suspicion affected the reception of the books. Ever since the
completion of Anne Bronte's tale of "Agnes Grey", she had been
labouring at a second, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall." It is
little known; the subject--the deterioration of a character,
whose profligacy and ruin took their rise in habits of
intemperance, so slight as to be only considered "good
fellowship"--was painfully discordant to one who would fain have
sheltered herself from all but peaceful and religious ideas. "She
had" (says her sister of that gentle "little one"), "in the
course of her life, been called on to contemplate near at hand,
and for a long time, the terrible effects of talents misused and
faculties abused; hers was naturally a sensitive, reserved, and
dejected nature; what she saw sunk very deeply into her mind; it
did her harm. She brooded over it till she believed it to be a
duty to reproduce every detail (of course, with fictitious
characters, incidents, and situations), as a warning to others.
She hated her work, but would pursue it. When reasoned with on
the subject, she regarded such reasonings as a temptation to
self-indulgence. She must be honest; she must not varnish,
soften, or conceal. This well-meant resolution brought on her
misconstruction, and some abuse, which she bore, 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 the June of this year, 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' was
sufficiently near its completion to be submitted to the person
who had previously published for Ellis and Acton Bell.