The Tenant of Wildfell Hall | Page 3

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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte Scanned and proofed by
David Price [email protected]

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

While I acknowledge the success of the present work to have been
greater than I anticipated, and the praises it has elicited from a few kind
critics to have been greater than it deserved, I must also admit that from
some other quarters it has been censured with an asperity which I was
as little prepared to expect, and which my judgment, as well as my
feelings, assures me is more bitter than just. It is scarcely the province
of an author to refute the arguments of his censors and vindicate his
own productions; but I may be allowed to make here a few
observations with which I would have prefaced the first edition, had I

foreseen the necessity of such precautions against the misapprehensions
of those who would read it with a prejudiced mind or be content to
judge it by a hasty glance.
My object in writing the following pages was not simply to amuse the
Reader; neither was it to gratify my own taste, nor yet to ingratiate
myself with the Press and the Public: I wished to tell the truth, for truth
always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it. But
as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of a well, it
needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so will be
likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into
which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures;
as, in like manner, she who undertakes the cleansing of a careless
bachelor's apartment will be liable to more abuse for the dust she raises
than commendation for the clearance she effects. Let it not be imagined,
however, that I consider myself competent to reform the errors and
abuses of society, but only that I would fain contribute my humble
quota towards so good an aim; and if I can gain the public ear at all, I
would rather whisper a few wholesome truths therein than much soft
nonsense.
As the story of 'Agnes Grey' was accused of extravagant over-
colouring in those very parts that were carefully copied from the life,
with a most scrupulous avoidance of all exaggeration, so, in the present
work, I find myself censured for depicting CON AMORE, with 'a
morbid love of the coarse, if not of the brutal,' those scenes which, I
will venture to say, have not been more painful for the most fastidious
of my critics to read than they were for me to describe. I may have
gone too far; in which case I shall be careful not to trouble myself or
my readers in the same way again; but when we have to do with vice
and vicious characters, I maintain it is better to depict them as they
really are than as they would wish to appear. To represent a bad thing
in its least offensive light is, doubtless, the most agreeable course for a
writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest? Is it
better to reveal the snares and pitfalls of life to the young and
thoughtless traveller, or to cover them with branches and flowers? Oh,
reader! if there were less of this delicate concealment of facts - this
whispering, 'Peace, peace,' when there is no peace, there would be less
of sin and misery to the young of both sexes who are left to wring their

bitter knowledge from experience.
I would not be understood to suppose that the proceedings of the
unhappy scapegrace, with his few profligate companions I have here
introduced, are a specimen of the common practices of society - the
case is an extreme one, as I trusted none would fail to perceive; but I
know that such characters do