom they were negotiating that it was the
work of the same hand which had produced 'Jane Eyre,' and superior to
either