In her introduction to the Oxford edition of Charlotte Bronte's 1849 novel Shirley, scholar Janet Gezari quotes from a pair of documents. The first is from a letter Bronte wrote to W. S. Williams, her editor at Smith, Elder, who had asked her what she was planning for her next novel. Speaking of Shirley, which was germinating in her mind, she told him that she hoped to

say something about the "condition of women" question, but it is one respecting which so much "cant" has been talked, that one feels a sort of repugnance to approach it. It is true enough that the present market for female labour is quite overstocked--but where or how could another be opened? Many say that the professions now filled only by men should be open to women also--but are not their present occupants and candidates more than numerous enough to answer every demand? Is there any more room for female lawyers, female doctors, female engravers, for more female artists, more authoresses? One can see where the evil lies--but who can point out the remedy? When a woman has a little family to rear and educate and a household to conduct, her hands are full, her vocation is evident--when her destiny isolates her--I suppose she must do what she can--live as she can--complain as little--bear as much--work as well as possible.

Yet in the end Shirley conducts its two female heroines down the same old path that the author puzzles over in this note. In fact, the eroticism of their courtships (and Bronte was famously good at erotic sparring between men and women) arises from the way in which they relinquish themselves to their husbands' control. Her lifelong friend Mary Taylor, a woman's rights activist, was horrified, and wasn't afraid to say so. In a letter to Bronte she wrote:

I have seen some extracts from "Shirley" in which you talk of women working. And this first duty, this great necessity you seem to think that some women may indulge in--if they give up marriage and don't make themselves too disagreeable to the other sex. You are a coward and a traitor.

Reading these two documents made me sad. It's interesting, disturbing also, that Bronte's letter to Williams is poignant in a way that her acid narrative commentary frequently is not. The letter complicates her, and it also complicates the story of men and women. But Taylor is right: Shirley does nothing to solve the "condition of women" question.

In some ways, these letters exemplify the disconnect between artists and activists. The one sees so much that she cannot see an answer. The other sweeps away the complications for the sake of making change.

But how would you feel if one of your closest friends called you "a coward and a traitor"?