Back Story

You might expect to find advice about how to reject a marriage proposal in the Smarter Living section of the Morning Briefing.

But it’s relevant for today’s Back Story. On this day in 1839, Charlotte Brontë wrote what might be considered a classic rejection letter (eight years before the publication of her best-known work, “Jane Eyre”).

Image A portrait of Charlotte Brontë from 1850. Credit... National Portrait Gallery, London

Her suitor was the Rev. Henry Nussey, the brother of her close friend Ellen. He proposed by letter, shortly before Brontë’s 23rd birthday. She responded a few days later:

“Before answering your letter, I might have spent a long time in consideration of its subject; but as from the first moment of its reception and perusal I determined on which course to pursue, it seemed to me that delay was wholly unnecessary.”

She offered a face-saving explanation: “I have no personal repugnance to the idea of a union with you — but I feel convinced that mine is not the sort of disposition calculated to form the happiness of a man like you.”

Brontë went on to publish a collection of poetry with her sisters Emily and Anne, in 1846. “Jane Eyre” was published the next year under the pseudonym Currer Bell, which was based partly on the name of the man whose marriage proposal she did accept (after two tries), Arthur Bell Nicholls.

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