Manchester
next week to spend a few days with Mrs. Gaskell. Ellen's visit to
Yarmouth seems for the present given up; and really, all things
considered, I think the circumstance is scarcely to be regretted.

'Do you not think, my dear Miss Wooler, that you could come to
Haworth before you go to the coast? I am afraid that when you once
get settled at the sea-side your stay will not be brief. I must
repeat that a visit from you would be anticipated with pleasure, not
only by me, but by every inmate of Haworth Parsonage. Papa has given
me a general commission to send his respects to you whenever I
write--accept them, therefore, and--Believe me, yours affectionately
and sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.'

CHAPTER XIV: WILLIAM SMITH WILLIAMS

In picturing the circle which surrounded Charlotte Bronte through her
brief career, it is of the utmost importance that a word of recognition
should be given, and that in no half-hearted manner, to Mr. William Smith
Williams, who, in her later years, was Charlotte Bronte's most intimate
correspondent. The letters to Mr. Williams are far and away the best
that Charlotte wrote, at least of those which have been preserved. They
are full of literary enthusiasm and of intellectual interest. They show
Charlotte Bronte's sound judgment and good heart more effectually than
any other material which has been placed at the disposal of biographers.
They are an honour both to writer and receiver, and, in fact, reflect the
mind of the one as much as the mind of the other. Charlotte has
emphasised the fact that she adapted herself to her correspondents, and
in her letters to Mr. Williams we have her at her very best. Mr.
Williams occupied for many years the post of 'reader' in the firm of
Smith & Elder. That is a position scarcely less honourable and important
than authorship itself. In our own days Mr. George Meredith and Mr. John
Morley have been 'readers,' and Mr. James Payn has held the same post in
the firm which published the Bronte novels.

Mr. Williams, who was born in 1800, and died in 1875, had an interesting
career even before he became associated with Smith & Elder. In his
younger days he was apprenticed to Taylor & Hessey of Fleet Street; and
he used to relate how his boyish ideals of Coleridge were shattered on
beholding, for the first time, the bulky and ponderous fi