The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and its power of pleasing must be regarded, as well as its mere capabilities of force or effect. It is not only the subject of this novel, however, that is objectionable, but the manner of treating it. There is a coarseness of tone throughout the writing of all these Bells [Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë], that puts an offensive subject in its worst point of view, and which generally contrives to dash indifferent things". A critic in "Athenaeum", probably H. F. Chorley, cited "The Tenant" as "the most entertaining novel we have read in a month past". However, he warned
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall marriage." However, unlike Arthur, Gilbert shows much more esteem to Helen's artwork. Diederich concludes that "the domestic realm, whether established with marriage or re-established in remarriage, doesn't support women's self-definition as artists, nor does it provide structured setting for the unferreted expression of their talents" and that "The Tenant" calls for "more support for married and remarried women's legal rights and artistic opportunities in nineteen-century Britain." Seemingly pious Universalist ideas in "The Tenant" contradicted prevailing at that time Protestant doctrine in England and thus advocated a socially unacceptable view. Helen expresses several times in the story her belief in eventual