e. You must be aware that many strange
notions as to the kind of person Charlotte really was will be done
away with by a knowledge of the true facts of her life. I have heard
imperfectly of farther printing on the subject. As to the mutilated
edition that is to come, I am sorry for it. Libellous or not, the
first edition was all true, and except the declamation all, in my
opinion, useful to be published. Of course I don't know how far
necessity may make Mrs. Gaskell give them up. You know one dare not
always say the world moves.'

We who do know the whole story in fullest detail will understand that it
was desirable to 'mutilate' the book, and that, indeed, truth did in some
measure require it. But with these letters of Mary Taylor's before us,
let us not hear again that the story of Charlotte Bronte's life was not,
in its main features, accurately and adequately told by her gifted
biographer.

Why then, I am naturally asked, add one further book to the Bronte
biographical literature? The reply is, I hope, sufficient. Forty years
have gone by, and they have been years of growing interest in the
subject. In the year 1895 ten thousand people visited the Bronte Museum
at Haworth. Interesting books have been written, notably Sir Wemyss
Reid's _Monograph_ and Mr. Leyland's _Bronte Family_, but they have gone
out of print. Many new facts have come to light, and many details,
moreover, which were too trivial in 1857 are of sufficient importance
to-day; and many facts which were rightly suppressed then may honestly
and honourably be given to the public at an interval of nearly half a
century. Added to all this, fortune has been kind to me.

Some three or four years ago Miss Ellen Nussey placed in my hands a
printed volume of some 400 pages, which bore no publisher's name, but
contained upon its title-page the statement that it was _The Story of
Charlotte Bronte's Life_, _as told through her Letters_. These are the
Letters--370 in number--which Miss Nussey had lent to Mrs. Gaskell and to
Sir Wemyss Reid. Of these letters Mrs. Gaskell published about 100, and
Sir Wemyss Reid added as many more as he considered circumstances
justified twenty years back.

It was explained to me that the volume had been privately printed under a
misconception, and that only some dozen copies were extant. Miss Nussey
asked me if I would write something around what might remain of the
unpublished let