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The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1

by Elizabeth Claghorn Gaskell

July, 1999  [Etext #1827]


Project Gutenberg Etext of Life of Charlotte Bronte by Gaskell V 1
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This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
from the 1906 Smith, Elder and Co. edition.

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The volume 2 that we've released appears to be from the first edition of
the book.  My book appears to be the third edition of the book.

Normally this would not matter at all but unfortunately in this case it
does.  Mrs Gaskell had to remove a great deal of material after the second
edition was published after legal threats.  She did this but also added a
great deal of new material.  Hence the first/second editions differ
significantly from the third.  Anyone interested in this book is likely to
want complete etexts of the first/second and third versions - so they can
see what Mrs Gaskell changed (and presumably work out why).

In the short term I'm not proposing to do a volume 2 from my edition as it
scanned rather poorly.  If anyone really pushes for it I will transcribe
the rest of it from my copy.


This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
from the 1906 Smith, Elder and Co. edition.





The Life of Charlotte Bronte




CHAPTER I



The Leeds and Skipton railway runs along a deep valley of the
Aire; a slow and sluggish stream, compared to the neighbouring
river of Wharfe.  Keighley station is on this line of railway,
about a quarter of a mile from the town of the same name.  The
number of inhabitants and the importance of Keighley have been
very greatly increased during the last twenty years, owing to the
rapidly extended market for worsted manufactures, a branch of
industry that mainly employs the factory population of this part
of Yorkshire, which has Bradford for its centre and metropolis.

Keighley is in process of transformation from a populous, old-
fashioned village, into a still more populous and flourishing
town.  It is evident to the stranger, that as the gable-ended
houses, which obtrude themselves corner-wise on the widening
street, fall vacant, they are pulled down to allow of greater
space for traffic, and a more modern style of architecture.  The
quaint and narrow shop-windows of fifty years ago, are giving way
to large panes and plate-glass.  Nearly every dwelling seems
devoted to some branch of commerce.  In passing hastily through
the town, one hardly perceives where the necessary lawyer and
doctor can live, so little appearance is there of any dwellings of
the professional middle-class, such as abound in our old cathedral
towns.  In fact, nothing can be more opposed than the state of
society, the modes of thinking, the standards of reference on all
points of morality, manners, and even politics and religion, in
such a new manufacturing place as Keighley in the north, and any
stately, sleepy, picturesque cathedral town in the south.  Yet the
aspect of Keighley promises well for future stateliness, if not
picturesqueness.  Grey stone abounds; and the rows of houses built
of it have a kind of solid grandeur connected with their uniform
and enduring lines.  The frame-work of the doors, and the lintels
of the windows, even in the smallest dwellings, are made of blocks
of stone.  There is no painted wood to require continual
beautifying, or else present a shabby aspect; and the stone is
kept scrupulously clean by the notable Yorkshire housewives.  Such
glimpses into the interior as a passer-by obtains, reveal a rough
abundance of the means of living, and diligent and active habits
in the women.  But the voices of the people are hard, and their
tones discordant, promising little of the musical taste that
distinguishes the district, and which has already furnished a
Carrodus to the musical world.  The names over the shops (of which
the one just given is a sample) seem strange even to an inhabitant
of the neighbouring county, and have a peculiar smack and flavour
of the place.

The town of Keighley never quite melts into country on the road to
Haworth, although the houses become more sparse as the traveller
journeys upwards to the grey round hills that seem to bound his
journey in a westerly direction.  First come some villas; just
sufficiently retired from the road to show that they can scarcely
belong to any one liable to be summoned in a hurry, at the call of
suffering or danger, from his comfortable fire-side; the lawyer,
the doctor, and the clergyman, live at hand, and hardly in the
suburbs, with a screen of shrubs for concealment.

In a town one does not look for vivid colouring; what there may be
of this is furnished by the wares in the shops, not by foliage or
atmospheric effects; but in the country some brilliancy and
vividness seems to be instinctively expected, and there is
consequently a slight feeling of disappointment at the grey
neutral tint of every object, near or far off, on the way from
Keighley to Haworth.  The distance is about four miles; and, as I
have said, what with villas, great worsted factories, rows of
workmen's houses, with here and there an old-fashioned farmhouse
and outbuildings, it can hardly be called "country" any part of
the way.  For two miles the road passes over tolerably level
ground, distant hills on the left, a "beck" flowing through
meadows on the right, and furnishing water power, at certain
points, to the factories built on its banks.  The air is dim and
lightless with the smoke from all these habitations and places of
business.  The soil in the valley (or "bottom," to use the local
term) is rich; but, as the road begins to ascend, the vegetation
becomes poorer; it does not flourish, it merely exists; and,
instead of trees, there are only bushes and shrubs about the
dwellings.  Stone dykes are everywhere used in place of hedges;
and what crops there are, on the patches of arable land, consist
of pale, hungry-looking, grey green oats.  Right before the
traveller on this road rises Haworth village; he can see it for
two miles before he arrives, for it is situated on the side of a
pretty steep hill, with a back-ground of dun and purple moors,
rising and sweeping away yet higher than the church, which is
built at the very summit of the long narrow street.  All round the
horizon there is this same line of sinuous wave-like hills; the
scoops into which they fall only revealing other hills beyond, of
similar colour and shape, crowned with wild, bleak moors--grand,
from the ideas of solitude and loneliness which they suggest, or
oppressive from the feeling which they give of being pent-up by
some monotonous and illimitable barrier, according to the mood of
mind in which the spectator may be.

For a short distance the road appears to turn away from Haworth,
as it winds round the base of the shoulder of a hill; but then it
crosses a bridge over the "beck," and the ascent through the
village begins.  The flag-stones with which it is paved are placed
end-ways, in order to give a better hold to the horses' feet; and,
even with this help, they seem to be in constant danger of
slipping backwards.  The old stone houses are high compared to the
width of the street, which makes an abrupt turn before reaching
the more level ground at the head of the village, so that the
steep aspect of the place, in one part, is almost like that of a
wall.  But this surmounted, the church lies a little off the main
road on the left; a hundred yards, or so, and the driver relaxes
his care, and the horse breathes more easily, as they pass into
the quite little by-street that leads to Haworth Parsonage.  The
churchyard is on one side of this lane, the school-house and the
sexton's dwelling (where the curates formerly lodged) on the
other.

The parsonage stands at right angles to the road, facing down upon
the church; so that, in fact, parsonage, church, and belfried
school-house, form three sides of an irregular oblong, of which
the fourth is open to the fields and moors that lie beyond.  The
area of this oblong is filled up by a crowded churchyard, and a
small garden or court in front of the clergyman's house.  As the
entrance to this from the road is at the side, the path goes round
the corner into the little plot of ground.  Underneath the windows
is a narrow flower-border, carefully tended in days of yore,
although only the most hardy plants could be made to grow there.
Within the stone wall, which keeps out the surrounding churchyard,
are bushes of elder and lilac; the rest of the ground is occupied
by a square grass-plot and a gravel walk.  The house is of grey
stone, two stories high, heavily roofed with flags, in order to
resist the winds that might strip off a lighter covering.  It
appears to have been built about a hundred years ago, and to
consist of four rooms on each story; the two windows on the right
(as the visitor stands with his back to the church, ready to enter
in at the front door) belonging to Mr. Bronte's study, the two on
the left to the family sitting-room.  Everything about the place
tells of the most dainty order, the most exquisite cleanliness.
The door-steps are spotless; the small old-fashioned window-panes
glitter like looking-glass.  Inside and outside of that house
cleanliness goes up into its essence, purity.

The little church lies, as I mentioned, above most of the houses
in the village; and the graveyard rises above the church, and is
terribly full of upright tombstones.  The chapel or church claims
greater antiquity than any other in that part of the kingdom; but
there is no appearance of this in the external aspect of the
present edifice, unless it be in the two eastern windows, which
remain unmodernized, and in the lower part of the steeple.
Inside, the character of the pillars shows that they were
constructed before the reign of Henry VII.  It is probable that
there existed on this ground, a "field-kirk," or oratory, in the
earliest times; and, from the Archbishop's registry at York, it is
ascertained that there was a chapel at Haworth in 1317.  The
inhabitants refer inquirers concerning the date to the following
inscription on a stone in the church tower:-


"Hic fecit Caenobium Monachorum Auteste fundator.  A. D.
sexcentissimo."


That is to say, before the preaching of Christianity in
Northumbria.  Whitaker says that this mistake originated in the
illiterate copying out, by some modern stone-cutter, of an
inscription in the character of Henry the Eighth's time on an
adjoining stone:-


"Orate pro bono statu Eutest Tod."

"Now every antiquary knows that the formula of prayer 'bono statu'
always refers to the living.  I suspect this singular Christian
name has been mistaken by the stone-cutter for Austet, a
contraction of Eustatius, but the word Tod, which has been mis-
read for the Arabic figures 600, is perfectly fair and legible.
On the presumption of this foolish claim to antiquity, the people
would needs set up for independence, and contest the right of the
Vicar of Bradford to nominate a curate at Haworth."


I have given this extract, in order to explain the imaginary
groundwork of a commotion which took place in Haworth about five
and thirty years ago, to which I shall have occasion to allude
again more particularly.

The interior of the church is commonplace; it is neither old
enough nor modern enough to compel notice.  The pews are of black
oak, with high divisions; and the names of those to whom they
belong are painted in white letters on the doors.  There are
neither brasses, nor altar-tombs, nor monuments, but there is a
mural tablet on the right-hand side of the communion-table,
bearing the following inscription:-


HERE
LIE THE REMAINS OF
MARIA BRONTE, WIFE
OF THE
REV. P. BRONTE, A.B., MINISTER OP HAWORTH.
HER SOUL
DEPARTED TO THE SAVIOUR, SEPT. 15TH, 1821,
IN THE 39TH YEAR OF HER AGE.

"Be ye also ready:  for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of
Man cometh."  MATTHEW xxiv. 44.

ALSO HERE LIE THE REMAINS OF
MARIA BRONTE, DAUGHTER OF THE AFORESAID;
SHE DIED ON THE
6TH OF MAY, 1825, IN THE 12TH YEAR OF HER AGE;
AND OF
ELIZABETH BRONTE, HER SISTER,
WHO DIED JUNE 15TH, 1825, IN THE 11TH YEAR OF HER AGE.

"Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as
little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."--
MATTHEW xviii. 3.

HERE ALSO LIE THE REMAINS OF
PATRICK BRANWELL BRONTE,
WHO DIED SEPT. 24TH, 1848, AGED 3O YEARS;
AND OF
EMILY JANE BRONTE,
WHO DIED DEC. 19TH, 1848, AGED 29 YEARS,
SON AND DAUGHTER OF THE
REV. P. BRONTE, INCUMBENT.

THIS STONE IS ALSO DEDICATED TO THE
MEMORY OF ANNE BRONTE, {1}
YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF THE REV. P. BRONTE, A.B.
SHE DIED, AGED 27 YEARS, MAY 28TH, 1849,
AND WAS BURIED AT THE OLD CHURCH, SCARBORO.'


At the upper part of this tablet ample space is allowed between
the lines of the inscription; when the first memorials were
written down, the survivors, in their fond affection, thought
little of the margin and verge they were leaving for those who
were still living.  But as one dead member of the household
follows another fast to the grave, the lines are pressed together,
and the letters become small and cramped.  After the record of
Anne's death, there is room for no other.

But one more of that generation--the last of that nursery of six
little motherless children--was yet to follow, before the
survivor, the childless and widowed father, found his rest.  On
another tablet, below the first, the following record has been
added to that mournful list:-


ADJOINING LIE THE REMAINS OF
CHARLOTTE, WIFE
OF THE
REV. ARTHUR BELL NICHOLLS, A.B.,
AND DAUGHTER OF THE REV. P.  BRONTE, A.B., INCUMBENT
SHE DIED MARCH 31ST, 1855, IN THE 39TH
YEAR OF HER AGE. {2}


This tablet, which corrects the error in the former tablet as to
the age of Anne Bronte, bears the following inscription in Roman
letters; the initials, however, being in old English.

In Memory of
Maria, wife of the Rev. P. Bronte, A.B., Minister of Haworth,
She died Sept. 15th, 1821, in the 39th year of her age.
Also, of Maria, their daughter, who died May 6th, 1825, in the
12th year of her age.
Also, of Elizabeth, their daughter, who died June 15th, 1825, in
the 11th year of her age.
Also, of Patrick Branwell, their son, who died Sept. 24th, 1848,
aged 31 years.
Also, of Emily Jane, their daughter, who died Dec. 19th, 1848,
aged 30 years.
Also, of Anne, their daughter, who died May 28th, 1849, aged 29
years.  She was buried at the Old Church, Scarborough.
Also, of Charlotte, their daughter, wife of the Rev. A. B.
Nicholls, B.A.  She died March 31st, 1855, in the 39th year of her
age.
"The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law,
but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ."--1 Cor. xv. 56, 57.



CHAPTER II



For a right understanding of the life of my dear friend, Charlotte
Bronte, it appears to me more necessary in her case than in most
others, that the reader should be made acquainted with the
peculiar forms of population and society amidst which her earliest
years were passed, and from which both her own and her sisters'
first impressions of human life must have been received.  I shall
endeavour, therefore, before proceeding further with my work, to
present some idea of the character of the people of Haworth, and
the surrounding districts.

Even an inhabitant of the neighbouring county of Lancaster is
struck by the peculiar force of character which the Yorkshiremen
display.  This makes them interesting as a race; while, at the
same time, as individuals, the remarkable degree of self-
sufficiency they possess gives them an air of independence rather
apt to repel a stranger.  I use this expression "self-sufficiency"
in the largest sense.  Conscious of the strong sagacity and the
dogged power of will which seem almost the birthright of the
natives of the West Riding, each man relies upon himself, and
seeks no help at the hands of his neighbour.  From rarely
requiring the assistance of others, he comes to doubt the power of
bestowing it:  from the general success of his efforts, he grows
to depend upon them, and to over-esteem his own energy and power.
He belongs to that keen, yet short-sighted class, who consider
suspicion of all whose honesty is not proved as a sign of wisdom.
The practical qualities of a man are held in great respect; but
the want of faith in strangers and untried modes of action,
extends itself even to the manner in which the virtues are
regarded; and if they produce no immediate and tangible result,
they are rather put aside as unfit for this busy, striving world;
especially if they are more of a passive than an active character.
The affections are strong and their foundations lie deep:  but
they are not--such affections seldom are--wide-spreading; nor do
they show themselves on the surface.  Indeed, there is little
display of any of the amenities of life among this wild, rough
population.  Their accost is curt; their accent and tone of speech
blunt and harsh.  Something of this may, probably, be attributed
to the freedom of mountain air and of isolated hill-side life;
something be derived from their rough Norse ancestry.  They have a
quick perception of character, and a keen sense of humour; the
dwellers among them must be prepared for certain uncomplimentary,
though most likely true, observations, pithily expressed.  Their
feelings are not easily roused, but their duration is lasting.
Hence there is much close friendship and faithful service; and for
a correct exemplification of the form in which the latter
frequently appears, I need only refer the reader of "Wuthering
Heights" to the character of "Joseph."

From the same cause come also enduring grudges, in some cases
amounting to hatred, which occasionally has been bequeathed from
generation to generation.  I remember Miss Bronte once telling me
that it was a saying round about Haworth, "Keep a stone in thy
pocket seven year; turn it, and keep it seven year longer, that it
may be ever ready to thine hand when thine enemy draws near."

The West Riding men are sleuth-hounds in pursuit of money.  Miss
Bronte related to my husband a curious instance illustrative of
this eager desire for riches.  A man that she knew, who was a
small manufacturer, had engaged in many local speculations which
had always turned out well, and thereby rendered him a person of
some wealth.  He was rather past middle age, when he bethought him
of insuring his life; and he had only just taken out his policy,
when he fell ill of an acute disease which was certain to end
fatally in a very few days.  The doctor, half-hesitatingly,
revealed to him his hopeless state.  "By jingo!" cried he, rousing
up at once into the old energy, "I shall DO the insurance company!
I always was a lucky fellow!"

These men are keen and shrewd; faithful and persevering in
following out a good purpose, fell in tracking an evil one.  They
are not emotional; they are not easily made into either friends or
enemies; but once lovers or haters, it is difficult to change
their feeling.  They are a powerful race both in mind and body,
both for good and for evil.

The woollen manufacture was introduced into this district in the
days of Edward III.  It is traditionally said that a colony of
Flemings came over and settled in the West Riding to teach the
inhabitants what to do with their wool.  The mixture of
agricultural with manufacturing labour that ensued and prevailed
in the West Riding up to a very recent period, sounds pleasant
enough at this distance of time, when the classical impression is
left, and the details forgotten, or only brought to light by those
who explore the few remote parts of England where the custom still
lingers.  The idea of the mistress and her maidens spinning at the
great wheels while the master was abroad ploughing his fields, or
seeing after his flocks on the purple moors, is very poetical to
look back upon; but when such life actually touches on our own
days, and we can hear particulars from the lips of those now
living, there come out details of coarseness--of the uncouthness
of the rustic mingled with the sharpness of the tradesman--of
irregularity and fierce lawlessness--that rather mar the vision of
pastoral innocence and simplicity.  Still, as it is the
exceptional and exaggerated characteristics of any period that
leave the most vivid memory behind them, it would be wrong, and in
my opinion faithless, to conclude that such and such forms of
society and modes of living were not best for the period when they
prevailed, although the abuses they may have led into, and the
gradual progress of the world, have made it well that such ways
and manners should pass away for ever, and as preposterous to
attempt to return to them, as it would be for a man to return to
the clothes of his childhood.

The patent granted to Alderman Cockayne, and the further
restrictions imposed by James I. on the export of undyed woollen
cloths (met by a prohibition on the part of the States of Holland
of the import of English-dyed cloths), injured the trade of the
West Riding manufacturers considerably.  Their independence of
character, their dislike of authority, and their strong powers of
thought, predisposed them to rebellion against the religious
dictation of such men as Laud, and the arbitrary rule of the
Stuarts; and the injury done by James and Charles to the trade by
which they gained their bread, made the great majority of them
Commonwealth men.  I shall have occasion afterwards to give one or
two instances of the warm feelings and extensive knowledge on
subjects of both home and foreign politics existing at the present
day in the villages lying west and east of the mountainous ridge
that separates Yorkshire and Lancashire; the inhabitants of which
are of the same race and possess the same quality of character.

The descendants of many who served under Cromwell at Dunbar, live
on the same lands as their ancestors occupied then; and perhaps
there is no part of England where the traditional and fond
recollections of the Commonwealth have lingered so long as in that
inhabited by the woollen manufacturing population of the West
Riding, who had the restrictions taken off their trade by the
Protector's admirable commercial policy.  I have it on good
authority that, not thirty years ago, the phrase, "in Oliver's
days," was in common use to denote a time of unusual prosperity.
The class of Christian names prevalent in a district is one
indication of the direction in which its tide of hero-worship
sets.  Grave enthusiasts in politics or religion perceive not the
ludicrous side of those which they give to their children; and
some are to be found, still in their infancy, not a dozen miles
from Haworth, that will have to go through life as Lamartine,
Kossuth, and Dembinsky.  And so there is a testimony to what I
have said, of the traditional feeling of the district, in the fact
that the Old Testament names in general use among the Puritans are
yet the prevalent appellations in most Yorkshire families of
middle or humble rank, whatever their religious persuasion may be.
There are numerous records, too, that show the kindly way in which
the ejected ministers were received by the gentry, as well as by
the poorer part of the inhabitants, during the persecuting days of
Charles II.  These little facts all testify to the old hereditary
spirit of independence, ready ever to resist authority which was
conceived to be unjustly exercised, that distinguishes the people
of the West Riding to the present day.

The parish of Halifax touches that of Bradford, in which the
chapelry of Haworth is included; and the nature of the ground in
the two parishes is much the of the same wild and hilly
description.  The abundance of coal, and the number of mountain
streams in the district, make it highly favourable to
manufactures; and accordingly, as I stated, the inhabitants have
for centuries been engaged in making cloth, as well as in
agricultural pursuits.  But the intercourse of trade failed, for a
long time, to bring amenity and civilization into these outlying
hamlets, or widely scattered dwellings.  Mr. Hunter, in his "Life
of Oliver Heywood," quotes a sentence out of a memorial of one
James Rither, living in the reign of Elizabeth, which is partially
true to this day:-

"They have no superior to court, no civilities to practise:  a
sour and sturdy humour is the consequence, so that a stranger is
shocked by a tone of defiance in every voice, and an air of
fierceness in every countenance."

Even now, a stranger can hardly ask a question without receiving
some crusty reply, if, indeed, he receive any at all.  Sometimes
the sour rudeness amounts to positive insult.  Yet, if the
"foreigner" takes all this churlishness good-humouredly, or as a
matter of course, and makes good any claim upon their latent
kindliness and hospitality, they are faithful and generous, and
thoroughly to be relied upon.  As a slight illustration of the
roughness that pervades all classes in these out-of-the-way
villages, I may relate a little adventure which happened to my
husband and myself, three years ago, at Addingham -


From Penigent to Pendle Hill,
From Linton to Long-ADDINGHAM
And all that Craven coasts did tell, &c. -


one of the places that sent forth its fighting men to the famous
old battle of Flodden Field, and a village not many miles from
Haworth.

We were driving along the street, when one of those ne'er-do-weel
lads who seem to have a kind of magnetic power for misfortunes,
having jumped into the stream that runs through the place, just
where all the broken glass and bottles are thrown, staggered naked
and nearly covered with blood into a cottage before us.  Besides
receiving another bad cut in the arm, he had completely laid open
the artery, and was in a fair way of bleeding to death--which, one
of his relations comforted him by saying, would be likely to "save
a deal o' trouble."

When my husband had checked the effusion of blood with a strap
that one of the bystanders unbuckled from his leg, he asked if a
surgeon had been sent for.

"Yoi," was the answer; "but we dunna think he'll come."

"Why not?"

"He's owd, yo seen, and asthmatic, and it's up-hill."

My husband taking a boy for his guide, drove as fast as he could
to the surgeon's house, which was about three-quarters of a mile
off, and met the aunt of the wounded lad leaving it.

"Is he coming?" inquired my husband.

"Well, he didna' say he wouldna' come."

"But, tell him the lad may bleed to death."

"I did."

"And what did he say?"

"Why, only, 'D-n him; what do I care?'"

It ended, however, in his sending one of his sons, who, though not
brought up to "the surgering trade," was able to do what was
necessary in the way of bandages and plasters.  The excuse made
for the surgeon was, that "he was near eighty, and getting a bit
doited, and had had a matter o' twenty childer."

Among the most unmoved of the lookers-on was the brother of the
boy so badly hurt; and while he was lying in a pool of blood on
the flag floor, and crying out how much his arm was "warching,"
his stoical relation stood coolly smoking his bit of black pipe,
and uttered not a single word of either sympathy or sorrow.

Forest customs, existing in the fringes of dark wood, which
clothed the declivity of the hills on either side, tended to
brutalize the population until the middle of the seventeenth
century.  Execution by beheading was performed in a summary way
upon either men or women who were guilty of but very slight
crimes; and a dogged, yet in some cases fine, indifference to
human life was thus generated.  The roads were so notoriously bad,
even up to the last thirty years, that there was little
communication between one village and another; if the produce of
industry could be conveyed at stated times to the cloth market of
the district, it was all that could be done; and, in lonely houses
on the distant hill-side, or by the small magnates of secluded
hamlets, crimes might be committed almost unknown, certainly
without any great uprising of popular indignation calculated to
bring down the strong arm of the law.  It must be remembered that
in those days there was no rural constabulary; and the few
magistrates left to themselves, and generally related to one
another, were most of them inclined to tolerate eccentricity, and
to wink at faults too much like their own.

Men hardly past middle life talk of the days of their youth, spent
in this part of the country, when, during the winter months, they
rode up to the saddle-girths in mud; when absolute business was
the only reason for stirring beyond the precincts of home, and
when that business was conducted under a pressure of difficulties
which they themselves, borne along to Bradford market in a swift
first-class carriage, can hardly believe to have been possible.
For instance, one woollen manufacturer says that, not five and
twenty years ago, he had to rise betimes to set off on a winter's-
morning in order to be at Bradford with the great waggon-load of
goods manufactured by his father; this load was packed over-night,
but in the morning there was a great gathering around it, and
flashing of lanterns, and examination of horses' feet, before the
ponderous waggon got under way; and then some one had to go
groping here and there, on hands and knees, and always sounding
with a staff down the long, steep, slippery brow, to find where
the horses might tread safely, until they reached the comparative
easy-going of the deep-rutted main road.  People went on horseback
over the upland moors, following the tracks of the pack-horses
that carried the parcels, baggage, or goods from one town to
another, between which there did not happen to be a highway.

But in winter, all such communication was impossible, by reason of
the snow which lay long and late on the bleak high ground.  I have
known people who, travelling by the mail-coach over Blackstone
Edge, had been snowed up for a week or ten days at the little inn
near the summit, and obliged to spend both Christmas and New
Year's Day there, till the store of provisions laid in for the use
of the landlord and his family falling short before the inroads of
the unexpected visitors, they had recourse to the turkeys, geese,
and Yorkshire pies with which the coach was laden; and even these
were beginning to fail, when a fortunate thaw released them from
their prison.

Isolated as the hill villages may be, they are in the world,
compared with the loneliness of the grey ancestral houses to be
seen here and there in the dense hollows of the moors.  These
dwellings are not large, yet they are solid and roomy enough for
the accommodation of those who live in them, and to whom the
surrounding estates belong.  The land has often been held by one
family since the days of the Tudors; the owners are, in fact, the
remains of the old yeomanry--small squires--who are rapidly
becoming extinct as a class, from one of two causes.  Either the
possessor falls into idle, drinking habits, and so is obliged
eventually to sell his property:  or he finds, if more shrewd and
adventurous, that the "beck" running down the mountain-side, or
the minerals beneath his feet, can be turned into a new source of
wealth; and leaving the old plodding life of a landowner with
small capital, he turns manufacturer, or digs for coal, or
quarries for stone.

Still there are those remaining of this class--dwellers in the
lonely houses far away in the upland districts--even at the
present day, who sufficiently indicate what strange eccentricity--
what wild strength of will--nay, even what unnatural power of
crime was fostered by a mode of living in which a man seldom met
his fellows, and where public opinion was only a distant and
inarticulate echo of some clearer voice sounding behind the
sweeping horizon.

A solitary life cherishes mere fancies until they become manias.
And the powerful Yorkshire character, which was scarcely tamed
into subjection by all the contact it met with in "busy town or
crowded mart," has before now broken out into strange wilfulness
in the remoter districts.  A singular account was recently given
me of a landowner (living, it is true, on the Lancashire side of
the hills, but of the same blood and nature as the dwellers on the
other,) who was supposed to be in the receipt of seven or eight
hundred a year, and whose house bore marks of handsome antiquity,
as if his forefathers had been for a long time people of
consideration.  My informant was struck with the appearance of the
place, and proposed to the countryman who was accompanying him, to
go up to it and take a nearer inspection.  The reply was, "Yo'd
better not; he'd threap yo' down th' loan.  He's let fly at some
folk's legs, and let shot lodge in 'em afore now, for going too
near to his house."  And finding, on closer inquiry, that such was
really the inhospitable custom of this moorland squire, the
gentleman gave up his purpose.  I believe that the savage yeoman
is still living.

Another squire, of more distinguished family and larger property--
one is thence led to imagine of better education, but that does
not always follow--died at his house, not many miles from Haworth,
only a few years ago.  His great amusement and occupation had been
cock-fighting.  When he was confined to his chamber with what he
knew would be his last illness, he had his cocks brought up there,
and watched the bloody battle from his bed.  As his mortal disease
increased, and it became impossible for him to turn so as to
follow the combat, he had looking-glasses arranged in such a
manner, around and above him, as he lay, that he could still see
the cocks fighting.  And in this manner he died.

These are merely instances of eccentricity compared to the tales
of positive violence and crime that have occurred in these
isolated dwellings, which still linger in the memories of the old
people of the district, and some of which were doubtless familiar
to the authors of "Wuthering Heights" and "The Tenant of Wildfell
Hall."

The amusements of the lower classes could hardly be expected to be
more humane than those of the wealthy and better educated.  The
gentleman, who has kindly furnished me with some of the
particulars I have given, remembers the bull-baitings at Rochdale,
not thirty years ago.  The bull was fastened by a chain or rope to
a post in the river.  To increase the amount of water, as well as
to give their workpeople the opportunity of savage delight, the
masters were accustomed to stop their mills on the day when the
sport took place.  The bull would sometimes wheel suddenly round,
so that the rope by which he was fastened swept those who had been
careless enough to come within its range down into the water, and
the good people of Rochdale had the excitement of seeing one or
two of their neighbours drowned, as well as of witnessing the bull
baited, and the dogs torn and tossed.

The people of Haworth were not less strong and full of character
than their neighbours on either side of the hills.  The village
lies embedded in the moors, between the two counties, on the old
road between Keighley and Colne.  About the middle of the last
century, it became famous in the religious world as the scene of
the ministrations of the Rev. William Grimshaw, curate of Haworth
for twenty years.  Before this time, it is probable that the
curates were of the same order as one Mr. Nicholls, a Yorkshire
clergyman, in the days immediately succeeding the Reformation, who
was "much addicted to drinking and company-keeping," and used to
say to his companions, "You must not heed me but when I am got
three feet above the earth," that was, into the pulpit.

Mr. Grimshaw's life was written by Newton, Cowper's friend; and
from it may be gathered some curious particulars of the manner in
which a rough population were swayed and governed by a man of deep
convictions, and strong earnestness of purpose.  It seems that he
had not been in any way remarkable for religious zeal, though he
had led a moral life, and been conscientious in fulfilling his
parochial duties, until a certain Sunday in September, 1744, when
the servant, rising at five, found her master already engaged in
prayer; she stated that, after remaining in his chamber for some
time, he went to engage in religious exercises in the house of a
parishioner, then home again to pray; thence, still fasting, to
the church, where, as he was reading the second lesson, he fell
down, and, on his partial recovery, had to be led from the church.
As he went out, he spoke to the congregation, and told them not to
disperse, as he had something to say to them, and would return
presently.  He was taken to the clerk's house, and again became
insensible.  His servant rubbed him, to restore the circulation;
and when he was brought to himself "he seemed in a great rapture,"
and the first words he uttered were, "I have had a glorious vision
from the third heaven."  He did not say what he had seen, but
returned into the church, and began the service again, at two in
the afternoon, and went on until seven.

From this time he devoted himself, with the fervour of a Wesley,
and something of the fanaticism of a Whitfield, to calling out a
religious life among his parishioners.  They had been in the habit
of playing at foot-ball on Sunday, using stones for this purpose;
and giving and receiving challenges from other parishes.  There
were horse-races held on the moors just above the village, which
were periodical sources of drunkenness and profligacy.  Scarcely a
wedding took place without the rough amusement of foot-races,
where the half-naked runners were a scandal to all decent
strangers.  The old custom of "arvills," or funeral feasts, led to
frequent pitched battles between the drunken mourners.  Such
customs were the outward signs of the kind of people with whom Mr.
Grimshaw had to deal.  But, by various means, some of the most
practical kind, he wrought a great change in his parish.  In his
preaching he was occasionally assisted by Wesley and Whitfield,
and at such times the little church proved much too small to hold
the throng that poured in from distant villages, or lonely
moorland hamlets; and frequently they were obliged to meet in the
open air; indeed, there was not room enough in the church even for
the communicants.  Mr. Whitfield was once preaching in Haworth,
and made use of some such expression, as that he hoped there was
no need to say much to this congregation, as they had sat under so
pious and godly a minister for so many years; "whereupon Mr.
Grimshaw stood up in his place, and said with a loud voice, 'Oh,
sir! for God's sake do not speak so.  I pray you do not flatter
them.  I fear the greater part of them are going to hell with
their eyes open.'"  But if they were so bound, it was not for want
of exertion on Mr. Grimshaw's part to prevent them.  He used to
preach twenty or thirty times a week in private houses.  If he
perceived any one inattentive to his prayers, he would stop and
rebuke the offender, and not go on till he saw every one on their
knees.  He was very earnest in enforcing the strict observance of
Sunday; and would not even allow his parishioners to walk in the
fields between services.  He sometimes gave out a very long Psalm
(tradition says the 119th), and while it was being sung, he left
the reading-desk, and taking a horsewhip went into the public-
houses, and flogged the loiterers into church.  They were swift
who could escape the lash of the parson by sneaking out the back
way.  He had strong health and an active body, and rode far and
wide over the hills, "awakening" those who had previously had no
sense of religion.  To save time, and be no charge to the families
at whose houses he held his prayer-meetings, he carried his
provisions with him; all the food he took in the day on such
occasions consisting simply of a piece of bread and butter, or dry
bread and a raw onion.

The horse-races were justly objectionable to Mr. Grimshaw; they
attracted numbers of profligate people to Haworth, and brought a
match to the combustible materials of the place, only too ready to
blaze out into wickedness.  The story is, that he tried all means
of persuasion, and even intimidation, to have the races
discontinued, but in vain.  At length, in despair, he prayed with
such fervour of earnestness that the rain came down in torrents,
and deluged the ground, so that there was no footing for man or
beast, even if the multitude had been willing to stand such a
flood let down from above.  And so Haworth races were stopped, and
have never been resumed to this day.  Even now the memory of this
good man is held in reverence, and his faithful ministrations and
real virtues are one of the boasts of the parish.

But after his time, I fear there was a falling back into the wild
rough heathen ways, from which he had pulled them up, as it were,
by the passionate force of his individual character.  He had built
a chapel for the Wesleyan Methodists, and not very long after the
Baptists established themselves in a place of worship.  Indeed, as
Dr. Whitaker says, the people of this district are "strong
religionists;" only, fifty years ago, their religion did not work
down into their lives.  Half that length of time back, the code of
morals seemed to be formed upon that of their Norse ancestors.
Revenge was handed down from father to son as an hereditary duty;
and a great capability for drinking without the head being
affected was considered as one of the manly virtues.  The games of
foot-ball on Sundays, with the challenges to the neighbouring
parishes, were resumed, bringing in an influx of riotous strangers
to fill the public-houses, and make the more sober-minded
inhabitants long for good Mr. Grimshaw's stout arm, and ready
horsewhip.  The old custom of "arvills" was as prevalent as ever.
The sexton, standing at the foot of the open grave, announced that
the "arvill" would be held at the Black Bull, or whatever public-
house might be fixed upon by the friends of the dead; and thither
the mourners and their acquaintances repaired.  The origin of the
custom had been the necessity of furnishing some refreshment for
those who came from a distance, to pay the last mark of respect to
a friend.  In the life of Oliver Heywood there are two quotations,
which show what sort of food was provided for "arvills" in quiet
Nonconformist connections in the seventeenth century; the first
(from Thoresby) tells of "cold possets, stewed prunes, cake, and
cheese," as being the arvill after Oliver Heywood's funeral.  The
second gives, as rather shabby, according to the notion of the
times (1673), "nothing but a bit of cake, draught of wine, piece
of rosemary, and pair of gloves."

But the arvills at Haworth were often far more jovial doings.
Among the poor, the mourners were only expected to provide a kind
of spiced roll for each person; and the expense of the liquors--
rum, or ale, or a mixture of both called "dog's nose"--was
generally defrayed by each guest placing some money on a plate,
set in the middle of the table.  Richer people would order a
dinner for their friends.  At the funeral of Mr. Charnock (the
next successor but one to Mr. Grimshaw in the incumbency), above
eighty people were bid to the arvill, and the price of the feast
was 4s. 6d. per head, all of which was defrayed by the friends of
the deceased.  As few "shirked their liquor," there were very
frequently "up-and-down fights" before the close of the day;
sometimes with the horrid additions of "pawsing" and "gouging,"
and biting.

Although I have dwelt on the exceptional traits in the
characteristics of these stalwart West-Ridingers, such as they
were in the first quarter of this century, if not a few years
later, I have little doubt that in the every-day life of the
people so independent, wilful, and full of grim humour, there
would be much found even at present that would shock those
accustomed only to the local manners of the south; and, in return,
I suspect the shrewd, sagacious, energetic Yorkshireman would hold
such "foreigners" in no small contempt.

I have said, it is most probable that where Haworth Church now
stands, there was once an ancient "field-kirk," or oratory.  It
occupied the third or lowest class of ecclesiastical structures,
according to the Saxon law, and had no right of sepulture, or
administration of sacraments.  It was so called because it was
built without enclosure, and open to the adjoining fields or
moors.  The founder, according to the laws of Edgar, was bound,
without subtracting from his tithes, to maintain the ministering
priest out of the remaining nine parts of his income.  After the
Reformation, the right of choosing their clergyman, at any of
those chapels of ease which had formerly been field-kirks, was
vested in the freeholders and trustees, subject to the approval of
the vicar of the parish.  But owing to some negligence, this right
has been lost to the freeholders and trustees at Haworth, ever
since the days of Archbishop Sharp; and the power of choosing a
minister has lapsed into the hands of the Vicar of Bradford.  So
runs the account, according to one authority.

Mr. Bronte says,--"This living has for its patrons the Vicar of
Bradford and certain trustees.  My predecessor took the living
with the consent of the Vicar of Bradford, but in opposition to
the trustees; in consequence of which he was so opposed that,
after only three weeks' possession, he was compelled to resign."
A Yorkshire gentleman, who has kindly sent me some additional
information on this subject since the second edition of my work
was published, write, thus:-


"The sole right of presentation to the incumbency of Haworth is
vested in the Vicar of Bradford.  He only can present.  The funds,
however, from which the clergyman's stipend mainly proceeds, are
vested in the hands of trustees, who have the power to withhold
them, if a nominee is sent of whom they disapprove.  On the
decease of Mr. Charnock, the Vicar first tendered the preferment
to Mr. Bronte, and he went over to his expected cure.  He was told
that towards himself they had no personal objection; but as a
nominee of the Vicar he would not be received.  He therefore
retired, with the declaration that if he could not come with the
approval of the parish, his ministry could not be useful.  Upon
this the attempt was made to introduce Mr. Redhead.

"When Mr. Redhead was repelled, a fresh difficulty arose.  Some
one must first move towards a settlement, but a spirit being
evoked which could not be allayed, action became perplexing.  The
matter had to be referred to some independent arbitrator, and my
father was the gentleman to whom each party turned its eye.  A
meeting was convened, and the business settled by the Vicar's
conceding the choice to the trustees, and the acceptance of the
Vicar's presentation.  That choice forthwith fell on Mr. Bronte,
whose promptness and prudence had won their hearts."


In conversing on the character of the inhabitants of the West
Riding with Dr. Scoresby, who had been for some time Vicar of
Bradford, he alluded to certain riotous transactions which had
taken place at Haworth on the presentation of the living to Mr.
Redhead, and said that there had been so much in the particulars
indicative of the character of the people, that he advised me to
inquire into them.  I have accordingly done so, and, from the lips
of some of the survivors among the actors and spectators, I have
learnt the means taken to eject the nominee of the Vicar.

The previous incumbent had been the Mr. Charnock whom I have
mentioned as next but one in succession to Mr. Grimshaw.  He had a
long illness which rendered him unable to discharge his duties
without assistance, and Mr. Redhead gave him occasional help, to
the great satisfaction of the parishioners, and was highly
respected by them during Mr. Charnock's lifetime.  But the case
was entirely altered when, at Mr. Charnock's death in 1819, they
conceived that the trustees had been unjustly deprived of their
rights by the Vicar of Bradford, who appointed Mr. Redhead as
perpetual curate.

The first Sunday he officiated, Haworth Church was filled even to
the aisles; most of the people wearing the wooden clogs of the
district.  But while Mr. Redhead was reading the second lesson,
the whole congregation, as by one impulse, began to leave the
church, making all the noise they could with clattering and
clumping of clogs, till, at length, Mr. Redhead and the clerk were
the only two left to continue the service.  This was bad enough,
but the next Sunday the proceedings were far worse.  Then, as
before, the church was well filled, but the aisles were left
clear; not a creature, not an obstacle was in the way.  The reason
for this was made evident about the same time in the reading of
the service as the disturbances had begun the previous week.  A
man rode into the church upon an ass, with his face turned towards
the tail, and as many old hats piled on his head as he could
possibly carry.  He began urging his beast round the aisles, and
the screams, and cries, and laughter of the congregation entirely
drowned all sound of Mr. Redhead's voice, and, I believe, he was
obliged to desist.

Hitherto they had not proceeded to anything like personal
violence; but on the third Sunday they must have been greatly
irritated at seeing Mr. Redhead, determined to brave their will,
ride up the village street, accompanied by several gentlemen from
Bradford.  They put up their horses at the Black Bull--the little
inn close upon the churchyard, for the convenience of arvills as
well as for other purposes--and went into church.  On this the
people followed, with a chimney-sweeper, whom they had employed to
clean the chimneys of some out-buildings belonging to the church
that very morning, and afterward plied with drink till he was in a
state of solemn intoxication.  They placed him right before the
reading-desk, where his blackened face nodded a drunken, stupid
assent to all that Mr. Redhead said.  At last, either prompted by
some mischief-maker, or from some tipsy impulse, he clambered up
the pulpit stairs, and attempted to embrace Mr. Redhead.  Then the
profane fun grew fast and furious.  Some of the more riotous,
pushed the soot-covered chimney-sweeper against Mr. Redhead, as he
tried to escape.  They threw both him and his tormentor down on
the ground in the churchyard where the soot-bag had been emptied,
and, though, at last, Mr. Redhead escaped into the Black Bull, the
doors of which were immediately barred, the people raged without,
threatening to stone him and his friends.  One of my informants is
an old man, who was the landlord of the inn at the time, and he
stands to it that such was the temper of the irritated mob, that
Mr. Redhead was in real danger of his life.  This man, however,
planned an escape for his unpopular inmates.  The Black Bull is
near the top of the long, steep Haworth street, and at the bottom,
close by the bridge, on the road to Keighley, is a turnpike.
Giving directions to his hunted guests to steal out at the back
door (through which, probably, many a ne'er-do-weel has escaped
from good Mr. Grimshaw's horsewhip), the landlord and some of the
stable-boys rode the horses belonging to the party from Bradford
backwards and forwards before his front door, among the fiercely-
expectant crowd.  Through some opening between the houses, those
on the horses saw Mr. Redhead and his friends creeping along
behind the street; and then, striking spurs, they dashed quickly
down to the turnpike; the obnoxious clergyman and his friends
mounted in haste, and had sped some distance before the people
found out that their prey had escaped, and came running to the
closed turnpike gate.

This was Mr. Redhead's last appearance at Haworth for many years.
Long afterwards, he came to preach, and in his sermon to a large
and attentive congregation he good-humouredly reminded them of the
circumstances which I have described.  They gave him a hearty
welcome, for they owed him no grudge; although before they had
been ready enough to stone him, in order to maintain what they
considered to be their rights.

The foregoing account, which I heard from two of the survivors, in
the presence of a friend who can vouch for the accuracy of my
repetition, has to a certain degree been confirmed by a letter
from the Yorkshire gentleman, whose words I have already quoted.

"I am not surprised at your difficulty in authenticating matter-
of-fact.  I find this in recalling what I have heard, and the
authority on which I have heard anything.  As to the donkey tale,
I believe you are right.  Mr. Redhead and Dr. Ramsbotham, his son-
in-law, are no strangers to me.  Each of them has a niche in my
affections.

"I have asked, this day, two persons who lived in Haworth at the
time to which you allude, the son and daughter of an acting
trustee, and each of them between sixty and seventy years of age,
and they assure me that the donkey was introduced.  One of them
says it was mounted by a half-witted man, seated with his face
towards the tail of the beast, and having several hats piled on
his head.  Neither of my informants was, however, present at these
edifying services.  I believe that no movement was made in the
church on either Sunday, until the whole of the authorised
reading-service was gone through, and I am sure that nothing was
more remote from the more respectable party than any personal
antagonism toward Mr. Redhead.  He was one of the most amiable and
worthy of men, a man to myself endeared by many ties and
obligations.  I never heard before your book that the sweep
ascended the pulpit steps.  He was present, however, in the
clerical habiliments of his order . . . I may also add that among
the many who were present at those sad Sunday orgies the majority
were non-residents, and came from those moorland fastnesses on the
outskirts of the parish locally designated as 'ovver th' steyres,'
one stage more remote than Haworth from modern civilization.

"To an instance or two more of the rusticity of the inhabitants of
the chapelry of Haworth, I may introduce you.

"A Haworth carrier called at the office of a friend of mine to
deliver a parcel on a cold winter's day, and stood with the door
open.  'Robin! shut the door!' said the recipient.  'Have you no
doors in your country?'  'Yoi,' responded Robin, 'we hev, but we
nivver steik 'em.'  I have frequently remarked the number of doors
open even in winter.

"When well directed, the indomitable and independent energies of
the natives of this part of the country are invaluable; dangerous
when perverted.  I shall never forget the fierce actions and
utterances of one suffering from delirium tremens.  Whether in its
wrath, disdain, or its dismay, the countenance was infernal.  I
called once upon a time on a most respectable yeoman, and I was,
in language earnest and homely, pressed to accept the hospitality
of the house.  I consented.  The word to me was, 'Nah, Maister,
yah mun stop an hev sum te-ah, yah mun, eah, yah mun.'  A
bountiful table was soon spread; at all events, time soon went
while I scaled the hills to see 't' maire at wor thretty year owd,
an't' feil at wor fewer.'  On sitting down to the table, a
venerable woman officiated, and after filling the cups, she thus
addressed me:  'Nah, Maister, yah mun loawze th'taible' (loose the
table).  The master said, 'Shah meeans yah mun sey t' greyce.'  I
took the hint, and uttered the blessing.

"I spoke with an aged and tried woman at one time, who, after
recording her mercies, stated, among others, her powers of speech,
by asserting 'Thank the Lord, ah nivver wor a meilly-meouthed
wumman.'  I feel particularly at fault in attempting the
orthography of the dialect, but must excuse myself by telling you
that I once saw a letter in which the word I have just now used
(excuse) was written 'ecksqueaize!'

"There are some things, however, which rather tend to soften the
idea of the rudeness of Haworth.  No rural district has been more
markedly the abode of musical taste and acquirement, and this at a
period when it was difficult to find them to the same extent apart
from towns in advance of their times.  I have gone to Haworth and
found an orchestra to meet me, filled with local performers, vocal
and instrumental, to whom the best works of Handel, Haydn, Mozart,
Marcello, &c. &c., were familiar as household words.  By
knowledge, taste, and voice, they were markedly separate from
ordinary village choirs, and have been put in extensive
requisition for the solo and chorus of many an imposing festival.
One man still survives, who, for fifty years, has had one of the
finest tenor voices I ever heard, and with it a refined and
cultivated taste.  To him and to others many inducements have been
offered to migrate; but the loom, the association, the mountain
air have had charms enow to secure their continuance at home.  I
love the recollection of their performance; that recollection
extends over more than sixty years.  The attachments, the
antipathies and the hospitalities of the district are ardent,
hearty, and homely.  Cordiality in each is the prominent
characteristic.  As a people, these mountaineers have ever been
accessible to gentleness and truth, so far as I have known them;
but excite suspicion or resentment, and they give emphatic and not
impotent resistance.  Compulsion they defy.

"I accompanied Mr. Heap on his first visit to Haworth after his
accession to the vicarage of Bradford.  It was on Easter day,
either 1816 or 1817.  His predecessor, the venerable John Crosse,
known as the 'blind vicar,' had been inattentive to the vicarial
claims.  A searching investigation had to be made and enforced,
and as it proceeded stout and sturdy utterances were not lacking
on the part of the parishioners.  To a spectator, though rude,
they were amusing, and significant, foretelling what might be
expected, and what was afterwards realised, on the advent of a new
incumbent, if they deemed him an intruder.

"From their peculiar parochial position and circumstances, the
inhabitants of the chapelry have been prompt, earnest, and
persevering in their opposition to church-rates.  Although ten
miles from the mother-church, they were called upon to defray a
large proportion of this obnoxious tax,--I believe one fifth.

"Besides this, they had to maintain their own edifice, &c., &c.
They resisted, therefore, with energy, that which they deemed to
be oppression and injustice.  By scores would they wend their way
from the hills to attend a vestry meeting at Bradford, and in such
service failed not to show less of the SUAVITER IN MODO than the
FORTITER IN RE.  Happily such occasion for their action has not
occurred for many years.

"The use of patronymics has been common in this locality.  Inquire
for a man by his Christian name and surname, and you may have some
difficulty in finding him:  ask, however, for 'George o' Ned's,'
or 'Dick o' Bob's,' or 'Tom o' Jack's,' as the case may be, and
your difficulty is at an end.  In many instances the person is
designated by his residence.  In my early years I had occasion to
inquire for Jonathan Whitaker, who owned a considerable farm in
the township.  I was sent hither and thither, until it occurred to
me to ask for 'Jonathan o' th' Gate.'  My difficulties were then
at an end.  Such circumstances arise out of the settled character
and isolation of the natives.

"Those who have witnessed a Haworth wedding when the parties were
above the rank of labourers, will not easily forget the scene.  A
levy was made on the horses of the neighbourhood, and a merry
cavalcade of mounted men and women, single or double, traversed
the way to Bradford church.  The inn and church appeared to be in
natural connection, and as the labours of the Temperance Society
had then to begin, the interests of sobriety were not always
consulted.  On remounting their steeds they commenced with a race,
and not unfrequently an inebriate or unskilful horseman or woman
was put HORS DE COMBAT.  A race also was frequent at the end. of
these wedding expeditions, from the bridge to the toll-bar at
Haworth.  The race-course you will know to be anything but level."

Into the midst of this lawless, yet not unkindly population, Mr.
Bronte brought his wife and six little children, in February,
1820.  There are those yet alive who remember seven heavily-laden
carts lumbering slowly up the long stone street, bearing the "new
parson's" household goods to his future abode.

One wonders how the bleak aspect of her new home--the low, oblong,
stone parsonage, high up, yet with a still higher back-ground of
sweeping moors--struck on the gentle, delicate wife, whose health
even then was failing.



CHAPTER III



The Rev. Patrick Bronte is a native of the County Down in Ireland.
His father Hugh Bronte, was left an orphan at an early age.  He
came from the south to the north of the island, and settled in the
parish of Ahaderg, near Loughbrickland.  There was some family
tradition that, humble as Hugh Bronte's circumstances were, he was
the descendant of an ancient family.  But about this neither he
nor his descendants have cared to inquire.  He made an early
marriage, and reared and educated ten children on the proceeds of
the few acres of land which he farmed.  This large family were
remarkable for great physical strength, and much personal beauty.
Even in his old age, Mr. Bronte is a striking-looking man, above
the common height, with a nobly-shaped head, and erect carriage.
In his youth he must have been unusually handsome.

He was born on Patrickmas day (March 17), 1777, and early gave
tokens of extraordinary quickness and intelligence.  He had also
his full share of ambition; and of his strong sense and
forethought there is a proof in the fact, that, knowing that his
father could afford him no pecuniary aid, and that he must depend
upon his own exertions, he opened a public school at the early age
of sixteen; and this mode of living he continued to follow for
five or six years.  He then became a tutor in the family of the
Rev. Mr. Tighe, rector of Drumgooland parish.  Thence he proceeded
to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was entered in July,
1802, being at the time five-and-twenty years of age.  After
nearly four years' residence, he obtained his B.A. degree, and was
ordained to a curacy in Essex, whence he removed into Yorkshire.
The course of life of which this is the outline, shows a powerful
and remarkable character, originating and pursuing a purpose in a
resolute and independent manner.  Here is a youth--a boy of
sixteen--separating himself from his family, and determining to
maintain himself; and that, not in the hereditary manner by
agricultural pursuits, but by the labour of his brain.

I suppose, from what I have heard, that Mr. Tighe became strongly
interested in his children's tutor, and may have aided him, not
only in the direction of his studies, but in the suggestion of an
English university education, and in advice as to the mode in
which he should obtain entrance there.  Mr. Bronte has now no
trace of his Irish origin remaining in his speech; he never could
have shown his Celtic descent in the straight Greek lines and long
oval of his face; but at five-and-twenty, fresh from the only life
he had ever known, to present himself at the gates of St. John's
proved no little determination of will, and scorn of ridicule.

While at Cambridge, he became one of a corps of volunteers, who
were then being called out all over the country to resist the
apprehended invasion by the French.  I have heard him allude, in
late years, to Lord Palmerston as one who had often been
associated with him then in the mimic military duties which they
had to perform.

We take him up now settled as a curate at Hartshead, in Yorkshire-
-far removed from his birth-place and all his Irish connections;
with whom, indeed, he cared little to keep up any intercourse, and
whom he never, I believe, re-visited after becoming a student at
Cambridge.

Hartshead is a very small village, lying to the east of
Huddersfield and Halifax; and, from its high situation--on a
mound, as it were, surrounded by a circular basin--commanding a
magnificent view.  Mr. Bronte resided here for five years; and,
while the incumbent of Hartshead, he wooed and married Maria
Branwell.

She was the third daughter of Mr. Thomas Branwell, merchant, of
Penzance.  Her mother's maiden name was Carne:  and, both on
father's and mother's side, the Branwell family were sufficiently
well descended to enable them to mix in the best society that
Penzance then afforded.  Mr. and Mrs. Branwell would be living--
their family of four daughters and one son, still children--during
the existence of that primitive state of society which is well
described by Dr. Davy in the life of his brother.

"In the same town, when the population was about 2,000 persons,
there was only one carpet, the floors of rooms were sprinkled with
sea-sand, and there was not a single silver fork.

"At that time, when our colonial possessions were very limited,
our army and navy on a small scale, and there was comparatively
little demand for intellect, the younger sons of gentlemen were
often of necessity brought up to some trade or mechanical art, to
which no discredit, or loss of caste, as it were, was attached.
The eldest son, if not allowed to remain an idle country squire,
was sent to Oxford or Cambridge, preparatory to his engaging in
one of the three liberal professions of divinity, law, or physic;
the second son was perhaps apprenticed to a surgeon or apothecary,
or a solicitor; the third to a pewterer or watchmaker; the fourth
to a packer or mercer, and so on, were there more to be provided
for.

"After their apprenticeships were finished, the young men almost
invariably went to London to perfect themselves in their
respective trade or art:  and on their return into the country,
when settled in business, they were not excluded from what would
now be considered genteel society.  Visiting then was conducted
differently from what it is at present.  Dinner-parties were
almost unknown, excepting at the annual feast-time.  Christmas,
too, was then a season of peculiar indulgence and conviviality,
and a round of entertainments was given, consisting of tea and
supper.  Excepting at these two periods, visiting was almost
entirely confined to tea-parties, which assembled at three
o'clock, broke up at nine, and the amusement of the evening was
commonly some round game at cards, as Pope Joan, or Commerce.  The
lower class was then extremely ignorant, and all classes were very
superstitious; even the belief in witches maintained its ground,
and there was an almost unbounded credulity respecting the
supernatural and monstrous.  There was scarcely a parish in the
Mount's Bay that was without a haunted house, or a spot to which
some story of supernatural horror was not attached.  Even when I
was a boy, I remember a house in the best street of Penzance which
was uninhabited because it was believed to be haunted, and which
young people walked by at night at a quickened pace, and with a
beating heart.  Amongst the middle and higher classes there was
little taste for literature, and still less for science, and their
pursuits were rarely of a dignified or intellectual kind.
Hunting, shooting, wrestling, cock-fighting, generally ending in
drunkenness, were what they most delighted in.  Smuggling was
carried on to a great extent; and drunkenness, and a low state of
morals, were naturally associated with it.  Whilst smuggling was
the means of acquiring wealth to bold and reckless adventurers,
drunkenness and dissipation occasioned the ruin of many
respectable families."

I have given this extract because I conceive it bears some
reference to the life of Miss Bronte, whose strong mind and vivid
imagination must have received their first impressions either from
the servants (in that simple household, almost friendly companions
during the greater part of the day,) retailing the traditions or
the news of Haworth village; or from Mr. Bronte, whose intercourse
with his children appears to have been considerably restrained,
and whose life, both in Ireland and at Cambridge, had been spent
under peculiar circumstances; or from her aunt, Miss Branwell, who
came to the parsonage, when Charlotte was only six or seven years
old, to take charge of her dead sister's family.  This aunt was
older than Mrs. Bronte, and had lived longer among the Penzance
society, which Dr. Davy describes.  But in the Branwell family
itself, the violence and irregularity of nature did not exist.
They were Methodists, and, as far as I can gather, a gentle and
sincere piety gave refinement and purity of character.  Mr.
Branwell, the father, according to his descendants' account, was a
man of musical talent.  He and his wife lived to see all their
children grown up, and died within a year of each other--he in
1808, she in 1809, when their daughter Maria was twenty-five or
twenty-six years of age.  I have been permitted to look over a
series of nine letters, which were addressed by her to Mr. Bronte,
during the brief term of their engagement in 1812.  They are full
of tender grace of expression and feminine modesty; pervaded by
the deep piety to which I have alluded as a family characteristic.
I shall make one or two extracts from them, to show what sort of a
person was the mother of Charlotte Bronte:  but first, I must
state the circumstances under which this Cornish lady met the
scholar from Ahaderg, near Loughbrickland.  In the early summer of
1812, when she would be twenty-nine, she came to visit her uncle,
the Reverend John Fennel, who was at that time a clergyman of the
Church of England, living near Leeds, but who had previously been
a Methodist minister.  Mr. Bronte was the incumbent of Hartshead;
and had the reputation in the neighbourhood of being a very
handsome fellow, full of Irish enthusiasm, and with something of
an Irishman's capability of falling easily in love.  Miss Branwell
was extremely small in person; not pretty, but very elegant, and
always dressed with a quiet simplicity of taste, which accorded
well with her general character, and of which some of the details
call to mind the style of dress preferred by her daughter for her
favourite heroines.  Mr. Bronte was soon captivated by the little,
gentle creature, and this time declared that it was for life.  In
her first letter to him, dated August 26th, she seems almost
surprised to find herself engaged, and alludes to the short time
which she has known him.  In the rest there are touches reminding
one of Juliet's -


"But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true,
Than those that have more cunning to be strange."


There are plans for happy pic-nic parties to Kirkstall Abbey, in
the glowing September days, when "Uncle, Aunt, and Cousin Jane,"--
the last engaged to a Mr. Morgan, another clergyman--were of the
party; all since dead, except Mr. Bronte.  There was no opposition
on the part of any of her friends to her engagement.  Mr. and Mrs.
Fennel sanctioned it, and her brother and sisters in far-away
Penzance appear fully to have approved of it.  In a letter dated
September 18th, she says:-

"For some years I have been perfectly my own mistress, subject to
no control whatever; so far from it, that my sisters, who are many
years older than myself, and even my dear mother, used to consult
me on every occasion of importance, and scarcely ever doubted the
propriety of my opinions and actions:  perhaps you will be ready
to accuse me of vanity in mentioning this, but you must consider
that I do not boast of it.  I have many times felt it a
disadvantage, and although, I thank God, it has never led me into
error, yet, in circumstances of uncertainty and doubt, I have
deeply felt the want of a guide and instructor."  In the same
letter she tells Mr. Bronte, that she has informed her sisters of
her engagement, and that she should not see them again so soon as
she had intended.  Mr. Fennel, her uncle, also writes to them by
the same post in praise of Mr. Bronte.

The journey from Penzance to Leeds in those days was both very
long and very expensive; the lovers had not much money to spend in
unnecessary travelling, and, as Miss Branwell had neither father
nor mother living, it appeared both a discreet and seemly
arrangement that the marriage should take place from her uncle's
house.  There was no reason either why the engagement should be
prolonged.  They were past their first youth; they had means
sufficient for their unambitious wants; the living of Hartshead is
rated in the Clergy List at 202L. per annum, and she was in the
receipt of a small annuity (50L. I have been told) by the will of
her father.  So, at the end of September, the lovers began to talk
about taking a house, for I suppose that Mr. Bronte up to that
time had been in lodgings; and all went smoothly and successfully
with a view to their marriage in the ensuing winter, until
November, when a misfortune happened, which she thus patiently and
prettily describes:-

"I suppose you never expected to be much the richer for me, but I
am sorry to inform you that I am still poorer than I thought
myself.  I mentioned having sent for my books, clothes, &c.  On
Saturday evening, about the time when you were writing the
description of your imaginary shipwreck, I was reading and feeling
the effects of a real one, having then received a letter from my
sister giving me an account of the vessel in which she had sent my
box being stranded on the coast of Devonshire, in consequence of
which the box was dashed to pieces with the violence of the sea,
and all my little property, with the exception of a very few
articles, being swallowed up in the mighty deep.  If this should
not prove the prelude to something worse I shall think little of
it, as it is the first disastrous circumstance which has occurred
since I left my home."

The last of these letters is dated December the 5th.  Miss
Branwell and her cousin intended to set about making the wedding-
cake in the following week, so the marriage could not be far off.
She had been learning by heart a "pretty little hymn" of Mr.
Bronte's composing; and reading Lord Lyttelton's "Advice to a
Lady," on which she makes some pertinent and just remarks, showing
that she thought as well as read.  And so Maria Branwell fades out
of sight; we have no more direct intercourse with her; we hear of
her as Mrs. Bronte, but it is as an invalid, not far from death;
still patient, cheerful, and pious.  The writing of these letters
is elegant and neat; while there are allusions to household
occupations--such as making the wedding-cake; there are also
allusions to the books she has read, or is reading, showing a
well-cultivated mind.  Without having anything of her daughter's
rare talents, Mrs. Bronte must have been, I imagine, that unusual
character, a well-balanced and consistent woman.  The style of the
letters is easy and good; as is also that of a paper from the same
hand, entitled "The Advantages of Poverty in Religious Concerns,"
which was written rather later, with a view to publication in some
periodical.

She was married from her uncle's house in Yorkshire, on the 29th
of December, 1812; the same day was also the wedding-day of her
younger sister, Charlotte Branwell, in distant Penzance.  I do not
think that Mrs. Bronte ever revisited Cornwall, but she has left a
very pleasant impression on the minds of those relations who yet
survive; they speak of her as "their favourite aunt, and one to
whom they, as well as all the family, looked up, as a person of
talent and great amiability of disposition;" and, again, as "meek
and retiring, while possessing more than ordinary talents, which
she inherited from her father, and her piety was genuine and
unobtrusive."

Mr. Bronte remained for five years at Hartshead, in the parish of
Dewsbury.  There he was married, and his two children, Maria and
Elizabeth, were born.  At the expiration of that period, he had
the living of Thornton, in Bradford Parish.  Some of those great
West Riding parishes are almost like bishoprics for their amount
of population and number of churches.  Thornton church is a little
episcopal chapel of ease, rich in Nonconformist monuments, as of
Accepted Lister and his friend Dr. Hall.  The neighbourhood is
desolate and wild; great tracts of bleak land, enclosed by stone
dykes, sweeping up Clayton heights.  The church itself looks
ancient and solitary, and as if left behind by the great stone
mills of a flourishing Independent firm, and the solid square
chapel built by the members of that denomination.  Altogether not
so pleasant a place as Hartshead, with its ample outlook over
cloud-shadowed, sun-flecked plain, and hill rising beyond hill to
form the distant horizon.

Here, at Thornton, Charlotte Bronte was born, on the 21st of
April, 1816.  Fast on her heels followed Patrick Branwell, Emily
Jane, and Anne.  After the birth of this last daughter, Mrs.
Bronte's health began to decline.  It is hard work to provide for
the little tender wants of many young children where the means are
but limited.  The necessaries of food and clothing are much more
easily supplied than the almost equal necessaries of attendance,
care, soothing, amusement, and sympathy.  Maria Bronte, the eldest
of six, could only have been a few months more than six years old,
when Mr. Bronte removed to Haworth, on February the 25th, 1820.
Those who knew her then, describe her as grave, thoughtful, and
quiet, to a degree far beyond her years.  Her childhood was no
childhood; the cases are rare in which the possessors of great
gifts have known the blessings of that careless happy time; THEIR
unusual powers stir within them, and, instead of the natural life
of perception--the objective, as the Germans call it--they begin
the deeper life of reflection--the subjective.

Little Maria Bronte was delicate and small in appearance, which
seemed to give greater effect to her wonderful precocity of
intellect.  She must have been her mother's companion and helpmate
in many a household and nursery experience, for Mr. Bronte was, of
course, much engaged in his study; and besides, he was not
naturally fond of children, and felt their frequent appearance on
the scene as a drag both on his wife's strength, and as an
interruption to the comfort of the household.

Haworth Parsonage is--as I mentioned in the first chapter--an
oblong stone house, facing down the hill on which the village
stands, and with the front door right opposite to the western door
of the church, distant about a hundred yards.  Of this space
twenty yards or so in depth are occupied by the grassy garden,
which is scarcely wider than the house.  The graveyard lies on two
sides of the house and garden.  The house consists of four rooms
on each floor, and is two stories high.  When the Brontes took
possession, they made the larger parlour, to the left of the
entrance, the family sitting-room, while that on the right was
appropriated to Mr. Bronte as a study.  Behind this was the
kitchen; behind the former, a sort of flagged store-room.  Up-
stairs were four bed-chambers of similar size, with the addition
of a small apartment over the passage, or "lobby" as we call it in
the north.  This was to the front, the staircase going up right
opposite to the entrance.  There is the pleasant old fashion of
window seats all through the house; and one can see that the
parsonage was built in the days when wood was plentiful, as the
massive stair-banisters, and the wainscots, and the heavy window-
frames testify.

This little extra up-stairs room was appropriated to the children.
Small as it was, it was not called a nursery; indeed, it had not
the comfort of a fire-place in it; the servants--two affectionate,
warm-hearted sisters, who cannot now speak of the family without
tears--called the room the "children's study."  The age of the
eldest student was perhaps by this time seven.

The people in Haworth were none of them very poor.  Many of them
were employed in the neighbouring worsted mills; a few were mill-
owners and manufacturers in a small way; there were also some
shopkeepers for the humbler and every-day wants; but for medical
advice, for stationery, books, law, dress, or dainties, the
inhabitants had to go to Keighley.  There were several Sunday-
schools; the Baptists had taken the lead in instituting them, the
Wesleyans had followed, the Church of England had brought up the
rear.  Good Mr. Grimshaw, Wesley's friend, had built a humble
Methodist chapel, but it stood close to the road leading on to the
moor; the Baptists then raised a place of worship, with the
distinction of being a few yards back from the highway; and the
Methodists have since thought it well to erect another and a
larger chapel, still more retired from the road.  Mr. Bronte was
ever on kind and friendly terms with each denomination as a body;
but from individuals in the village the family stood aloof, unless
some direct service was required, from the first.  "They kept
themselves very close," is the account given by those who remember
Mr. and Mrs. Bronte's coming amongst them.  I believe many of the
Yorkshiremen would object to the system of parochial visiting;
their surly independence would revolt from the idea of any one
having a right, from his office, to inquire into their condition,
to counsel, or to admonish them.  The old hill-spirit lingers in
them, which coined the rhyme, inscribed on the under part of one
of the seats in the Sedilia of Whalley Abbey, not many miles from
Haworth,


"Who mells wi' what another does
Had best go home and shoe his goose."


I asked an inhabitant of a district close to Haworth what sort of
a clergyman they had at the church which he attended.

"A rare good one," said he:  "he minds his own business, and ne'er
troubles himself with ours."

Mr. Bronte was faithful in visiting the sick and all those who
sent for him, and diligent in attendance at the schools; and so
was his daughter Charlotte too; but, cherishing and valuing
privacy themselves, they were perhaps over-delicate in not
intruding upon the privacy of others.

From their first going to Haworth, their walks were directed
rather out towards the heathery moors, sloping upwards behind the
parsonage, than towards the long descending village street.  A
good old woman, who came to nurse Mrs. Bronte in the illness--an
internal cancer--which grew and gathered upon her, not many months
after her arrival at Haworth, tells me that at that time the six
little creatures used to walk out, hand in hand, towards the
glorious wild moors, which in after days they loved so
passionately; the elder ones taking thoughtful care for the
toddling wee things.

They were grave and silent beyond their years; subdued, probably,
by the presence of serious illness in the house; for, at the time
which my informant speaks of, Mrs. Bronte was confined to the
bedroom from which she never came forth alive.  "You would not
have known there was a child in the house, they were such still,
noiseless, good little creatures.  Maria would shut herself up"
(Maria, but seven!) "in the children's study with a newspaper, and
be able to tell one everything when she came out; debates in
Parliament, and I don't know what all.  She was as good as a
mother to her sisters and brother.  But there never were such good
children.  I used to think them spiritless, they were so different
to any children I had ever seen.  They were good little creatures.
Emily was the prettiest."

Mrs. Bronte was the same patient, cheerful person as we have seen
her formerly; very ill, suffering great pain, but seldom if ever
complaining; at her better times begging her nurse to raise her in
bed to let her see her clean the grate, "because she did it as it
was done in Cornwall;" devotedly fond of her husband, who warmly
repaid her affection, and suffered no one else to take the night-
nursing; but, according to my informant, the mother was not very
anxious to see much of her children, probably because the sight of
them, knowing how soon they were to be left motherless, would have
agitated her too much.  So the little things clung quietly
together, for their father was busy in his study and in his
parish, or with their mother, and they took their meals alone; sat
reading, or whispering low, in the "children's study," or wandered
out on the hill-side, hand in hand.

The ideas of Rousseau and Mr. Day on education had filtered down
through many classes, and spread themselves widely out.  I
imagine, Mr. Bronte must have formed some of his opinions on the
management of children from these two theorists.  His practice was
not half so wild or extraordinary as that to which an aunt of mine
was subjected by a disciple of Mr. Day's.  She had been taken by
this gentleman and his wife, to live with them as their adopted
child, perhaps about five-and-twenty years before the time of
which I am writing.  They were wealthy people and kind hearted,
but her food and clothing were of the very simplest and rudest
description, on Spartan principles.  A healthy, merry child, she
did not much care for dress or eating; but the treatment which she
felt as a real cruelty was this.  They had a carriage, in which
she and the favourite dog were taken an airing on alternate days;
the creature whose turn it was to be left at home being tossed in
a blanket--an operation which my aunt especially dreaded.  Her
affright at the tossing was probably the reason why it was
persevered in.  Dressed-up ghosts had become common, and she did
not care for them, so the blanket exercise was to be the next mode
of hardening her nerves.  It is well known that Mr. Day broke off
his intention of marrying Sabrina, the girl whom he had educated
for this purpose, because, within a few weeks of the time fixed
for the wedding, she was guilty of the frivolity, while on a visit
from home, of wearing thin sleeves.  Yet Mr. Day and my aunt's
relations were benevolent people, only strongly imbued with the
crotchet that by a system of training might be educed the
hardihood and simplicity of the ideal savage, forgetting the
terrible isolation of feelings and habits which their pupils would
experience in the future life which they must pass among the
corruptions and refinements of civilization.

Mr. Bronte wished to make his children hardy, and indifferent to
the pleasures of eating and dress.  In the latter he succeeded, as
far as regarded his daughters.

His strong, passionate, Irish nature was, in general, compressed
down with resolute stoicism; but it was there notwithstanding all
his philosophic calm and dignity of demeanour; though he did not
speak when he was annoyed or displeased.  Mrs. Bronte, whose sweet
nature thought invariably of the bright side, would say, "Ought I
not to be thankful that he never gave me an angry word?"

Mr. Bronte was an active walker, stretching away over the moors
for many miles, noting in his mind all natural signs of wind and
weather, and keenly observing all the wild creatures that came and
went in the loneliest sweeps of the hills.  He has seen eagles
stooping low in search of food for their young; no eagle is ever
seen on those mountain slopes now.

He fearlessly took whatever side in local or national politics
appeared to him right.  In the days of the Luddites, he had been
for the peremptory interference of the law, at a time when no
magistrate could be found to act, and all the property of the West
Riding was in terrible danger.  He became unpopular then among the
millworkers, and he esteemed his life unsafe if he took his long
and lonely walks unarmed; so he began the habit, which has
continued to this day, of invariably carrying a loaded pistol
about with him.  It lay on his dressing-table with his watch; with
his watch it was put on in the morning; with his watch it was
taken off at night.

Many years later, during his residence at Haworth, there was a
strike; the hands in the neighbourhood felt themselves aggrieved
by the masters, and refused to work:  Mr. Bronte thought that they
had been unjustly and unfairly treated, and he assisted them by
all the means in his power to "keep the wolf from their doors,"
and avoid the incubus of debt.  Several of the more influential
inhabitants of Haworth and the neighbourhood were mill-owners;
they remonstrated pretty sharply with him, but he believed that
his conduct was right and persevered in it.

His opinions might be often both wild and erroneous, his
principles of action eccentric and strange, his views of life
partial, and almost misanthropical; but not one opinion that he
held could be stirred or modified by any worldly motive:  he acted
up to his principles of action; and, if any touch of misanthropy
mingled with his view of mankind in general, his conduct to the
individuals who came in personal contact with him did not agree
with such view.  It is true that he had strong and vehement
prejudices, and was obstinate in maintaining them, and that he was
not dramatic enough in his perceptions to see how miserable others
might be in a life that to him was all-sufficient.  But I do not
pretend to be able to harmonize points of character, and account
for them, and bring them all into one consistent and intelligible
whole.  The family with whom I have now to do shot their roots
down deeper than I can penetrate.  I cannot measure them, much
less is it for me to judge them.  I have named these instances of
eccentricity in the father because I hold the knowledge of them to
be necessary for a right understanding of the life of his
daughter.

Mrs. Bronte died in September, 1821, and the lives of those quiet
children must have become quieter and lonelier still.  Charlotte
tried hard, in after years, to recall the remembrance of her
mother, and could bring back two or three pictures of her.  One
was when, sometime in the evening light, she had been playing with
her little boy, Patrick Branwell, in the parlour of Haworth
Parsonage.  But the recollections of four or five years old are of
a very fragmentary character.

Owing to some illness of the digestive organs, Mr. Bronte was
obliged to be very careful about his diet; and, in order to avoid
temptation, and possibly to have the quiet necessary for
digestion, he had begun, before his wife's death, to take his
dinner alone--a habit which he always retained.  He did not
require companionship, therefore he did not seek it, either in his
walks, or in his daily life.  The quiet regularity of his domestic
hours was only broken in upon by church-wardens, and visitors on
parochial business; and sometimes by a neighbouring clergyman, who
came down the hills, across the moors, to mount up again to
Haworth Parsonage, and spend an evening there.  But, owing to Mrs.
Bronte's death so soon after her husband had removed into the
district, and also to the distances, and the bleak country to be
traversed, the wives of these clerical friends did not accompany
their husbands; and the daughters grew up out of childhood into
girlhood bereft, in a singular manner, of all such society as
would have been natural to their age, sex, and station.

But the children did not want society.  To small infantine
gaieties they were unaccustomed.  They were all in all to each
other.  I do not suppose that there ever was a family more
tenderly bound to each other.  Maria read the newspapers, and
reported intelligence to her younger sisters which it is wonderful
they could take an interest in.  But I suspect that they had no
"children's books," and that their eager minds "browzed
undisturbed among the wholesome pasturage of English literature,"
as Charles Lamb expresses it.  The servants of the household
appear to have been much impressed with the little Brontes'
extraordinary cleverness.  In a letter which I had from him on
this subject, their father writes:- "The servants often said that
they had never seen such a clever little child" (as Charlotte),
"and that they were obliged to be on their guard as to what they
said and did before her.  Yet she and the servants always lived on
good terms with each other."

These servants are yet alive; elderly women residing in Bradford.
They retain a faithful and fond recollection of Charlotte, and
speak of her unvarying kindness from the "time when she was ever
such a little child!" when she would not rest till she had got the
old disused cradle sent from the parsonage to the house where the
parents of one of them lived, to serve for a little infant sister.
They tell of one long series of kind and thoughtful actions from
this early period to the last weeks of Charlotte Bronte's life;
and, though she had left her place many years ago, one of these
former servants went over from Bradford to Haworth on purpose to
see Mr. Bronte, and offer him her true sympathy, when his last
child died.  I may add a little anecdote as a testimony to the
admirable character of the likeness of Miss Bronte prefixed to
this volume.  A gentleman who had kindly interested himself in the
preparation of this memoir took the first volume, shortly after
the publication, to the house of this old servant, in order to
show her the portrait.  The moment she caught a glimpse of the
frontispiece, "There she is," in a minute she exclaimed.  "Come,
John, look!" (to her husband); and her daughter was equally struck
by the resemblance.  There might not be many to regard the Brontes
with affection, but those who once loved them, loved them long and
well.

I return to the father's letter.  He says:-

"When mere children, as soon as they could read and write,
Charlotte and her brothers and sisters used to invent and act
little plays of their own, in which the Duke of Wellington, my
daughter Charlotte's hero, was sure to come off conqueror; when a
dispute would not unfrequently arise amongst them regarding the
comparative merits of him, Buonaparte, Hannibal, and Caesar.  When
the argument got warm, and rose to its height, as their mother was
then dead, I had sometimes to come in as arbitrator, and settle
the dispute according to the best of my judgment.  Generally, in
the management of these concerns, I frequently thought that I
discovered signs of rising talent, which I had seldom or never
before seen in any of their age . . . A circumstance now occurs to
my mind which I may as well mention.  When my children were very
young, when, as far as I can remember, the oldest was about ten
years of age, and the youngest about four, thinking that they knew
more than I had yet discovered, in order to make them speak with
less timidity, I deemed that if they were put under a sort of
cover I might gain my end; and happening to have a mask in the
house, I told them all to stand and speak boldly from under cover
of the mask.

"I began with the youngest (Anne, afterwards Acton Bell), and
asked what a child like her most wanted; she answered, 'Age and
experience.'  I asked the next (Emily, afterwards Ellis Bell),
what I had best do with her brother Branwell, who was sometimes a
naughty boy; she answered, 'Reason with him, and when he won't
listen to reason, whip him.'  I asked Branwell what was the best
way of knowing the difference between the intellects of man and
woman; he answered, 'By considering the difference between them as
to their bodies.'  I then asked Charlotte what was the best book
in the world; she answered, 'The Bible.'  And what was the next
best; she answered, 'The Book of Nature.'  I then asked the next
what was the best mode of education for a woman; she answered,
'That which would make her rule her house well.'  Lastly, I asked
the oldest what was the best mode of spending time; she answered,
'By laying it out in preparation for a happy eternity.'  I may not
have given precisely their words, but I have nearly done so, as
they made a deep and lasting impression on my memory.  The
substance, however, was exactly what I have stated."

The strange and quaint simplicity of the mode taken by the father
to ascertain the hidden characters of his children, and the tone
and character of these questions and answers, show the curious
education which was made by the circumstances surrounding the
Brontes.  They knew no other children.  They knew no other modes
of thought than what were suggested to them by the fragments of
clerical conversation which they overheard in the parlour, or the
subjects of village and local interest which they heard discussed
in the kitchen.  Each had their own strong characteristic flavour.

They took a vivid interest in the public characters, and the local
and the foreign as well as home politics discussed in the
newspapers.  Long before Maria Bronte died, at the age of eleven,
her father used to say he could converse with her on any of the
leading topics of the day with as much freedom and pleasure as
with any grown-up person.



CHAPTER IV



About a year after Mrs. Bronte's death, an elder sister, as I have
before mentioned, came from Penzance to superintend her brother-
in-law's household, and look after his children.  Miss Branwell
was, I believe, a kindly and conscientious woman, with a good deal
of character, but with the somewhat narrow ideas natural to one
who had spent nearly all her life in the same place.  She had
strong prejudices, and soon took a distaste to Yorkshire.  From
Penzance, where plants which we in the north call greenhouse
flowers grow in great profusion, and without any shelter even in
the winter, and where the soft warm climate allows the
inhabitants, if so disposed, to live pretty constantly in the open
air, it was a great change for a lady considerably past forty to
come and take up her abode in a place where neither flowers nor
vegetables would flourish, and where a tree of even moderate
dimensions might be hunted for far and wide; where the snow lay
long and late on the moors, stretching bleakly and barely far up
from the dwelling which was henceforward to be her home; and where
often, on autumnal or winter nights, the four winds of heaven
seemed to meet and rage together, tearing round the house as if
they were wild beasts striving to find an entrance.  She missed
the small round of cheerful, social visiting perpetually going on
in a country town; she missed the friends she had known from her
childhood, some of whom had been her parents' friends before they
were hers; she disliked many of the customs of the place, and
particularly dreaded the cold damp arising from the flag floors in
the passages and parlours of Haworth Parsonage.  The stairs, too,
I believe, are made of stone; and no wonder, when stone quarries
are near, and trees are far to seek.  I have heard that Miss
Branwell always went about the house in pattens, clicking up and
down the stairs, from her dread of catching cold.  For the same
reason, in the latter years of her life, she passed nearly all her
time, and took most of her meals, in her bedroom.  The children
respected her, and had that sort of affection for her which is
generated by esteem; but I do not think they ever freely loved
her.  It was a severe trial for any one at her time of life to
change neighbourhood and habitation so entirely as she did; and
the greater her merit.

I do not know whether Miss Branwell taught her nieces anything
besides sewing, and the household arts in which Charlotte
afterwards was such an adept.  Their regular lessons were said to
their father; and they were always in the habit of picking up an
immense amount of miscellaneous information for themselves.  But a
year or so before this time, a school had been begun in the North
of England for the daughters of clergymen.  The place was Cowan
Bridge, a small hamlet on the coach-road between Leeds and Kendal,
and thus easy of access from Haworth, as the coach ran daily, and
one of its stages was at Keighley.  The yearly expense for each
pupil (according to the entrance-rules given in the Report for
1842, and I believe they had not been increased since the
establishment of the schools in 1823) was as follows:

"Rule 11.  The terms for clothing, lodging, boarding, and
educating, are 14L. a year; half to be paid in advance, when the
pupils are sent; and also 1L. entrance-money, for the use of
books, &c.  The system of education comprehends history,
geography, the use of the globes, grammar, writing and arithmetic,
all kinds of needlework, and the nicer kinds of household work--
such as getting up fine linen, ironing, &c.  If accomplishments
are required, an additional charge of 3L. a year is made for music
or drawing, each."

Rule 3rd requests that the friends will state the line of
education desired in the case of every pupil, having a regard to
her future prospects.

Rule 4th states the clothing and toilette articles which a girl is
expected to bring with her; and thus concludes:  "The pupils all
appear in the same dress.  They wear plain straw cottage bonnets;
in summer white frocks on Sundays, and nankeen on other days; in
winter, purple stuff frocks, and purple cloth cloaks.  For the
sake of uniformity, therefore, they are required to bring 3L. in
lieu of frocks, pelisse, bonnet, tippet, and frills; making the
whole sum which each pupil brings with her to the school -

7L. half-year in advance.
1L. entrance for books.
1L. entrance for clothes.


The 8th rule is,--"All letters and parcels are inspected by the
superintendent;" but this is a very prevalent regulation in all
young ladies' schools, where I think it is generally understood
that the schoolmistress may exercise this privilege, although it
is certainly unwise in her to insist too frequently upon it.

There is nothing at all remarkable in any of the other
regulations, a copy of which was doubtless in Mr. Bronte's hands
when he formed the determination to send his daughters to Cowan
Bridge School; and he accordingly took Maria and Elizabeth thither
in July, 1824.

I now come to a part of my subject which I find great difficulty
in treating, because the evidence relating to it on each side is
so conflicting that it seems almost impossible to arrive at the
truth.  Miss Bronte more than once said to me, that she should not
have written what she did of Lowood in "Jane Eyre," if she had
thought the place would have been so immediately identified with
Cowan Bridge, although there was not a word in her account of the
institution but what was true at the time when she knew it; she
also said that she had not considered it necessary, in a work of
fiction, to state every particular with the impartiality that
might be required in a court of justice, nor to seek out motives,
and make allowances for human failings, as she might have done, if
dispassionately analysing the conduct of those who had the
superintendence of the institution.  I believe she herself would
have been glad of an opportunity to correct the over-strong
impression which was made upon the public mind by her vivid
picture, though even she, suffering her whole life long, both in
heart and body, from the consequences of what happened there,
might have been apt, to the last, to take her deep belief in facts
for the facts themselves--her conception of truth for the absolute
truth.

In some of the notices of the previous editions of this work, it
is assumed that I derived the greater part of my information with
regard to her sojourn at Cowan Bridge from Charlotte Bronte
herself.  I never heard her speak of the place but once, and that
was on the second day of my acquaintance with her.  A little child
on that occasion expressed some reluctance to finish eating his
piece of bread at dinner; and she, stooping down, and addressing
him in a low voice, told him how thankful she should have been at
his age for a piece of bread; and when we--though I am not sure if
I myself spoke--asked her some question as to the occasion she
alluded to, she replied with reserve and hesitation, evidently
shying away from what she imagined might lead to too much
conversation on one of her books.  She spoke of the oat-cake at
Cowan Bridge (the clap-bread of Westmorland) as being different to
the leaven-raised oat-cake of Yorkshire, and of her childish
distaste for it.  Some one present made an allusion to a similar
childish dislike in the true tale of "The terrible knitters o'
Dent" given in Southey's "Common-place Book:" and she smiled
faintly, but said that the mere difference in food was not all:
that the food itself was spoilt by the dirty carelessness of the
cook, so that she and her sisters disliked their meals
exceedingly; and she named her relief and gladness when the doctor
condemned the meat, and spoke of having seen him spit it out.
These are all the details I ever heard from her.  She so avoided
particularizing, that I think Mr. Carus Wilson's name never passed
between us.

I do not doubt the general accuracy of my informants,--of those
who have given, and solemnly repeated, the details that follow,--
but it is only just to Miss Bronte to say that I have stated above
pretty nearly all that I ever heard on the subject from her.

A clergyman, living near Kirby Lonsdale, the Reverend William
Carus Wilson, was the prime mover in the establishment of this
school.  He was an energetic man, sparing no labour for the
accomplishment of his ends.  He saw that it was an extremely
difficult task for clergymen with limited incomes to provide for
the education of their children; and he devised a scheme, by which
a certain sum was raised annually by subscription, to complete the
amount required to furnish a solid and sufficient English
education, for which the parent's payment of 14L. a year would not
have been sufficient.  Indeed, that made by the parents was
considered to be exclusively appropriated to the expenses of
lodging and boarding, and the education provided for by the
subscriptions.  Twelve trustees were appointed; Mr. Wilson being
not only a trustee, but the treasurer and secretary; in fact,
taking most of the business arrangements upon himself; a
responsibility which appropriately fell to him, as he lived nearer
the school than any one else who was interested in it.  So his
character for prudence and judgment was to a certain degree
implicated in the success or failure of Cowan Bridge School; and
the working of it was for many years the great object and interest
of his life.  But he was apparently unacquainted with the prime
element in good administration--seeking out thoroughly competent
persons to fill each department, and then making them responsible
for, and judging them by, the result, without perpetual
interference with the details.

So great was the amount of good which Mr. Wilson did, by his
constant, unwearied superintendence, that I cannot help feeling
sorry that, in his old age and declining health, the errors which
he was believed to have committed, should have been brought up
against him in a form which received such wonderful force from the
touch of Miss Bronte's great genius.  No doubt whatever can be
entertained of the deep interest which he felt in the success of
the school.  As I write, I have before me his last words on giving
up the secretaryship in 1850:  he speaks of the "withdrawal, from
declining health, of an eye, which, at all events, has loved to
watch over the schools with an honest and anxious interest;"--and
again he adds, "that he resigns, therefore, with a desire to be
thankful for all that God has been pleased to accomplish through
his instrumentality (the infirmities and unworthinesses of which
he deeply feels and deplores)."

Cowan Bridge is a cluster of some six or seven cottages, gathered
together at both ends of a bridge, over which the high road from
Leeds to Kendal crosses a little stream, called the Leck.  This
high road is nearly disused now; but formerly, when the buyers
from the West Riding manufacturing districts had frequent occasion
to go up into the North to purchase the wool of the Westmorland
and Cumberland farmers, it was doubtless much travelled; and
perhaps the hamlet of Cowan Bridge had a more prosperous look than
it bears at present.  It is prettily situated; just where the
Leck-fells swoop into the plain; and by the course of the beck
alder-trees and willows and hazel bushes grow.  The current of the
stream is interrupted by broken pieces of grey rock; and the
waters flow over a bed of large round white pebbles, which a flood
heaves up and moves on either side out of its impetuous way till
in some parts they almost form a wall.  By the side of the little,
shallow, sparkling, vigorous Leck, run long pasture fields, of the
fine short grass common in high land; for though Cowan Bridge is
situated on a plain, it is a plain from which there is many a fall
and long descent before you and the Leck reach the valley of the
Lune.  I can hardly understand how the school there came to be so
unhealthy, the air all round about was so sweet and thyme-scented,
when I visited it last summer.  But at this day, every one knows
that the site of a building intended for numbers should be chosen
with far greater care than that of a private dwelling, from the
tendency to illness, both infectious and otherwise, produced by
the congregation of people in close proximity.

The house is still remaining that formed part of that occupied by
the school.  It is a long, bow-windowed cottage, now divided into
two dwellings.  It stands facing the Leck, between which and it
intervenes a space, about seventy yards deep, that was once the
school garden.  This original house was an old dwelling of the
Picard family, which they had inhabited for two generations.  They
sold it for school purposes, and an additional building was
erected, running at right angles from the older part.  This new
part was devoted expressly to school-rooms, dormitories, &c.; and
after the school was removed to Casterton, it was used for a
bobbin-mill connected with the stream, where wooden reels were
made out of the alders, which grow profusely in such ground as
that surrounding Cowan Bridge.  This mill is now destroyed.  The
present cottage was, at the time of which I write, occupied by the
teachers' rooms, the dinner-room and kitchens, and some smaller
bedrooms.  On going into this building, I found one part, that
nearest to the high road, converted into a poor kind of public-
house, then to let, and having all the squalid appearance of a
deserted place, which rendered it difficult to judge what it would
look like when neatly kept up, the broken panes replaced in the
windows, and the rough-cast (now cracked and discoloured) made
white and whole.  The other end forms a cottage, with the low
ceilings and stone floors of a hundred years ago; the windows do
not open freely and widely; and the passage up-stairs, leading to
the bedrooms, is narrow and tortuous:  altogether, smells would
linger about the house, and damp cling to it.  But sanitary
matters were little understood thirty years ago; and it was a
great thing to get a roomy building close to the high road, and
not too far from the habitation of Mr. Wilson, the originator of
the educational scheme.  There was much need of such an
institution; numbers of ill-paid clergymen hailed the prospect
with joy, and eagerly put down the names of their children as
pupils when the establishment should be ready to receive them.
Mr. Wilson was, no doubt, pleased by the impatience with which the
realisation of his idea was anticipated, and opened the school
with less than a hundred pounds in hand, and with pupils, the
number of whom varies according to different accounts; Mr. W. W.
Carus Wilson, the son of the founder, giving it as seventy; while
Mr. Shepheard, the son-in-law, states it to have been only
sixteen.

Mr. Wilson felt, most probably, that the responsibility of the
whole plan rested upon him.  The payment made by the parents was
barely enough for food and lodging; the subscriptions did not flow
very freely into an untried scheme; and great economy was
necessary in all the domestic arrangements.  He determined to
enforce this by frequent personal inspection; carried perhaps to
an unnecessary extent, and leading occasionally to a meddling with
little matters, which had sometimes the effect of producing
irritation of feeling.  Yet, although there was economy in
providing for the household, there does not appear to have been
any parsimony.  The meat, flour, milk, &c., were contracted for,
but were of very fair quality; and the dietary, which has been
shown to me in manuscript, was neither bad nor unwholesome; nor,
on the whole, was it wanting in variety.  Oatmeal porridge for
breakfast; a piece of oat-cake for those who required luncheon;
baked and boiled beef, and mutton, potato-pie, and plain homely
puddings of different kinds for dinner.  At five o'clock, bread
and milk for the younger ones; and one piece of bread (this was
the only time at which the food was limited) for the elder pupils,
who sat up till a later meal of the same description.

Mr. Wilson himself ordered in the food, and was anxious that it
should be of good quality.  But the cook, who had much of his
confidence, and against whom for a long time no one durst utter a
complaint, was careless, dirty, and wasteful.  To some children
oatmeal porridge is distasteful, and consequently unwholesome,
even when properly made; at Cowan Bridge School it was too often
sent up, not merely burnt, but with offensive fragments of other
substances discoverable in it.  The beef, that should have been
carefully salted before it was dressed, had often become tainted
from neglect; and girls, who were schoolfellows with the Brontes,
during the reign of the cook of whom I am speaking, tell me that
the house seemed to be pervaded, morning, noon, and night, by the
odour of rancid fat that steamed out of the oven in which much of
their food was prepared.  There was the same carelessness in
making the puddings; one of those ordered was rice boiled in
water, and eaten with a sauce of treacle and sugar; but it was
often uneatable, because the water had been taken out of the rain
tub, and was strongly impregnated with the dust lodging on the
roof, whence it had trickled down into the old wooden cask, which
also added its own flavour to that of the original rain water.
The milk, too, was often "bingy," to use a country expression for
a kind of taint that is far worse than sourness, and suggests the
idea that it is caused by want of cleanliness about the milk pans,
rather than by the heat of the weather.  On Saturdays, a kind of
pie, or mixture of potatoes and meat, was served up, which was
made of all the fragments accumulated during the week.  Scraps of
meat from a dirty and disorderly larder, could never be very
appetizing; and, I believe, that this dinner was more loathed than
any in the early days of Cowan Bridge School.  One may fancy how
repulsive such fare would be to children whose appetites were
small, and who had been accustomed to food, far simpler perhaps,
but prepared with a delicate cleanliness that made it both
tempting and wholesome.  At many a meal the little Brontes went
without food, although craving with hunger.  They were not strong
when they came, having only just recovered from a complication of
measles and hooping-cough:  indeed, I suspect they had scarcely
recovered; for there was some consultation on the part of the
school authorities whether Maria and Elizabeth should be received
or not, in July 1824.  Mr. Bronte came again, in the September of
that year, bringing with him Charlotte and Emily to be admitted as
pupils.

It appears strange that Mr. Wilson should not have been informed
by the teachers of the way in which the food was served up; but we
must remember that the cook had been known for some time to the
Wilson family, while the teachers were brought together for an
entirely different work--that of education.  They were expressly
given to understand that such was their department; the buying in
and management of the provisions rested with Mr. Wilson and the
cook.  The teachers would, of course, be unwilling to lay any
complaints on the subject before him.

There was another trial of health common to all the girls.  The
path from Cowan Bridge to Tunstall Church, where Mr. Wilson
preached, and where they all attended on the Sunday, is more than
two miles in length, and goes sweeping along the rise and fall of
the unsheltered country, in a way to make it a fresh and
exhilarating walk in summer, but a bitter cold one in winter,
especially to children like the delicate little Brontes, whose
thin blood flowed languidly in consequence of their feeble
appetites rejecting the food prepared for them, and thus inducing
a half-starved condition.  The church was not warmed, there being
no means for this purpose.  It stands in the midst of fields, and
the damp mist must have gathered round the walls, and crept in at
the windows.  The girls took their cold dinner with them, and ate
it between the services, in a chamber over the entrance, opening
out of the former galleries.  The arrangements for this day were
peculiarly trying to delicate children, particularly to those who
were spiritless and longing for home, as poor Maria Bronte must
have been; for her ill health was increasing, and the old cough,
the remains of the hooping-cough, lingered about her.

She was far superior in mind to any of her play-fellows and
companions, and was lonely amongst them from that very cause; and
yet she had faults so annoying that she was in constant disgrace
with her teachers, and an object of merciless dislike to one of
them, who is depicted as "Miss Scatcherd" in "Jane Eyre," and
whose real name I will be merciful enough not to disclose.  I need
hardly say, that Helen Burns is as exact a transcript of Maria
Bronte as Charlotte's wonderful power of reproducing character
could give.  Her heart, to the latest day on which we met, still
beat with unavailing indignation at the worrying and the cruelty
to which her gentle, patient, dying sister had been subjected by
this woman.  Not a word of that part of "Jane Eyre" but is a
literal repetition of scenes between the pupil and the teacher.
Those who had been pupils at the same time knew who must have
written the book from the force with which Helen Burns' sufferings
are described.  They had, before that, recognised the description
of the sweet dignity and benevolence of Miss Temple as only a just
tribute to the merits of one whom all that knew her appear to hold
in honour; but when Miss Scatcherd was held up to opprobrium they
also recognised in the writer of "Jane Eyre" an unconsciously
avenging sister of the sufferer.

One of their fellow-pupils, among other statements even worse,
gives me the following:- The dormitory in which Maria slept was a
long room, holding a row of narrow little beds on each side,
occupied by the pupils; and at the end of this dormitory there was
a small bed-chamber opening out of it, appropriated to the use of
Miss Scatcherd.  Maria's bed stood nearest to the door of this
room.  One morning, after she had become so seriously unwell as to
have had a blister applied to her side (the sore from which was
not perfectly healed), when the getting-up bell was heard, poor
Maria moaned out that she was so ill, so very ill, she wished she
might stop in bed; and some of the girls urged her to do so, and
said they would explain it all to Miss Temple, the superintendent.
But Miss Scatcherd was close at hand, and her anger would have to
be faced before Miss Temple's kind thoughtfulness could interfere;
so the sick child began to dress, shivering with cold, as, without
leaving her bed, she slowly put on her black worsted stockings
over her thin white legs (my informant spoke as if she saw it yet,
and her whole face flushed out undying indignation).  Just then
Miss Scatcherd issued from her room, and, without asking for a
word of explanation from the sick and frightened girl, she took
her by the arm, on the side to which the blister had been applied,
and by one vigorous movement whirled her out into the middle of
the floor, abusing her all the time for dirty and untidy habits.
There she left her.  My informant says, Maria hardly spoke, except
to beg some of the more indignant girls to be calm; but, in slow,
trembling movements, with many a pause, she went down-stairs at
last,--and was punished for being late.

Any one may fancy how such an event as this would rankle in
Charlotte's mind.  I only wonder that she did not remonstrate
against her father's decision to send her and Emily back to Cowan
Bridge, after Maria's and Elizabeth's deaths.  But frequently
children are unconscious of the effect which some of their simple
revelations would have in altering the opinions entertained by
their friends of the persons placed around them.  Besides,
Charlotte's earnest vigorous mind saw, at an unusually early age,
the immense importance of education, as furnishing her with tools
which she had the strength and the will to wield, and she would be
aware that the Cowan Bridge education was, in many points, the
best that her father could provide for her.

Before Maria Bronte's death, that low fever broke out, in the
spring of 1825, which is spoken of in "Jane Eyre."  Mr. Wilson was
extremely alarmed at the first symptoms of this.  He went to a
kind motherly woman, who had had some connection with the school--
as laundress, I believe--and asked her to come and tell him what
was the matter with them.  She made herself ready, and drove with
him in his gig.  When she entered the school-room, she saw from
twelve to fifteen girls lying about; some resting their aching
heads on the table, others on the ground; all heavy-eyed, flushed,
indifferent, and weary, with pains in every limb.  Some peculiar
odour, she says, made her recognise that they were sickening for
"the fever;" and she told Mr. Wilson so, and that she could not
stay there for fear of conveying the infection to her own
children; but he half commanded, and half entreated her to remain
and nurse them; and finally mounted his gig and drove away, while
she was still urging that she must return to her own house, and to
her domestic duties, for which she had provided no substitute.
However, when she was left in this unceremonious manner, she
determined to make the best of it; and a most efficient nurse she
proved:  although, as she says, it was a dreary time.

Mr. Wilson supplied everything ordered by the doctors, of the best
quality and in the most liberal manner; the invalids were attended
by Dr. Batty, a very clever surgeon in Kirby, who had had the
medical superintendence of the establishment from the beginning,
and who afterwards became Mr. Wilson's brother-in-law.  I have
heard from two witnesses besides Charlotte Bronte, that Dr. Batty
condemned the preparation of the food by the expressive action of
spitting out a portion of it.  He himself, it is but fair to say,
does not remember this circumstance, nor does he speak of the
fever itself as either alarming or dangerous.  About forty of the
girls suffered from this, but none of them died at Cowan Bridge;
though one died at her own home, sinking under the state of health
which followed it.  None of the Brontes had the fever.  But the
same causes, which affected the health of the other pupils through
typhus, told more slowly, but not less surely, upon their
constitutions.  The principal of these causes was the food.

The bad management of the cook was chiefly to be blamed for this;
she was dismissed, and the woman who had been forced against her
will to serve as head nurse, took the place of housekeeper; and
henceforward the food was so well prepared that no one could ever
reasonably complain of it.  Of course it cannot be expected that a
new institution, comprising domestic and educational arrangements
for nearly a hundred persons, should work quite smoothly at the
beginning.

All this occurred during the first two years of the establishment,
and in estimating its effect upon the character of Charlotte
Bronte, we must remember that she was a sensitive thoughtful
child, capable of reflecting deeply, if not of analyzing truly;
and peculiarly susceptible, as are all delicate and sickly
children, to painful impressions.  What the healthy suffer from
but momentarily and then forget, those who are ailing brood over
involuntarily and remember long,--perhaps with no resentment, but
simply as a piece of suffering that has been stamped into their
very life.  The pictures, ideas, and conceptions of character
received into the mind of the child of eight years old, were
destined to be reproduced in fiery words a quarter of a century
afterwards.  She saw but one side of Mr. Wilson's character; and
many of those who knew him at that time assure me of the fidelity
with which this is represented, while at the same time they regret
that the delineation should have obliterated, as it were, nearly
all that was noble or conscientious.  And that there were grand
and fine qualities in Mr. Wilson, I have received abundant
evidence.  Indeed for several weeks past I have received letters
almost daily, bearing on the subject of this chapter; some vague,
some definite; many full of love and admiration for Mr. Wilson,
some as full of dislike and indignation; few containing positive
facts.  After giving careful consideration to this mass of
conflicting evidence, I have made such alterations and omissions
in this chapter as seem to me to be required.  It is but just to
state that the major part of the testimony with which I have been
favoured from old pupils is in high praise of Mr. Wilson.  Among
the letters that I have read, there is one whose evidence ought to
be highly respected.  It is from the husband of "Miss Temple."
She died in 1856, but he, a clergyman, thus wrote in reply to a
letter addressed to him on the subject by one of Mr. Wilson's
friends:- "Often have I heard my late dear wife speak of her
sojourn at Cowan Bridge; always in terms of admiration of Mr.
Carus Wilson, his parental love to his pupils, and their love for
him; of the food and general treatment, in terms of approval.  I
have heard her allude to an unfortunate cook, who used at times to
spoil the porridge, but who, she said, was soon dismissed."

The recollections left of the four Bronte sisters at this period
of their lives, on the minds of those who associated with them,
are not very distinct.  Wild, strong hearts, and powerful minds,
were hidden under an enforced propriety and regularity of
demeanour and expression, just as their faces had been concealed
by their father, under his stiff, unchanging mask.  Maria was
delicate, unusually clever and thoughtful for her age, gentle, and
untidy.  Of her frequent disgrace from this last fault--of her
sufferings, so patiently borne--I have already spoken.  The only
glimpse we get of Elizabeth, through the few years of her short
life, is contained in a letter which I have received from "Miss
Temple."  "The second, Elizabeth, is the only one of the family of
whom I have a vivid recollection, from her meeting with a somewhat
alarming accident, in consequence of which I had her for some days
and nights in my bedroom, not only for the sake of greater quiet,
but that I might watch over her myself.  Her head was severely
cut, but she bore all the consequent suffering with exemplary
patience, and by it won much upon my esteem.  Of the two younger
ones (if two there were) I have very slight recollections, save
that one, a darling child, under five years of age, was quite the
pet nursling of the school."  This last would be Emily.  Charlotte
was considered the most talkative of the sisters--a "bright,
clever, little child."  Her great friend was a certain "Mellany
Hane" (so Mr. Bronte spells the name), whose brother paid for her
schooling, and who had no remarkable talent except for music,
which her brother's circumstances forbade her to cultivate.  She
was "a hungry, good-natured, ordinary girl;" older than Charlotte,
and ever ready to protect her from any petty tyranny or
encroachments on the part of the elder girls.  Charlotte always
remembered her with affection and gratitude.

I have quoted the word "bright" in the account of Charlotte.  I
suspect that this year of 1825 was the last time it could ever be
applied to her.  In the spring of it, Maria became so rapidly
worse that Mr. Bronte was sent for.  He had not previously been
aware of her illness, and the condition in which he found her was
a terrible shock to him.  He took her home by the Leeds coach, the
girls crowding out into the road to follow her with their eyes
over the bridge, past the cottages, and then out of sight for
ever.  She died a very few days after her arrival at home.
Perhaps the news of her death falling suddenly into the life of
which her patient existence had formed a part, only a little week
or so before, made those who remained at Cowan Bridge look with
more anxiety on Elizabeth's symptoms, which also turned out to be
consumptive.  She was sent home in charge of a confidential
servant of the establishment; and she, too, died in the early
summer of that year.  Charlotte was thus suddenly called into the
responsibilities of eldest sister in a motherless family.  She
remembered how anxiously her dear sister Maria had striven, in her
grave earnest way, to be a tender helper and a counsellor to them
all; and the duties that now fell upon her seemed almost like a
legacy from the gentle little sufferer so lately dead.

Both Charlotte and Emily returned to school after the Midsummer
holidays in this fatal year.  But before the next winter it was
thought desirable to advise their removal, as it was evident that
the damp situation of the house at Cowan Bridge did not suit their
health. {3}



CHAPTER V



For the reason just stated, the little girls were sent home in the
autumn of 1825, when Charlotte was little more than nine years
old.

About this time, an elderly woman of the village came to live as
servant at the parsonage.  She remained there, as a member of the
household, for thirty years; and from the length of her faithful
service, and the attachment and respect which she inspired, is
deserving of mention.  Tabby was a thorough specimen of a
Yorkshire woman of her class, in dialect, in appearance, and in
character.  She abounded in strong practical sense and shrewdness.
Her words were far from flattery; but she would spare no deeds in
the cause of those whom she kindly regarded.  She ruled the
children pretty sharply; and yet never grudged a little extra
trouble to provide them with such small treats as came within her
power.  In return, she claimed to be looked upon as a humble
friend; and, many years later, Miss Bronte told me that she found
it somewhat difficult to manage, as Tabby expected to be informed
of all the family concerns, and yet had grown so deaf that what
was repeated to her became known to whoever might be in or about
the house.  To obviate this publication of what it might be
desirable to keep secret, Miss Bronte used to take her out for a
walk on the solitary moors; where, when both were seated on a tuft
of heather, in some high lonely place, she could acquaint the old
woman, at leisure, with all that she wanted to hear.

Tabby had lived in Haworth in the days when the pack-horses went
through once a week, with their tinkling bells and gay worsted
adornment, carrying the produce of the country from Keighley over
the hills to Colne and Burnley.  What is more, she had known the
"bottom," or valley, in those primitive days when the fairies
frequented the margin of the "beck" on moonlight nights, and had
known folk who had seen them.  But that was when there were no
mills in the valleys; and when all the wool-spinning was done by
hand in the farm-houses round.  "It wur the factories as had
driven 'em away," she said.  No doubt she had many a tale to tell
of by-gone days of the country-side; old ways of living, former
inhabitants, decayed gentry, who had melted away, and whose places
knew them no more; family tragedies, and dark superstitious dooms;
and in telling these things, without the least consciousness that
there might ever be anything requiring to be softened down, would
give at full length the bare and simple details.

Miss Branwell instructed the children at regular hours in all she
could teach, making her bed-chamber into their school-room.  Their
father was in the habit of relating to them any public news in
which he felt an interest; and from the opinions of his strong and
independent mind they would gather much food for thought; but I do
not know whether he gave them any direct instruction.  Charlotte's
deep thoughtful spirit appears to have felt almost painfully the
tender responsibility which rested upon her with reference to her
remaining sisters.  She was only eighteen months older than Emily;
but Emily and Anne were simply companions and playmates, while
Charlotte was motherly friend and guardian to both; and this
loving assumption of duties beyond her years, made her feel
considerably older than she really was.

Patrick Branwell, their only brother, was a boy of remarkable
promise, and, in some ways, of extraordinary precocity of talent.
Mr. Bronte's friends advised him to send his son to school; but,
remembering both the strength of will of his own youth and his
mode of employing it, he believed that Patrick was better at home,
and that he himself could teach him well, as he had taught others
before.  So Patrick, or as his family called him--Branwell,
remained at Haworth, working hard for some hours a day with his
father; but, when the time of the latter was taken up with his
parochial duties, the boy was thrown into chance companionship
with the lads of the village--for youth will to youth, and boys
will to boys.

Still, he was associated in many of his sisters' plays and
amusements.  These were mostly of a sedentary and intellectual
nature.  I have had a curious packet confided to me, containing an
immense amount of manuscript, in an inconceivably small space;
tales, dramas, poems, romances, written principally by Charlotte,
in a hand which it is almost impossible to decipher without the
aid of a magnifying glass.  No description will give so good an
idea of the extreme minuteness of the writing as the annexed
facsimile of a page.

Among these papers there is a list of her works, which I copy, as
a curious proof how early the rage for literary composition had
seized upon her:-


CATALOGUE OF MY BOOKS, WITH THE PERIOD OF THEIR COMPLETION, UP TO
AUGUST 3RD, 1830.

Two romantic tales in one volume; viz., The Twelve Adventurers and
the Adventures in Ireland, April 2nd, 1829.

The Search after Happiness, a Tale, Aug. 1st, 1829.

Leisure Hours, a Tale, and two Fragments, July 6th 1829.

The Adventures of Edward de Crack, a Tale, Feb. 2nd, 1830.

The Adventures of Ernest Alembert, a Tale, May 26th, 1830.

An interesting Incident in the Lives of some of the most eminent
Persons of the Age, a Tale, June 10th, 1830.

Tales of the Islanders, in four volumes.  Contents of the lst
Vol.: --l.  An Account of their Origin; 2.  A Description of
Vision Island; 3.  Ratten's Attempt; 4.  Lord Charles Wellesley
and the Marquis of Douro's Adventure; completed June 31st, 1829.
2nd Vol.:- 1.  The School-rebellion; 2.  The strange Incident in
the Duke of Wellington's Life; 3.  Tale to his Sons; 4.  The
Marquis of Douro and Lord Charles Wellesley's Tale to his little
King and Queen; completed Dec. 2nd, 1829.  3rd Vol.:- 1.  The Duke
of Wellington's Adventure in the Cavern; 2.  The Duke of
Wellington and the little King's and Queen's visit to the Horse-
Guards; completed May 8th, 1830.  4th Vol.:- 1.  The three old
Washer-women of Strathfieldsaye; 2.  Lord C. Wellesley's Tale to
his Brother; completed July 30th, 1830.

Characters of Great Men of the Present Age, Dec. 17th 1829.

The Young Men's Magazines, in Six Numbers, from August to
December, the latter months double number, completed December the
12th, 1829.  General index to their contents:- 1.  A True Story;
2.  Causes of the War; 3.  A Song; 4.  Conversations; 5.  A True
Story continued; 6.  The Spirit of Cawdor; 7.  Interior of a
Pothouse, a Poem; 8.  The Glass Town, a Song; 9.  The Silver Cup,
a Tale; 10.  The Table and Vase in the Desert, a Song; 11.
Conversations; 12.  Scene on the Great Bridge; 13.  Song of the
Ancient Britons; 14.  Scene in my Tun, a Tale; 15.  An American
Tale; 16.  Lines written on seeing the Garden of a Genius; 17.
The Lay of the Glass Town; 18.  The Swiss Artist, a Tale; 19.
Lines on the Transfer of this Magazine; 20.  On the Same, by a
different hand; 21.  Chief Genii in Council; 22.  Harvest in
Spain; 23.  The Swiss Artists continued; 24.  Conversations.

The Poetaster, a Drama, in 2 volumes, July 12th, 1830.

A Book of Rhymes, finished December 17th, 1829.  Contents:- 1.
The Beauty of Nature; 2.  A Short Poem; 3.  Meditations while
Journeying in a Canadian Forest; 4.  Song of an Exile; 5.  On
Seeing the Ruins of the Tower of Babel; 6.  A Thing of 14 lines;
7.  Lines written on the Bank of a River one fine Summer Evening;
8.  Spring, a Song; 9.  Autumn, a Song.

Miscellaneous Poems, finished May 30th, 1830.  Contents:- 1.  The
Churchyard; 2.  Description of the Duke of Wellington's Palace on
the Pleasant Banks of the Lusiva; this article is a small prose
tale or incident; 3.  Pleasure;  4.  Lines written on the Summit
of a high Mountain of the North of England; 5.  Winter; 6.  Two
Fragments, namely, 1st, The Vision; 2nd, A Short untitled Poem;
the Evening Walk, a Poem, June 23rd, 1830.

Making in the whole twenty-two volumes.

C. BRONTE, August 3, 1830


As each volume contains from sixty to a hundred pages, and the
size of the page lithographed is rather less than the average, the
amount of the whole seems very great, if we remember that it was
all written in about fifteen months.  So much for the quantity;
the quality strikes me as of singular merit for a girl of thirteen
or fourteen.  Both as a specimen of her prose style at this time,
and also as revealing something of the quiet domestic life led by
these children, I take an extract from the introduction to "Tales
of the Islanders," the title of one of their "Little Magazines:" -


"June the 31st, 1829.

"The play of the 'Islanders' was formed in December, 1827, in the
following manner.  One night, about the time when the cold sleet
and stormy fogs of November are succeeded by the snow-storms, and
high piercing night winds of confirmed winter, we were all sitting
round the warm blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a
quarrel with Tabby concerning the propriety of lighting a candle,
from which she came off victorious, no candle having been
produced.  A long pause succeeded, which was at last broken by
Branwell saying, in a lazy manner, 'I don't know what to do.'
This was echoed by Emily and Anne.

"TABBY.  'Wha ya may go t' bed.'

"BRANWELL.  'I'd rather do anything than that.'

"CHARLOTTE.  'Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby?  Oh! suppose we
had each an island of our own.'

"BRANWELL.  'If we had I would choose the Island of Man.'

"CHARLOTTE.  'And I would choose the Isle of Wight.'

"EMILY.  'The Isle of Arran for me.'

"ANNE.  'And mine shall be Guernsey.'

"We then chose who should be chief men in our islands.  Branwell
chose John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter
Scott, Mr. Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord
Bentinck, Sir Henry Halford.  I chose the Duke of Wellington and
two sons, Christopher North and Co., and Mr. Abernethy.  Here our
conversation was interrupted by the, to us, dismal sound of the
clock striking seven, and we were summoned off to bed.  The next
day we added many others to our list of men, till we got almost
all the chief men of the kingdom.  After this, for a long time,
nothing worth noticing occurred.  In June, 1828, we erected a
school on a fictitious island, which was to contain 1,000
children.  The manner of the building was as follows.  The Island
was fifty miles in circumference, and certainly appeared more like
the work of enchantment than anything real," &c.


Two or three things strike me much in this fragment; one is the
graphic vividness with which the time of the year, the hour of the
evening, the feeling of cold and darkness outside, the sound of
the night-winds sweeping over the desolate snow-covered moors,
coming nearer and nearer, and at last shaking the very door of the
room where they were sitting--for it opened out directly on that
bleak, wide expanse--is contrasted with the glow, and busy
brightness of the cheerful kitchen where these remarkable children
are grouped.  Tabby moves about in her quaint country-dress,
frugal, peremptory, prone to find fault pretty sharply, yet
allowing no one else to blame her children, we may feel sure.
Another noticeable fact is the intelligent partisanship with which
they choose their great men, who are almost all stanch Tories of
the time.  Moreover, they do not confine themselves to local
heroes; their range of choice has been widened by hearing much of
what is not usually considered to interest children.  Little Anne,
aged scarcely eight, picks out the politicians of the day for her
chief men.

There is another scrap of paper, in this all but illegible
handwriting, written about this time, and which gives some idea of
the sources of their opinions.


THE HISTORY OF THE YEAR 1829.

"Once Papa lent my sister Maria a book.  It was an old geography-
book; she wrote on its blank leaf, 'Papa lent me this book.'  This
book is a hundred and twenty years old; it is at this moment lying
before me.  While I write this I am in the kitchen of the
Parsonage, Haworth; Tabby, the servant, is washing up the
breakfast-things, and Anne, my youngest sister (Maria was my
eldest), is kneeling on a chair, looking at some cakes which Tabby
has been baking for us.  Emily is in the parlour, brushing the
carpet.  Papa and Branwell are gone to Keighley.  Aunt is up-
stairs in her room, and I am sitting by the table writing this in
the kitchen.  Keighley is a small town four miles from here.  Papa
and Branwell are gone for the newspaper, the 'Leeds
Intelligencer,' a most excellent Tory newspaper, edited by Mr.
Wood, and the proprietor, Mr. Henneman.  We take two and see three
newspapers a week.  We take the 'Leeds Intelligencer,' Tory, and
the 'Leeds Mercury,' Whig, edited by Mr. Baines, and his brother,
son-in-law, and his two sons, Edward and Talbot.  We see the 'John
Bull;' it is a high Tory, very violent.  Mr. Driver lends us it,
as likewise 'Blackwood's Magazine,' the most able periodical there
is.  The Editor is Mr. Christopher North, an old man seventy-four
years of age; the 1st of April is his birth-day; his company are
Timothy Tickler, Morgan O'Doherty, Macrabin Mordecai, Mullion,
Warnell, and James Hogg, a man of most extraordinary genius, a
Scottish shepherd.  Our plays were established; 'Young Men,' June,
1826; 'Our Fellows,' July, 1827; 'Islanders,' December, 1827.
These are our three great plays, that are not kept secret.
Emily's and my best plays were established the 1st of December,
1827; the others March, 1828.  Best plays mean secret plays; they
are very nice ones.  All our plays are very strange ones.  Their
nature I need not write on paper, for I think I shall always
remember them.  The 'Young Men's' play took its rise from some
wooden soldiers Branwell had:  'Our Fellows' from 'AEsop's
Fables;' and the 'Islanders' from several events which happened.
I will sketch out the origin of our plays more explicitly if I
can.  First, 'Young Men.'  Papa bought Branwell some wooden
soldiers at Leeds; when Papa came home it was night, and we were
in bed, so next morning Branwell came to our door with a box of
soldiers.  Emily and I jumped out of bed, and I snatched up one
and exclaimed, 'This is the Duke of Wellington!  This shall be the
Duke!'  When I had said this, Emily likewise took up one and said
it should be hers; when Anne came down, she said one should be
hers.  Mine was the prettiest of the whole, and the tallest, and
the most perfect in every part.  Emily's was a grave-looking
fellow, and we called him 'Gravey.'  Anne's was a queer little
thing, much like herself, and we called him 'Waiting-Boy.'
Branwell chose his, and called him 'Buonaparte.'"

The foregoing extract shows something of the kind of reading in
which the little Brontes were interested; but their desire for
knowledge must have been excited in many directions, for I find a
"list of painters whose works I wish to see," drawn up by
Charlotte when she was scarcely thirteen:-

"Guido Reni, Julio Romano, Titian, Raphael, Michael Angelo,
Correggio, Annibal Caracci, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo,
Carlo Cignani, Vandyke, Rubens, Bartolomeo Ramerghi."

Here is this little girl, in a remote Yorkshire parsonage, who has
probably never seen anything worthy the name of a painting in her
life, studying the names and characteristics of the great old
Italian and Flemish masters, whose works she longs to see some
time, in the dim future that lies before her!  There is a paper
remaining which contains minute studies of, and criticisms upon,
the engravings in "Friendship's Offering for 1829;" showing how
she had early formed those habits of close observation, and
patient analysis of cause and effect, which served so well in
after-life as handmaids to her genius.

The way in which Mr. Bronte made his children sympathise with him
in his great interest in politics, must have done much to lift
them above the chances of their minds being limited or tainted by
petty local gossip.  I take the only other remaining personal
fragment out of "Tales of the Islanders;" it is a sort of apology,
contained in the introduction to the second volume, for their not
having been continued before; the writers had been for a long time
too busy, and latterly too much absorbed in politics.


"Parliament was opened, and the great Catholic question was
brought forward, and the Duke's measures were disclosed, and all
was slander, violence, party-spirit, and confusion.  Oh, those six
months, from the time of the King's speech to the end!  Nobody
could write, think, or speak on any subject but the Catholic
question, and the Duke of Wellington, and Mr. Peel.  I remember
the day when the Intelligence Extraordinary came with Mr. Peel's
speech in it, containing the terms on which the Catholics were to
be let in!  With what eagerness Papa tore off the cover, and how
we all gathered round him, and with what breathless anxiety we
listened, as one by one they were disclosed, and explained, and
argued upon so ably, and so well! and then when it was all out,
how aunt said that she thought it was excellent, and that the
Catholics could do no harm with such good security!  I remember
also the doubts as to whether it would pass the House of Lords,
and the prophecies that it would not; and when the paper came
which was to decide the question, the anxiety was almost dreadful
with which we listened to the whole affair:  the opening of the
doors; the hush; the royal dukes in their robes, and the great
duke in green sash and waistcoat; the rising of all the peeresses
when he rose; the reading of his speech--Papa saying that his
words were like precious gold; and lastly, the majority of one to
four (sic) in favour of the Bill.  But this is a digression," &c.,
&c.


This must have been written when she was between thirteen and
fourteen.

It will be interesting to some of my readers to know what was the
character of her purely imaginative writing at this period.  While
her description of any real occurrence is, as we have seen,
homely, graphic, and forcible, when she gives way to her powers of
creation, her fancy and her language alike run riot, sometimes to
the very borders of apparent delirium.  Of this wild weird
writing, a single example will suffice.  It is a letter to the
editor of one of the "Little Magazines."


"Sir,--It is well known that the Genii have declared that unless
they perform certain arduous duties every year, of a mysterious
nature, all the worlds in the firmament will be burnt up, and
gathered together in one mighty globe, which will roll in solitary
grandeur through the vast wilderness of space, inhabited only by
the four high princes of the Genii, till time shall be succeeded
by Eternity; and the impudence of this is only to be paralleled by
another of their assertions, namely, that by their magic might
they can reduce the world to a desert, the purest waters to
streams of livid poison, and the clearest lakes to stagnant
waters, the pestilential vapours of which shall slay all living
creatures, except the blood-thirsty beast of the forest, and the
ravenous bird of the rock.  But that in the midst of this
desolation the palace of the Chief Genii shall rise sparkling in
the wilderness, and the horrible howl of their war-cry shall
spread over the land at morning, at noontide and night; but that
they shall have their annual feast over the bones of the dead, and
shall yearly rejoice with the joy of victors.  I think, sir, that
the horrible wickedness of this needs no remark, and therefore I
haste to subscribe myself, &c.

"July 14, 1829."


It is not unlikely that the foregoing letter may have had some
allegorical or political reference, invisible to our eyes, but
very clear to the bright little minds for whom it was intended.
Politics were evidently their grand interest; the Duke of
Wellington their demi-god.  All that related to him belonged to
the heroic age.  Did Charlotte want a knight-errant, or a devoted
lover, the Marquis of Douro, or Lord Charles Wellesley, came ready
to her hand.  There is hardly one of her prose-writings at this
time in which they are not the principal personages, and in which
their "august father" does not appear as a sort of Jupiter Tonans,
or Deus ex Machina.

As one evidence how Wellesley haunted her imagination, I copy out
a few of the titles to her papers in the various magazines.

"Liffey Castle," a Tale by Lord C. Wellesley.

"Lines to the River Aragua," by the Marquis of Douro.

"An Extraordinary Dream," by Lord C. Wellesley.

"The Green Dwarf, a Tale of the Perfect Tense," by the Lord
Charles Albert Florian Wellesley.

"Strange Events," by Lord C. A. F. Wellesley.

Life in an isolated village, or a lonely country-house, presents
many little occurrences which sink into the mind of childhood,
there to be brooded over.  No other event may have happened, or be
likely to happen, for days, to push one of these aside, before it
has assumed a vague and mysterious importance.  Thus, children
leading a secluded life are often thoughtful and dreamy:  the
impressions made upon them by the world without--the unusual
sights of earth and sky--the accidental meetings with strange
faces and figures (rare occurrences in those out-of-the-way
places)--are sometimes magnified by them into things so deeply
significant as to be almost supernatural.  This peculiarity I
perceive very strongly in Charlotte's writings at this time.
Indeed, under the circumstances, it is no peculiarity.  It has
been common to all, from the Chaldean shepherds--"the lonely
herdsman stretched on the soft grass through half a summer's day"-
-the solitary monk--to all whose impressions from without have had
time to grow and vivify in the imagination, till they have been
received as actual personifications, or supernatural visions, to
doubt which would be blasphemy.

To counterbalance this tendency in Charlotte, was the strong
common sense natural to her, and daily called into exercise by the
requirements of her practical life.  Her duties were not merely to
learn her lessons, to read a certain quantity, to gain certain
ideas; she had, besides, to brush rooms, to run errands up and
down stairs, to help in the simpler forms of cooking, to be by
turns play-fellow and monitress to her younger sisters and
brother, to make and to mend, and to study economy under her
careful aunt.  Thus we see that, while her imagination received
vivid impressions, her excellent understanding had full power to
rectify them before her fancies became realities.  On a scrap of
paper, she has written down the following relation:-


"June 22, 1830, 6 o'clock p.m.
"Haworth, near Bradford.

"The following strange occurrence happened on the 22nd of June,
1830:- At the time Papa was very ill, confined to his bed, and so
weak that he could not rise without assistance.  Tabby and I were
alone in the kitchen, about half-past nine ante-meridian.
Suddenly we heard a knock at the door; Tabby rose and opened it.
An old man appeared, standing without, who accosted her thus:-

"OLD MAN.--'Does the parson live here?'

"TABBY.--'Yes.'

"OLD MAN.--'I wish to see him.'

"TABBY.--'He is poorly in bed.'

"OLD MAN.--'I have a message for him.'

"TABBY.--'Who from?'

"OLD MAN.--'From the Lord.'

"TABBY.--'Who?'

"OLD MAN.--'The Lord.  He desires me to say that the Bridegroom is
coming, and that we must prepare to meet him; that the cords are
about to be loosed, and the golden bowl broken; the pitcher broken
at the fountain.'

"Here he concluded his discourse, and abruptly went his way.  As
Tabby closed the door, I asked her if she knew him.  Her reply
was, that she had never seen him before, nor any one like him.
Though I am fully persuaded that he was some fanatical enthusiast,
well meaning perhaps, but utterly ignorant of true piety; yet I
could not forbear weeping at his words, spoken so unexpectedly at
that particular period."


Though the date of the following poem is a little uncertain, it
may be most convenient to introduce it here.  It must have been
written before 1833, but how much earlier there are no means of
determining.  I give it as a specimen of the remarkable poetical
talent shown in the various diminutive writings of this time; at
least, in all of them which I have been able to read.


THE WOUNDED STAG.

Passing amid the deepest shade
Of the wood's sombre heart,
Last night I saw a wounded deer
Laid lonely and apart.

Such light as pierced the crowded boughs
(Light scattered, scant and dim,)
Passed through the fern that formed his couch
And centred full on him.

Pain trembled in his weary limbs,
Pain filled his patient eye,
Pain-crushed amid the shadowy fern
His branchy crown did lie.

Where were his comrades? where his mate?
All from his death-bed gone!
And he, thus struck and desolate,
Suffered and bled alone.

Did he feel what a man might feel,
Friend-left, and sore distrest?
Did Pain's keen dart, and Grief's sharp sting
Strive in his mangled breast?

Did longing for affection lost
Barb every deadly dart;
Love unrepaid, and Faith betrayed,
Did these torment his heart?

No! leave to man his proper doom!
These are the pangs that rise
Around the bed of state and gloom,
Where Adam's offspring dies!



CHAPTER VI



This is perhaps a fitting time to give some personal description
of Miss Bronte.  In 1831, she was a quiet, thoughtful girl, of
nearly fifteen years of age, very small in figure--"stunted" was
the word she applied to herself,--but as her limbs and head were
in just proportion to the slight, fragile body, no word in ever so
slight a degree suggestive of deformity could properly be applied
to her; with soft, thick, brown hair, and peculiar eyes, of which
I find it difficult to give a description, as they appeared to me
in her later life.  They were large and well shaped; their colour
a reddish brown; but if the iris was closely examined, it appeared
to be composed of a great variety of tints.  The usual expression
was of quiet, listening intelligence; but now and then, on some
just occasion for vivid interest or wholesome indignation, a light
would shine out, as if some spiritual lamp had been kindled, which
glowed behind those expressive orbs.  I never saw the like in any
other human creature.  As for the rest of her features, they were
plain, large, and ill set; but, unless you began to catalogue
them, you were hardly aware of the fact, for the eyes and power of
the countenance over-balanced every physical defect; the crooked
mouth and the large nose were forgotten, and the whole face
arrested the attention, and presently attracted all those whom she
herself would have cared to attract.  Her hands and feet were the
smallest I ever saw; when one of the former was placed in mine, it
was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my palm.  The
delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensation, which
was one reason why all her handiwork, of whatever kind--writing,
sewing, knitting--was so clear in its minuteness.  She was
remarkably neat in her whole personal attire; but she was dainty
as to the fit of her shoes and gloves.

I can well imagine that the grave serious composure, which, when I
knew her, gave her face the dignity of an old Venetian portrait,
was no acquisition of later years, but dated from that early age
when she found herself in the position of an elder sister to
motherless children.  But in a girl only just entered on her
teens, such an expression would be called (to use a country
phrase) "old-fashioned;" and in 1831, the period of which I now
write, we must think of her as a little, set, antiquated girl,
very quiet in manners, and very quaint in dress; for besides the
influence exerted by her father's ideas concerning the simplicity
of attire befitting the wife and daughters of a country clergyman,
her aunt, on whom the duty of dressing her nieces principally
devolved, had never been in society since she left Penzance, eight
or nine years before, and the Penzance fashions of that day were
still dear to her heart.

In January, 1831, Charlotte was sent to school again.  This time
she went as a pupil to Miss W-, who lived at Roe Head, a cheerful
roomy country house, standing a little apart in a field, on the
right of the road from Leeds to Huddersfield.  Three tiers of old-
fashioned semicircular bow windows run from basement to roof; and
look down upon a long green slope of pasture-land, ending in the
pleasant woods of Kirklees, Sir George Armitage's park.  Although
Roe Head and Haworth are not twenty miles apart, the aspect of the
country is as totally dissimilar as if they enjoyed a different
climate.  The soft curving and heaving landscape round the former
gives a stranger the idea of cheerful airiness on the heights, and
of sunny warmth in the broad green valleys below.  It is just such
a neighbourhood as the monks loved, and traces of the old
Plantagenet times are to be met with everywhere, side by side with
the manufacturing interests of the West Riding of to-day.  There
is the park of Kirklees, full of sunny glades, speckled with black
shadows of immemorial yew-trees; the grey pile of building,
formerly a "House of professed Ladies;" the mouldering stone in
the depth of the wood, under which Robin Hood is said to lie;
close outside the park, an old stone-gabled house, now a roadside
inn, but which bears the name of the "Three Nuns," and has a
pictured sign to correspond.  And this quaint old inn is
frequented by fustian-dressed mill-hands from the neighbouring
worsted factories, which strew the high road from Leeds to
Huddersfield, and form the centres round which future villages
gather.  Such are the contrasts of modes of living, and of times
and seasons, brought before the traveller on the great roads that
traverse the West Riding.  In no other part of England, I fancy,
are the centuries brought into such close, strange contact as in
the district in which Roe Head is situated.  Within six miles of
Miss W-'s house--on the left of the road, coming from Leeds--lie
the remains of Howley Hall, now the property of Lord Cardigan, but
formerly belonging to a branch of the Saviles.  Near to it is Lady
Anne's well; "Lady Anne," according to tradition, having been
worried and eaten by wolves as she sat at the well, to which the
indigo-dyed factory people from Birstall and Batley woollen mills
would formerly repair on Palm Sunday, when the waters possess
remarkable medicinal efficacy; and it is still believed by some
that they assume a strange variety of colours at six o'clock on
the morning of that day.

All round the lands held by the farmer who lives in the remains of
Howley Hall are stone houses of to-day, occupied by the people who
are making their living and their fortunes by the woollen mills
that encroach upon and shoulder out the proprietors of the ancient
halls.  These are to be seen in every direction, picturesque,
many-gabled, with heavy stone carvings of coats of arms for
heraldic ornament; belonging to decayed families, from whose
ancestral lands field after field has been shorn away, by the
urgency of rich manufacturers pressing hard upon necessity.

A smoky atmosphere surrounds these old dwellings of former
Yorkshire squires, and blights and blackens the ancient trees that
overshadow them; cinder-paths lead up to them; the ground round
about is sold for building upon; but still the neighbours, though
they subsist by a different state of things, remember that their
forefathers lived in agricultural dependence upon the owners of
these halls; and treasure up the traditions connected with the
stately households that existed centuries ago.  Take Oakwell Hall,
for instance.  It stands in a pasture-field, about a quarter of a
mile from the high road.  It is but that distance from the busy
whirr of the steam-engines employed in the woollen mills at
Birstall; and if you walk to it from Birstall Station about meal-
time, you encounter strings of mill-hands, blue with woollen dye,
and cranching in hungry haste over the cinder-paths bordering the
high road.  Turning off from this to the right, you ascend through
an old pasture-field, and enter a short by-road, called the
"Bloody Lane"--a walk haunted by the ghost of a certain Captain
Batt, the reprobate proprietor of an old hall close by, in the
days of the Stuarts.  From the "Bloody Lane," overshadowed by
trees, you come into the field in which Oakwell Hall is situated.
It is known in the neighbourhood to be the place described as
"Field Head," Shirley's residence.  The enclosure in front, half
court, half garden; the panelled hall, with the gallery opening
into the bed-chambers running round; the barbarous peach-coloured
drawing-room; the bright look-out through the garden-door upon the
grassy lawns and terraces behind, where the soft-hued pigeons
still love to coo and strut in the sun,--are described in
"Shirley."  The scenery of that fiction lies close around; the
real events which suggested it took place in the immediate
neighbourhood.

They show a bloody footprint in a bedchamber of Oakwell Hall, and
tell a story connected with it, and with the lane by which the
house is approached.  Captain Batt was believed to be far away;
his family was at Oakwell; when in the dusk, one winter evening,
he came stalking along the lane, and through the hall, and up the
stairs, into his own room, where he vanished.  He had been killed
in a duel in London that very same afternoon of December 9th,
1684.

The stones of the Hall formed part of the more ancient vicarage,
which an ancestor of Captain Batt's had seized in the troublous
times for property which succeeded the Reformation.  This Henry
Batt possessed himself of houses and money without scruple; and,
at last, stole the great bell of Birstall Church, for which
sacrilegious theft a fine was imposed on the land, and has to be
paid by the owner of the Hall to this day.

But the Oakwell property passed out of the hands of the Batts at
the beginning of the last century; collateral descendants
succeeded, and left this picturesque trace of their having been.
In the great hall hangs a mighty pair of stag's horns, and
dependent from them a printed card, recording the fact that, on
the 1st of September, 1763, there was a great hunting-match, when
this stag was slain; and that fourteen gentlemen shared in the
chase, and dined on the spoil in that hall, along with Fairfax
Fearneley, Esq., the owner.  The fourteen names are given,
doubtless "mighty men of yore;" but, among them all, Sir Fletcher
Norton, Attorney-General, and Major-General Birch were the only
ones with which I had any association in 1855.  Passing on from
Oakwell there lie houses right and left, which were well known to
Miss Bronte when she lived at Roe Head, as the hospitable homes of
some of her schoolfellows.  Lanes branch off for three or four
miles to heaths and commons on the higher ground, which formed
pleasant walks on holidays, and then comes the white gate into the
field-path leading to Roe Head itself.

One of the bow-windowed rooms on the ground floor with the
pleasant look-out I have described was the drawing-room; the other
was the schoolroom.  The dining-room was on one side of the door,
and faced the road.

The number of pupils, during the year and a half Miss Bronte was
there, ranged from seven to ten; and as they did not require the
whole of the house for their accommodation, the third story was
unoccupied, except by the ghostly idea of a lady, whose rustling
silk gown was sometimes heard by the listeners at the foot of the
second flight of stairs.

The kind motherly nature of Miss W-, and the small number of the
girls, made the establishment more like a private family than a
school.  Moreover, she was a native of the district immediately
surrounding Roe Head, as were the majority of her pupils.  Most
likely Charlotte Bronte, in coming from Haworth, came the greatest
distance of all.  "E.'s" home was five miles away; two other dear
friends (the Rose and Jessie Yorke of "Shirley") lived still
nearer; two or three came from Huddersfield; one or two from
Leeds.

I shall now quote from a valuable letter which I have received
from "Mary," one of these early friends; distinct and graphic in
expression, as becomes a cherished associate of Charlotte
Bronte's.  The time referred to is her first appearance at Roe
Head, on January 19th, 1831.


"I first saw her coming out of a covered cart, in very old-
fashioned clothes, and looking very cold and miserable.  She was
coming to school at Miss W-'s.  When she appeared in the
schoolroom, her dress was changed, but just as old.  She looked a
little old woman, so short-sighted that she always appeared to be
seeking something, and moving her head from side to side to catch
a sight of it.  She was very shy and nervous, and spoke with a
strong Irish accent.  When a book was given her, she dropped her
head over it till her nose nearly touched it, and when she was
told to hold her head up, up went the book after it, still close
to her nose, so that it was not possible to help laughing."


This was the first impression she made upon one of those whose
dear and valued friend she was to become in after-life.  Another
of the girls recalls her first sight of Charlotte, on the day she
came, standing by the schoolroom window, looking out on the snowy
landscape, and crying, while all the rest were at play.  "E." was
younger than she, and her tender heart was touched by the
apparently desolate condition in which she found the oddly-
dressed, odd-looking little girl that winter morning, as "sick for
home she stood in tears," in a new strange place, among new
strange people.  Any over-demonstrative kindness would have scared
the wild little maiden from Haworth; but "E." (who is shadowed
forth in the Caroline Helstone of "Shirley") managed to win
confidence, and was allowed to give sympathy.

To quote again from "Mary's" letter:-


"We thought her very ignorant, for she had never learnt grammar at
all, and very little geography."


This account of her partial ignorance is confirmed by her other
school-fellows.  But Miss W- was a lady of remarkable intelligence
and of delicate tender sympathy.  She gave a proof of this in her
first treatment of Charlotte.  The little girl was well-read, but
not well-grounded.  Miss W- took her aside and told her she was
afraid that she must place her in the second class for some time
till she could overtake the girls of her own age in the knowledge
of grammar, &c.; but poor Charlotte received this announcement
with so sad a fit of crying, that Miss W-'s kind heart was
softened, and she wisely perceived that, with such a girl, it
would be better to place her in the first class, and allow her to
make up by private study in those branches where she was
deficient.

"She would confound us by knowing things that were out of our
range altogether.  She was acquainted with most of the short
pieces of poetry that we had to learn by heart; would tell us the
authors, the poems they were taken from, and sometimes repeat a
page or two, and tell us the plot.  She had a habit of writing in
italics (printing characters), and said she had learnt it by
writing in their magazine.  They brought out a 'magazine' once a
month, and wished it to look as like print as possible.  She told
us a tale out of it.  No one wrote in it, and no one read it, but
herself, her brother, and two sisters.  She promised to show me
some of these magazines, but retracted it afterwards, and would
never be persuaded to do so.  In our play hours she sate, or stood
still, with a book, if possible.  Some of us once urged her to be
on our side in a game at ball.  She said she had never played, and
could not play.  We made her try, but soon found that she could
not see the ball, so we put her out.  She took all our proceedings
with pliable indifference, and always seemed to need a previous
resolution to say 'No' to anything.  She used to go and stand
under the trees in the play-ground, and say it was pleasanter.
She endeavoured to explain this, pointing out the shadows, the
peeps of sky, &c.  We understood but little of it.  She said that
at Cowan Bridge she used to stand in the burn, on a stone, to
watch the water flow by.  I told her she should have gone fishing;
she said she never wanted.  She always showed physical feebleness
in everything.  She ate no animal food at school.  It was about
this time I told her she was very ugly.  Some years afterwards, I
told her I thought I had been very impertinent.  She replied, 'You
did me a great deal of good, Polly, so don't repent of it.'  She
used to draw much better, and more quickly, than anything we had
seen before, and knew much about celebrated pictures and painters.
Whenever an opportunity offered of examining a picture or cut of
any kind, she went over it piecemeal, with her eyes close to the
paper, looking so long that we used to ask her 'what she saw in
it.'  She could always see plenty, and explained it very well.
She made poetry and drawing at least exceedingly interesting to
me; and then I got the habit, which I have yet, of referring
mentally to her opinion on all matters of that kind, along with
many more, resolving to describe such and such things to her,
until I start at the recollection that I never shall."

To feel the full force of this last sentence--to show how steady
and vivid was the impression which Miss Bronte made on those
fitted to appreciate her--I must mention that the writer of this
letter, dated January 18th, 1856, in which she thus speaks of
constantly referring to Charlotte's opinion has never seen her for
eleven years, nearly all of which have been passed among strange
scenes, in a new continent, at the antipodes.

"We used to be furious politicians, as one could hardly help being
in 1832.  She knew the names of the two ministries; the one that
resigned, and the one that succeeded and passed the Reform Bill.
She worshipped the Duke of Wellington, but said that Sir Robert
Peel was not to be trusted; he did not act from principle like the
rest, but from expediency.  I, being of the furious radical party,
told her 'how could any of them trust one another; they were all
of them rascals!'  Then she would launch out into praises of the
Duke of Wellington, referring to his actions; which I could not
contradict, as I knew nothing about him.  She said she had taken
interest in politics ever since she was five years old.  She did
not get her opinions from her father--that is, not directly--but
from the papers, &c., he preferred."

In illustration of the truth of this, I may give an extract from a
letter to her brother, written from Roe Head, May 17th, 1832:-
"Lately I had begun to think that I had lost all the interest
which I used formerly to take in politics; but the extreme
pleasure I felt at the news of the Reform Bill's being thrown out
by the House of Lords, and of the expulsion, or resignation of
Earl Grey, &c., convinced me that I have not as yet lost all my
penchant for politics.  I am extremely glad that aunt has
consented to take in 'Fraser's Magazine;' for, though I know from
your description of its general contents it will be rather
uninteresting when compared with 'Blackwood,' still it will be
better than remaining the whole year without being able to obtain
a sight of any periodical whatever; and such would assuredly be
our case, as, in the little wild moorland village where we reside,
there would be no possibility of borrowing a work of that
description from a circulating library.  I hope with you that the
present delightful weather may contribute to the perfect
restoration of our dear papa's health; and that it may give aunt
pleasant reminiscences of the salubrious climate of her native
place," &c.

To return to "Mary's" letter.

"She used to speak of her two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth,
who died at Cowan Bridge.  I used to believe them to have been
wonders of talent and kindness.  She told me, early one morning,
that she had just been dreaming; she had been told that she was
wanted in the drawing-room, and it was Maria and Elizabeth.  I was
eager for her to go on, and when she said there was no more, I
said, 'but go on!  MAKE IT OUT!  I know you can.'  She said she
would not; she wished she had not dreamed, for it did not go on
nicely, they were changed; they had forgotten what they used to
care for.  They were very fashionably dressed, and began
criticising the room, &c.

"This habit of 'making out' interests for themselves that most
children get who have none in actual life, was very strong in her.
The whole family used to 'make out' histories, and invent
characters and events.  I told her sometimes they were like
growing potatoes in a cellar.  She said, sadly, 'Yes!  I know we
are!'

"Some one at school said she 'was always talking about clever
people; Johnson, Sheridan, &c.'  She said, 'Now you don't know the
meaning of CLEVER, Sheridan might be clever; yes, Sheridan was
clever,--scamps often are; but Johnson hadn't a spark of
cleverality in him.'  No one appreciated the opinion; they made
some trivial remark about 'CLEVERALITY,' and she said no more.

"This is the epitome of her life.  At our house she had just as
little chance of a patient hearing, for though not school-girlish,
we were more intolerant.  We had a rage for practicality, and
laughed all poetry to scorn.  Neither she nor we had any idea but
that our opinions were the opinions of all the SENSIBLE people in
the world, and we used to astonish each other at every sentence .
. . Charlotte, at school, had no plan of life beyond what
circumstances made for her.  She knew that she must provide for
herself, and chose her trade; at least chose to begin it once.
Her idea of self-improvement ruled her even at school.  It was to
cultivate her tastes.  She always said there was enough of hard
practicality and USEFUL knowledge forced on us by necessity, and
that the thing most needed was to soften and refine our minds.
She picked up every scrap of information concerning painting,
sculpture, poetry, music, &c., as if it were gold."

What I have heard of her school days from other sources, confirms
the accuracy of the details in this remarkable letter.  She was an
indefatigable student:  constantly reading and learning; with a
strong conviction of the necessity and value of education, very
unusual in a girl of fifteen.  She never lost a moment of time,
and seemed almost to grudge the necessary leisure for relaxation
and play-hours, which might be partly accounted for by the
awkwardness in all games occasioned by her shortness of sight.
Yet, in spite of these unsociable habits, she was a great
favourite with her schoolfellows.  She was always ready to try and
do what they wished, though not sorry when they called her
awkward, and left her out of their sports.  Then, at night, she
was an invaluable story-teller, frightening them almost out of
their wits as they lay in bed.  On one occasion the effect was
such that she was led to scream out aloud, and Miss W-, coming up
stairs, found that one of the listeners had been seized with
violent palpitations, in consequence of the excitement produced by
Charlotte's story.

Her indefatigable craving for knowledge tempted Miss W- on into
setting her longer and longer tasks of reading for examination;
and towards the end of the year and a half that she remained as a
pupil at Roe Head, she received her first bad mark for an
imperfect lesson.  She had had a great quantity of Blair's
"Lectures on Belles Lettres" to read; and she could not answer
some of the questions upon it; Charlotte Bronte had a bad mark.
Miss W- was sorry, and regretted that she had set Charlotte so
long a task.  Charlotte cried bitterly.  But her school-fellows
were more than sorry--they were indignant.  They declared that the
infliction of ever so slight a punishment on Charlotte Bronte was
unjust--for who had tried to do her duty like her?--and testified
their feeling in a variety of ways, until Miss W-, who was in
reality only too willing to pass over her good pupil's first
fault, withdrew the bad mark; and the girls all returned to their
allegiance except "Mary," who took her own way during the week or
two that remained of the half-year, choosing to consider that Miss
W-, in giving Charlotte Bronte so long a task, had forfeited her
claim to obedience of the school regulations.

The number of pupils was so small that the attendance to certain
subjects at particular hours, common in larger schools, was not
rigidly enforced.  When the girls were ready with their lessons,
they came to Miss W- to say them.  She had a remarkable knack of
making them feel interested in whatever they had to learn.  They
set to their studies, not as to tasks or duties to be got through,
but with a healthy desire and thirst for knowledge, of which she
had managed to make them perceive the relishing savour.  They did
not leave off reading and learning as soon as the compulsory
pressure of school was taken away.  They had been taught to think,
to analyse, to reject, to appreciate.  Charlotte Bronte was happy
in the choice made for her of the second school to which she was
sent.  There was a robust freedom in the out-of-doors life of her
companions.  They played at merry games in the fields round the
house:  on Saturday half-holidays they went long scrambling walks
down mysterious shady lanes, then climbing the uplands, and thus
gaining extensive views over the country, about which so much had
to be told, both of its past and present history.

Miss W- must have had in great perfection the French art,
"conter," to judge from her pupil's recollections of the tales she
related during these long walks, of this old house, or that new
mill, and of the states of society consequent on the changes
involved by the suggestive dates of either building.  She
remembered the times when watchers or wakeners in the night heard
the distant word of command, and the measured tramp of thousands
of sad desperate men receiving a surreptitious military training,
in preparation for some great day which they saw in their visions,
when right should struggle with might and come off victorious:
when the people of England, represented by the workers of
Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Nottinghamshire, should make their
voice heard in a terrible slogan, since their true and pitiful
complaints could find no hearing in parliament.  We forget, now-a-
days, so rapid have been the changes for the better, how cruel was
the condition of numbers of labourers at the close of the great
Peninsular war.  The half-ludicrous nature of some of their
grievances has lingered on in tradition; the real intensity of
their sufferings has become forgotten.  They were maddened and
desperate; and the country, in the opinion of many, seemed to be
on the verge of a precipice, from which it was only saved by the
prompt and resolute decision of a few in authority.  Miss W- spoke
of those times; of the mysterious nightly drillings; of thousands
on lonely moors; of the muttered threats of individuals too
closely pressed upon by necessity to be prudent; of the overt
acts, in which the burning of Cartwright's mill took a prominent
place; and these things sank deep into the mind of one, at least,
among her hearers.

Mr. Cartwright was the owner of a factory called Rawfolds, in
Liversedge, not beyond the distance of a walk from Roe Head.  He
had dared to employ machinery for the dressing of woollen cloth,
which was an unpopular measure in 1812, when many other
circumstances conspired to make the condition of the mill-hands
unbearable from the pressure of starvation and misery.  Mr.
Cartwright was a very remarkable man, having, as I have been told,
some foreign blood in him, the traces of which were very apparent
in his tall figure, dark eyes and complexion, and singular, though
gentlemanly bearing.  At any rate he had been much abroad, and
spoke French well, of itself a suspicious circumstance to the
bigoted nationality of those days.  Altogether he was an unpopular
man, even before he took the last step of employing shears,
instead of hands, to dress his wool.  He was quite aware of his
unpopularity, and of the probable consequences.  He had his mill
prepared for an assault.  He took up his lodgings in it; and the
doors were strongly barricaded at night.  On every step of the
stairs there was placed a roller, spiked with barbed points all
round, so as to impede the ascent of the rioters, if they
succeeded in forcing the doors.

On the night of Saturday the 11th of April, 1812, the assault was
made.  Some hundreds of starving cloth-dressers assembled in the
very field near Kirklees that sloped down from the house which
Miss W- afterwards inhabited, and were armed by their leaders with
pistols, hatchets, and bludgeons, many of which had been extorted
by the nightly bands that prowled about the country, from such
inhabitants of lonely houses as had provided themselves with these
means of self-defence.  The silent sullen multitude marched in the
dead of that spring-night to Rawfolds, and giving tongue with a
great shout, roused Mr. Cartwright up to the knowledge that the
long-expected attack was come.  He was within walls, it is true;
but against the fury of hundreds he had only four of his own
workmen and five soldiers to assist him.  These ten men, however,
managed to keep up such a vigorous and well-directed fire of
musketry that they defeated all the desperate attempts of the
multitude outside to break down the doors, and force a way into
the mill; and, after a conflict of twenty minutes, during which
two of the assailants were killed and several wounded, they
withdrew in confusion, leaving Mr. Cartwright master of the field,
but so dizzy and exhausted, now the peril was past, that he forgot
the nature of his defences, and injured his leg rather seriously
by one of the spiked rollers, in attempting to go up his own
staircase.  His dwelling was near the factory.  Some of the
rioters vowed that, if he did not give in, they would leave this,
and go to his house, and murder his wife and children.  This was a
terrible threat, for he had been obliged to leave his family with
only one or two soldiers to defend them.  Mrs. Cartwright knew
what they had threatened; and on that dreadful night, hearing, as
she thought, steps approaching, she snatched up her two infant
children, and put them in a basket up the great chimney, common in
old-fashioned Yorkshire houses.  One of the two children who had
been thus stowed away used to point out with pride, after she had
grown up to woman's estate, the marks of musket shot, and the
traces of gunpowder on the walls of her father's mill.  He was the
first that had offered any resistance to the progress of the
"Luddites," who had become by this time so numerous as almost to
assume the character of an insurrectionary army.  Mr. Cartwright's
conduct was so much admired by the neighbouring mill-owners that
they entered into a subscription for his benefit which amounted in
the end to 3,000L.

Not much more than a fortnight after this attack on Rawfolds,
another manufacturer who employed the obnoxious machinery was shot
down in broad daylight, as he was passing over Crossland Moor,
which was skirted by a small plantation in which the murderers lay
hidden.  The readers of "Shirley" will recognise these
circumstances, which were related to Miss Bronte years after they
occurred, but on the very spots where they took place, and by
persons who remembered full well those terrible times of
insecurity to life and property on the one hand, and of bitter
starvation and blind ignorant despair on the other.

Mr. Bronte himself had been living amongst these very people in
1812, as he was then clergyman at Hartshead, not three miles from
Rawfolds; and, as I have mentioned, it was in these perilous times
that he began his custom of carrying a loaded pistol continually
about with him.  For not only his Tory politics, but his love and
regard for the authority of the law, made him despise the
cowardice of the surrounding magistrates, who, in their dread of
the Luddites, refused to interfere so as to prevent the
destruction of property.  The clergy of the district were the
bravest men by far.

There was a Mr. Roberson of Heald's Hall, a friend of Mr. Bronte's
who has left a deep impression of himself on the public mind.  He
lived near Heckmondwike, a large, straggling, dirty village, not
two miles from Roe Head.  It was principally inhabited by blanket
weavers, who worked in their own cottages; and Heald's Hall is the
largest house in the village, of which Mr. Roberson was the vicar.
At his own cost, he built a handsome church at Liversedge, on a
hill opposite the one on which his house stood, which was the
first attempt in the West Riding to meet the wants of the
overgrown population, and made many personal sacrifices for his
opinions, both religious and political, which were of the true
old-fashioned Tory stamp.  He hated everything which he fancied
had a tendency towards anarchy.  He was loyal in every fibre to
Church and King; and would have proudly laid down his life, any
day, for what he believed to be right and true.  But he was a man
of an imperial will, and by it he bore down opposition, till
tradition represents him as having something grimly demoniac about
him.  He was intimate with Cartwright, and aware of the attack
likely to be made on his mill; accordingly, it is said, he armed
himself and his household, and was prepared to come to the rescue,
in the event of a signal being given that aid was needed.  Thus
far is likely enough.  Mr. Roberson had plenty of war-like spirit
in him, man of peace though he was.

But, in consequence of his having taken the unpopular side,
exaggerations of his character linger as truth in the minds of the
people; and a fabulous story is told of his forbidding any one to
give water to the wounded Luddites, left in the mill-yard, when he
rode in the next morning to congratulate his friend Cartwright on
his successful defence.  Moreover, this stern, fearless clergyman
had the soldiers that were sent to defend the neighbourhood
billeted at his house; and this deeply displeased the work-people,
who were to be intimidated by the red-coats.  Although not a
magistrate, he spared no pains to track out the Luddites concerned
in the assassination I have mentioned; and was so successful in
his acute unflinching energy, that it was believed he had been
supernaturally aided; and the country people, stealing into the
fields surrounding Heald's Hall on dusky winter evenings, years
after this time, declared that through the windows they saw Parson
Roberson dancing, in a strange red light, with black demons all
whirling and eddying round him.  He kept a large boys' school; and
made himself both respected and dreaded by his pupils.  He added a
grim kind of humour to his strength of will; and the former
quality suggested to his fancy strange out-of-the-way kinds of
punishment for any refractory pupils:  for instance, he made them
stand on one leg in a corner of the schoolroom, holding a heavy
book in each hand; and once, when a boy had run away home, he
followed him on horseback, reclaimed him from his parents, and,
tying him by a rope to the stirrup of his saddle, made him run
alongside of his horse for the many miles they had to traverse
before reaching Heald's Hall.

One other illustration of his character may be given.  He
discovered that his servant Betty had "a follower;" and, watching
his time till Richard was found in the kitchen, he ordered him
into the dining-room, where the pupils were all assembled.  He
then questioned Richard whether he had come after Betty; and on
his confessing the truth, Mr. Roberson gave the word, "Off with
him, lads, to the pump!"  The poor lover was dragged to the court-
yard, and the pump set to play upon him; and, between every
drenching, the question was put to him, "Will you promise not to
come after Betty again?"  For a long time Richard bravely refused
to give in; when "Pump again, lads!" was the order.  But, at last,
the poor soaked "follower" was forced to yield, and renounce his
Betty.

The Yorkshire character of Mr. Roberson would be incomplete if I
did not mention his fondness for horses.  He lived to be a very
old man, dying some time nearer to 1840 than 1830; and even after
he was eighty years of age, he took great delight in breaking
refractory steeds; if necessary, he would sit motionless on their
backs for half-an-hour or more to bring them to.  There is a story
current that once, in a passion, he shot his wife's favourite
horse, and buried it near a quarry, where the ground, some years
after, miraculously opened and displayed the skeleton; but the
real fact is, that it was an act of humanity to put a poor old
horse out of misery; and that, to spare it pain, he shot it with
his own hands, and buried it where, the ground sinking afterwards
by the working of a coal-pit, the bones came to light.  The
traditional colouring shows the animus with which his memory is
regarded by one set of people.  By another, the neighbouring
clergy, who remember him riding, in his old age, down the hill on
which his house stood, upon his strong white horse--his bearing
proud and dignified, his shovel hat bent over and shadowing his
keen eagle eyes--going to his Sunday duty like a faithful soldier
that dies in harness--who can appreciate his loyalty to
conscience, his sacrifices to duty, and his stand by his religion-
-his memory is venerated.  In his extreme old age, a rubric
meeting was held, at which his clerical brethren gladly subscribed
to present him with a testimonial of their deep respect and
regard.

This is a specimen of the strong character not seldom manifested
by the Yorkshire clergy of the Established Church.  Mr. Roberson
was a friend of Charlotte Bronte's father; lived within a couple
of miles of Roe Head while she was at school there; and was deeply
engaged in transactions, the memory of which was yet recent when
she heard of them, and of the part which he had had in them.

I may now say a little on the character of the Dissenting
population immediately surrounding Roe Head; for the "Tory and
clergyman's daughter," "taking interest in politics ever since she
was five years old," and holding frequent discussions with such of
the girls as were Dissenters and Radicals, was sure to have made
herself as much acquainted as she could with the condition of
those to whom she was opposed in opinion.

The bulk of the population were Dissenters, principally
Independents.  In the village of Heckmondwike, at one end of which
Roe Head is situated, there were two large chapels belonging to
that denomination, and one to the Methodists, all of which were
well filled two or three times on a Sunday, besides having various
prayer-meetings, fully attended, on week-days.  The inhabitants
were a chapel-going people, very critical about the doctrine of
their sermons, tyrannical to their ministers, and violent Radicals
in politics.  A friend, well acquainted with the place when
Charlotte Bronte was at school, has described some events which
occurred then among them:-

"A scene, which took place at the Lower Chapel at Heckmondwike,
will give you some idea of the people at that time.  When a newly-
married couple made their appearance at chapel, it was the custom
to sing the Wedding Anthem, just after the last prayer, and as the
congregation was quitting the chapel.  The band of singers who
performed this ceremony expected to have money given them, and
often passed the following night in drinking; at least, so said
the minister of the place; and he determined to put an end to this
custom.  In this he was supported by many members of the chapel
and congregation; but so strong was the democratic element, that
he met with the most violent opposition, and was often insulted
when he went into the street.  A bride was expected to make her
first appearance, and the minister told the singers not to perform
the anthem.  On their declaring they would, he had the large pew
which they usually occupied locked; they broke it open:  from the
pulpit he told the congregation that, instead of their singing a
hymn, he would read a chapter; hardly had he uttered the first
word, before up rose the singers, headed by a tall, fierce-looking
weaver, who gave out a hymn, and all sang it at the very top of
their voices, aided by those of their friends who were in the
chapel.  Those who disapproved of the conduct of the singers, and
sided with the minister, remained seated till the hymn was
finished.  Then he gave out the chapter again, read it, and
preached.  He was just about to conclude with prayer, when up
started the singers and screamed forth another hymn.  These
disgraceful scenes were continued for many weeks, and so violent
was the feeling, that the different parties could hardly keep from
blows as they came through the chapel-yard.  The minister, at
last, left the place, and along with him went many of the most
temperate and respectable part of the congregation, and the
singers remained triumphant.

"I believe that there was such a violent contest respecting the
choice of a pastor, about this time, in the Upper Chapel at
Heckmondwike, that the Riot Act had to be read at a church-
meeting."

Certainly, the SOI-DISANT Christians who forcibly ejected Mr.
Redhead at Haworth, ten or twelve years before, held a very
heathen brotherhood with the SOI-DISANT Christians of
Heckmondwike; though the one set might be called members of the
Church of England and the other Dissenters.

The letter from which I have taken the above extract relates
throughout to the immediate neighbourhood of the place where
Charlotte Bronte spent her school-days, and describes things as
they existed at that very time.  The writer says,--"Having been
accustomed to the respectful manners of the lower orders in the
agricultural districts, I was at first, much disgusted and
somewhat alarmed at the great freedom displayed by the working
classes of Heckmondwike and Gomersall to those in a station above
them.  The term 'lass,' was as freely applied to any young lady,
as the word 'wench' is in Lancashire.  The extremely untidy
appearance of the villagers shocked me not a little, though I must
do the housewives the justice to say that the cottages themselves
were not dirty, and had an air of rough plenty about them (except
when trade was bad), that I had not been accustomed to see in the
farming districts.  The heap of coals on one side of the house-
door, and the brewing tubs on the other, and the frequent perfume
of malt and hops as you walked along, proved that fire and 'home-
brewed' were to be found at almost every man's hearth.  Nor was
hospitality, one of the main virtues of Yorkshire, wanting.  Oat-
cake, cheese, and beer were freely pressed upon the visitor.

"There used to be a yearly festival, half-religious, half social,
held at Heckmondwike, called 'The Lecture.'  I fancy it had come
down from the times of the Nonconformists.  A sermon was preached
by some stranger at the Lower Chapel, on a week-day evening, and
the next day, two sermons in succession were delivered at the
Upper Chapel.  Of course, the service was a very long one, and as
the time was June, and the weather often hot, it used to be
regarded by myself and my companions as no pleasurable way of
passing the morning.  The rest of the day was spent in social
enjoyment; great numbers of strangers flocked to the place; booths
were erected for the sale of toys and gingerbread (a sort of 'Holy
Fair'); and the cottages, having had a little extra paint and
white-washing, assumed quite a holiday look.

"The village of Gomersall" (where Charlotte Bronte's friend "Mary"
lived with her family), "which was a much prettier place than
Heckmondwike, contained a strange-looking cottage, built of rough
unhewn stones, many of them projecting considerably, with uncouth
heads and grinning faces carved upon them; and upon a stone above
the door was cut, in large letters, 'SPITE HALL.'  It was erected
by a man in the village, opposite to the house of his enemy, who
had just finished for himself a good house, commanding a beautiful
view down the valley, which this hideous building quite shut out."

Fearless--because this people were quite familiar to all of them--
amidst such a population, lived and walked the gentle Miss W-'s
eight or nine pupils.  She herself was born and bred among this
rough, strong, fierce set, and knew the depth of goodness and
loyalty that lay beneath their wild manners and insubordinate
ways.  And the girls talked of the little world around them, as if
it were the only world that was; and had their opinions and their
parties, and their fierce discussions like their elders--possibly,
their betters.  And among them, beloved and respected by all,
laughed at occasionally by a few, but always to her face--lived,
for a year and a half, the plain, short-sighted, oddly-dressed,
studious little girl they called Charlotte Bronte.



CHAPTER VII



Miss Bronte left Roe Head in 1832, having won the affectionate
regard both of her teacher and her school-fellows, and having
formed there the two fast friendships which lasted her whole life
long; the one with "Mary," who has not kept her letters; the other
with "E.," who has kindly entrusted me with a large portion of
Miss Bronte's correspondence with her.  This she has been induced
to do by her knowledge of the urgent desire on the part of Mr.
Bronte that the life of his daughter should be written, and in
compliance with a request from her husband that I should be
permitted to have the use of these letters, without which such a
task could be but very imperfectly executed.  In order to shield
this friend, however, from any blame or misconstruction, it is
only right to state that, before granting me this privilege, she
throughout most carefully and completely effaced the names of the
persons and places which occurred in them; and also that such
information as I have obtained from her bears reference solely to
Miss Bronte and her sisters, and not to any other individuals whom
I may find it necessary to allude to in connection with them.

In looking over the earlier portion of this correspondence, I am
struck afresh by the absence of hope, which formed such a strong
characteristic in Charlotte.  At an age when girls, in general,
look forward to an eternal duration of such feelings as they or
their friends entertain, and can therefore see no hindrance to the
fulfilment of any engagements dependent on the future state of the
affections, she is surprised that "E." keeps her promise to write.
In after-life, I was painfully impressed with the fact, that Miss
Bronte never dared to allow herself to look forward with hope;
that she had no confidence in the future; and I thought, when I
heard of the sorrowful years she had passed through, that it had
been this pressure of grief which had crushed all buoyancy of
expectation out of her.  But it appears from the letters, that it
must have been, so to speak, constitutional; or, perhaps, the deep
pang of losing her two elder sisters combined with a permanent
state of bodily weakness in producing her hopelessness.  If her
trust in God had been less strong, she would have given way to
unbounded anxiety, at many a period of her life.  As it was, we
shall see, she made a great and successful effort to leave "her
times in His hands."

After her return home, she employed herself in teaching her
sisters, over whom she had had superior advantages.  She writes
thus, July 21st, 1832, of her course of life at the parsonage:-

"An account of one day is an account of all.  In the morning, from
nine o'clock till half-past twelve, I instruct my sisters, and
draw; then we walk till dinner-time.  After dinner I sew till tea-
time, and after tea I either write, read, or do a little fancy-
work, or draw, as I please.  Thus, in one delightful, though
somewhat monotonous course, my life is passed.  I have been only
out twice to tea since I came home.  We are expecting company this
afternoon, and on Tuesday next we shall have all the female
teachers of the Sunday-school to tea."

I may here introduce a quotation from a letter which I have
received from "Mary" since the publication of the previous
editions of this memoir.

"Soon after leaving school she admitted reading something of
Cobbett's.  'She did not like him,' she said; 'but all was fish
that came to her net.'  At this time she wrote to me that reading
and drawing were the only amusements she had, and that her supply
of books was very small in proportion to her wants.  She never
spoke of her aunt.  When I saw Miss Branwell she was a very
precise person, and looked very odd, because her dress, &c., was
so utterly out of fashion.  She corrected one of us once for using
the word 'spit' or 'spitting.'  She made a great favourite of
Branwell.  She made her nieces sew, with purpose or without, and
as far as possible discouraged any other culture.  She used to
keep the girls sewing charity clothing, and maintained to me that
it was not for the good of the recipients, but of the sewers.  'It
was proper for them to do it,' she said.  Charlotte never was 'in
wild excitement' that I know of.  When in health she used to talk
better, and indeed when in low spirits never spoke at all.  She
needed her best spirits to say what was in her heart, for at other
times she had not courage.  She never gave decided opinions at
such times . . .

"Charlotte said she could get on with any one who had a bump at
the top of their heads (meaning conscientiousness).  I found that
I seldom differed from her, except that she was far too tolerant
of stupid people, if they had a grain of kindness in them."

It was about this time that Mr. Bronte provided his children with
a teacher in drawing, who turned out to be a man of considerable
talent, but very little principle.  Although they never attained
to anything like proficiency, they took great interest in
acquiring this art; evidently, from an instinctive desire to
express their powerful imaginations in visible forms.  Charlotte
told me, that at this period of her life, drawing, and walking out
with her sisters, formed the two great pleasures and relaxations
of her day.

The three girls used to walk upwards toward the "purple-black"
moors, the sweeping surface of which was broken by here and there
a stone-quarry; and if they had strength and time to go far
enough, they reached a waterfall, where the beck fell over some
rocks into the "bottom."  They seldom went downwards through the
village.  They were shy of meeting even familiar faces, and were
scrupulous about entering the house of the very poorest uninvited.
They were steady teachers at the Sunday-School, a habit which
Charlotte kept up very faithfully, even after she was left alone;
but they never faced their kind voluntary, and always preferred
the solitude and freedom of the moors.


In the September of this year, Charlotte went to pay her first
visit to her friend "E."  It took her into the neighbourhood of
Roe Head, and brought her into pleasant contact with many of her
old school-fellows.  After this visit she and her friend seem to
have agreed to correspond in French, for the sake of improvement
in the language.  But this improvement could not be great, when it
could only amount to a greater familiarity with dictionary words,
and when there was no one to explain to them that a verbal
translation of English idioms hardly constituted French
composition; but the effort was laudable, and of itself shows how
willing they both were to carry on the education which they had
begun under Miss W-.   I will give an extract which, whatever may
be thought of the language, is graphic enough, and presents us
with a happy little family picture; the eldest sister returning
home to the two younger, after a fortnight's absence.

"J'arrivait e Haworth en parfaite sauvete sans le moindre accident
ou malheur.  Mes petites soeurs couraient hors de la maison pour
me rencontrer aussitot que la voiture se fit voir, et elles
m'embrassaient avec autant d'empressement et de plaisir comme si
j'avais ete absente pour plus d'an.  Mon Papa, ma Tante, et le
monsieur dent men frere avoit parle, furent tous assembles dans le
Salon, et en peu de temps je m'y rendis aussi.  C'est souvent
l'ordre du Ciel que quand on a perdu un plaisir il y en a un autre
pret e prendre sa place.  Ainsi je venois de partir de tres-chers
amis, mais tout e l'heure je revins e des parens aussi chers et
bon dans le moment.  Meme que vous me perdiez (ose-je croire que
mon depart vous etait un chagrin?) vous attendites l'arrivee de
votre frere, et de votre soeur.  J'ai donne e mes soeurs les
pommes que vous leur envoyiez avec tant de bonte; elles disent
qu'elles sont sur que Mademoiselle E. est tres-aimable et bonne;
l'une et l'autre sont extremement impatientes de vous voir;
j'espere qu'en peu de mois elles auront ce plaisir."

But it was some time yet before the friends could meet, and
meanwhile they agreed to correspond once a month.  There were no
events to chronicle in the Haworth letters.  Quiet days, occupied
in reaching, and feminine occupations in the house, did not
present much to write about; and Charlotte was naturally driven to
criticise books.

Of these there were many in different plights, and according to
their plight, kept in different places.  The well-bound were
ranged in the sanctuary of Mr. Bronte's study; but the purchase of
books was a necessary luxury to him, but as it was often a choice
between binding an old one, or buying a new one, the familiar
volume, which had been hungrily read by all the members of the
family, was sometimes in such a condition that the bedroom shelf
was considered its fitting place.  Up and down the house were to
be found many standard works of a solid kind.  Sir Walter Scott's
writings, Wordsworth's and Southey's poems were among the lighter
literature; while, as having a character of their own--earnest,
wild, and occasionally fanatical--may be named some of the books
which came from the Branwell side of the family--from the Cornish
followers of the saintly John Wesley--and which are touched on in
the account of the works to which Caroline Helstone had access in
"Shirley:"--"Some venerable Lady's Magazines, that had once
performed a voyage with their owner, and undergone a storm"--
(possibly part of the relics of Mrs. Bronte's possessions,
contained in the ship wrecked on the coast of Cornwall)--"and
whose pages were stained with salt water; some mad Methodist
Magazines full of miracles and apparitions, and preternatural
warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticisms; and the
equally mad letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the
Living."

Mr. Bronte encouraged a taste for reading in his girls; and though
Miss Branwell kept it in due bounds, by the variety of household
occupations, in which she expected them not merely to take a part,
but to become proficients, thereby occupying regularly a good
portion of every day, they were allowed to get books from the
circulating library at Keighley; and many a happy walk, up those
long four miles, must they have had, burdened with some new book,
into which they peeped as they hurried home.  Not that the books
were what would generally be called new; in the beginning of 1833,
the two friends seem almost simultaneously to have fallen upon
"Kenilworth," and Charlotte writes as follows about it:-

"I am glad you like 'Kenilworth;' it is certainly more resembling
a romance than a novel:  in my opinion, one of the most
interesting works that ever emanated from the great Sir Walter's
pen.  Varney is certainly the personification of consummate
villainy; and in the delineation of his dark and profoundly artful
mind, Scott exhibits a wonderful knowledge of human nature, as
well as a surprising skill in embodying his perceptions, so as to
enable others to become participators in that knowledge."

Commonplace as this extract may seem, it is noteworthy on two or
three accounts:  in the first place, instead of discussing the
plot or story, she analyses the character of Varney; and next,
she, knowing nothing of the world, both from her youth and her
isolated position, has yet been so accustomed to hear "human
nature" distrusted, as to receive the notion of intense and artful
villainy without surprise.

What was formal and set in her way of writing to "E." diminished
as their personal acquaintance increased, and as each came to know
the home of the other; so that small details concerning people and
places had their interest and their significance.  In the summer
of 1833, she wrote to invite her friend to come and pay her a
visit.  "Aunt thought it would be better" (she says) "to defer it
until about the middle of summer, as the winter, and even the
spring seasons, are remarkably cold and bleak among our
mountains."

The first impression made on the visitor by the sisters of her
school-friend was, that Emily was a tall, long-armed girl, more
fully grown than her elder sister; extremely reserved in manner.
I distinguish reserve from shyness, because I imagine shyness
would please, if it knew how; whereas, reserve is indifferent
whether it pleases or not.  Anne, like her eldest sister, was shy;
Emily was reserved.

Branwell was rather a handsome boy, with "tawny" hair, to use Miss
Bronte's phrase for a more obnoxious colour.  All were very
clever, original, and utterly different to any people or family
"E." had ever seen before.  But, on the whole, it was a happy
visit to all parties.  Charlotte says, in writing to "E.," just
after her return home--"Were I to tell you of the impression you
have made on every one here, you would accuse me of flattery.
Papa and aunt are continually adducing you as an example for me to
shape my actions and behaviour by.  Emily and Anne say 'they never
saw any one they liked so well as you.'  And Tabby, whom you have
absolutely fascinated, talks a great deal more nonsense about your
ladyship than I care to repeat.  It is now so dark that,
notwithstanding the singular property of seeing in the night-time,
which the young ladies at Roe Head used to attribute to me, I can
scribble no longer."

To a visitor at the parsonage, it was a great thing to have
Tabby's good word.  She had a Yorkshire keenness of perception
into character, and it was not everybody she liked.

Haworth is built with an utter disregard of all sanitary
conditions:  the great old churchyard lies above all the houses,
and it is terrible to think how the very water-springs of the
pumps below must be poisoned.  But this winter of 1833-4 was
particularly wet and rainy, and there were an unusual number of
deaths in the village.  A dreary season it was to the family in
the parsonage:  their usual walks obstructed by the spongy state
of the moors--the passing and funeral bells so frequently tolling,
and filling the heavy air with their mournful sound--and, when
they were still, the "chip, chip," of the mason, as he cut the
grave-stones in a shed close by.  In many, living, as it were, in
a churchyard, and with all the sights and sounds connected with
the last offices to the dead things of every-day occurrence, the
very familiarity would have bred indifference.  But it was
otherwise with Charlotte Bronte.  One of her friends says:- "I
have seen her turn pale and feel faint when, in Hartshead church,
some one accidentally remarked that we were walking over graves.
Charlotte was certainly afraid of death.  Not only of dead bodies,
or dying people.  She dreaded it as something horrible.  She
thought we did not know how long the 'moment of dissolution' might
really be, or how terrible.  This was just such a terror as only
hypochondriacs can provide for themselves.  She told me long ago
that a misfortune was often preceded by the dream frequently
repeated which she gives to 'Jane Eyre,' of carrying a little
wailing child, and being unable to still it.  She described
herself as having the most painful sense of pity for the little
thing, lying INERT, as sick children do, while she walked about in
some gloomy place with it, such as the aisle of Haworth Church.
The misfortunes she mentioned were not always to herself.  She
thought such sensitiveness to omens was like the cholera, present
to susceptible people,--some feeling more, some less."

About the beginning of 1834, "E." went to London for the first
time.  The idea of her friend's visit seems to have stirred
Charlotte strangely.  She appears to have formed her notions of
its probable consequences from some of the papers in the "British
Essayists," "The Rambler," "The Mirror," or "The Lounger," which
may have been among the English classics on the parsonage
bookshelves; for she evidently imagines that an entire change of
character for the worse is the usual effect of a visit to "the
great metropolis," and is delighted to find that "E." is "E."
still.  And, as her faith in her friend's stability is restored,
her own imagination is deeply moved by the idea of what great
wonders are to be seen in that vast and famous city.


"Haworth, February 20th, 1834.

"Your letter gave me real and heartfelt pleasure, mingled with no
small share of astonishment.  Mary had previously informed me of
your departure for London, and I had not ventured to calculate on
any communication from you while surrounded by the splendours and
novelties of that great city, which has been called the mercantile
metropolis of Europe.  Judging from human nature, I thought that a
little country girl, for the first time in a situation so well
calculated to excite curiosity, and to distract attention, would
lose all remembrance, for a time at least, of distant and familiar
objects, and give herself up entirely to the fascination of those
scenes which were then presented to her view.  Your kind,
interesting, and most welcome epistle showed me, however, that I
had been both mistaken and uncharitable in these suppositions.  I
was greatly amused at the tone of nonchalance which you assumed,
while treating of London and its wonders.  Did you not feel awed
while gazing at St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey?  Had you no
feeling of intense and ardent interest, when in St. James's you
saw the palace where so many of England's kings have held their
courts, and beheld the representations of their persons on the
walls?  You should not be too much afraid of appearing COUNTRY-
BRED; the magnificence of London has drawn exclamations of
astonishment from travelled men, experienced in the world, its
wonders and beauties.  Have you yet seen anything of the great
personages whom the sitting of Parliament now detains in London--
the Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, Earl Grey, Mr. Stanley,
Mr. O'Connell?  If I were you, I would not be too anxious to spend
my time in reading whilst in town.  Make use of your own eyes for
the purposes of observation now, and, for a time at least, lay
aside the spectacles with which authors would furnish us."

In a postscript she adds:-

"Will you be kind enough to inform me of the number of performers
in the King's military band?"

And in something of the same strain she writes on

"June 19th.
"My own Dear E.,

"I may rightfully and truly call you so now.  You HAVE returned or
ARE returning from London--from the great city which is to me as
apocryphal as Babylon, or Nineveh, or ancient Rome.  You are
withdrawing from the world (as it is called), and bringing with
you--if your letters enable me to form a correct judgment--a heart
as unsophisticated, as natural, as true, as that you carried
there.  I am slow, VERY slow, to believe the protestations of
another; I know my own sentiments, I can read my own mind, but the
minds of the rest of man and woman kind are to me sealed volumes,
hieroglyphical scrolls, which I cannot easily either unseal or
decipher.  Yet time, careful study, long acquaintance, overcome
most difficulties; and, in your case, I think they have succeeded
well in bringing to light and construing that hidden language,
whose turnings, windings, inconsistencies, and obscurities, so
frequently baffle the researches of the honest observer of human
nature . . . I am truly grateful for your mindfulness of so
obscure a person as myself, and I hope the pleasure is not
altogether selfish; I trust it is partly derived from the
consciousness that my friend's character is of a higher, a more
steadfast order than I was once perfectly aware of.  Few girls
would have done as you have done--would have beheld the glare, and
glitter, and dazzling display of London with dispositions so
unchanged, heart so uncontaminated.  I see no affectation in your
letters, no trifling, no frivolous contempt of plain, and weak
admiration of showy persons and things."


In these days of cheap railway trips, we may smile at the idea of
a short visit to London having any great effect upon the
character, whatever it may have upon the intellect.  But her
London--her great apocryphal city--was the "town" of a century
before, to which giddy daughters dragged unwilling papas, or went
with injudicious friends, to the detriment of all their better
qualities, and sometimes to the ruin of their fortunes; it was the
Vanity Fair of the "Pilgrim's Progress" to her.

But see the just and admirable sense with which she can treat a
subject of which she is able to overlook all the bearings.


"Haworth, July 4th, 1834.

"In your last, you request me to tell you of your faults.  Now,
really, how can you be so foolish!  I WON'T tell you of your
faults, because I don't know them.  What a creature would that be,
who, after receiving an affectionate and kind letter from a
beloved friend, should sit down and write a catalogue of defects
by way of answer!  Imagine me doing so, and then consider what
epithets you would bestow on me.  Conceited, dogmatical,
hypocritical, little humbug, I should think, would be the mildest.
Why, child!  I've neither time nor inclination to reflect on your
FAULTS when you are so far from me, and when, besides, kind
letters and presents, and so forth, are continually bringing forth
your goodness in the most prominent light.  Then, too, there are
judicious relations always round you, who can much better
discharge that unpleasant office.  I have no doubt their advice is
completely at your service; why then should I intrude mine?  If
you will not hear them, it will be vain though one should rise
from the dead to instruct you.  Let us have no more nonsense, if
you love me.  Mr.--is going to be married, is he?  Well, his wife
elect appeared to me to be a clever and amiable lady, as far as I
could judge from the little I saw of her, and from your account.
Now to that flattering sentence must I tack on a list of her
faults?  You say it is in contemplation for you to leave -.  I am
sorry for it. --is a pleasant spot, one of the old family halls of
England, surrounded by lawn and woodland, speaking of past times,
and suggesting (to me at least) happy feelings.  M. thought you
grown less, did she?  I am not grown a bit, but as short and dumpy
as ever.  You ask me to recommend you some books for your perusal.
I will do so in as few words as I can.  If you like poetry, let it
be first-rate; Milton, Shakspeare, Thomson, Goldsmith, Pope (if
you will, though I don't admire him), Scott, Byron, Campbell,
Wordsworth, and Southey.  Now don't be startled at the names of
Shakspeare and Byron.  Both these were great men, and their works
are like themselves.  You will know how to choose the good, and to
avoid the evil; the finest passages are always the purest, the bad
are invariably revolting; you will never wish to read them over
twice.  Omit the comedies of Shakspeare, and the Don Juan, perhaps
the Cain, of Byron, though the latter is a magnificent poem, and
read the rest fearlessly; that must indeed be a depraved mind
which can gather evil from Henry VIII., from Richard III., from
Macbeth, and Hamlet, and Julius Caesar.  Scott's sweet, wild,
romantic poetry can do you no harm.  Nor can Wordsworth's, nor
Campbell's, nor Southey's--the greatest part at least of his; some
is certainly objectionable.  For history, read Hume, Rollin, and
the Universal History, if you can; I never did.  For fiction, read
Scott alone; all novels after his are worthless.  For biography,
read Johnson's Lives of the Poets, Boswell's Life of Johnson,
Southey's Life of Nelson, Lockhart's Life of Burns, Moore's Life
of Sheridan, Moore's Life of Byron, Wolfe's Remains.  For natural
history, read Bewick and Audubon, and Goldsmith and White's
history of Selborne.  For divinity, your brother will advise you
there.  I can only say, adhere to standard authors, and avoid
novelty."

From this list, we see that she must have had a good range of
books from which to choose her own reading.  It is evident, that
the womanly consciences of these two correspondents were anxiously
alive to many questions discussed among the stricter religionists.
The morality of Shakspeare needed the confirmation of Charlotte's
opinion to the sensitive "E.;" and a little later, she inquired
whether dancing was objectionable, when indulged in for an hour or
two in parties of boys and girls.  Charlotte replies, "I should
hesitate to express a difference of opinion from Mr. -, or from
your excellent sister, but really the matter seems to me to stand
thus.  It is allowed on all hands, that the sin of dancing
consists not in the mere action of 'shaking the shanks' (as the
Scotch say), but in the consequences that usually attend it;
namely, frivolity and waste of time; when it is used only, as in
the case you state, for the exercise and amusement of an hour
among young people (who surely may without any breach of God's
commandments be allowed a little light-heartedness), these
consequences cannot follow.  Ergo (according to my manner of
arguing), the amusement is at such times perfectly innocent."

Although the distance between Haworth and B- was but seventeen
miles, it was difficult to go straight from the one to the other
without hiring a gig or vehicle of some kind for the journey.
Hence a visit from Charlotte required a good deal of pre-
arrangement.  THE Haworth gig was not always to be had; and Mr.
Bronte was often unwilling to fall into any arrangement for
meeting at Bradford or other places, which would occasion trouble
to others.  The whole family had an ample share of that sensitive
pride which led them to dread incurring obligations, and to fear
"outstaying their welcome" when on any visit.  I am not sure
whether Mr. Bronte did not consider distrust of others as a part
of that knowledge of human nature on which he piqued himself.  His
precepts to this effect, combined with Charlotte's lack of hope,
made her always fearful of loving too much; of wearying the
objects of her affection; and thus she was often trying to
restrain her warm feelings, and was ever chary of that presence so
invariably welcome to her true friends.  According to this mode of
acting, when she was invited for a month, she stayed but a
fortnight amidst "E.'s" family, to whom every visit only endeared
her the more, and by whom she was received with that kind of quiet
gladness with which they would have greeted a sister.

She still kept up her childish interest in politics.  In March,
1835, she writes:  "What do you think of the course politics are
taking?  I make this enquiry, because I now think you take a
wholesome interest in the matter; formerly you did not care
greatly about it.  B., you see, is triumphant.  Wretch!  I am a
hearty hater, and if there is any one I thoroughly abhor, it is
that man.  But the Opposition is divided, Red-hots, and Luke-
warms; and the Duke (par excellence THE Duke) and Sir Robert Peel
show no signs of insecurity, though they have been twice beat; so
'Courage, mon amie,' as the old chevaliers used to say, before
they joined battle."

In the middle of the summer of 1835, a great family plan was
mooted at the parsonage.  The question was, to what trade or
profession should Branwell be brought up?  He was now nearly
eighteen; it was time to decide.  He was very clever, no doubt;
perhaps to begin with, the greatest genius in this rare family.
The sisters hardly recognised their own, or each others' powers,
but they knew HIS.  The father, ignorant of many failings in moral
conduct, did proud homage to the great gifts of his son; for
Branwell's talents were readily and willingly brought out for the
entertainment of others.  Popular admiration was sweet to him.
And this led to his presence being sought at "arvills" and all the
great village gatherings, for the Yorkshiremen have a keen relish
for intellect; and it likewise procured him the undesirable
distinction of having his company recommended by the landlord of
the Black Bull to any chance traveller who might happen to feel
solitary or dull over his liquor.  "Do you want some one to help
you with your bottle, sir?  If you do, I'll send up for Patrick"
(so the villagers called him till the day of his death, though in
his own family he was always "Branwell").  And while the messenger
went, the landlord entertained his guest with accounts of the
wonderful talents of the boy, whose precocious cleverness, and
great conversational powers, were the pride of the village.  The
attacks of ill health to which Mr. Bronte had been subject of late
years, rendered it not only necessary that he should take his
dinner alone (for the sake of avoiding temptations to unwholesome
diet), but made it also desirable that he should pass the time
directly succeeding his meals in perfect quiet.  And this
necessity, combined with due attention to his parochial duties,
made him partially ignorant how his son employed himself out of
lesson-time.  His own youth had been spent among people of the
same conventional rank as those into whose companionship Branwell
was now thrown; but he had had a strong will, and an earnest and
persevering ambition, and a resoluteness of purpose which his
weaker son wanted.

It is singular how strong a yearning the whole family had towards
the art of drawing.  Mr. Bronte had been very solicitous to get
them good instruction; the girls themselves loved everything
connected with it--all descriptions or engravings of great
pictures; and, in default of good ones, they would take and
analyse any print or drawing which came in their way, and find out
how much thought had gone to its composition, what ideas it was
intended to suggest, and what it DID suggest.  In the same spirit,
they laboured to design imaginations of their own; they lacked the
power of execution, not of conception.  At one time, Charlotte had
the notion of making her living as an artist, and wearied her eyes
in drawing with pre-Raphaelite minuteness, but not with pre-
Raphaelite accuracy, for she drew from fancy rather than from
nature.

But they all thought there could be no doubt about Branwell's
talent for drawing.  I have seen an oil painting of his, done I
know not when, but probably about this time.  It was a group of
his sisters, life-size, three-quarters' length; not much better
than sign-painting, as to manipulation; but the likenesses were, I
should think, admirable.  I could only judge of the fidelity with
which the other two were depicted, from the striking resemblance
which Charlotte, upholding the great frame of canvas, and
consequently standing right behind it, bore to her own
representation, though it must have been ten years and more since
the portraits were taken.  The picture was divided, almost in the
middle, by a great pillar.  On the side of the column which was
lighted by the sun, stood Charlotte, in the womanly dress of that
day of gigot sleeves and large collars.  On the deeply shadowed
side, was Emily, with Anne's gentle face resting on her shoulder.
Emily's countenance struck me as full of power; Charlotte's of
solicitude; Anne's of tenderness.  The two younger seemed hardly
to have attained their full growth, though Emily was taller than
Charlotte; they had cropped hair, and a more girlish dress.  I
remember looking on those two sad, earnest, shadowed faces, and
wondering whether I could trace the mysterious expression which is
said to foretell an early death.  I had some fond superstitious
hope that the column divided their fates from hers, who stood
apart in the canvas, as in life she survived.  I liked to see that
the bright side of the pillar was towards HER--that the light in
the picture fell on HER:  I might more truly have sought in her
presentment--nay, in her living face--for the sign of death--in
her prime.  They were good likenesses, however badly executed.
From thence I should guess his family augured truly that, if
Branwell had but the opportunity, and, alas! had but the moral
qualities, he might turn out a great painter.

The best way of preparing him to become so appeared to be to send
him as a pupil to the Royal Academy.  I dare say he longed and
yearned to follow this path, principally because it would lead him
to that mysterious London--that Babylon the great--which seems to
have filled the imaginations and haunted the minds of all the
younger members of this recluse family.  To Branwell it was more
than a vivid imagination, it was an impressed reality.  By dint of
studying maps, he was as well acquainted with it, even down to its
by-ways, as if he had lived there.  Poor misguided fellow! this
craving to see and know London, and that stronger craving after
fame, were never to be satisfied.  He was to die at the end of a
short and blighted life.  But in this year of 1835, all his home
kindred were thinking how they could best forward his views, and
how help him up to the pinnacle where he desired to be.  What
their plans were, let Charlotte explain.  These are not the first
sisters who have laid their lives as a sacrifice before their
brother's idolized wish.  Would to God they might be the last who
met with such a miserable return!


"Haworth, July 6th, 1835.

"I had hoped to have had the extreme pleasure of seeing you at
Haworth this summer, but human affairs are mutable, and human
resolutions must bend to the course of events.  We are all about
to divide, break up, separate.  Emily is going to school, Branwell
is going to London, and I am going to be a governess.  This last
determination I formed myself, knowing that I should have to take
the step sometime, 'and better sune as syne,' to use the Scotch
proverb; and knowing well that papa would have enough to do with
his limited income, should Branwell be placed at the Royal
Academy, and Emily at Roe Head.  Where am I going to reside? you
will ask.  Within four miles of you, at a place neither of us is
unacquainted with, being no other than the identical Roe Head
mentioned above.  Yes!  I am going to teach in the very school
where I was myself taught.  Miss W- made me the offer, and I
preferred it to one or two proposals of private governess-ship,
which I had before received.  I am sad--very sad--at the thoughts
of leaving home; but duty--necessity--these are stern mistresses,
who will not be disobeyed.  Did I not once say you ought to be
thankful for your independence?  I felt what I said at the time,
and I repeat it now with double earnestness; if anything would
cheer me, it is the idea of being so near you.  Surely, you and
Polly will come and see me; it would be wrong in me to doubt it;
you were never unkind yet.  Emily and I leave home on the 27th of
this month; the idea of being together consoles us both somewhat,
and, truth, since I must enter a situation, 'My lines have fallen
in pleasant places.'  I both love and respect Miss W-."



CHAPTER VIII



On the 29th of July, 1835, Charlotte, now a little more than
nineteen years old, went as teacher to Miss W-'s. Emily
accompanied her as a pupil; but she became literally ill from
home-sickness, and could not settle to anything, and after passing
only three months at Roe Head, returned to the parsonage and the
beloved moors.

Miss Bronte gives the following reasons as those which prevented
Emily's remaining at school, and caused the substitution of her
younger sister in her place at Miss W-'s:-

"My sister Emily loved the moors.  Flowers brighter than the rose
bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her;--out of a sullen
hollow in a livid hill-side, her mind could make an Eden.  She
found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and not the
least and best-loved was--liberty.  Liberty was the breath of
Emily's nostrils; without it she perished.  The change from her
own home to a school, and from her own very noiseless, very
secluded, but unrestricted and unartificial mode of life, to one
of disciplined routine (though under the kindest auspices), was
what she failed in enduring.  Her nature proved here too strong
for her fortitude.  Every morning, when she woke, the vision of
home and the moors rushed on her, and darkened and saddened the
day that lay before her.  Nobody knew what ailed her but me.  I
knew only too well.  In this struggle her health was quickly
broken:  her white face, attenuated form, and failing strength,
threatened rapid decline.  I felt in my heart she would die, if
she did not go home, and with this conviction obtained her recall.
She had only been three months at school; and it was some years
before the experiment of sending her from home was again ventured
on."

This physical suffering on Emily's part when absent from Haworth,
after recurring several times under similar circumstances, became
at length so much an acknowledged fact, that whichever was obliged
to leave home, the sisters decided that Emily must remain there,
where alone she could enjoy anything like good health.  She left
it twice again in her life; once going as teacher to a school in
Halifax for six months, and afterwards accompanying Charlotte to
Brussels for ten.  When at home, she took the principal part of
the cooking upon herself, and did all the household ironing; and
after Tabby grew old and infirm, it was Emily who made all the
bread for the family; and any one passing by the kitchen-door,
might have seen her studying German out of an open book, propped
up before her, as she kneaded the dough; but no study, however
interesting, interfered with the goodness of the bread, which was
always light and excellent.  Books were, indeed, a very common
sight in that kitchen; the girls were taught by their father
theoretically, and by their aunt, practically, that to take an
active part in all household work was, in their position, woman's
simple duty; but in their careful employment of time, they found
many an odd five minutes for reading while watching the cakes, and
managed the union of two kinds of employment better than King
Alfred.

Charlotte's life at Miss W-'s was a very happy one, until her
health failed.  She sincerely loved and respected the former
schoolmistress, to whom she was now become both companion and
friend.  The girls were hardly strangers to her, some of them
being younger sisters of those who had been her own playmates.
Though the duties of the day might be tedious and monotonous,
there were always two or three happy hours to look forward to in
the evening, when she and Miss W- sat together--sometimes late
into the night--and had quiet pleasant conversations, or pauses of
silence as agreeable, because each felt that as soon as a thought
or remark occurred which they wished to express, there was an
intelligent companion ready to sympathise, and yet they were not
compelled to "make talk."

Miss W- was always anxious to afford Miss Bronte every opportunity
of recreation in her power; but the difficulty often was to
persuade her to avail herself of the invitations which came,
urging her to spend Saturday and Sunday with "E." and "Mary," in
their respective homes, that lay within the distance of a walk.
She was too apt to consider, that allowing herself a holiday was a
dereliction of duty, and to refuse herself the necessary change,
from something of an over-ascetic spirit, betokening a loss of
healthy balance in either body or mind.  Indeed, it is clear that
such was the case, from a passage, referring to this time, in the
letter of "Mary" from which I have before given extracts.

"Three years after--" (the period when they were at school
together)--"I heard that she had gone as teacher to Miss W-'s.  I
went to see her, and asked how she could give so much for so
little money, when she could live without it.  She owned that,
after clothing herself and Anne, there was nothing left, though
she had hoped to be able to save something.  She confessed it was
not brilliant, but what could she do?  I had nothing to answer.
She seemed to have no interest or pleasure beyond the feeling of
duty, and, when she could get, used to sit alone, and 'make out.'
She told me afterwards, that one evening she had sat in the
dressing-room until it was quite dark, and then observing it all
at once, had taken sudden fright."  No doubt she remembered this
well when she described a similar terror getting hold upon Jane
Eyre.  She says in the story, "I sat looking at the white bed and
overshadowed walls--occasionally turning a fascinated eye towards
the gleaming mirror--I began to recall what I had heard of dead
men troubled in their graves . . . I endeavoured to be firm;
shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look
boldly through the dark room; at this moment, a ray from the moon
penetrated some aperture in the blind.  No! moon light was still,
and this stirred . . . prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken
as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift-darting beam
was a herald of some coming vision from another world.  My heart
beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears which I
deemed the rustling of wings; something seemed near me." {4}

"From that time," Mary adds, "her imaginations became gloomy or
frightful; she could not help it, nor help thinking.  She could
not forget the gloom, could not sleep at night, nor attend in the
day.

"She told me that one night, sitting alone, about this time, she
heard a voice repeat these lines:


"'Come thou high and holy feeling,
Shine o'er mountain, flit o'er wave,
Gleam like light o'er dome and shielding.'


"There were eight or ten more lines which I forget.  She insisted
that she had not made them, that she had heard a voice repeat
them.  It is possible that she had read them, and unconsciously
recalled them.  They are not in the volume of poems which the
sisters published.  She repeated a verse of Isaiah, which she said
had inspired them, and which I have forgotten.  Whether the lines
were recollected or invented, the tale proves such habits of
sedentary, monotonous solitude of thought as would have shaken a
feebler mind."

Of course, the state of health thus described came on gradually,
and is not to be taken as a picture of her condition in 1836.  Yet
even then there is a despondency in some of her expressions, that
too sadly reminds one of some of Cowper's letters.  And it is
remarkable how deeply his poems impressed her.  His words, his
verses, came more frequently to her memory, I imagine, than those
of any other poet.

"Mary" says:  "Cowper's poem, 'The Castaway,' was known to them
all, and they all at times appreciated, or almost appropriated it.
Charlotte told me once that Branwell had done so; and though his
depression was the result of his faults, it was in no other
respect different from hers.  Both were not mental but physical
illnesses.  She was well aware of this, and would ask how that
mended matters, as the feeling was there all the same, and was not
removed by knowing the cause.  She had a larger religious
toleration than a person would have who had never questioned, and
the manner of recommending religion was always that of offering
comfort, not fiercely enforcing a duty.  One time I mentioned that
some one had asked me what religion I was of (with the view of
getting me for a partizan), and that I had said that that was
between God and me;--Emily (who was lying on the hearth-rug)
exclaimed, 'That's right.'  This was all I ever heard Emily say on
religious subjects.  Charlotte was free from religious depression
when in tolerable health; when that failed, her depression
returned.  You have probably seen such instances.  They don't get
over their difficulties; they forget them, when their stomach (or
whatever organ it is that inflicts such misery on sedentary
people) will let them.  I have heard her condemn Socinianism,
Calvinism, and many other 'isms' inconsistent with Church of
Englandism.  I used to wonder at her acquaintance with such
subjects."


"May 10th, 1836.

"I was struck with the note you sent me with the umbrella; it
showed a degree of interest in my concerns which I have no right
to expect from any earthly creature.  I won't play the hypocrite;
I won't answer your kind, gentle, friendly questions in the way
you wish me to.  Don't deceive yourself by imagining I have a bit
of real goodness about me.  My darling, if I were like you, I
should have my face Zion-ward, though prejudice and error might
occasionally fling a mist over the glorious vision before me--but
I AM NOT LIKE YOU.  If you knew my thoughts, the dreams that
absorb me, and the fiery imagination that at times eats me up, and
makes me feel society, as it is, wretchedly insipid, you would
pity and I dare say despise me.  But I know the treasures of the
BIBLE; I love and adore them.  I can SEE the Well of Life in all
its clearness and brightness; but when I stoop down to drink of
the pure waters they fly from my lips as if I were Tantalus.

"You are far too kind and frequent in your invitations.  You
puzzle me.  I hardly know how to refuse, and it is still more
embarrassing to accept.  At any rate, I cannot come this week, for
we are in the very thickest melee of the Repetitions.  I was
hearing the terrible fifth section when your note arrived.  But
Miss Wooler says I must go to Mary next Friday, as she promised
for me on Whit-Sunday; and on Sunday morning I will join you at
church, if it be convenient, and stay till Monday.  There's a free
and easy proposal!  Miss W- has driven me to it.  She says her
character is implicated."

Good, kind Miss W-! however monotonous and trying were the duties
Charlotte had to perform under her roof, there was always a genial
and thoughtful friend watching over her, and urging her to partake
of any little piece of innocent recreation that might come in her
way.  And in those Midsummer holidays of 1836, her friend E. came
to stay with her at Haworth, so there was one happy time secured.

Here follows a series of letters, not dated, but belonging to the
latter portion of this year; and again we think of the gentle and
melancholy Cowper.

"My dear dear E.,

"I am at this moment trembling all over with excitement, after
reading your note; it is what I never received before--it is the
unrestrained pouring out of a warm, gentle, generous heart . . . I
thank you with energy for this kindness.  I will no longer shrink
from answering your questions.  I DO wish to be better than I am.
I pray fervently sometimes to be made so.  I have stings of
conscience, visitings of remorse, glimpses of holy, of
inexpressible things, which formerly I used to be a stranger to;
it may all die away, and I may be in utter midnight, but I implore
a merciful Redeemer, that, if this be the dawn of the gospel, it
may still brighten to perfect day.  Do not mistake me--do not
think I am good; I only wish to be so.  I only hate my former
flippancy and forwardness.  Oh! I am no better than ever I was.  I
am in that state of horrid, gloomy uncertainty that, at this
moment, I would submit to be old, grey-haired, to have passed all
my youthful days of enjoyment, and to be settling on the verge of
the grave, if I could only thereby ensure the prospect of
reconciliation to God, and redemption through his Son's merits.  I
never was exactly careless of these matters, but I have always
taken a clouded and repulsive view of them; and now, if possible,
the clouds are gathering darker, and a more oppressive despondency
weighs on my spirits.  You have cheered me, my darling; for one
moment, for an atom of time, I thought I might call you my own
sister in the spirit; but the excitement is past, and I am now as
wretched and hopeless as ever.  This very night I will pray as you
wish me.  May the Almighty hear me compassionately! and I humbly
hope he will, for you will strengthen my polluted petitions with
your own pure requests.  All is bustle and confusion round me, the
ladies pressing with their sums and their lessons . . . If you
love me, DO, DO, DO come on Friday:  I shall watch and wait for
you, and if you disappoint me I shall weep.  I wish you could know
the thrill of delight which I experienced, when, as I stood at the
dining-room window, I saw -, as he whirled past, toss your little
packet over the wall."

Huddersfield market-day was still the great period for events at
Roe Head.  Then girls, running round the corner of the house and
peeping between tree-stems, and up a shadowy lane, could catch a
glimpse of a father or brother driving to market in his gig;
might, perhaps, exchange a wave of the hand; or see, as Charlotte
Bronte did from the window, a white packet tossed over the avail
by come swift strong motion of an arm, the rest of the traveller's
body unseen.

"Weary with a day's hard work . . . I am sitting down to write a
few lines to my dear E.  Excuse me if I say nothing but nonsense,
for my mind is exhausted and dispirited.  It is a stormy evening,
and the wind is uttering a continual moaning sound, that makes me
feel very melancholy.  At such times--in such moods as these--it
is my nature to seek repose in some calm tranquil idea, and I have
now summoned up your image to give me rest.  There you sit,
upright and still in your black dress, and white scarf, and pale
marble-like face--just like reality.  I wish you would speak to
me.  If we should be separated--if it should be our lot to live at
a great distance, and never to see each other again--in old age,
how I should conjure up the memory of my youthful days, and what a
melancholy pleasure I should feel in dwelling on the recollection
of my early friend! . . . I have some qualities that make me very
miserable, some feelings that you can have no participation in--
that few, very few, people in the world can at all understand.  I
don't pride myself on these peculiarities.  I strive to conceal
and suppress them as much as I can; but they burst out sometimes,
and then those who see the explosion despise me, and I hate myself
for days afterwards . . . I have just received your epistle and
what accompanied it.  I can't tell what should induce you and your
sisters to waste your kindness on such a one as me.  I'm obliged
to them, and I hope you'll tell them so.  I'm obliged to you also,
more for your note than for your present.  The first gave me
pleasure, the last something like pain."


The nervous disturbance, which is stated to have troubled her
while she was at Miss W-'s, seems to have begun to distress her
about this time; at least, she herself speaks of her irritable
condition, which was certainly only a temporary ailment.

"You have been very kind to me of late, and have spared me all
those little sallies of ridicule, which, owing to my miserable and
wretched touchiness of character, used formerly to make me wince,
as if I had been touched with a hot iron; things that nobody else
cares for, enter into my mind and rankle there like venom.  I know
these feelings are absurd, and therefore I try to hide them, but
they only sting the deeper for concealment."

Compare this state of mind with the gentle resignation with which
she had submitted to be put aside as useless, or told of her
ugliness by her schoolfellows, only three years before.

"My life since I saw you has passed as monotonously and unbroken
as ever; nothing but teach, teach, teach, from morning till night.
The greatest variety I ever have is afforded by a letter from you,
or by meeting with a pleasant new book.  The 'Life of Oberlin,'
and 'Leigh Richmond's Domestic Portraiture,' are the last of this
description.  The latter work strongly attracted and strangely
fascinated my attention.  Beg, borrow, or steal it without delay;
and read the 'Memoir of Wilberforce,'--that short record of a
brief uneventful life; I shall never forget it; it is beautiful,
not on account of the language in which it is written, not on
account of the incidents it details, but because of the simple
narrative it gives of a young talented sincere Christian."


About this time Miss W- removed her school from the fine, open,
breezy situation of Roe Head, to Dewsbury Moor, only two or three
miles distant.  Her new residence was on a lower site, and the air
was less exhilarating to one bred in the wild hill-village of
Haworth.  Emily had gone as teacher to a school at Halifax, where
there were nearly forty pupils.

"I have had one letter from her since her departure," writes
Charlotte, on October 2nd, 1836:  "it gives an appalling account
of her duties; hard labour from six in the morning to eleven at
night, with only one half-hour of exercise between.  This is
slavery.  I fear she can never stand it."


When the sisters met at home in the Christmas holidays, they
talked over their lives, and the prospect which they afforded of
employment and remuneration.  They felt that it was a duty to
relieve their father of the burden of their support, if not
entirely, or that of all three, at least that of one or two; and,
naturally, the lot devolved upon the elder ones to find some
occupation which would enable them to do this.  They knew that
they were never likely to inherit much money.  Mr. Bronte had but
a small stipend, and was both charitable and liberal.  Their aunt
had an annuity of 50L., but it reverted to others at her death,
and her nieces had no right, and were the last persons in the
world to reckon upon her savings.  What could they do?  Charlotte
and Emily were trying teaching, and, as it seemed, without much
success.  The former, it is true, had the happiness of having a
friend for her employer, and of being surrounded by those who knew
her and loved her; but her salary was too small for her to save
out of it; and her education did not entitle her to a larger.  The
sedentary and monotonous nature of the life, too, was preying upon
her health and spirits, although, with necessity "as her
mistress," she might hardly like to acknowledge this even to
herself.  But Emily--that free, wild, untameable spirit, never
happy nor well but on the sweeping moors that gathered round her
home--that hater of strangers, doomed to live amongst them, and
not merely to live but to slave in their service--what Charlotte
could have borne patiently for herself, she could not bear for her
sister.  And yet what to do?  She had once hoped that she herself
might become an artist, and so earn her livelihood; but her eyes
had failed her in the minute and useless labour which she had
imposed upon herself with a view to this end.

It was the household custom among these girls to sew till nine
o'clock at night.  At that hour, Miss Branwell generally went to
bed, and her nieces' duties for the day were accounted done.  They
put away their work, and began to pace the room backwards and
forwards, up and down,--as often with the candles extinguished,
for economy's sake, as not,--their figures glancing into the fire-
light, and out into the shadow, perpetually.  At this time, they
talked over past cares and troubles; they planned for the future,
and consulted each other as to their plans.  In after years this
was the time for discussing together the plots of their novels.
And again, still later, this was the time for the last surviving
sister to walk alone, from old accustomed habit, round and round
the desolate room, thinking sadly upon the "days that were no
more."  But this Christmas of 1836 was not without its hopes and
daring aspirations.  They had tried their hands at story-writing,
in their miniature magazine, long ago; they all of them "made out"
perpetually.  They had likewise attempted to write poetry; and had
a modest confidence that they had achieved a tolerable success.
But they knew that they might deceive themselves, and that
sisters' judgments of each other's productions were likely to be
too partial to be depended upon.  So Charlotte, as the eldest,
resolved to write to Southey.  I believe (from an expression in a
letter to be noticed hereafter), that she also consulted
Coleridge; but I have not met with any part of that
correspondence.

On December 29th, her letter to Southey was despatched; and from
an excitement not unnatural in a girl who has worked herself up to
the pitch of writing to a Poet Laureate and asking his opinion of
her poems, she used some high-flown expressions which, probably,
gave him the idea that she was a romantic young lady, unacquainted
with the realities of life.

This, most likely, was the first of those adventurous letters that
passed through the little post-office of Haworth.  Morning after
morning of the holidays slipped away, and there was no answer; the
sisters had to leave home, and Emily to return to her distasteful
duties, without knowing even whether Charlotte's letter had ever
reached its destination.

Not dispirited, however, by the delay, Branwell determined to try
a similar venture, and addressed the following letter to
Wordsworth.  It was given by the poet to Mr. Quillinan in 1850,
after the name of Bronte had become known and famous.  I have no
means of ascertaining what answer was returned by Mr. Wordsworth;
but that he considered the letter remarkable may, I think, be
inferred both from its preservation, and its recurrence to his
memory when the real name of Currer Bell was made known to the
public.


"Haworth, near Bradford,
"Yorkshire, January 19, 1837.

"Sir,--I most earnestly entreat you to read and pass your judgment
upon what I have sent you, because from the day of my birth to
this the nineteenth year of my life, I have lived among secluded
hills, where I could neither know what I was, or what I could do.
I read for the same reason that I ate or drank; because it was a
real craving of nature.  I wrote on the same principle as I spoke-
-out of the impulse and feelings of the mind; nor could I help it,
for what came, came out, and there was the end of it.  For as to
self-conceit, that could not receive food from flattery, since to
this hour, not half a dozen people in the world know that I have
ever penned a line.

"But a change has taken place now, sir:  and I am arrived at an
age wherein I must do something for myself:  the powers I possess
must be exercised to a definite end, and as I don't know them
myself I must ask of others what they are worth.  Yet there is not
one here to tell me; and still, if they are worthless, time will
henceforth be too precious to be wasted on them.

"Do pardon me, sir, that I have ventured to come before one whose
works I have most loved in our literature, and who most has been
with me a divinity of the mind, laying before him one of my
writings, and asking of him a judgment of its contents.  I must
come before some one from whose sentence there is no appeal; and
such a one is he who has developed the theory of poetry as well as
its practice, and both in such a way as to claim a place in the
memory of a thousand years to come.

"My aim, sir, is to push out into the open world, and for this I
trust not poetry alone--that might launch the vessel, but could
not bear her on; sensible and scientific prose, bold and vigorous
efforts in my walk in life, would give a farther title to the
notice of the world; and then again poetry ought to brighten and
crown that name with glory; but nothing of all this can be ever
begun without means, and as I don't possess these, I must in every
shape strive to gain them.  Surely, in this day, when there is not
a WRITING poet worth a sixpence, the field must be open, if a
better man can step forward.

"What I send you is the Prefatory Scene of a much longer subject,
in which I have striven to develop strong passions and weak
principles struggling with a high imagination and acute feelings,
till, as youth hardens towards age, evil deeds and short
enjoyments end in mental misery and bodily ruin.  Now, to send you
the whole of this would be a mock upon your patience; what you
see, does not even pretend to be more than the description of an
imaginative child.  But read it, sir; and, as you would hold a
light to one in utter darkness--as you value your own
kindheartedness--RETURN me an ANSWER, if but one word, telling me
whether I should write on, or write no more.  Forgive undue
warmth, because my feelings in this matter cannot be cool; and
believe me, sir, with deep respect,

"Your really humble servant,
"P. B. Bronte"


The poetry enclosed seems to me by no means equal to parts of the
letter; but, as every one likes to judge for himself, I copy the
six opening stanzas--about a third of the whole, and certainly not
the worst.


So where he reigns in glory bright,
Above those starry skies of night,
Amid his Paradise of light
Oh, why may I not be?

Oft when awake on Christmas morn,
In sleepless twilight laid forlorn,
Strange thoughts have o'er my mind been borne,
How he has died for me.

And oft within my chamber lying,
Have I awaked myself with crying
From dreams, where I beheld Him dying
Upon the accursed Tree.

And often has my mother said,
While on her lap I laid my head,
She feared for time I was not made,
But for Eternity.

So "I can read my title clear,
To mansions in the skies,
And let me bid farewell to fear,
And wipe my weeping eyes."

I'll lay me down on this marble stone,
And set the world aside,
To see upon her ebon throne
The Moon in glory ride.


Soon after Charlotte returned to Dewsbury Moor, she was distressed
by hearing that her friend "E." was likely to leave the
neighbourhood for a considerable length of time.


"Feb. 20th.

"What shall I do without you?  How long are we likely to be
separated?  Why are we to be denied each other's society?  It is
an inscrutable fatality.  I long to be with you, because it seems
as if two or three days, or weeks, spent in your company would
beyond measure strengthen me in the enjoyment of those feelings
which I have so lately begun to cherish.  You first pointed out to
me that way in which I am so feebly endeavouring to travel, and
now I cannot keep you by my side, I must proceed sorrowfully
alone.  Why are we to be divided?  Surely, it must be because we
are in danger of loving each other too well--of losing sight of
the CREATOR in idolatry of the CREATURE.  At first, I could not
say 'Thy will be done!'  I felt rebellious, but I knew it was
wrong to feel so.  Being left a moment alone this morning, I
prayed fervently to be enabled to resign myself to EVERY decree of
God's will, though it should be dealt forth by a far severer hand
than the present disappointment; since then I have felt calmer and
humbler, and consequently happier.  Last Sunday I took up my Bible
in a gloomy state of mind:  I began to read--a feeling stole over
me such as I have not known for many long years--a sweet, placid
sensation, like those, I remember, which used to visit me when I
was a little child, and, on Sunday evenings in summer, stood by
the open window reading the life of a certain French nobleman, who
attained a purer and higher degree of sanctity than has been known
since the days of the early martyrs."


"E.'s" residence was equally within a walk from Dewsbury Moor as
it had been from Roe Head; and on Saturday afternoons both "Mary"
and she used to call upon Charlotte, and often endeavoured to
persuade her to return with them, and be the guest of one of them
till Monday morning; but this was comparatively seldom.  Mary
says:- "She visited us twice or thrice when she was at Miss W-'s.
We used to dispute about politics and religion.  She, a Tory and
clergyman's daughter, was always in a minority of one in our house
of violent Dissent and Radicalism.  She used to hear over again,
delivered WITH AUTHORITY, all the lectures I had been used to give
her at school on despotic aristocracy, mercenary priesthood, &c.
She had not energy to defend herself; sometimes she owned to a
LITTLE truth in it, but generally said nothing.  Her feeble health
gave her her yielding manner, for she could never oppose any one
without gathering up all her strength for the struggle.  Thus she
would let me advise and patronise most imperiously, sometimes
picking out any grain of sense there might be in what I said, but
never allowing any one materially to interfere with her
independence of thought and action.  Though her silence sometimes
left one under the impression that she agreed when she did not,
she never gave a flattering opinion, and thus her words were
golden, whether for praise or blame."

"Mary's" father was a man of remarkable intelligence, but of
strong, not to say violent prejudices, all running in favour of
Republicanism and Dissent.  No other county but Yorkshire could
have produced such a man.  His brother had been a DETENU in
France, and had afterwards voluntarily taken up his residence
there.  Mr. T. himself had been much abroad, both on business and
to see the great continental galleries of paintings.  He spoke
French perfectly, I have been told, when need was; but delighted
usually in talking the broadest Yorkshire.  He bought splendid
engravings of the pictures which he particularly admired, and his
house was full of works of art and of books; but he rather liked
to present his rough side to any stranger or new-comer; he would
speak his broadest, bring out his opinions on Church and State in
their most startling forms, and, by and by, if he found his hearer
could stand the shock, he would involuntarily show his warm kind
heart, and his true taste, and real refinement.  His family of
four sons and two daughters were brought up on Republican
principles; independence of thought and action was encouraged; no
"shams" tolerated.  They are scattered far and wide:  Martha, the
younger daughter, sleeps in the Protestant cemetery at Brussels;
Mary is in New Zealand; Mr. T. is dead.  And so life and death
have dispersed the circle of "violent Radicals and Dissenters"
into which, twenty years ago, the little, quiet, resolute
clergyman's daughter was received, and by whom she was truly loved
and honoured.

January and February of 1837 had passed away, and still there was
no reply from Southey.  Probably she had lost expectation and
almost hope when at length, in the beginning of March, she
received the letter inserted in Mr. C. C. Southey's life of his
Father, vol. iv. p. 327.

After accounting for his delay in replying to hers by the fact of
a long absence from home, during which his letters had
accumulated, whence "it has lain unanswered till the last of a
numerous file, not from disrespect or indifference to its
contents, but because in truth it is not an easy task to answer
it, nor a pleasant one to cast a damp over the high spirits and
the generous desires of youth," he goes on to say:  "What you are
I can only infer from your letter, which appears to be written in
sincerity, though I may suspect that you have used a fictitious
signature.  Be that as it may, the letter and the verses bear the
same stamp, and I can well understand the state of mind they
indicate.

* * *

"It is not my advice that you have asked as to the direction of
your talents, but my opinion of them, and yet the opinion may be
worth little, and the advice much.  You evidently possess, and in
no inconsiderable degree, what Wordsworth calls the 'faculty of
verse.'  I am not depreciating it when I say that in these times
it is not rare.  Many volumes of poems are now published every
year without attracting public attention, any one of which if it
had appeared half a century ago, would have obtained a high
reputation for its author.  Whoever, therefore, is ambitious of
distinction in this way ought to be prepared for disappointment.

"But it is not with a view to distinction that you should
cultivate this talent, if you consult your own happiness.  I, who
have made literature my profession, and devoted my life to it, and
have never for a moment repented of the deliberate choice, think
myself, nevertheless, bound in duty to caution every young man who
applies as an aspirant to me for encouragement and advice, against
taking so perilous a course.  You will say that a woman has no
need of such a caution; there can be no peril in it for her.  In a
certain sense this is true; but there is a danger of which I
would, with all kindness and all earnestness, warn you.  The day
dreams in which you habitually indulge are likely to induce a
distempered state of mind; and in proportion as all the ordinary
uses of the world seem to you flat and unprofitable, you will be
unfitted for them without becoming fitted for anything else.
Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought
not to be.  The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less
leisure will she have for it, even as an accomplishment and a
recreation.  To those duties you have not yet been called, and
when you are you will be less eager for celebrity.  You will not
seek in imagination for excitement, of which the vicissitudes of
this life, and the anxieties from which you must not hope to be
exempted, be your state what it may, will bring with them but too
much.

"But do not suppose that I disparage the gift which you possess;
nor that I would discourage you from exercising it.  I only exhort
you so to think of it, and so to use it, as to render it conducive
to your own permanent good.  Write poetry for its own sake; not in
a spirit of emulation, and not with a view to celebrity; the less
you aim at that the more likely you will be to deserve and finally
to obtain it.  So written, it is wholesome both for the heart and
soul; it may be made the surest means, next to religion, of
soothing the mind and elevating it.  You may embody in it your
best thoughts and your wisest feelings, and in so doing discipline
and strengthen them.

"Farewell, madam.  It is not because I have forgotten that I was
once young myself, that I write to you in this strain; but because
I remember it.  You will neither doubt my sincerity nor my good
will; and however ill what has here been said may accord with your
present views and temper, the longer you live the more reasonable
it will appear to you.  Though I may be but an ungracious adviser,
you will allow me, therefore, to subscribe myself, with the best
wishes for your happiness here and hereafter, your true friend,
"ROBERT SOUTHEY."


I was with Miss Bronte when she received Mr. Cuthbert Southey's
note, requesting her permission to insert the fore-going letter in
his father's life.  She said to me, "Mr. Southey's letter was kind
and admirable; a little stringent, but it did me good."

It is partly because I think it so admirable, and partly because
it tends to bring out her character, as shown in the following
reply, that I have taken the liberty of inserting the foregoing
extracts from it.


"Sir, March 16th.

"I cannot rest till I have answered your letter, even though by
addressing you a second time I should appear a little intrusive;
but I must thank you for the kind and wise advice you have
condescended to give me.  I had not ventured to hope for such a
reply; so considerate in its tone, so noble in its spirit.  I must
suppress what I feel, or you will think me foolishly enthusiastic.

"At the first perusal of your letter, I felt only shame and regret
that I had ever ventured to trouble you with my crude rhapsody; I
felt a painful heat rise to my face when I thought of the quires
of paper I had covered with what once gave me so much delight, but
which now was only a source of confusion; but after I had thought
a little and read it again and again, the prospect seemed to
clear.  You do not forbid me to write; you do not say that what I
write is utterly destitute of merit.  You only warn me against the
folly of neglecting real duties for the sake of imaginative
pleasures; of writing for the love of fame; for the selfish
excitement of emulation.  You kindly allow me to write poetry for
its own sake, provided I leave undone nothing which I ought to do,
in order to pursue that single, absorbing, exquisite
gratification.  I am afraid, sir, you think me very foolish.  I
know the first letter I wrote to you was all senseless trash from
beginning to end; but I am not altogether the idle dreaming being
it would seem to denote.  My father is a clergyman of limited,
though competent income, and I am the eldest of his children.  He
expended quite as much in my education as he could afford in
justice to the rest.  I thought it therefore my duty, when I left
school, to become a governess.  In that capacity I find enough to
occupy my thoughts all day long, and my head and hands too,
without having a moment's time for one dream of the imagination.
In the evenings, I confess, I do think, but I never trouble any
one else with my thoughts.  I carefully avoid any appearance of
preoccupation and eccentricity, which might lead those I live
amongst to suspect the nature of my pursuits.  Following my
father's advice--who from my childhood has counselled me, just in
the wise and friendly tone of your letter--I have endeavoured not
only attentively to observe all the duties a woman ought to
fulfil, but to feel deeply interested in them.  I don't always
succeed, for sometimes when I'm teaching or sewing I would rather
be reading or writing; but I try to deny myself; and my father's
approbation amply rewarded me for the privation.  Once more allow
me to thank you with sincere gratitude.  I trust I shall never
more feel ambitious to see my name in print:  if the wish should
rise, I'll look at Southey's letter, and suppress it.  It is
honour enough for me that I have written to him, and received an
answer.  That letter is consecrated; no one shall ever see it, but
papa and my brother and sisters.  Again I thank you.  This
incident, I suppose, will be renewed no more; if I live to be an
old woman, I shall remember it thirty years hence as a bright
dream.  The signature which you suspected of being fictitious is
my real name.  Again, therefore, I must sign myself,

"C. Bronte.

"P.S.--Pray, sir, excuse me for writing to you a second time; I
could not help writing, partly to tell you how thankful I am for
your kindness, and partly to let you know that your advice shall
not be wasted; however sorrowfully and reluctantly it may be at
first followed.

"C. B."


I cannot deny myself the gratification of inserting Southey's
reply:-


"Keswick, March 22, 1837.

"Dear Madam,

"Your letter has given me great pleasure, and I should not forgive
myself if I did not tell you so.  You have received admonition as
considerately and as kindly as it was given.  Let me now request
that, if you ever should come to these Lakes while I am living
here, you will let me see you.  You would then think of me
afterwards with the more good-will, because you would perceive
that there is neither severity nor moroseness in the state of mind
to which years and observation have brought me.

"It is, by God's mercy, in our power to attain a degree of self-
government, which is essential to our own happiness, and
contributes greatly to that of those around us.  Take care of
over-excitement, and endeavour to keep a quiet mind (even for your
health it is the best advice that can be given you):  your moral
and spiritual improvement will then keep pace with the culture of
your intellectual powers.

"And now, madam, God bless you!

"Farewell, and believe me to be your sincere friend,

"ROBERT SOUTHEY.


Of this second letter, also, she spoke, and told me that it
contained an invitation for her to go and see the poet if ever she
visited the Lakes.  "But there was no money to spare," said she,
"nor any prospect of my ever earning money enough to have the
chance of so great a pleasure, so I gave up thinking of it."  At
the time we conversed together on the subject we were at the
Lakes.  But Southey was dead.

This "stringent" letter made her put aside, for a time, all idea
of literary enterprise.  She bent her whole energy towards the
fulfilment of the duties in hand; but her occupation was not
sufficient food for her great forces of intellect, and they cried
out perpetually, "Give, give," while the comparatively less breezy
air of Dewsbury Moor told upon her health and spirits more and
more.  On August 27, 1837, she writes:-


"I am again at Dewsbury, engaged in the old business,--teach,
teach, teach . . . WHEN WILL YOU COME HOME?  Make haste!  You have
been at Bath long enough for all purposes; by this time you have
acquired polish enough, I am sure; if the varnish is laid on much
thicker, I am afraid the good wood underneath will be quite
concealed, and your Yorkshire friends won't stand that.  Come,
come.  I am getting really tired of your absence.  Saturday after
Saturday comes round, and I can have no hope of hearing your knock
at the door, and then being told that 'Miss E. is come.'  Oh,
dear! in this monotonous life of mine, that was a pleasant event.
I wish it would recur again; but it will take two or three
interviews before the stiffness--the estrangement of this long
separation--will wear away."


About this time she forgot to return a work-bag she had borrowed,
by a messenger, and in repairing her error she says:- "These
aberrations of memory warn me pretty intelligibly that I am
getting past my prime."  AEtat 21!  And the same tone of
despondency runs through the following letter:-


"I wish exceedingly that I could come to you before Christmas, but
it is impossible; another three weeks must elapse before I shall
again have my comforter beside me, under the roof of my own dear
quiet home.  If I could always live with you, and daily read the
Bible with you--if your lips and mine could at the same time drink
the same draught, from the same pure fountain of mercy--I hope, I
trust, I might one day become better, far better than my evil,
wandering thoughts, my corrupt heart, cold to the spirit and warm
to the flesh, will now permit me to be.  I often plan the pleasant
life which we might lead together, strengthening each other in
that power of self-denial, that hallowed and glowing devotion,
which the first saints of God often attained to.  My eyes fill
with tears when I contrast the bliss of such a state, brightened
by hopes of the future, with the melancholy state I now live in,
uncertain that I ever felt true contrition, wandering in thought
and deed, longing for holiness, which I shall NEVER, NEVER obtain,
smitten at times to the heart with the conviction that ghastly
Calvinistic doctrines are true--darkened, in short, by the very
shadows of spiritual death.  If Christian perfection be necessary
to salvation, I shall never be saved; my heart is a very hotbed
for sinful thoughts, and when I decide on an action I scarcely
remember to look to my Redeemer for direction.  I know not how to
pray; I cannot bend my life to the grand end of doing good; I go
on constantly seeking my own pleasure, pursuing the gratification
of my own desires.  I forget God, and will not God forget me?
And, meantime, I know the greatness of Jehovah; I acknowledge the
perfection of His word; I adore the purity of the Christian faith;
my theory is right, my practice horribly wrong."

The Christmas holidays came, and she and Anne returned to the
parsonage, and to that happy home circle in which alone their
natures expanded; amongst all other people they shrivelled up more
or less.  Indeed, there were only one or two strangers who could
be admitted among the sisters without producing the same result.
Emily and Anne were bound up in their lives and interests like
twins.  The former from reserve, the latter from timidity, avoided
all friendships and intimacies beyond their family.  Emily was
impervious to influence; she never came in contact with public
opinion, and her own decision of what was right and fitting was a
law for her conduct and appearance, with which she allowed no one
to interfere.  Her love was poured out on Anne, as Charlotte's was
on her.  But the affection among all the three was stronger than
either death or life.

"E." was eagerly welcomed by Charlotte, freely admitted by Emily,
and kindly received by Anne, whenever she could visit them; and
this Christmas she had promised to do so, but her coming had to be
delayed on account of a little domestic accident detailed in the
following letter:-


"Dec. 29, 1837.

"I am sure you will have thought me very remiss in not sending my
promised letter long before now; but I have a sufficient and very
melancholy excuse in an accident that befell our old faithful
Tabby, a few days after my return home.  She was gone out into the
village on some errand, when, as she was descending the steep
street, her foot slipped on the ice, and she fell; it was dark,
and no one saw her mischance, till after a time her groans
attracted the attention of a passer-by.  She was lifted up and
carried into the druggist's near; and, after the examination, it
was discovered that she had completely shattered and dislocated
one leg.  Unfortunately, the fracture could not be set till six
o'clock the next morning, as no surgeon was to be had before that
time, and she now lies at our house in a very doubtful and
dangerous state.  Of course we are all exceedingly distressed at
the circumstance, for she was like one of our own family.  Since
the event we have been almost without assistance--a person has
dropped in now and then to do the drudgery, but we have as yet
been able to procure no regular servant; and consequently, the
whole work of the house, as well as the additional duty of nursing
Tabby, falls on ourselves.  Under these circumstances I dare not
press your visit here, at least until she is pronounced out of
danger; it would be too selfish of me.  Aunt wished me to give you
this information before, but papa and all the rest were anxious I
should delay until we saw whether matters took a more settled
aspect, and I myself kept putting it off from day to day, most
bitterly reluctant to give up all the pleasure I had anticipated
so long.  However, remembering what you told me, namely, that you
had commended the matter to a higher decision than ours, and that
you were resolved to submit with resignation to that decision,
whatever it might be, I hold it my duty to yield also, and to be
silent; it may be all for the best.  I fear, if you had been here
during this severe weather, your visit would have been of no
advantage to you, for the moors are blockaded with snow, and you
would never have been able to get out.  After this disappointment,
I never dare reckon with certainty on the enjoyment of a pleasure
again; it seems as if some fatality stood between you and me.  I
am not good enough for you, and you must be kept from the
contamination of too intimate society.  I would urge your visit
yet--I would entreat and press it--but the thought comes across
me, should Tabby die while you are in the house, I should never
forgive myself.  No! it must not be, and in a thousand ways the
consciousness of that mortifies and disappoints me most keenly,
and I am not the only one who is disappointed.  All in the house
were looking to your visit with eagerness.  Papa says he highly
approves of my friendship with you, and he wishes me to continue
it through life."

A good neighbour of the Brontes--a clever, intelligent Yorkshire
woman, who keeps a druggist's shop in Haworth, and from her
occupation, her experience, and excellent sense, holds the
position of village doctress and nurse, and, as such, has been a
friend, in many a time of trial, and sickness, and death, in the
households round--told me a characteristic little incident
connected with Tabby's fractured leg.  Mr. Bronte is truly
generous and regardful of all deserving claims.  Tabby had lived
with them for ten or twelve years, and was, as Charlotte expressed
it, "one of the family."  But on the other hand, she was past the
age for any very active service, being nearer seventy than sixty
at the time of the accident; she had a sister living in the
village; and the savings she had accumulated, during many years'
service, formed a competency for one in her rank of life.  Or if,
in this time of sickness, she fell short of any comforts which her
state rendered necessary, the parsonage could supply them.  So
reasoned Miss Branwell, the prudent, not to say anxious aunt;
looking to the limited contents of Mr. Bronte's purse, and the
unprovided-for-future of her nieces; who were, moreover, losing
the relaxation of the holidays, in close attendance upon Tabby.

Miss Branwell urged her views upon Mr. Bronte as soon as the
immediate danger to the old servant's life was over.  He refused
at first to listen to the careful advice; it was repugnant to his
liberal nature.  But Miss Branwell persevered; urged economical
motives; pressed on his love for his daughters.  He gave way.
Tabby was to be removed to her sister's, and there nursed and
cared for, Mr. Bronte coming in with his aid when her own
resources fell short.  This decision was communicated to the
girls.  There were symptoms of a quiet, but sturdy rebellion, that
winter afternoon, in the small precincts of Haworth parsonage.
They made one unanimous and stiff remonstrance.  Tabby had tended
them in their childhood; they, and none other, should tend her in
her infirmity and age.  At tea-time, they were sad and silent, and
the meal went away untouched by any of the three.  So it was at
breakfast; they did not waste many words on the subject, but each
word they did utter was weighty.  They "struck" eating till the
resolution was rescinded, and Tabby was allowed to remain a
helpless invalid entirely dependent upon them.  Herein was the
strong feeling of Duty being paramount to pleasure, which lay at
the foundation of Charlotte's character, made most apparent; for
we have seen how she yearned for her friend's company; but it was
to be obtained only by shrinking from what she esteemed right, and
that she never did, whatever might be the sacrifice.

She had another weight on her mind this Christmas.  I have said
that the air of Dewsbury Moor did not agree with her, though she
herself was hardly aware how much her life there was affecting her
health.  But Anne had begun to suffer just before the holidays,
and Charlotte watched over her younger sisters with the jealous
vigilance of some wild creature, that changes her very nature if
danger threatens her young.  Anne had a slight cough, a pain at
her side, a difficulty of breathing.  Miss W- considered it as
little more than a common cold; but Charlotte felt every
indication of incipient consumption as a stab at her heart,
remembering Maria and Elizabeth, whose places once knew them, and
should know them no more.

Stung by anxiety for this little sister, she upbraided Miss W- for
her fancied indifference to Anne's state of health.  Miss W- felt
these reproaches keenly, and wrote to Mr. Bronte about them.  He
immediately replied most kindly, expressing his fear that
Charlotte's apprehensions and anxieties respecting her sister had
led her to give utterance to over-excited expressions of alarm.
Through Miss W-'s kind consideration, Anne was a year longer at
school than her friends intended.  At the close of the half-year
Miss W- sought for the opportunity of an explanation of each
other's words, and the issue proved that "the falling out of
faithful friends, renewing is of love."  And so ended the first,
last, and only difference Charlotte ever had with good, kind Miss
W -.

Still her heart had received a shock in the perception of Anne's
delicacy; and all these holidays she watched over her with the
longing, fond anxiety, which is so full of sudden pangs of fear.

Emily had given up her situation in the Halifax school, at the
expiration of six months of arduous trial, on account of her
health, which could only be re-established by the bracing moorland
air and free life of home.  Tabby's illness had preyed on the
family resources.  I doubt whether Branwell was maintaining
himself at this time.  For some unexplained reason, he had given
up the idea of becoming a student of painting at the Royal
Academy, and his prospects in life were uncertain, and had yet to
be settled.  So Charlotte had quietly to take up her burden of
teaching again, and return to her previous monotonous life.

Brave heart, ready to die in harness!  She went back to her work,
and made no complaint, hoping to subdue the weakness that was
gaining ground upon her.  About this time, she would turn sick and
trembling at any sudden noise, and could hardly repress her
screams when startled.  This showed a fearful degree of physical
weakness in one who was generally so self-controlled; and the
medical man, whom at length, through Miss W-'s entreaty, she was
led to consult, insisted on her return to the parsonage.  She had
led too sedentary a life, he said; and the soft summer air,
blowing round her home, the sweet company of those she loved, the
release, the freedom of life in her own family, were needed, to
save either reason or life.  So, as One higher than she had over-
ruled that for a time she might relax her strain, she returned to
Haworth; and after a season of utter quiet, her father sought for
her the enlivening society of her two friends, Mary and Martha T.
At the conclusion of the following letter, written to the then
absent E., there is, I think, as pretty a glimpse of a merry group
of young people as need be; and like all descriptions of doing, as
distinct from thinking or feeling, in letters, it saddens one in
proportion to the vivacity of the picture of what was once, and is
now utterly swept away.


"Haworth, June 9, 1838.

"I received your packet of despatches on Wednesday; it was brought
me by Mary and Martha, who have been staying at Haworth for a few
days; they leave us to-day.  You will be surprised at the date of
this letter.  I ought to be at Dewsbury Moor, you know; but I
stayed as long as I was able, and at length I neither could nor
dared stay any longer.  My health and spirits had utterly failed
me, and the medical man whom I consulted enjoined me, as I valued
my life, to go home.  So home I went, and the change has at once
roused and soothed me; and I am now, I trust, fairly in the way to
be myself again.

"A calm and even mind like yours cannot conceive the feelings of
the shattered wretch who is now writing to you, when, after weeks
of mental and bodily anguish not to be described, something like
peace began to dawn again.  Mary is far from well.  She breathes
short, has a pain in her chest, and frequent flushings of fever.
I cannot tell you what agony these symptoms give me; they remind
me too strongly of my two sisters, whom no power of medicine could
save.  Martha is now very well; she has kept in a continual flow
of good humour during her stay here, and has consequently been
very fascinating . . . "

"They are making such a noise about me I cannot write any more.
Mary is playing on the piano; Martha is chattering as fast as her
little tongue can run; and Branwell is standing before her,
laughing at her vivacity."

Charlotte grew much stronger in this quiet, happy period at home.
She paid occasional visits to her two great friends, and they in
return came to Haworth.  At one of their houses, I suspect, she
met with the person to whom the following letter refers--some one
having a slight resemblance to the character of "St. John," in the
last volume of "Jane Eyre," and, like him, in holy orders.


"March 12, 1839.

. . . "I had a kindly leaning towards him, because he is an
amiable and well-disposed man.  Yet I had not, and could not have,
that intense attachment which would make me willing to die for
him; and if ever I marry, it must be in that light of adoration
that I will regard my husband.  Ten to one I shall never have the
chance again; but N'IMPORTE.  Moreover, I was aware that he knew
so little of me he could hardly be conscious to whom he was
writing.  Why! it would startle him to see me in my natural home
character; he would think I was a wild, romantic enthusiast
indeed.  I could not sit all day long making a grave face before
my husband.  I would laugh, and satirize, and say whatever came
into my head first.  And if he were a clever man, and loved me,
the whole world, weighed in the balance against his smallest wish,
should be light as air."


So that--her first proposal of marriage--was quietly declined and
put on one side.  Matrimony did not enter into the scheme of her
life, but good, sound, earnest labour did; the question, however,
was as yet undecided in what direction she should employ her
forces.  She had been discouraged in literature; her eyes failed
her in the minute kind of drawing which she practised when she
wanted to express an idea; teaching seemed to her at this time, as
it does to most women at all times, the only way of earning an
independent livelihood.  But neither she nor her sisters were
naturally fond of children.  The hieroglyphics of childhood were
an unknown language to them, for they had never been much with
those younger than themselves.  I am inclined to think, too, that
they had not the happy knack of imparting information, which seems
to be a separate gift from the faculty of acquiring it; a kind of
sympathetic tact, which instinctively perceives the difficulties
that impede comprehension in a child's mind, and that yet are too
vague and unformed for it, with its half-developed powers of
expression, to explain by words.  Consequently, teaching very
young children was anything but a "delightful task" to the three
Bronte sisters.  With older girls, verging on womanhood, they
might have done better, especially if these had any desire for
improvement.  But the education which the village clergyman's
daughters had received, did not as yet qualify them to undertake
the charge of advanced pupils.  They knew but little French, and
were not proficients in music; I doubt whether Charlotte could
play at all.  But they were all strong again, and, at any rate,
Charlotte and Anne must put their shoulders to the wheel.  One
daughter was needed at home, to stay with Mr. Bronte and Miss
Branwell; to be the young and active member in a household of
four, whereof three--the father, the aunt, and faithful Tabby--
were past middle age.  And Emily, who suffered and drooped more
than her sisters when away from Haworth, was the one appointed to
remain.  Anne was the first to meet with a situation.


"April 15th, 1839.

"I could not write to you in the week you requested, as about that
time we were very busy in preparing for Anne's departure.  Poor
child! she left us last Monday; no one went with her; it was her
own wish that she might be allowed to go alone, as she thought she
could manage better and summon more courage if thrown entirely
upon her own resources.  We have had one letter from her since she
went.  She expresses herself very well satisfied, and says that
Mrs.--is extremely kind; the two eldest children alone are under
her care, the rest are confined to the nursery, with which and its
occupants she has nothing to do . . . I hope she'll do.  You would
be astonished what a sensible, clever letter she writes; it is
only the talking part that I fear.  But I do seriously apprehend
that Mrs.--will sometimes conclude that she has a natural
impediment in her speech.  For my own part, I am as yet 'wanting a
situation,' like a housemaid out of place.  By the way, I have
lately discovered I have quite a talent for cleaning, sweeping up
hearths, dusting rooms, making beds, &c.; so, if everything else
fails, I can turn my hand to that, if anybody will give me good
wages for little labour.  I won't be a cook; I hate soothing.  I
won't be a nurserymaid, nor a lady's-maid, far less a lady's
companion, or a mantua-maker, or a straw-bonnet maker, or a taker-
in of plain work.  I won't be anything but a housemaid . . . With
regard to my visit to G., I have as yet received no invitation;
but if I should be asked, though I should feel it a great act of
self-denial to refuse, yet I have almost made up my mind to do so,
though the society of the T.'s is one of the most rousing
pleasures I have ever known.  Good-bye, my darling E., &c.

"P. S.--Strike out that word 'darling;' it is humbug.  Where's the
use of protestations?  We've known each other, and liked each
other, a good while; that's enough."


Not many weeks after this was written, Charlotte also became
engaged as a governess.  I intend carefully to abstain from
introducing the names of any living people, respecting whom I may
have to tell unpleasant truths, or to quote severe remarks from
Miss Bronte's letters; but it is necessary that the difficulties
she had to encounter in her various phases of life, should be
fairly and frankly made known, before the force "of what was
resisted" can be at all understood.  I was once speaking to her
about "Agnes Grey"--the novel in which her sister Anne pretty
literally describes her own experience as a governess--and
alluding more particularly to the account of the stoning of the
little nestlings in the presence of the parent birds.  She said
that none but those who had been in the position of a governess
could ever realise the dark side of "respectable" human nature;
under no great temptation to crime, but daily giving way to
selfishness and ill-temper, till its conduct towards those
dependent on it sometimes amounts to a tyranny of which one would
rather be the victim than the inflicter.  We can only trust in
such cases that the employers err rather from a density of
perception and an absence of sympathy, than from any natural
cruelty of disposition.  Among several things of the same kind,
which I well remember, she told me what had once occurred to
herself.  She had been entrusted with the care of a little boy,
three or four years old, during the absence of his parents on a
day's excursion, and particularly enjoined to keep him out of the
stable-yard.  His elder brother, a lad of eight or nine, and not a
pupil of Miss Bronte's, tempted the little fellow into the
forbidden place.  She followed, and tried to induce him to come
away; but, instigated by his brother, he began throwing stones at
her, and one of them hit her so severe a blow on the temple that
the lads were alarmed into obedience.  The next day, in full
family conclave, the mother asked Miss Bronte what occasioned the
mark on her forehead.  She simply replied, "An accident, ma'am,"
and no further inquiry was made; but the children (both brothers
and sisters) had been present, and honoured her for not "telling
tales."  From that time, she began to obtain influence over all,
more or less, according to their different characters; and as she
insensibly gained their affection, her own interest in them was
increasing.  But one day, at the children's dinner, the small
truant of the stable-yard, in a little demonstrative gush, said,
putting his hand in hers, "I love 'ou, Miss Bronte."  Whereupon,
the mother exclaimed, before all the children, "Love the
GOVERNESS, my dear!"

"The family into which she first entered was, I believe, that of a
wealthy Yorkshire manufacturer.  The following extracts from her
correspondence at this time will show how painfully the restraint
of her new mode of life pressed upon her.  The first is from a
letter to Emily, beginning with one of the tender expressions in
which, in spite of "humbug," she indulged herself.  "Mine dear
love," "Mine-bonnie love," are her terms of address to this
beloved sister.

"June 8th, 1839.

"I have striven hard to be pleased with my new situation.  The
country, the house and the grounds are, as I have said, divine;
but, alack-a-day! there is such a thing as seeing all beautiful
around you--pleasant woods, white paths, green lawns, and blue
sunshiny sky--and not having a free moment or a free thought left
to enjoy them.  The children are constantly with me.  As for
correcting them, I quickly found that was out of the question;
they are to do as they like.  A complaint to the mother only
brings black looks on myself, and unjust, partial excuses to
screen the children.  I have tried that plan once, and succeeded
so notably, I shall try no more.  I said in my last letter that
Mrs.--did not know me.  I now begin to find she does not intend to
know me; that she cares nothing about me, except to contrive how
the greatest possible quantity of labour may be got out of me; and
to that end she overwhelms me with oceans of needle-work; yards of
cambric to hem, muslin nightcaps to make, and, above all things,
dolls to dress.  I do not think she likes me at all, because I
can't help being shy in such an entirely novel scene, surrounded
as I have hitherto been by strange and constantly changing faces .
. . I used to think I should like to be in the stir of grand
folks' society; but I have had enough of it--it is dreary work to
look on and listen.  I see more clearly than I have ever done
before, that a private governess has no existence, is not
considered as a living rational being, except as connected with
the wearisome duties she has to fulfil . . . One of the
pleasantest afternoons I have spent here--indeed, the only one at
all pleasant--was when Mr.--walked out with his children, and I
had orders to follow a little behind.  As he strolled on through
his fields, with his magnificent Newfoundland dog at his side, he
looked very like what a frank, wealthy, Conservative gentleman
ought to be.  He spoke freely and unaffectedly to the people he
met, and, though he indulged his children and allowed them to
tease himself far too much, he would not suffer them grossly to
insult others."

(WRITTEN IN PENCIL TO A FRIEND.)

"July, 1839.

"I cannot procure ink, without going into the drawing-room, where
I do not wish to go . . . I should have written to you long since,
and told you every detail of the utterly new scene into which I
have lately been cast, had I not been daily expecting a letter
from yourself, and wondering and lamenting that you did not write;
for you will remember it was your turn.  I must not bother you too
much with my sorrows, of which, I fear, you have heard an
exaggerated account.  If you were near me, perhaps I might be
tempted to tell you all, to grow egotistical, and pour out the
long history of a private governess's trials and crosses in her
first situation.  As it is, I will only ask you to imagine the
miseries of a reserved wretch like me, thrown at once into the
midst of a large family, at a time when they were particularly
gay--when the house was filled with company--all strangers--people
whose faces I had never seen before.  In this state I had charge
given me of a set of pampered, spoilt, turbulent children, whom I
was expected constantly to amuse, as well as to instruct.  I soon
found that the constant demand on my stock of animal spirits
reduced them to the lowest state of exhaustion; at times I felt--
and, I suppose, seemed--depressed.  To my astonishment, I was
taken to task on the subject by Mrs.--with a sternness of manner
and a harshness of language scarcely credible; like a fool, I
cried most bitterly.  I could not help it; my spirits quite failed
me at first.  I thought I had done my best--strained every nerve
to please her; and to be treated in that way, merely because I was
shy and sometimes melancholy, was too bad.  At first I was for
giving all up and going home.  But, after a little reflection, I
determined to summon what energy I had, and to weather the storm.
I said to myself, 'I have never yet quitted a place without
gaining a friend; adversity is a good school; the poor are born to
labour, and the dependent to endure.'  I resolved to be patient,
to command my feelings, and to take what came; the ordeal, I
reflected, would not last many weeks, and I trusted it would do me
good.  I recollected the fable of the willow and the oak; I bent
quietly, and now, I trust, the storm is blowing over me.  Mrs.--is
generally considered an agreeable woman; so she is, I doubt not,
in general society.  She behaves somewhat more civilly to me now
than she did at first, and the children are a little more
manageable; but she does not know my character, and she does not
wish to know it.  I have never had five minutes' conversation with
her since I came, except while she was scolding me.  I have no
wish to be pitied, except by yourself; if I were talking to you I
could tell you much more."

(TO EMILY, ABOUT THIS TIME.)

"Mine bonnie love, I was as glad of your letter as tongue can
express:  it is a real, genuine pleasure to hear from home; a
thing to be saved till bedtime, when one has a moment's quiet and
rest to enjoy it thoroughly.  Write whenever you can.  I could
like to be at home.  I could like to work in a mill.  I could like
to feel some mental liberty.  I could like this weight of
restraint to be taken off.  But the holidays will come.
Coraggio."

Her temporary engagement in this uncongenial family ended in the
July of this year; not before the constant strain upon her spirits
and strength had again affected her health; but when this delicacy
became apparent in palpitations and shortness of breathing, it was
treated as affectation--as a phase of imaginary indisposition,
which could be dissipated by a good scolding.  She had been
brought up rather in a school of Spartan endurance than in one of
maudlin self-indulgence, and could bear many a pain and relinquish
many a hope in silence.

After she had been at home about a week, her friend proposed that
she should accompany her in some little excursion, having pleasure
alone for its object.  She caught at the idea most eagerly at
first; but her hope stood still, waned, and had almost disappeared
before, after many delays, it was realised.  In its fulfilment at
last, it was a favourable specimen of many a similar air-bubble
dancing before her eyes in her brief career, in which stern
realities, rather than pleasures, formed the leading incidents.


"July 26th, 1839.

"Your proposal has almost driven me 'clean daft'--if you don't
understand that ladylike expression, you must ask me what it means
when I see you.  The fact is, an excursion with you anywhere,--
whether to Cleathorpe or Canada,--just by ourselves, would be to
me most delightful.  I should, indeed, like to go; but I can't get
leave of absence for longer than a week, and I'm afraid that would
not suit you--must I then give it up entirely?  I feel as if I
COULD NOT; I never had such a chance of enjoyment before; I do
want to see you and talk to you, and be with you.  When do you
wish to go?  Could I meet you at Leeds?  To take a gig from
Haworth to B., would be to me a very serious increase of expense,
and I happen to be very low in cash.  Oh! rich people seem to have
many pleasures at their command which we are debarred from!
However, no repining.

"Say when you go, and I shall be able in my answer to say
decidedly whether I can accompany you or not.  I must--I will--I'm
set upon it--I'll be obstinate and bear down all opposition.

"P.S.--Since writing the above, I find that aunt and papa have
determined to go to Liverpool for a fortnight, and take us all
with them.  It is stipulated, however, that I should give up the
Cleathorpe scheme.  I yield reluctantly."


I fancy that, about this time, Mr. Bronte found it necessary,
either from failing health or the increased populousness of the
parish, to engage the assistance of a curate.  At least, it is in
a letter written this summer that I find mention of the first of a
succession of curates, who henceforward revolved round Haworth
Parsonage, and made an impression on the mind of one of its
inmates which she has conveyed pretty distinctly to the world.
The Haworth curate brought his clerical friends and neighbours
about the place, and for a time the incursions of these, near the
parsonage tea-time, formed occurrences by which the quietness of
the life there was varied, sometimes pleasantly, sometimes
disagreeably.  The little adventure recorded at the end of the
following letter is uncommon in the lot of most women, and is a
testimony in this case to the unusual power of attraction--though
so plain in feature--which Charlotte possessed, when she let
herself go in the happiness and freedom of home.


"August 4th, 1839.

"The Liverpool journey is yet a matter of talk, a sort of castle
in the air; but, between you and me, I fancy it is very doubtful
whether it will ever assume a more solid shape.  Aunt--like many
other elderly people--likes to talk of such things; but when it
comes to putting them into actual execution, she rather falls off.
Such being the case, I think you and I had better adhere to our
first plan of going somewhere together independently of other
people.  I have got leave to accompany you for a week--at the
utmost a fortnight--but no more.  Where do you wish to go?
Burlington, I should think, from what M. says, would be as
eligible a place as any.  When do you set off?  Arrange all these
things according to your convenience; I shall start no objections.
The idea of seeing the sea--of being near it--watching its changes
by sunrise, sunset, moonlight, and noon-day--in calm, perhaps in
storm--fills and satisfies my mind.  I shall be discontented at
nothing.  And then I am not to be with a set of people with whom I
have nothing in common--who would be nuisances and bores:  but
with you, whom I like and know, and who knows me.

"I have an odd circumstance to relate to you:  prepare for a
hearty laugh!  The other day, Mr. -, a vicar, came to spend the
day with us, bringing with him his own curate.  The latter
gentleman, by name Mr. B., is a young Irish clergyman, fresh from
Dublin University.  It was the first time we had any of us seen
him, but, however, after the manner of his countrymen, he soon
made himself at home.  His character quickly appeared in his
conversation; witty, lively, ardent, clever too; but deficient in
the dignity and discretion of an Englishman.  At home, you know, I
talk with ease, and am never shy--never weighed down and oppressed
by that miserable MAUVAISE HONTE which torments and constrains me
elsewhere.  So I conversed with this Irishman, and laughed at his
jests; and, though I saw faults in his character, excused them
because of the amusement his originality afforded.  I cooled a
little, indeed, and drew in towards the latter part of the
evening, because he began to season his conversation with
something of Hibernian flattery, which I did not quite relish.
However, they went away, and no more was thought about them.  A
few days after, I got a letter, the direction of which puzzled me,
it being in a hand I was not accustomed to see.  Evidently, it was
neither from you nor Mary, my only correspondents.  Having opened
and read it, it proved to be a declaration of attachment and
proposal of matrimony, expressed in the ardent language of the
sapient young Irishman!  I hope you are laughing heartily.  This
is not like one of my adventures, is it?  It more nearly resembles
Martha's.  I am certainly doomed to be an old maid.  Never mind.
I made up my mind to that fate ever since I was twelve years old.

"Well! thought I, I have heard of love at first sight, but this
beats all!  I leave you to guess what my answer would be,
convinced that you will not do me the injustice of guessing
wrong."


"On the 14th of August she still writes from Haworth:-

"I have in vain packed my box, and prepared everything for our
anticipated journey.  It so happens that I can get no conveyance
this week or the next.  The only gig let out to hire in Haworth,
is at Harrowgate, and likely to remain there, for aught I can
hear.  Papa decidedly objects to my going by the coach, and
walking to B., though I am sure I could manage it.  Aunt exclaims
against the weather, and the roads, and the four winds of heaven,
so I am in a fix, and, what is worse, so are you.  On reading
over, for the second or third time, your last letter (which, by
the by, was written in such hieroglyphics that, at the first hasty
perusal, I could hardly make out two consecutive words), I find
you intimate that if I leave this journey till Thursday I shall be
too late.  I grieve that I should have so inconvenienced you; but
I need not talk of either Friday or Saturday now, for I rather
imagine there is small chance of my ever going at all.  The elders
of the house have never cordially acquiesced in the measure; and
now that impediments seem to start up at every step, opposition
grows more open.  Papa, indeed, would willingly indulge me, but
this very kindness of his makes me doubt whether I ought to draw
upon it; so, though I could battle out aunt's discontent, I yield
to papa's indulgence.  He does not say so, but I know he would
rather I stayed at home; and aunt meant well too, I dare say, but
I am provoked that she reserved the expression of her decided
disapproval till all was settled between you and myself.  Reckon
on me no more; leave me out in your calculations:  perhaps I
ought, in the beginning, to have had prudence sufficient to shut
my eyes against such a prospect of pleasure, so as to deny myself
the hope of it.  Be as angry as you please with me for
disappointing you.  I did not intend it, and have only one thing
more to say--if you do not go immediately to the sea, will you
come to see us at Haworth?  This invitation is not mine only, but
papa's and aunt's."


However, a little more patience, a little more delay, and she
enjoyed the pleasure she had wished for so much.  She and her
friend went to Easton for a fortnight in the latter part of
September.  It was here she received her first impressions of the
sea.


"Oct. 24th.

"Have you forgotten the sea by this time, E.?  Is it grown dim in
your mind?  Or can you still see it, dark, blue, and green, and
foam-white, and hear it roaring roughly when the wind is high, or
rushing softly when it is calm? . . . I am as well as need be, and
very fat.  I think of Easton very often, and of worthy Mr. H., and
his kind-hearted helpmate, and of our pleasant walks to H- Wood,
and to Boynton, our merry evenings, our romps with little
Hancheon, &c., &c.  If we both live, this period of our lives will
long be a theme for pleasant recollection.  Did you chance, in
your letter to Mr. H., to mention my spectacles?  I am sadly
inconvenienced by the want of them.  I can neither read, write,
nor draw with comfort in their absence.  I hope Madame won't
refuse to give them up . . . Excuse the brevity of this letter,
for I have been drawing all day, and my eyes are so tired it is
quite a labour to write."


But, as the vivid remembrance of this pleasure died away, an
accident occurred to make the actual duties of life press somewhat
heavily for a time.


"December 21st, 1839

"We are at present, and have been during the last month, rather
busy, as, for that space of time, we have been without a servant,
except a little girl to run errands.  Poor Tabby became so lame
that she was at length obliged to leave us.  She is residing with
her sister, in a little house of her own, which she bought with
her savings a year or two since.  She is very comfortable, and
wants nothing; as she is near, we see her very often.  In the
meantime, Emily and I are sufficiently busy, as you may suppose:
I manage the ironing, and keep the rooms clean; Emily does the
baking, and attends to the kitchen.  We are such odd animals, that
we prefer this mode of contrivance to having a new face amongst
us.  Besides, we do not despair of Tabby's return, and she shall
not be supplanted by a stranger in her absence.  I excited aunt's
wrath very much by burning the clothes, the first time I attempted
to iron; but I do better now.  Human feelings are queer things; I
am much happier black-leading the stoves, making the beds, and
sweeping the floors at home, than I should be living like a fine
lady anywhere else.  I must indeed drop my subscription to the
Jews, because I have no money to keep it up.  I ought to have
announced this intention to you before, but I quite forgot I was a
subscriber.  I intend to force myself to take another situation
when I can get one, though I HATE and ABHOR the very thoughts of
governess-ship.  But I must do it; and, therefore, I heartily wish
I could hear of a family where they need such a commodity as a
governess."



CHAPTER IX



The year 1840 found all the Brontes living at home, except Anne.
As I have already intimated, for some reason with which I am
unacquainted, the plan of sending Branwell to study at the Royal
Academy had been relinquished; probably it was found, on inquiry,
that the expenses of such a life, were greater than his father's
slender finances could afford, even with the help which
Charlotte's labours at Miss W-'s gave, by providing for Anne's
board and education.  I gather from what I have heard, that
Branwell must have been severely disappointed when the plan fell
through.  His talents were certainly very brilliant, and of this
he was fully conscious, and fervently desired, by their use,
either in writing or drawing, to make himself a name.  At the same
time, he would probably have found his strong love of pleasure and
irregular habits a great impediment in his path to fame; but these
blemishes in his character were only additional reasons why he
yearned after a London life, in which he imagined he could obtain
every stimulant to his already vigorous intellect, while at the
same time he would have a license of action to be found only in
crowded cities.  Thus his whole nature was attracted towards the
metropolis; and many an hour must he have spent poring over the
map of London, to judge from an anecdote which has been told me.
Some traveller for a London house of business came to Haworth for
a night; and according to the unfortunate habit of the place, the
brilliant "Patrick" was sent for to the inn, to beguile the
evening by his intellectual conversation and his flashes of wit.
They began to talk of London; of the habits and ways of life
there; of the places of amusement; and Branwell informed the
Londoner of one or two short cuts from point to point, up narrow
lanes or back streets; and it was only towards the end of the
evening that the traveller discovered, from his companion's
voluntary confession, that he had never set foot in London at all.

At this time the young man seemed to have his fate in his own
hands.  He was full of noble impulses, as well as of extraordinary
gifts; not accustomed to resist temptation, it is true, from any
higher motive than strong family affection, but showing so much
power of attachment to all about him that they took pleasure in
believing that, after a time, he would "right himself," and that
they should have pride and delight in the use he would then make
of his splendid talents.  His aunt especially made him her great
favourite.  There are always peculiar trials in the life of an
only boy in a family of girls.  He is expected to act a part in
life; to DO, while they are only to BE; and the necessity of their
giving way to him in some things, is too often exaggerated into
their giving way to him in all, and thus rendering him utterly
selfish.  In the family about whom I am writing, while the rest
were almost ascetic in their habits, Branwell was allowed to grow
up self-indulgent; but, in early youth, his power of attracting
and attaching people was so great, that few came in contact with
him who were not so much dazzled by him as to be desirous of
gratifying whatever wishes he expressed.  Of course, he was
careful enough not to reveal anything before his father and
sisters of the pleasures he indulged in; but his tone of thought
and conversation became gradually coarser, and, for a time, his
sisters tried to persuade themselves that such coarseness was a
part of manliness, and to blind themselves by love to the fact
that Branwell was worse than other young men.  At present, though
he had, they were aware, fallen into some errors, the exact nature
of which they avoided knowing, still he was their hope and their
darling; their pride, who should some time bring great glory to
the name of Bronte.

He and his sister Charlotte were both slight and small of stature,
while the other two were of taller and larger make.  I have seen
Branwell's profile; it is what would be generally esteemed very
handsome; the forehead is massive, the eye well set, and the
expression of it fine and intellectual; the nose too is good; but
there are coarse lines about the mouth, and the lips, though of
handsome shape, are loose and thick, indicating self-indulgence,
while the slightly retreating chin conveys an idea of weakness of
will.  His hair and complexion were sandy.  He had enough of Irish
blood in him to make his manners frank and genial, with a kind of
natural gallantry about them.  In a fragment of one of his
manuscripts which I have read, there is a justness and felicity of
expression which is very striking.  It is the beginning of a tale,
and the actors in it are drawn with much of the grace of
characteristic portrait-painting, in perfectly pure and simple
language which distinguishes so many of Addison's papers in the
"Spectator."  The fragment is too short to afford the means of
judging whether he had much dramatic talent, as the persons of the
story are not thrown into conversation.  But altogether the
elegance and composure of style are such as one would not have
expected from this vehement and ill-fated young man.  He had a
stronger desire for literary fame burning in his heart, than even
that which occasionally flashed up in his sisters'.  He tried
various outlets for his talents.  He wrote and sent poems to
Wordsworth and Coleridge, who both expressed kind and laudatory
opinions, and he frequently contributed verses to the LEEDS
MERCURY.  In 1840, he was living at home, employing himself in
occasional composition of various kinds, and waiting till some
occupation, for which he might be fitted without any expensive
course of preliminary training, should turn up; waiting, not
impatiently; for he saw society of one kind (probably what he
called "life") at the Black Bull; and at home he was as yet the
cherished favourite.

Miss Branwell was unaware of the fermentation of unoccupied talent
going on around her.  She was not her nieces' confidante--perhaps
no one so much older could have been; but their father, from whom
they derived not a little of their adventurous spirit, was
silently cognisant of much of which she took no note.  Next to her
nephew, the docile, pensive Anne was her favourite.  Of her she
had taken charge from her infancy; she was always patient and
tractable, and would submit quietly to occasional oppression, even
when she felt it keenly.  Not so her two elder sisters; they made
their opinions known, when roused by any injustice.  At such
times, Emily would express herself as strongly as Charlotte,
although perhaps less frequently.  But, in general,
notwithstanding that Miss Branwell might be occasionally
unreasonable, she and her nieces went on smoothly enough; and
though they might now and then be annoyed by petty tyranny, she
still inspired them with sincere respect, and not a little
affection.  They were, moreover, grateful to her for many habits
she had enforced upon them, and which in time had become second
nature:  order, method, neatness in everything; a perfect
knowledge of all kinds of household work; an exact punctuality,
and obedience to the laws of time and place, of which no one but
themselves, I have heard Charlotte say, could tell the value in
after-life; with their impulsive natures, it was positive repose
to have learnt implicit obedience to external laws.  People in
Haworth have assured me that, according to the hour of day--nay,
the very minute--could they have told what the inhabitants of the
parsonage were about.  At certain times the girls would be sewing
in their aunt's bedroom--the chamber which, in former days, before
they had outstripped her in their learning, had served them as a
schoolroom; at certain (early) hours they had their meals; from
six to eight, Miss Branwell read aloud to Mr. Bronte; at punctual
eight, the household assembled to evening prayers in his study;
and by nine he, the aunt, and Tabby, were all in bed,--the girls
free to pace up and down (like restless wild animals) in the
parlour, talking over plans and projects, and thoughts of what was
to be their future life.

At the time of which I write, the favourite idea was that of
keeping a school.  They thought that, by a little contrivance, and
a very little additional building, a small number of pupils, four
or six, might be accommodated in the parsonage.  As teaching
seemed the only profession open to them, and as it appeared that
Emily at least could not live away from home, while the others
also suffered much from the same cause, this plan of school-
keeping presented itself as most desirable.  But it involved some
outlay; and to this their aunt was averse.  Yet there was no one
to whom they could apply for a loan of the requisite means, except
Miss Branwell, who had made a small store out of her savings,
which she intended for her nephew and nieces eventually, but which
she did not like to risk.  Still, this plan of school-keeping
remained uppermost; and in the evenings of this winter of 1839-40,
the alterations that would be necessary in the house, and the best
way of convincing their aunt of the wisdom of their project,
formed the principal subject of their conversation.

This anxiety weighed upon their minds rather heavily, during the
months of dark and dreary weather.  Nor were external events,
among the circle of their friends, of a cheerful character.  In
January, 1840, Charlotte heard of the death of a young girl who
had been a pupil of hers, and a schoolfellow of Anne's, at the
time when the sisters were together at Roe Head; and had attached
herself very strongly to the latter, who, in return, bestowed upon
her much quiet affection.  It was a sad day when the intelligence
of this young creature's death arrived.  Charlotte wrote thus on
January 12th, 1840:-


"Your letter, which I received this morning, was one of painful
interest.  Anne C., it seems, is DEAD; when I saw her last, she
was a young, beautiful, and happy girl; and now 'life's fitful
fever' is over with her, and she 'sleeps well.'  I shall never see
her again.  It is a sorrowful thought; for she was a warm-hearted,
affectionate being, and I cared for her.  Wherever I seek for her
now in this world, she cannot be found, no more than a flower or a
leaf which withered twenty years ago.  A bereavement of this kind
gives one a glimpse of the feeling those must have who have seen
all drop round them, friend after friend, and are left to end
their pilgrimage alone.  But tears are fruitless, and I try not to
repine."


During this winter, Charlotte employed her leisure hours in
writing a story.  Some fragments of the manuscript yet remain, but
it is in too small a hand to be read without great fatigue to the
eyes; and one cares the less to read it, as she herself condemned
it, in the preface to the "Professor," by saying that in this
story she had got over such taste as she might once have had for
the "ornamental and redundant in composition."  The beginning,
too, as she acknowledges, was on a scale commensurate with one of
Richardson's novels, of seven or eight volumes.  I gather some of
these particulars from a copy of a letter, apparently in reply to
one from Wordsworth, to whom she had sent the commencement of the
story, sometime in the summer of 1840.


"Authors are generally very tenacious of their productions, but I
am not so much attached to this but that I can give it up without
much distress.  No doubt, if I had gone on, I should have made
quite a Richardsonian concern of it . . . I had materials in my
head for half-a-dozen volumes . . . Of course, it is with
considerable regret I relinquish any scheme so charming as the one
I have sketched.  It is very edifying and profitable to create a
world out of your own brains, and people it with inhabitants, who
are so many Melchisedecs, and have no father nor mother but your
own imagination . . . I am sorry I did not exist fifty or sixty
years ago, when the 'Ladies' Magazine' was flourishing like a
green bay-tree.  In that case, I make no doubt, my aspirations
after literary fame would have met with due encouragement, and I
should have had the pleasure of introducing Messrs. Percy and West
into the very best society, and recording all their sayings and
doings in double-columned close-printed pages . . . I recollect,
when I was a child, getting hold of some antiquated volumes, and
reading them by stealth with the most exquisite pleasure.  You
give a correct description of the patient Grisels of those days.
My aunt was one of them; and to this day she thinks the tales of
the 'Ladies' Magazine' infinitely superior to any trash of modern
literature.  So do I; for I read them in childhood, and childhood
has a very strong faculty of admiration, but a very weak one of
criticism . . . I am pleased that you cannot quite decide whether
I am an attorney's clerk or a novel-reading dress-maker.  I will
not help you at all in the discovery; and as to my handwriting, or
the lady-like touches in my style and imagery, you must not draw
any conclusion from that--I may employ an amanuensis.  Seriously,
sir, I am very much obliged to you for your kind and candid
letter.  I almost wonder you took the trouble to read and notice
the novelette of an anonymous scribe, who had not even the manners
to tell you whether he was a man or a woman, or whether his 'C.
T.' meant Charles Timms or Charlotte Tomkins."


There are two or three things noticeable in the letter from which
these extracts are taken.  The first is the initials with which
she had evidently signed the former one to which she alludes.
About this time, to her more familiar correspondents, she
occasionally calls herself "Charles Thunder," making a kind of
pseudonym for herself out of her Christian name, and the meaning
of her Greek surname.  In the next place, there is a touch of
assumed smartness, very different from the simple, womanly,
dignified letter which she had written to Southey, under nearly
similar circumstances, three years before.  I imagine the cause of
this difference to be twofold.  Southey, in his reply to her first
letter, had appealed to the higher parts of her nature, in calling
her to consider whether literature was, or was not, the best
course for a woman to pursue.  But the person to whom she
addressed this one had evidently confined himself to purely
literary criticisms, besides which, her sense of humour was
tickled by the perplexity which her correspondent felt as to
whether he was addressing a man or a woman.  She rather wished to
encourage the former idea; and, in consequence, possibly, assumed
something of the flippancy which very probably existed in her
brother's style of conversation, from whom she would derive her
notions of young manhood, not likely, as far as refinement was
concerned, to be improved by the other specimens she had seen,
such as the curates whom she afterwards represented in "Shirley."

These curates were full of strong, High-Church feeling.
Belligerent by nature, it was well for their professional
character that they had, as clergymen, sufficient scope for the
exercise of their warlike propensities.  Mr. Bronte, with all his
warm regard for Church and State, had a great respect for mental
freedom; and, though he was the last man in the world to conceal
his opinions, he lived in perfect amity with all the respectable
part of those who differed from him.  Not so the curates.  Dissent
was schism, and schism was condemned in the Bible.  In default of
turbaned Saracens, they entered on a crusade against Methodists in
broadcloth; and the consequence was that the Methodists and
Baptists refused to pay the church-rates.  Miss Bronte thus
describes the state of things at this time:-


"Little Haworth has been all in a bustle about church-rates, since
you were here.  We had a stirring meeting in the schoolroom.  Papa
took the chair, and Mr. C. and Mr. W. acted as his supporters, one
on each side.  There was violent opposition, which set Mr. C.'s
Irish blood in a ferment, and if papa had not kept him quiet,
partly by persuasion and partly by compulsion, he would have given
the Dissenters their kale through the reek--a Scotch proverb,
which I will explain to you another time.  He and Mr. W. both
bottled up their wrath for that time, but it was only to explode
with redoubled force at a future period.  We had two sermons on
dissent, and its consequences, preached last Sunday--one in the
afternoon by Mr. W., and one in the evening by Mr. C.  All the
Dissenters were invited to come and hear, and they actually shut
up their chapels, and came in a body; of course the church was
crowded.  Mr. W. delivered a noble, eloquent, High-Church,
Apostolical-Succession discourse, in which he banged the
Dissenters most fearlessly and unflinchingly.  I thought they had
got enough for one while, but it was nothing to the dose that was
thrust down their throats in the evening.  A keener, cleverer,
bolder, and more heart-stirring harangue than that which Mr. C.
delivered from Haworth pulpit, last Sunday evening, I never heard.
He did not rant; he did not cant; he did not whine; he did not
sniggle; he just got up and spoke with the boldness of a man who
was impressed with the truth of what he was saying, who has no
fear of his enemies, and no dread of consequences.  His sermon
lasted an hour, yet I was sorry when it was done.  I do not say
that I agree either with him, or with Mr. W., either in all or in
half their opinions.  I consider them bigoted, intolerant, and
wholly unjustifiable on the ground of common sense.  My conscience
will not let me be either a Puseyite or a Hookist; MAIS, if I were
a Dissenter, I would have taken the first opportunity of kicking,
or of horse-whipping both the gentlemen for their stern, bitter
attack on my religion and its teachers.  But in spite of all this,
I admired the noble integrity which could dictate so fearless an
opposition against so strong an antagonist.

"P.S.--Mr. W. has given another lecture at the Keighley Mechanics'
Institution, and papa has also given a lecture; both are spoken of
very highly in the newspapers, and it is mentioned as a matter of
wonder that such displays of intellect should emanate from the
village of Haworth, 'situated among the bogs and mountains, and,
until very lately, supposed to be in a state of semi-barbarism.'
Such are the words of the newspaper."


To fill up the account of this outwardly eventless year, I may add
a few more extracts from the letters entrusted to me.


"May 15th, 1840.

"Do not be over-persuaded to marry a man you can never respect--I
do not say LOVE; because, I think, if you can respect a person
before marriage, moderate love at least will come after; and as to
intense PASSION, I am convinced that that is no desirable feeling.
In the first place, it seldom or never meets with a requital; and,
in the second place, if it did, the feeling would be only
temporary:  it would last the honeymoon, and then, perhaps, give
place to disgust, or indifference, worse, perhaps, than disgust.
Certainly this would be the case on the man's part; and on the
woman's--God help her, if she is left to love passionately and
alone.

"I am tolerably well convinced that I shall never marry at all.
Reason tells me so, and I am not so utterly the slave of feeling
but that I can OCCASIONALLY HEAR her voice."

"June 2nd, 1840.

"M. is not yet come to Haworth; but she is to come on the
condition that I first go and stay a few days there.  If all be
well, I shall go next Wednesday.  I may stay at G- until Friday or
Saturday, and the early part of the following week I shall pass
with you, if you will have me--which last sentence indeed is
nonsense, for as I shall be glad to see you, so I know you will be
glad to see me.  This arrangement will not allow much time, but it
is the only practicable one which, considering all the
circumstances, I can effect.  Do not urge me to stay more than two
or three days, because I shall be obliged to refuse you.  I intend
to walk to Keighley, there to take the coach as far as B-, then to
get some one to carry my box, and to walk the rest of the way to
G-.  If I manage this, I think I shall contrive very well.  I
shall reach B. by about five o'clock, and then I shall have the
cool of the evening for the walk.  I have communicated the whole
arrangement to M.  I desire exceedingly to see both her and you.
Good-bye.

C. B.
C. B.
C. B.
C. B.

"If you have any better plan to suggest I am open to conviction,
provided your plan is practicable."

"August 20th, 1840.

"Have you seen anything of Miss H. lately?  I wish they, or
somebody else, would get me a situation.  I have answered
advertisements without number, but my applications have met with
no success.

"I have got another bale of French books from G. containing
upwards of forty volumes.  I have read about half.  They are like
the rest, clever, wicked, sophistical, and immoral.  The best of
it is, they give one a thorough idea of France and Paris, and are
the best substitute for French conversation that I have met with.

"I positively have nothing more to say to you, for I am in a
stupid humour.  You must excuse this letter not being quite as
long as your own.  I have written to you soon, that you might not
look after the postman in vain.  Preserve this writing as a
curiosity in caligraphy--I think it is exquisite--all brilliant
black blots, and utterly illegible letters.  "CALIBAN."


"'The wind bloweth where it listeth.  Thou hearest the sound
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it
goeth.'  That, I believe, is Scripture, though in what chapter or
book, or whether it be correctly quoted, I can't possibly say.
However, it behoves me to write a letter to a young woman of the
name of E., with whom I was once acquainted, 'in life's morning
march, when my spirit was young.'  This young woman wished me to
write to her some time since, though I have nothing to say--I e'en
put it off, day by day, till at last, fearing that she will 'curse
me by her gods,' I feel constrained to sit down and tack a few
lines together, which she may call a letter or not as she pleases.
Now if the young woman expects sense in this production, she will
find herself miserably disappointed.  I shall dress her a dish of
salmagundi--I shall cook a hash--compound a stew--toss up an
OMELETTE SOUFFLEE E LA FRANCAISE, and send it her with my
respects.  The wind, which is very high up in our hills of Judea,
though, I suppose, down in the Philistine flats of B. parish it is
nothing to speak of, has produced the same effects on the contents
of my knowledge-box that a quaigh of usquebaugh does upon those of
most other bipeds.  I see everything COULEUR DE ROSE, and am
strongly inclined to dance a jig, if I knew how.  I think I must
partake of the nature of a pig or an ass--both which animals are
strongly affected by a high wind.  From what quarter the wind
blows I cannot tell, for I never could in my life; but I should
very much like to know how the great brewing-tub of Bridlington
Bay works, and what sort of yeasty froth rises just now on the
waves.

"A woman of the name of Mrs. B., it seems, wants a teacher.  I
wish she would have me; and I have written to Miss W. to tell her
so.  Verily, it is a delightful thing to live here at home, at
full liberty to do just what one pleases.  But I recollect some
scrubby old fable about grasshoppers and ants, by a scrubby old
knave yclept AEsop; the grasshoppers sang all the summer, and
starved all the winter.

"A distant relation of mine, one Patrick Branwell, has set off to
seek his fortune in the wild, wandering, adventurous, romantic,
knight-errant-like capacity of clerk on the Leeds and Manchester
Railroad.  Leeds and Manchester--where are they?  Cities in the
wilderness, like Tadmor, alias Palmyra--are they not?

"There is one little trait respecting Mr. W. which lately came to
my knowledge, which gives a glimpse of the better side of his
character.  Last Saturday night he had been sitting an hour in the
parlour with Papa; and, as he went away, I heard Papa say to him
'What is the matter with you?  You seem in very low spirits to-
night.'  'Oh, I don't know.  I've been to see a poor young girl,
who, I'm afraid, is dying.'  'Indeed; what is her name?'  'Susan
Bland, the daughter of John Bland, the superintendent.'  Now Susan
Bland is my oldest and best scholar in the Sunday-school; and,
when I heard that, I thought I would go as soon as I could to see
her.  I did go on Monday afternoon, and found her on her way to
that 'bourn whence no traveller returns.'  After sitting with her
some time, I happened to ask her mother, if she thought a little
port wine would do her good.  She replied that the doctor had
recommended it, and that when Mr. W. was last there, he had
brought them a bottle of wine and jar of preserves.  She added,
that he was always good-natured to poor folks, and seemed to have
a deal of feeling and kind-heartedness about him.  No doubt, there
are defects in his character, but there are also good qualities .
. . God bless him!  I wonder who, with his advantages, would be
without his faults.  I know many of his faulty actions, many of
his weak points; yet, where I am, he shall always find rather a
defender than an accuser.  To be sure, my opinion will go but a
very little way to decide his character; what of that?  People
should do right as far as their ability extends.  You are not to
suppose, from all this, that Mr. W. and I are on very amiable
terms; we are not at all.  We are distant, cold, and reserved.  We
seldom speak; and when we do, it is only to exchange the most
trivial and common-place remarks."


The Mrs. B. alluded to in this letter, as in want of a governess,
entered into a correspondence with Miss Bronte, and expressed
herself much pleased with the letters she received from her, with
the "style and candour of the application," in which Charlotte had
taken care to tell her, that if she wanted a showy, elegant, or
fashionable person, her correspondent was not fitted for such a
situation.  But Mrs. B. required her governess to give
instructions in music and singing, for which Charlotte was not
qualified:  and, accordingly, the negotiation fell through.  But
Miss Bronte was not one to sit down in despair after
disappointment.  Much as she disliked the life of a private
governess, it was her duty to relieve her father of the burden of
her support, and this was the only way open to her.  So she set to
advertising and inquiring with fresh vigour.

In the meantime, a little occurrence took place, described in one
of her letters, which I shall give, as it shows her instinctive
aversion to a particular class of men, whose vices some have
supposed she looked upon with indulgence.  The extract tells all
that need be known, for the purpose I have in view, of the
miserable pair to whom it relates.


"You remember Mr. and Mrs. -?  Mrs.--came here the other day, with
a most melancholy tale of her wretched husband's drunken,
extravagant, profligate habits.  She asked Papa's advice; there
was nothing she said but ruin before them.  They owed debts which
they could never pay.  She expected Mr. -'s instant dismissal from
his curacy; she knew, from bitter experience, that his vices were
utterly hopeless.  He treated her and her child savagely; with
much more to the same effect.  Papa advised her to leave him for
ever, and go home, if she had a home to go to.  She said, this was
what she had long resolved to do; and she would leave him
directly, as soon as Mr. B. dismissed him.  She expressed great
disgust and contempt towards him, and did not affect to have the
shadow of regard in any way.  I do not wonder at this, but I do
wonder she should ever marry a man towards whom her feelings must
always have been pretty much the same as they are now.  I am
morally certain no decent woman could experience anything but
aversion towards such a man as Mr. -.  Before I knew, or suspected
his character, and when I rather wondered at his versatile
talents, I felt it in an uncontrollable degree.  I hated to talk
with him--hated to look at him; though as I was not certain that
there was substantial reason for such a dislike, and thought it
absurd to trust to mere instinct, I both concealed and repressed
the feeling as much as I could; and, on all occasions, treated him
with as much civility as I was mistress of.  I was struck with
Mary's expression of a similar feeling at first sight; she said,
when we left him, 'That is a hideous man, Charlotte!'  I thought
'He is indeed.'"



CHAPTER X



Early in March, 1841, Miss Bronte obtained her second and last
situation as a governess.  This time she esteemed herself
fortunate in becoming a member of a kind-hearted and friendly
household.  The master of it, she especially regarded as a
valuable friend, whose advice helped to guide her in one very
important step of her life.  But as her definite acquirements were
few, she had to eke them out by employing her leisure time in
needlework; and altogether her position was that of "bonne" or
nursery governess, liable to repeated and never-ending calls upon
her time.  This description of uncertain, yet perpetual
employment, subject to the exercise of another person's will at
all hours of the day, was peculiarly trying to one whose life at
home had been full of abundant leisure.  IDLE she never was in any
place, but of the multitude of small talks, plans, duties,
pleasures, &c., that make up most people's days, her home life was
nearly destitute.  This made it possible for her to go through
long and deep histories of feeling and imagination, for which
others, odd as it sounds, have rarely time.  This made it
inevitable that--later on, in her too short career--the intensity
of her feeling should wear out her physical health.  The habit of
"making out," which had grown with her growth, and strengthened
with her strength, had become a part of her nature.  Yet all
exercise of her strongest and most characteristic faculties was
now out of the question.  She could not (as while she was at Miss
W-'s) feel, amidst the occupations of the day, that when evening
came, she might employ herself in more congenial ways.  No doubt,
all who enter upon the career of a governess have to relinquish
much; no doubt, it must ever be a life of sacrifice; but to
Charlotte Bronte it was a perpetual attempt to force all her
faculties into a direction for which the whole of her previous
life had unfitted them.  Moreover, the little Brontes had been
brought up motherless; and from knowing nothing of the gaiety and
the sportiveness of childhood--from never having experienced
caresses or fond attentions themselves--they were ignorant of the
very nature of infancy, or how to call out its engaging qualities.
Children were to them the troublesome necessities of humanity;
they had never been drawn into contact with them in any other way.
Years afterwards, when Miss Bronte came to stay with us, she
watched our little girls perpetually; and I could not persuade her
that they were only average specimens of well brought up children.
She was surprised and touched by any sign of thoughtfulness for
others, of kindness to animals, or of unselfishness on their part:
and constantly maintained that she was in the right, and I in the
wrong, when we differed on the point of their unusual excellence.
All this must be borne in mind while reading the following
letters.  And it must likewise be borne in mind--by those who,
surviving her, look back upon her life from their mount of
observation--how no distaste, no suffering ever made her shrink
from any course which she believed it to be her duty to engage in.


"March 3rd, 1841.

"I told some time since, that I meant to get a situation, and when
I said so my resolution was quite fixed.  I felt that however
often I was disappointed, I had no intention of relinquishing my
efforts.  After being severely baffled two or three times,--after
a world of trouble, in the way of correspondence and interviews,--
I have at length succeeded, and am fairly established in my new
place.

* * *

"The house is not very large, but exceedingly comfortable and well
regulated; the grounds are fine and extensive.  In taking the
place, I have made a large sacrifice in the way of salary, in the
hope of securing comfort,--by which word I do not mean to express
good eating and drinking, or warm fire, or a soft bed, but the
society of cheerful faces, and minds and hearts not dug out of a
lead-mine, or cut from a marble quarry.  My salary is not really
more than 16L. per annum, though it is nominally 20L., but the
expense of washing will be deducted therefrom.  My pupils are two
in number, a girl of eight, and a boy of six.  As to my employers,
you will not expect me to say much about their characters when I
tell you that I only arrived here yesterday.  I have not the
faculty of telling an individual's disposition at first sight.
Before I can venture to pronounce on a character, I must see it
first under various lights and from various points of view.  All I
can say therefore is, both Mr. and Mrs.--seem to me good sort of
people.  I have as yet had no cause to complain of want of
considerateness or civility.  My pupils are wild and unbroken, but
apparently well-disposed.  I wish I may be able to say as much
next time I write to you.  My earnest wish and endeavour will be
to please them.  If I can but feel that I am giving satisfaction,
and if at the same time I can keep my health, I shall, I hope, be
moderately happy.  But no one but myself can tell how hard a
governess's work is to me--for no one but myself is aware how
utterly averse my whole mind and nature are for the employment.
Do not think that I fail to blame myself for this, or that I leave
any means unemployed to conquer this feeling.  Some of my greatest
difficulties lie in things that would appear to you comparatively
trivial.  I find it so hard to repel the rude familiarity of
children.  I find it so difficult to ask either servants or
mistress for anything I want, however much I want it.  It is less
pain for me to endure the greatest inconvenience than to go into
the kitchen to request its removal.  I am a fool.  Heaven knows I
cannot help it!

"Now can you tell me whether it is considered improper for
governesses to ask their friends to come and see them.  I do not
mean, of course, to stay, but just for a call of an hour or two?
If it is not absolute treason, I do fervently request that you
will contrive, in some way or other, to let me have a sight of
your face.  Yet I feel, at the same time, that I am making a very
foolish and almost impracticable demand; yet this is only four
miles from B- !"

"March 21st.

"You must excuse a very short answer to your most welcome letter;
for my time is entirely occupied.  Mrs.--expected a good deal of
sewing from me.  I cannot sew much during the day, on account of
the children, who require the utmost attention.  I am obliged,
therefore, to devote the evenings to this business.  Write to me
often; very long letters.  It will do both of us good.  This place
is far better than -, but God knows, I have enough to do to keep a
good heart in the matter.  What you said has cheered me a little.
I wish I could always act according to your advice.  Home-sickness
affects me sorely.  I like Mr.--extremely.  The children are over-
indulged, and consequently hard at times to manage.  DO, DO, do
come and see me; if it be a breach of etiquette, never mind.  If
you can only stop an hour, come.  Talk no more about my forsaking
you; my darling, I could not afford to do it.  I find it is not in
my nature to get on in this weary world without sympathy and
attachment in some quarter; and seldom indeed do we find it.  It
is too great a treasure to be ever wantonly thrown away when once
secured."


Miss Bronte had not been many weeks in her new situation before
she had a proof of the kind-hearted hospitality of her employers.
Mr.--wrote to her father, and urgently invited him to come and
make acquaintance with his daughter's new home, by spending a week
with her in it; and Mrs.--expressed great regret when one of Miss
Bronte's friends drove up to the house to leave a letter or
parcel, without entering.  So she found that all her friends might
freely visit her, and that her father would be received with
especial gladness.  She thankfully acknowledged this kindness in
writing to urge her friend afresh to come and see her; which she
accordingly did.


"June, 1841.

"You can hardly fancy it possible, I dare say, that I cannot find
a quarter of an hour to scribble a note in; but so it is; and when
a note is written, it has to be carried a mile to the post, and
that consumes nearly an hour, which is a large portion of the day.
Mr. and Mrs.--have been gone a week.  I heard from them this
morning.  No time is fixed for their return, but I hope it will
not be delayed long, or I shall miss the chance of seeing Anne
this vacation.  She came home, I understand, last Wednesday, and
is only to be allowed three weeks' vacation, because the family
she is with are going to Scarborough.  I SHOULD LIKE TO SEE HER,
to judge for myself of the state of her health.  I dare not trust
any other person's report, no one seems minute enough in their
observations.  I should very much have liked you to have seen her.
I have got on very well with the servants and children so far; yet
it is dreary, solitary work.  You can tell as well as me the
lonely feeling of being without a companion."


Soon after this was written, Mr. and Mrs.--returned, in time to
allow Charlotte to go and look after Anne's health, which, as she
found to her intense anxiety, was far from strong.  What could she
do to nurse and cherish up this little sister, the youngest of
them all?  Apprehension about her brought up once more the idea of
keeping a school.  If, by this means, they three could live
together, and maintain themselves, all might go well.  They would
have some time of their own, in which to try again and yet again
at that literary career, which, in spite of all baffling
difficulties, was never quite set aside as an ultimate object; but
far the strongest motive with Charlotte was the conviction that
Anne's health was so delicate that it required a degree of tending
which none but her sister could give.  Thus she wrote during those
midsummer holidays.


"Haworth, July 18th, 1841.

"We waited long and anxiously for you, on the Thursday that you
promised to come.  I quite wearied my eyes with watching from the
window, eye-glass in hand, and sometimes spectacles on nose.
However, you are not to blame . . . and as to disappointment, why,
all must suffer disappointment at some period or other of their
lives.  But a hundred things I had to say to you will now be
forgotten, and never said.  There is a project hatching in this
house, which both Emily and I anxiously wished to discuss with
you.  The project is yet in its infancy, hardly peeping from its
shell; and whether it will ever come out a fine full-fledged
chicken, or will turn addle and die before it cheeps, is one of
those considerations that are but dimly revealed by the oracles of
futurity.  Now, don't be nonplussed by all this metaphorical
mystery.  I talk of a plain and everyday occurrence, though, in
Delphic style, I wrap up the information in figures of speech
concerning eggs, chickens etceatera, etcaeterorum.  To come to the
point:  Papa and aunt talk, by fits and starts, of our--id est,
Emily, Anne, and myself--commencing a school!  I have often, you
know, said how much I wished such a thing; but I never could
conceive where the capital was to come from for making such a
speculation.  I was well aware, indeed, that aunt had money, but I
always considered that she was the last person who would offer a
loan for the purpose in question.  A loan, however, she HAS
offered, or rather intimates that she perhaps WILL offer in case
pupils can be secured, an eligible situation obtained, &c.  This
sounds very fair, but still there are matters to be considered
which throw something of a damp upon the scheme.  I do not expect
that aunt will sink more than 150L. in such a venture; and would
it be possible to establish a respectable (not by any means a
SHOWY) school, and to commence housekeeping with a capital of only
that amount?  Propound the question to your sister, if you think
she can answer it; if not, don't say a word on the subject.  As to
getting into debt, that is a thing we could none of us reconcile
our mind to for a moment.  We do not care how modest, how humble
our commencement be, so it be made on sure grounds, and have a
safe foundation.  In thinking of all possible and impossible
places where we could establish a school, I have thought of
Burlington, or rather of the neighbourhood of Burlington.  Do you
remember whether there was any other school there besides that of
Miss -?  This is, of course, a perfectly crude and random idea.
There are a hundred reasons why it should be an impracticable one.
We have no connections, no acquaintances there; it is far from
home, &c.  Still, I fancy the ground in the East Riding is less
fully occupied than in the West.  Much inquiry and consideration
will be necessary, of course, before any place is decided on; and
I fear much time will elapse before any plan is executed . . .
Write as soon as you can.  I shall not leave my present situation
till my future prospects assume a more fixed and definite aspect."

A fortnight afterwards, we see that the seed has been sown which
was to grow up into a plan materially influencing her future life.


"August 7th, 1841.

"This is Saturday evening; I have put the children to bed; now I
am going to sit down and answer your letter.  I am again by
myself--housekeeper and governess--for Mr. and Mrs.--are staying
at -.  To speak truth, though I am solitary while they are away,
it is still by far the happiest part of my time.  The children are
under decent control, the servants are very observant and
attentive to me, and the occasional absence of the master and
mistress relieves me from the duty of always endeavouring to seem
cheerful and conversable.  Martha -, it appears, is in the way of
enjoying great advantages; so is Mary, for you will be surprised
to hear that she is returning immediately to the Continent with
her brother; not, however, to stay there, but to take a month's
tour and recreation.  I have had a long letter from Mary, and a
packet containing a present of a very handsome black silk scarf,
and a pair of beautiful kid gloves, bought at Brussels.  Of
course, I was in one sense pleased with the gift--pleased that
they should think of me so far off, amidst the excitements of one
of the most splendid capitals of Europe; and yet it felt irksome
to accept it.  I should think Mary and Martha have not more than
sufficient pocket-money to supply themselves.  I wish they had
testified their regard by a less expensive token.  Mary's letters
spoke of some of the pictures and cathedrals she had seen--
pictures the most exquisite, cathedrals the most venerable.  I
hardly know what swelled to my throat as I read her letter:  such
a vehement impatience of restraint and steady work; such a strong
wish for wings--wings such as wealth can furnish; such an urgent
thirst to see, to know, to learn; something internal seemed to
expand bodily for a minute.  I was tantalised by the consciousness
of faculties unexercised,--then all collapsed, and I despaired.
My dear, I would hardly make that confession to any one but
yourself; and to you, rather in a letter than VIVA VOCE.  These
rebellious and absurd emotions were only momentary; I quelled them
in five minutes.  I hope they will not revive, for they were
acutely painful.  No further steps have been taken about the
project I mentioned to you, nor probably will be for the present;
but Emily, and Anne, and I, keep it in view.  It is our polar
star, and we look to it in all circumstances of despondency.  I
begin to suspect I am writing in a strain which will make you
think I am unhappy.  This is far from being the case; on the
contrary, I know my place is a favourable one, for a governess.
What dismays and haunts me sometimes, is a conviction that I have
no natural knack for my vocation.  If teaching only were
requisite, it would be smooth and easy; but it is the living in
other people's houses--the estrangement from one's real character-
-the adoption of a cold, rigid, apathetic exterior, that is
painful . . . You will not mention our school project at present.
A project not actually commenced is always uncertain.  Write to me
often, my dear Nell; you KNOW your letters are valued.  Your
'loving child' (as you choose to call me so),

C. B.

"P.S.  I am well in health; don't fancy I am not, but I have one
aching feeling at my heart (I must allude to it, though I had
resolved not to).  It is about Anne; she has so much to endure:
far, far more than I ever had.  When my thoughts turn to her, they
always see her as a patient, persecuted stranger.  I know what
concealed susceptibility is in her nature, when her feelings are
wounded.  I wish I could be with her, to administer a little balm.
She is more lonely--less gifted with the power of making friends,
even than I am.  'Drop the subject.'"

She could bear much for herself; but she could not patiently bear
the sorrows of others, especially of her sisters; and again, of
the two sisters, the idea of the little, gentle, youngest
suffering in lonely patience, was insupportable to her.  Something
must be done.  No matter if the desired end were far away; all
time was lost in which she was not making progress, however slow,
towards it.  To have a school, was to have some portion of daily
leisure, uncontrolled but by her own sense of duty; it was for the
three sisters, loving each other with so passionate an affection,
to be together under one roof, and yet earning their own
subsistence; above all, it was to have the power of watching over
these two whose life and happiness were ever to Charlotte far more
than her own.  But no trembling impatience should lead her to take
an unwise step in haste.  She inquired in every direction she
could, as to the chances which a new school might have of success.
In all there seemed more establishments like the one which the
sisters wished to set up than could be supported.  What was to be
done?  Superior advantages must be offered.  But how?  They
themselves abounded in thought, power, and information; but these
are qualifications scarcely fit to be inserted in a prospectus.
Of French they knew something; enough to read it fluently, but
hardly enough to teach it in competition with natives or
professional masters.  Emily and Anne had some knowledge of music;
but here again it was doubtful whether, without more instruction,
they could engage to give lessons in it.

Just about this time, Miss W- was thinking of relinquishing her
school at Dewsbury Moor; and offered to give it up in favour of
her old pupils, the Brontes.  A sister of hers had taken the
active management since the time when Charlotte was a teacher; but
the number of pupils had diminished; and, if the Brontes undertook
it, they would have to try and work it up to its former state of
prosperity.  This, again, would require advantages on their part
which they did not at present possess, but which Charlotte caught
a glimpse of.  She resolved to follow the clue, and never to rest
till she had reached a successful issue.  With the forced calm of
a suppressed eagerness, that sends a glow of desire through every
word of the following letter, she wrote to her aunt thus.


"Dear Aunt,

"Sept. 29th, 1841.

"I have heard nothing of Miss W- yet since I wrote to her,
intimating that I would accept her offer.  I cannot conjecture the
reason of this long silence, unless some unforeseen impediment has
occurred in concluding the bargain.  Meantime, a plan has been
suggested and approved by Mr. and Mrs.--" (the father and mother
of her pupils) "and others, which I wish now to impart to you.  My
friends recommend me, if I desire to secure permanent success, to
delay commencing the school for six months longer, and by all
means to contrive, by hook or by crook, to spend the intervening
time in some school on the continent.  They say schools in England
are so numerous, competition so great, that without some such step
towards attaining superiority, we shall probably have a very hard
struggle, and may fail in the end.  They say, moreover, that the
loan of 100L., which you have been so kind as to offer us, will,
perhaps, not be all required now, as Miss W- will lend us the
furniture; and that, if the speculation is intended to be a good
and successful one, half the sum, at least, ought to be laid out
in the manner I have mentioned, thereby insuring a more speedy
repayment both of interest and principal.

"I would not go to France or to Paris.  I would go to Brussels, in
Belgium.  The cost of the journey there, at the dearest rate of
travelling, would be 5L.; living is there little more than half as
dear as it is in England, and the facilities for education are
equal or superior to any other place in Europe.  In half a year, I
could acquire a thorough familiarity with French.  I could improve
greatly in Italian, and even get a dash of German, i.e., providing
my health continued as good as it is now.  Mary is now staying at
Brussels, at a first-rate establishment there.  I should not think
of going to the Chateau de Kokleberg, where she is resident, as
the terms are much too high; but if I wrote to her, she, with the
assistance of Mrs. Jenkins, the wife of the British Chaplain,
would be able to secure me a cheap, decent residence and
respectable protection.  I should have the opportunity of seeing
her frequently; she would make me acquainted with the city; and,
with the assistance of her cousins, I should probably be
introduced to connections far more improving, polished, and
cultivated, than any I have yet known.

"These are advantages which would turn to real account, when we
actually commenced a school; and, if Emily could share them with
me, we could take a footing in the world afterwards which we can
never do now.  I say Emily instead of Anne; for Anne might take
her turn at some future period, if our school answered.  I feel
certain, while I am writing, that you will see the propriety of
what I say.  You always like to use your money to the best
advantage.  You are not fond of making shabby purchases; when you
do confer a favour, it is often done in style; and depend upon it,
50L., or 100L., thus laid out, would be well employed.  Of course,
I know no other friend in the world to whom I could apply on this
subject except yourself.  I feel an absolute conviction that, if
this advantage were allowed us, it would be the making of us for
life.  Papa will, perhaps, think it a wild and ambitious scheme;
but who ever rose in the world without ambition?  When he left
Ireland to go to Cambridge University, he was as ambitious as I am
now.  I want us ALL to get on.  I know we have talents, and I want
them to be turned to account.  I look to you, aunt, to help us.  I
think you will not refuse.  I know, if you consent, it shall not
be my fault if you ever repent your kindness."


This letter was written from the house in which she was residing
as governess.  It was some little time before an answer came.
Much had to be talked over between the father and aunt in Haworth
Parsonage.  At last consent was given.  Then, and not till then,
she confided her plan to an intimate friend.  She was not one to
talk over-much about any project, while it remained uncertain--to
speak about her labour, in any direction, while its result was
doubtful.


"Nov. 2nd, 1841.

"Now let us begin to quarrel.  In the first place, I must consider
whether I will commence operations on the defensive, or the
offensive.  The defensive, I think.  You say, and I see plainly,
that your feelings have been hurt by an apparent want of
confidence on my part.  You heard from others of Miss W-'s
overtures before I communicated them to you myself.  This is true.
I was deliberating on plans important to my future prospects.  I
never exchanged a letter with you on the subject.  True again.
This appears strange conduct to a friend, near and dear, long-
known, and never found wanting.  Most true.  I cannot give you my
EXCUSES for this behaviour; this word EXCUSE implies confession of
a fault, and I do not feel that I have been in fault.  The plain
fact is, I WAS not, I am not now, certain of my destiny.  On the
contrary, I have been most uncertain, perplexed with contradictory
schemes and proposals.  My time, as I have often told you, is
fully occupied; yet I had many letters to write, which it was
absolutely necessary should be written.  I knew it would avail
nothing to write to you then to say I was in doubt and
uncertainty--hoping this, fearing that, anxious, eagerly desirous
to do what seemed impossible to be done.  When I thought of you in
that busy interval, it was to resolve, that you should know all
when my way was clear, and my grand end attained.  If I could, I
would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be
known by their results.  Miss W- did most kindly propose that I
should come to Dewsbury Moor and attempt to revive the school her
sister had relinquished.  She offered me the use of her furniture.
At first, I received the proposal cordially, and prepared to do my
utmost to bring about success; but a fire was kindled in my very
heart, which I could not quench.  I so longed to increase my
attainments--to become something better than I am; a glimpse of
what I felt, I showed to you in one of my former letters--only a
glimpse; Mary cast oil upon the flames--encouraged me, and in her
own strong, energetic language, heartened me on.  I longed to go
to Brussels; but how could I get there?  I wished for one, at
least, of my sisters to share the advantage with me.  I fixed on
Emily.  She deserved the reward, I knew.  How could the point be
managed?  In extreme excitement, I wrote a letter home, which
carried the day.  I made an appeal to aunt for assistance, which
was answered by consent.  Things are not settled; yet it is
sufficient to say we have a CHANCE of going for half a year.
Dewsbury Moor is relinquished.  Perhaps, fortunately so.  In my
secret soul, I believe there is no cause to regret it.  My plans
for the future are bounded to this intention:  if I once get to
Brussels, and if my health is spared, I will do my best to make
the utmost of every advantage that shall come within my reach.
When the half-year is expired, I will do what I can.

* * *

"Believe me, though I was born in April, the month of cloud and
sunshine, I am not changeful.  My spirits are unequal, and
sometimes I speak vehemently, and sometimes I say nothing at all;
but I have a steady regard for you, and if you will let the cloud
and shower pass by, be sure the sun is always behind, obscured,
but still existing."


At Christmas she left her situation, after a parting with her
employers which seems to have affected and touched her greatly.
"They only made too much of me," was her remark, after leaving
this family; "I did not deserve it."


All four children hoped to meet together at their father's house
this December.  Branwell expected to have a short leave of absence
from his employment as a clerk on the Leeds and Manchester
Railway, in which he had been engaged for five months.  Anne
arrived before Christmas-day.  She had rendered herself so
valuable in her difficult situation, that her employers vehemently
urged her to return, although she had announced her resolution to
leave them; partly on account of the harsh treatment she had
received, and partly because her stay at home, during her sisters'
absence in Belgium, seemed desirable, when the age of the three
remaining inhabitants of the parsonage was taken into
consideration.

After some correspondence and much talking over plans at home, it
seemed better, in consequence of letters which they received from
Brussels giving a discouraging account of the schools there, that
Charlotte and Emily should go to an institution at Lille, in the
north of France, which was highly recommended by Baptist Noel, and
other clergymen.  Indeed, at the end of January, it was arranged
that they were to set off for this place in three weeks, under the
escort of a French lady, then visiting in London.  The terms were
50L. each pupil, for board and French alone, but a separate room
was to be allowed for this sum; without this indulgence, it was
lower.  Charlotte writes:-


"January 20th, 1842.

"I consider it kind in aunt to consent to an extra sum for a
separate room.  We shall find it a great privilege in many ways.
I regret the change from Brussels to Lille on many accounts,
chiefly that I shall not see Martha.  Mary has been indefatigably
kind in providing me with information.  She has grudged no labour,
and scarcely any expense, to that end.  Mary's price is above
rubies.  I have, in fact, two friends--you and her--staunch and
true, in whose faith and sincerity I have as strong a belief as I
have in the Bible.  I have bothered you both--you especially; but
you always get the tongs and heap coals of fire upon my head.  I
have had letters to write lately to Brussels, to Lille, and to
London.  I have lots of chemises, nightgowns, pocket-
handkerchiefs, and pockets to make; besides clothes to repair.  I
have been, every week since I came home, expecting to see
Branwell, and he has never been able to get over yet.  We fully
expect him, however, next Saturday.  Under these circumstances how
can I go visiting?  You tantalize me to death with talking of
conversations by the fireside.  Depend upon it, we are not to have
any such for many a long month to come.  I get an interesting
impression of old age upon my face; and when you see me next I
shall certainly wear caps and spectacles."



CHAPTER XI



I am not aware of all the circumstances which led to the
relinquishment of the Lille plan.  Brussels had had from the first
a strong attraction for Charlotte; and the idea of going there, in
preference to any other place, had only been given up in
consequence of the information received of the second-rate
character of its schools.  In one of her letters reference has
been made to Mrs. Jenkins, the wife of the chaplain of the British
Embassy.  At the request of his brother--a clergyman, living not
many miles from Haworth, and an acquaintance of Mr. Bronte's--she
made much inquiry, and at length, after some discouragement in her
search, heard of a school which seemed in every respect desirable.
There was an English lady who had long lived in the Orleans
family, amidst the various fluctuations of their fortunes, and
who, when the Princess Louise was married to King Leopold,
accompanied her to Brussels, in the capacity of reader.  This
lady's granddaughter was receiving her education at the pensionnat
of Madame Heger; and so satisfied was the grandmother with the
kind of instruction given, that she named the establishment, with
high encomiums, to Mrs. Jerkins; and, in consequence, it was
decided that, if the terms suited, Miss Bronte and Emily should
proceed thither.  M. Heger informs me that, on receipt of a letter
from Charlotte, making very particular inquiries as to the
possible amount of what are usually termed "extras," he and his
wife were so much struck by the simple earnest tone of the letter,
that they said to each other:- "These are the daughters of an
English pastor, of moderate means, anxious to learn with an
ulterior view of instructing others, and to whom the risk of
additional expense is of great consequence.  Let us name a
specific sum, within which all expenses shall be included."

This was accordingly done; the agreement was concluded, and the
Brontes prepared to leave their native county for the first time,
if we except the melancholy and memorable residence at Cowan
Bridge.  Mr. Bronte determined to accompany his daughters.  Mary
and her brother, who were experienced in foreign travelling, were
also of the party.  Charlotte first saw London in the day or two
they now stopped there; and, from an expression in one of her
subsequent letters, they all, I believe, stayed at the Chapter
Coffee House, Paternoster Row--a strange, old-fashioned tavern, of
which I shall have more to say hereafter.

Mary's account of their journey is thus given.

"In passing through London, she seemed to think our business was
and ought to be, to see all the pictures and statues we could.
She knew the artists, and know where other productions of theirs
were to be found.  I don't remember what we saw except St. Paul's.
Emily was like her in these habits of mind, but certainly never
took her opinion, but always had one to offer . . . I don't know
what Charlotte thought of Brussels.  We arrived in the dark, and
went next morning to our respective schools to see them.  We were,
of course, much preoccupied, and our prospects gloomy.  Charlotte
used to like the country round Brussels.  'At the top of every
hill you see something.'  She took, long solitary walks on the
occasional holidays."

Mr. Bronte took his daughters to the Rue d'Isabelle, Brussels;
remained one night at Mr. Jenkins'; and straight returned to his
wild Yorkshire village.

What a contrast to that must the Belgian capital have presented to
those two young women thus left behind!  Suffering acutely from
every strange and unaccustomed contact--far away from their
beloved home, and the dear moors beyond--their indomitable will
was their great support.  Charlotte's own words, with regard to
Emily, are:-


"After the age of twenty, having meantime studied alone with
diligence and perseverance, she went with me to an establishment
on the continent.  The same suffering and conflict ensued,
heightened by the strong recoil of her upright heretic and English
spirit from the gentle Jesuitry of the foreign and Romish system.
Once more she seemed sinking, but this time she rallied through
the mere force of resolution:  with inward remorse and shame she
looked back on her former failure, and resolved to conquer, but
the victory cost her dear.  She was never happy till she carried
her hard-won knowledge back to the remote English village, the old
parsonage-house, and desolate Yorkshire hills."


They wanted learning.  They came for learning.  They would learn.
Where they had a distinct purpose to be achieved in intercourse
with their fellows, they forgot themselves; at all other times
they were miserably shy.  Mrs. Jenkins told me that she used to
ask them to spend Sundays and holidays with her, until she found
that they felt more pain than pleasure from such visits.  Emily
hardly ever uttered more than a monosyllable.  Charlotte was
sometimes excited sufficiently to speak eloquently and well--on
certain subjects; but before her tongue was thus loosened, she had
a habit of gradually wheeling round on her chair, so as almost to
conceal her face from the person to whom she was speaking.

And yet there was much in Brussels to strike a responsive chord in
her powerful imagination.  At length she was seeing somewhat of
that grand old world of which she had dreamed.  As the gay crowds
passed by her, so had gay crowds paced those streets for
centuries, in all their varying costumes.  Every spot told an
historic tale, extending back into the fabulous ages when Jan and
Jannika, the aboriginal giant and giantess, looked over the wall,
forty feet high, of what is now the Rue Villa Hermosa, and peered
down upon the new settlers who were to turn them out of the
country in which they had lived since the deluge.  The great
solemn Cathedral of St. Gudule, the religious paintings, the
striking forms and ceremonies of the Romish Church--all made a
deep impression on the girls, fresh from the bare walls and simple
worship of Haworth Church.  And then they were indignant with
themselves for having been susceptible of this impression, and
their stout Protestant hearts arrayed themselves against the false
Duessa that had thus imposed upon them.

The very building they occupied as pupils, in Madame Heger's
pensionnat, had its own ghostly train of splendid associations,
marching for ever, in shadowy procession, through and through the
ancient rooms, and shaded alleys of the gardens.  From the
splendour of to-day in the Rue Royale, if you turn aside, near the
statue of the General Beliard, you look down four flights of broad
stone steps upon the Rue d'Isabelle.  The chimneys of the houses
in it are below your feet.  Opposite to the lowest flight of
steps, there is a large old mansion facing you, with a spacious
walled garden behind--and to the right of it.  In front of this
garden, on the same side as the mansion, and with great boughs of
trees sweeping over their lowly roofs, is a row of small,
picturesque, old-fashioned cottages, not unlike, in degree and
uniformity, to the almshouses so often seen in an English country
town.  The Rue d'Isabelle looks as though it had been untouched by
the innovations of the builder for the last three centuries; and
yet any one might drop a stone into it from the back windows of
the grand modern hotels in the Rue Royale, built and furnished in
the newest Parisian fashion.

In the thirteenth century, the Rue d'Isabelle was called the
Fosse-aux-Chiens; and the kennels for the ducal hounds occupied
the place where Madame Heger's pensionnat now stands.  A hospital
(in the ancient large meaning of the word) succeeded to the
kennel.  The houseless and the poor, perhaps the leprous, were
received, by the brethren of a religious order, in a building on
this sheltered site; and what had been a fosse for defence, was
filled up with herb-gardens and orchards for upwards of a hundred
years.  Then came the aristocratic guild of the cross-bow men--
that company the members whereof were required to prove their
noble descent--untainted for so many generations, before they
could be admitted into the guild; and, being admitted, were
required to swear a solemn oath, that no other pastime or exercise
should take up any part of their leisure, the whole of which was
to be devoted to the practice of the noble art of shooting with
the cross-bow.  Once a year a grand match was held, under the
patronage of some saint, to whose church-steeple was affixed the
bird, or semblance of a bird, to be hit by the victor. {5}  The
conqueror in the game was Roi des Arbaletriers for the coming
year, and received a jewelled decoration accordingly, which he was
entitled to wear for twelve months; after which he restored it to
the guild, to be again striven for.  The family of him who died
during the year that he was king, were bound to present the
decoration to the church of the patron saint of the guild, and to
furnish a similar prize to be contended for afresh.  These noble
cross-bow men of the middle ages formed a sort of armed guard to
the powers in existence, and almost invariably took the
aristocratic, in preference to the democratic side, in the
numerous civil dissensions of the Flemish towns.  Hence they were
protected by the authorities, and easily obtained favourable and
sheltered sites for their exercise-ground.  And thus they came to
occupy the old fosse, and took possession of the great orchard of
the hospital, lying tranquil and sunny in the hollow below the
rampart.

But, in the sixteenth century, it became necessary to construct a
street through the exercise-ground of the "Arbaletriers du Grand
Serment," and, after much delay, the company were induced by the
beloved Infanta Isabella to give up the requisite plot of ground.
In recompense for this, Isabella--who herself was a member of the
guild, and had even shot down the bird, and been queen in 1615--
made many presents to the arbaletriers; and, in return, the
grateful city, which had long wanted a nearer road to St. Gudule,
but been baffled by the noble archers, called the street after her
name.  She, as a sort of indemnification to the arbaletriers,
caused a "great mansion" to be built for their accommodation in
the new Rue d'Isabelle.  This mansion was placed in front of their
exercise-ground, and was of a square shape.  On a remote part of
the walls, may still be read -


PHILLIPPO IIII.  HISPAN.  REGE.  ISABELLA-CLARA-EUGENIA HISPAN.
INFANS.  MAGNAE GULDAE REGINA GULDAE FRATRIBUS POSUIT.


In that mansion were held all the splendid feasts of the Grand
Serment des Arbaletriers.  The master-archer lived there
constantly, in order to be ever at hand to render his services to
the guild.  The great saloon was also used for the court balls and
festivals, when the archers were not admitted.  The Infanta caused
other and smaller houses to be built in her new street, to serve
as residences for her "garde noble;" and for her "garde
bourgeoise," a small habitation each, some of which still remain,
to remind us of English almshouses.  The "great mansion," with its
quadrangular form; the spacious saloon--once used for the
archducal balls, where the dark, grave Spaniards mixed with the
blond nobility of Brabant and Flanders--now a school-room for
Belgian girls; the cross-bow men's archery-ground--all are there--
the pensionnat of Madame Heger.

This lady was assisted in the work of instruction by her husband--
a kindly, wise, good, and religious man--whose acquaintance I am
glad to have made, and who has furnished me with some interesting
details, from his wife's recollections and his own, of the two
Miss Bronte during their residence in Brussels.  He had the better
opportunities of watching them, from his giving lessons in the
French language and literature in the school.  A short extract
from a letter, written to me by a French lady resident in
Brussels, and well qualified to judge, will help to show the
estimation in which he is held.

"Je ne connais pas personnellement M. Heger, mais je sais qu'il
est peu de caracteres aussi nobles, aussi admirables que le sien.
Il est un des membres les plus zeles de cette Societe de S.
Vincent de Paul dont je t'ai deje parle, et ne se contente pas de
servir les pauvres et les malades, mais leur consacre encore les
soirees.  Apres des journees absorbees tout entieres par les
devoirs que sa place lui impose, il reunit les pauvres, les
ouvriers, leur donne des cours gratuits, et trouve encore le moyen
de les amuser en les instruisant.  Ce devouement te dira assez que
M. Heger est profondement et ouvertement religieux.  Il a des
manieres franches et avenantes; il se fait aimer de tous ceux qui
l'approchent, et surtout des enfants.  Il a la parole facile, et
possde e un haut degre l'eloquence du bon sens et du coeur.  Il
n'est point auteur.  Homme de zele et de conscience, il vient de
se demettre des fonctions elevees et lucratives qu'il exercait e
l'Athenee, celles de Prefet des Etudes, parce qu'il ne peut y
realiser le bien qu'il avait espere, introduire l'enseignement
religieux dans le programme des etudes.  J'ai vu une fois Madame
Heger, qui a quelque chose de froid et de compasse dans son
maintien, et qui previent peu en sa faveur.  Je la crois pourtant
aimee et appreciee par ses eleves."

There were from eighty to a hundred pupils in the pensionnat, when
Charlotte and Emily Bronte entered in February 1842.

M. Heger's account is that they knew nothing of French.  I suspect
they knew as much (or as little), for all conversational purposes,
as any English girls do, who have never been abroad, and have only
learnt the idioms and pronunciation from an Englishwoman.  The two
sisters clung together, and kept apart from the herd of happy,
boisterous, well-befriended Belgian girls, who, in their turn,
thought the new English pupils wild and scared-looking, with
strange, odd, insular ideas about dress; for Emily had taken a
fancy to the fashion, ugly and preposterous even during its reign,
of gigot sleves, and persisted in wearing them long after they
were "gone out."  Her petticoats, too, had not a curve or a wave
in them, but hung down straight and long, clinging to her lank
figure.  The sisters spoke to no one but from necessity.  They
were too full of earnest thought, and of the exile's sick
yearning, to be ready for careless conversation or merry game.  M.
Heger, who had done little but observe, during the few first weeks
of their residence in the Rue d'Isabelle, perceived that with
their unusual characters, and extraordinary talents, a different
mode must be adopted from that in which he generally taught French
to English girls.  He seems to have rated Emily's genius as
something even higher than Charlotte's; and her estimation of
their relative powers was the same.  Emily had a head for logic,
and a capability of argument, unusual in a man, and rare indeed in
a woman, according to M. Heger.  Impairing the force of this gift,
was a stubborn tenacity of will, which rendered her obtuse to all
reasoning where her own wishes, or her own sense of right, was
concerned.  "She should have been a man--a great navigator," said
M. Heger in speaking of her.  "Her powerful reason would have
deduced new spheres of discovery from the knowledge of the old;
and her strong imperious will would never have been daunted by
opposition or difficulty; never have given way but with life."
And yet, moreover, her faculty of imagination was such that, if
she had written a history, her view of scenes and characters would
have been so vivid, and so powerfully expressed, and supported by
such a show of argument, that it would have dominated over the
reader, whatever might have been his previous opinions, or his
cooler perceptions of its truth.  But she appeared egotistical and
exacting compared to Charlotte, who was always unselfish (this is
M. Heger's testimony); and in the anxiety of the elder to make her
younger sister contented she allowed her to exercise a kind of
unconscious tyranny over her.

After consulting with his wife, M. Heger told them that he meant
to dispense with the old method of grounding in grammar,
vocabulary, &c., and to proceed on a new plan--something similar
to what he had occasionally adopted with the elder among his
French and Belgian pupils.  He proposed to read to them some of
the master-pieces of the most celebrated French authors (such as
Casimir de la Vigne's poem on the "Death of Joan of Arc," parts of
Bossuet, the admirable translation of the noble letter of St.
Ignatius to the Roman Christians in the "Bibliotheque Choisie des
Peres de l'Eglise," &c.), and after having thus impressed the
complete effect of the whole, to analyse the parts with them,
pointing out in what such or such an author excelled, and where
were the blemishes.  He believed that he had to do with pupils
capable, from their ready sympathy with the intellectual, the
refined, the polished, or the noble, of catching the echo of a
style, and so reproducing their own thoughts in a somewhat similar
manner.

After explaining his plan to them, he awaited their reply.  Emily
spoke first; and said that she saw no good to be derived from it;
and that, by adopting it, they should lose all originality of
thought and expression.  She would have entered into an argument
on the subject, but for this, M. Heger had no time.  Charlotte
then spoke; she also doubted the success of the plan; but she
would follow out M. Heger's advice, because she was bound to obey
him while she was his pupil.  Before speaking of the results, it
may be desirable to give an extract from one of her letters, which
shows some of her first impressions of her new life.

"Brussels, 1842 (May?).

"I was twenty-six years old a week or two since; and at this ripe
time of life I am a school-girl, and, on the whole, very happy in
that capacity.  It felt very strange at first to submit to
authority instead of exercising it--to obey orders instead of
giving them; but I like that state of things.  I returned to it
with the same avidity that a cow, that has long been kept on dry
hay, returns to fresh grass.  Don't laugh at my simile.  It is
natural to me to submit, and very unnatural to command.

"This is a large school, in which there are about forty externes,
or day pupils, and twelve pensionnaires, or boarders.  Madame
Heger, the head, is a lady of precisely the same cast of mind,
degree of cultivation, and quality of intellect as Miss -.  I
think the severe points are a little softened, because she has not
been disappointed, and consequently soured.  In a word, she is a
married instead of a maiden lady.  There are three teachers in the
school--Mademoiselle Blanche, Mademoiselle Sophie, and
Mademoiselle Marie.  The two first have no particular character.
One is an old maid, and the other will be one.  Mademoiselle Marie
is talented and original, but of repulsive and arbitrary manners,
which have made the whole school, except myself and Emily, her
bitter enemies.  No less than seven masters attend, to teach the
different branches of education--French, Drawing, Music, Singing,
Writing, Arithmetic, and German.  All in the house are Catholics
except ourselves, one other girl, and the gouvernante of Madame's
children, an Englishwoman, in rank something between a lady's maid
and a nursery governess.  The difference in country and religion
makes a broad line of demarcation between us and all the rest.  We
are completely isolated in the midst of numbers.  Yet I think I am
never unhappy; my present life is so delightful, so congenial to
my own nature, compared to that of a governess.  My time,
constantly occupied, passes too rapidly.  Hitherto both Emily and
I have had good health, and therefore we have been able to work
well.  There is one individual of whom I have not yet spoken--M.
Heger, the husband of Madame.  He is professor of rhetoric, a man
of power as to mind, but very choleric and irritable in
temperament.  He is very angry with me just at present, because I
have written a translation which he chose to stigmatize as 'PEU
CORRECT.'  He did not tell me so, but wrote the word on the margin
of my book, and asked, in brief stern phrase, how it happened that
my compositions were always better than my translations? adding
that the thing seemed to him inexplicable.  The fact is, some
weeks ago, in a high-flown humour, he forbade me to use either
dictionary or grammar in translating the most difficult English
compositions into French.  This makes the task rather arduous, and
compels me every now and then to introduce an English word, which
nearly plucks the eyes out of his head when he sees it.  Emily and
he don't draw well together at all.  Emily works like a horse, and
she has had great difficulties to contend with--far greater than I
have had.  Indeed, those who come to a French school for
instruction ought previously to have acquired a considerable
knowledge of the French language, otherwise they will lose a great
deal of time, for the course of instruction is adapted to natives
and not to foreigners; and in these large establishments they will
not change their ordinary course for one or two strangers.  The
few private lessons that M. Heger has vouchsafed to give us, are,
I suppose, to be considered a great favour; and I can perceive
they have already excited much spite and jealousy in the school.

"You will abuse this letter for being short and dreary, and there
are a hundred things which I want to tell you, but I have not
time.  Brussels is a beautiful city.  The Belgians hate the
English.  Their external morality is more rigid than ours.  To
lace the stays without a handkerchief on the neck is considered a
disgusting piece of indelicacy."

The passage in this letter where M. Heger is represented as
prohibiting the use of dictionary or grammar, refers, I imagine,
to the time I have mentioned, when he determined to adopt a new
method of instruction in the French language, of which they were
to catch the spirit and rhythm rather from the ear and the heart,
as its noblest accents fell upon them, than by over-careful and
anxious study of its grammatical rules.  It seems to me a daring
experiment on the part of their teacher; but, doubtless, he knew
his ground; and that it answered is evident in the composition of
some of Charlotte's DEVOIRS, written about this time.  I am
tempted, in illustration of this season of mental culture, to
recur to a conversation which I had with M. Heger on the manner in
which he formed his pupils' style, and to give a proof of his
success, by copying a DEVOIR of Charlotte's with his remarks upon
it.

He told me that one day this summer (when the Brontes had been for
about four months receiving instruction from him) he read to them
Victor Hugo's celebrated portrait of Mirabeau, "mais, dans ma
lecon je me bornais e ce qui concerne MIRABEAU ORATEUR.  C'est
apres l'analyse de ce morceau, considere surtout du point de vue
du fond, de la disposition de ce qu'on pourrait appeler LA
CHARPENTE qu'ont ete faits les deux portraits que je vous donne."
He went on to say that he had pointed out to them the fault in
Victor Hugo's style as being exaggeration in conception, and, at
the same time, he had made them notice the extreme beauty of his
"nuances" of expression.  They were then dismissed to choose the
subject of a similar kind of portrait.  This selection M. Heger
always left to them; for "it is necessary," he observed, "before
sitting down to write on a subject, to have thoughts and feelings
about it.  I cannot tell on what subject your heart and mind have
been excited.  I must leave that to you."  The marginal comments,
I need hardly say, are M. Heger's; the words in italics are
Charlotte's, for which he substitutes a better form of expression,
which is placed between brackets. {6}


IMITATION.

"Le 31 Juillet, 1842.

PORTRAIT DE PIERRE L'HERMITE.  CHARLOTTE BRONTE


"De temps en temps, il parait sur la terre des hommes destines e
etre les instruments [predestines] {Pourquoi cette suppression?}
de grands changements moraux ou politiques.  Quelquefois c'est un
conquerant, un Alexandre ou un Attila, qui passe comme un ouragan,
et purifie l'atmosphere moral, comme l'orage purifie l'atmosphere
physique; quelquefois, c'est un revolutionnaire, un Cromwell, ou
un Robespierre, qui fait expier par un roi {les fautes et} les
vices de toute une dynastie; quelquefois c'est un enthousiaste
religieux comme Mahomet, ou Pierre l'Hermite, qui, avec le seul
levier de la pensee, souleve des nations entieres, les deracine et
les transplante dans des climats nouveaux, PEUPLANT L'ASIE AVEC
LES HABITANTS DE L'EUROPE.  Pierre l'Hermite etait gentilhomme de
Picardie, en France, {Invtile, quand vous ecrivez er francais}
pourquoi donc n'a-t-il passe sa vie comma les autres gentilhommes,
ses contemporains, ont passe la leur, e table, e la chasse, dans
son lit, sans s'inquieter de Saladin, ou de ses Sarrasins?  N'est-
ce pas, parce qu'il y a dans certaines natures, UNE ARDOUR [un
foyer d'activite] indomptable qui ne leur permet pas de rester
inactives, QUI LES FORCE E SE REMUER AFIN D'EXERCER LES FACULTES
PUISSANTES, QUI MEME EN DORMANT SONT PRETES, COMME SAMPSON, E
BRISER LES NOEUDS QUI LES RETIENNENT?

{Vous avez commence e parler de Pierre:  vous etes entree dans le
sujet:  marchez au but.}

"Pierre prit la profession des armes; SI SON ARDEUR AVAIT ETE DE
CETTE ESPECE [s'il n'avait eu que cette ardeur vulgaire] qui
provient d'une robuste sante, IL AURAIT [c'eut] ete un brave
militaire, et rien de plus; mais son ardeur etait celle de l'ame,
sa flamme etait pure et elle s'elevait vers le ciel.

"SANS DOUTE [Il est vrai que] la jeunesse de Pierre ETAIT [fet]
troublee par passions orageuses; les natures puissantes sont
extremes en tout, elles ne connaissent la tiedeur ni dans le bien,
ni dans le mal; Pierre donc chercha d'abord avidement la gloire
qui se fletrit et les plaisirs qui trompent, mais IL FIT BIENTOT
LA DECOUVERTE [bientot il s'apercut] que ce qu'il poursuivait
n'etait qe'une illusion e laquelle il ne pourrait jamais
atteindre; {Vnutile, quand vous avez dit illusion} il retourna
donc sur ses pas, il recommenca le voyage de la vie, mais cette
fois il evita le chemin spacieux qui mene e la perdition et il
prit le chemin etroit qui mene e la vie; PUISQUE [comme] le trajet
etait long et difficile il jeta la casque et les armes du soldat,
et se vetit de l'habit simple du moine.  A la vie militaire
succeda la vie monastique, car les extremes se touchent, et CHEZ
L'HOMME SINCERE la sincerite du repentir amene [necessairement e
la suite] AVEC LUI la rigueur de la penitence.  [Voile donc Pierre
devenu moine!]

"Mais PIERRE [il] avait en lui un principe qui l'empechait de
rester long-temps inactif, ses idees, sur quel sujet QU'IL SOIT
[que ce fut] ne pouvaient pas etre bornees; il ne lui suffisait
pas que lui-meme fut religieux, que lui-meme fut convaincu de la
realite de Christianisme (sic), il fallait que toute l'Europe, que
toute l'Asie, partageat sa conviction et professat la croyance de
la Croix.  La Piete [fervente] elevee par la Genie, nourrie par la
Solitude, FIT NAITRE UNE ESPECE D'INSPIRATION [exalta son ame
jusqu'e l'inspiration] DANS SON AME, et lorsqu'il quitta sa
cellule et reparut dans le monde, il portait comme Moise
l'empreinte de la Divinite sur son front, et TOUT [tous]
reconnurent en lui la veritable apotre de la Croix.

"Mahomet n'avait jamais remue les molles nations de l'Orient comme
alors Pierre remua les peuples austeres de l'Occident; il fallait
que cette eloquence fut d'une force presque miraculeuse QUI
POUVAIT [presqu'elle] persuadER [ait] aux rois de vendre leurs
royaumes AFIN DE PROCURER [pour avoir] des armes et des soldats
POUR AIDER [e offrir] e Pierre dans la guerre sainte qu'il voulait
livrer aux infideles.  La puissance de Pierre [l'Hermite] n'etait
nullement une puissance physique, car la nature, ou pour mieux
dire, Dieu est impartial dans la distribution de ses dons; il
accorde e l'un de ses enfants la grace, la beaute, les perfections
corporelles, e l'autre l'esprit, la grandeur morale.  Pierre donc
etait un homme petit, d'une physionomie peu agreable; mais il
avait ce courage, cette constance, cet enthousiasme, cette energie
de sentiment qui ecrase toute opposition, et qui fait que la
volonte d'un seul homme devient la loi de toute une nation.  Pour
se former une juste idee de l'influence qu'exerca cet homme sur
les CARACTERES [choses] et les idees de son temps, il faut se le
representer au milieu de l'armee des croisees dans son double role
de prophete et de guerrier; le pauvre hermite, vetu DU PAUVRE [de
l'humble] habit gris est le plus puissant qieun roi; il est
entoure D'UNE [de la] multitude [avide] une multitude qui ne voit
que lui, tandis qui lui, il ne voit que le ciel; ses yeux leves
semblent dire, 'Je vois Dieu et les anges, et j'ai perdu de vue la
terre!'

"DANS CE MOMENT LE [mais ce] pauvre HABIT [froc] gris est pour lui
comme le manteau d'Elijah; il l'enveloppe d'inspiration; IL
[Pierre] lit dans l'avenir; il voit Jerusalem delivree; [il voit]
le saint sepulcre libre; il voit le Croissant argent est arrache
du Temple, et l'Oriflamme et la Croix rouge sont etabli e sa
place; non-seulement Pierre voit ces merveilles, mais il les fait
voir e tous ceux qui l'entourent; il ravive l'esperance et le
courage dans [tous ces corps epuises de fatigues et de
privations].  La bataille ne sera livree que demain, mais la
victoire est decidee ce soir.  Pierre a promis; et les Croises se
fient e sa parole, comme les Israelites se fiaient e celle de
Moise et de Josue."


As a companion portrait to this, Emily chose to depict Harold on
the eve of the battle of Hastings.  It appears to me that her
DEVOIR is superior to Charlotte's in power and in imagination, and
fully equal to it in language; and that this, in both cases,
considering how little practical knowledge of French they had when
they arrived at Brussels in February, and that they wrote without
the aid of dictionary or grammar, is unusual and remarkable.  We
shall see the progress Charlotte had made, in ease and grace of
style, a year later.

In the choice of subjects left to her selection, she frequently
took characters and scenes from the Old Testament, with which all
her writings show that she was especially familiar.  The
picturesqueness and colour (if I may so express it), the grandeur
and breadth of its narrations, impressed her deeply.  To use M.
Heger's expression, "Elle etait nourrie de la Bible."  After he
had read De la Vigne's poem on Joan of Arc, she chose the "Vision
and Death of Moses on Mount Nebo" to write about; and, in looking
over this DEVOIR, I was much struck with one or two of M. Heger's
remarks.  After describing, in a quiet and simple manner, the
circumstances under which Moses took leave of the Israelites, her
imagination becomes warmed, and she launches out into a noble
strain, depicting the glorious futurity of the Chosen People, as,
looking down upon the Promised Land, he sees their prosperity in
prophetic vision.  But, before reaching the middle of this glowing
description, she interrupts herself to discuss for a moment the
doubts that have been thrown on the miraculous relations of the
Old Testament.  M. Heger remarks, "When you are writing, place
your argument first in cool, prosaic language; but when you have
thrown the reins on the neck of your imagination, do not pull her
up to reason."  Again, in the vision of Moses, he sees the maidens
leading forth their flocks to the wells at eventide, and they are
described as wearing flowery garlands.  Here the writer is
reminded of the necessity of preserving a certain verisimilitude:
Moses might from his elevation see mountains and plains, groups of
maidens and herds of cattle, but could hardly perceive the details
of dress, or the ornaments of the head.

When they had made further progress, M. Heger took up a more
advanced plan, that of synthetical teaching.  He would read to
them various accounts of the same person or event, and make them
notice the points of agreement and disagreement.  Where they were
different, he would make them seek the origin of that difference
by causing them to examine well into the character and position of
each separate writer, and how they would be likely to affect his
conception of truth.  For instance, take Cromwell.  He would read
Bossuet's description of him in the "Oraison Funebre de la Reine
d'Angleterre," and show how in this he was considered entirely
from the religious point of view, as an instrument in the hands of
God, preordained to His work.  Then he would make them read
Guizot, and see how, in this view, Cromwell was endowed with the
utmost power of free-will, but governed by no higher motive than
that of expediency; while Carlyle regarded him as a character
regulated by a strong and conscientious desire to do the will of
the Lord.  Then he would desire them to remember that the Royalist
and Commonwealth men had each their different opinions of the
great Protector.  And from these conflicting characters, he would
require them to sift and collect the elements of truth, and try to
unite them into a perfect whole.

This kind of exercise delighted Charlotte.  It called into play
her powers of analysis, which were extraordinary, and she very
soon excelled in it.

Wherever the Brontes could be national they were so, with the same
tenacity of attachment which made them suffer as they did whenever
they left Haworth.  They were Protestant to the backbone in other
things beside their religion, but pre-eminently so in that.
Touched as Charlotte was by the letter of St. Ignatius before
alluded to, she claimed equal self-devotion, and from as high a
motive, for some of the missionaries of the English Church sent
out to toil and to perish on the poisonous African coast, and
wrote as an "imitation," "Lettre d'un Missionnaire, Sierra Leone,
Afrique."

Something of her feeling, too, appears in the following letter:-


"Brussels, 1842.

"I consider it doubtful whether I shall come home in September or
not.  Madame Heger has made a proposal for both me and Emily to
stay another half-year, offering to dismiss her English master,
and take me as English teacher; also to employ Emily some part of
each day in teaching music to a certain number of the pupils.  For
these services we are to be allowed to continue our studies in
French and German, and to have board, &c., without paying for it;
no salaries, however, are offered.  The proposal is kind, and in a
great selfish city like Brussels, and a great selfish school,
containing nearly ninety pupils (boarders and day pupils
included), implies a degree of interest which demands gratitude in
return.  I am inclined to accept it.  What think you?  I don't
deny I sometimes wish to be in England, or that I have brief
attacks of home sickness; but, on the whole, I have borne a very
valiant heart so far; and I have been happy in Brussels, because I
have always been fully occupied with the employments that I like.
Emily is making rapid progress in French, German, music, and
drawing.  Monsieur and Madame Heger begin to recognise the
valuable parts of her character, under her singularities.

"If the national character of the Belgians is to be measured by
the character of most of the girls is this school, it in a
character singularly cold, selfish, animal, and inferior.  They
are very mutinous and difficult for the teachers to manage; and
their principles are rotten to the core.  We avoid them, which it
is not difficult to do, as we have the brand of Protestantism and
Anglicism upon us.  People talk of the danger which Protestants
expose themselves to in going to reside in Catholic countries, and
thereby running the chance of changing their faith.  My advice to
all Protestants who are tempted to do anything so besotted as turn
Catholics, is, to walk over the sea on to the Continent; to attend
mass sedulously for a time; to note well the mummeries thereof;
also the idiotic, mercenary aspect of all the priests; and then,
if they are still disposed to consider Papistry in any other light
than a most feeble, childish piece of humbug, let them turn
Papists at once--that's all.  I consider Methodism, Quakerism, and
the extremes of High and Low Churchism foolish, but Roman
Catholicism beats them all.  At the same time, allow me to tell
you, that there are some Catholics who are as good as any
Christians can be to whom the Bible is a sealed book, and much
better than many Protestants."

When the Brontes first went to Brussels, it was with the intention
of remaining there for six months, or until the GRANDES VACANCES
began in September.  The duties of the school were then suspended
for six weeks or two months, and it seemed a desirable period for
their return.  But the proposal mentioned in the foregoing letter
altered their plans.  Besides, they were happy in the feeling that
they were making progress in all the knowledge they had so long
been yearning to acquire.  They were happy, too, in possessing
friends whose society had been for years congenial to them, and in
occasional meetings with these, they could have the inexpressible
solace to residents in a foreign country--and peculiarly such to
the Brontes--of talking over the intelligence received from their
respective homes--referring to past, or planning for future days.
"Mary" and her sister, the bright, dancing, laughing Martha, were
parlour-boarders in an establishment just beyond the barriers of
Brussels.  Again, the cousins of these friends were resident in
the town; and at their house Charlotte and Emily were always
welcome, though their overpowering shyness prevented their more
valuable qualities from being known, and generally kept them
silent.  They spent their weekly holiday with this family, for
many months; but at the end of the time, Emily was as impenetrable
to friendly advances as at the beginning; while Charlotte was too
physically weak (as "Mary" has expressed it) to "gather up her
forces" sufficiently to express any difference or opposition of
opinion, and had consequently an assenting and deferential manner,
strangely at variance with what they knew of her remarkable
talents and decided character.  At this house, the T.'s and the
Brontes could look forward to meeting each other pretty
frequently.  There was another English family where Charlotte soon
became a welcome guest, and where, I suspect, she felt herself
more at her ease than either at Mrs. Jenkins', or the friends whom
I have first mentioned.

An English physician, with a large family of daughters, went to
reside at Brussels, for the sake of their education.  He placed
them at Madame Heger's school in July, 1842, not a month before
the beginning of the GRANDES VACANCES on August 15th.  In order to
make the most of their time, and become accustomed to the
language, these English sisters went daily, through the holidays,
to the pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle.  Six or eight boarders
remained, besides the Miss Brontes.  They were there during the
whole time, never even having the break to their monotonous life,
which passing an occasional day with a friend would have afforded
them; but devoting themselves with indefatigable diligence to the
different studies in which they were engaged.  Their position in
the school appeared, to these new comers, analogous to what is
often called that of a parlour-boarder.  They prepared their
French, drawing, German, and literature for their various masters;
and to these occupations Emily added that of music, in which she
was somewhat of a proficient; so much so as to be qualified to
give instruction in it to the three younger sisters of my
informant.

The school was divided into three classes.  In the first were from
fifteen to twenty pupils; in the second, sixty was about the
average number--all foreigners, excepting the two Brontes and one
other; in the third, there were from twenty to thirty pupils.  The
first and second classes occupied a long room, divided by a wooden
partition; in each division were four long ranges of desks; and at
the end was the ESTRADE, or platform, for the presiding
instructor.  On the last row, in the quietest corner, sat
Charlotte and Emily, side by side, so deeply absorbed in their
studies as to be insensible to any noise or movement around them.
The school-hours were from nine to twelve (the luncheon hour),
when the boarders and half-boarders--perhaps two-and-thirty girls-
-went to the refectoire (a room with two long tables, having an
oil-lamp suspended over each), to partake of bread and fruit; the
EXTERNES, or morning pupils, who had brought their own refreshment
with them, adjourning to eat it in the garden.  From one to two,
there was fancy-work--a pupil reading aloud some light literature
in each room; from two to four, lessons again.  At four, the
externes left; and the remaining girls dined in the refectoire, M.
and Madame Heger presiding.  From five to six there was
recreation, from six to seven, preparation for lessons; and, after
that succeeded the LECTURE PIEUSE--Charlotte's nightmare.  On rare
occasions, M. Heger himself would come in, and substitute a book
of a different and more interesting kind.  At eight, there was a
slight meal of water and PISTOLETS (the delicious little Brussels
rolls), which was immediately followed by prayers, and then to
bed.

The principal bedroom was over the long classe, or school-room.
There were six or eight narrow beds on each side of the apartment,
every one enveloped in its white draping curtain; a long drawer,
beneath each, served for a wardrobe, and between each was a stand
for ewer, basin, and looking-glass.  The beds of the two Miss
Brontes were at the extreme end of the room, almost as private and
retired as if they had been in a separate apartment.

During the hours of recreation, which were always spent in the
garden, they invariably walked together, and generally kept a
profound silence; Emily, though so much the taller, leaning on her
sister.  Charlotte would always answer when spoken to, taking the
lead in replying to any remark addressed to both; Emily rarely
spoke to any one.  Charlotte's quiet, gentle manner never changed.
She was never seen out of temper for a moment; and occasionally,
when she herself had assumed the post of English teacher, and the
impertinence or inattention of her pupils was most irritating, a
slight increase of colour, a momentary sparkling of the eye, and
more decided energy of manner, were the only outward tokens she
gave of being conscious of the annoyance to which she was
subjected.  But this dignified endurance of hers subdued her
pupils, in the long run, far more than the voluble tirades of the
other mistresses.  My informant adds:- "The effect of this manner
was singular.  I can speak from personal experience.  I was at
that time high-spirited and impetuous, not respecting the French
mistresses; yet, to my own astonishment, at one word from her, I
was perfectly tractable; so much so, that at length, M. and Madame
Heger invariably preferred all their wishes to me through her; the
other pupils did not, perhaps, love her as I did, she was so quiet
and silent; but all respected her."

With the exception of that part which describes Charlotte's manner
as English teacher--an office which she did not assume for some
months later--all this description of the school life of the two
Brontes refers to the commencement of the new scholastic year in
October 1842; and the extracts I have given convey the first
impression which the life at a foreign school, and the position of
the two Miss Brontes therein, made upon an intelligent English
girl of sixteen.  I will make a quotation from "Mary's" letter
referring to this time.

"The first part of her time at Brussels was not uninteresting.
She spoke of new people and characters, and foreign ways of the
pupils and teachers.  She knew the hopes and prospects of the
teachers, and mentioned one who was very anxious to marry, 'she
was getting so old.'  She used to get her father or brother (I
forget which) to be the bearer of letters to different single men,
who she thought might be persuaded to do her the favour, saying
that her only resource was to become a sister of charity if her
present employment failed and that she hated the idea.  Charlotte
naturally looked with curiosity to people of her own condition.
This woman almost frightened her.  'She declares there is nothing
she can turn to, and laughs at the idea of delicacy,--and she is
only ten years older than I am!'  I did not see the connection
till she said, 'Well, Polly, I should hate being a sister of
charity; I suppose that would shock some people, but I should.'  I
thought she would have as much feeling as a nurse as most people,
and more than some.  She said she did not know how people could
bear the constant pressure of misery, and never to change except
to a new form of it.  It would be impossible to keep one's natural
feelings.  I promised her a better destiny than to go begging any
one to marry her, or to lose her natural feelings as a sister of
charity.  She said, 'My youth is leaving me; I can never do better
than I have done, and I have done nothing yet.'  At such times she
seemed to think that most human beings were destined by the
pressure of worldly interests to lose one faculty and feeling
after another 'till they went dead altogether.  I hope I shall be
put in my grave as soon as I'm dead; I don't want to walk about
so.'  Here we always differed.  I thought the degradation of
nature she feared was a consequence of poverty, and that she
should give her attention to earning money.  Sometimes she
admitted this, but could find no means of earning money.  At
others she seemed afraid of letting her thoughts dwell on the
subject, saying it brought on the worst palsy of all.  Indeed, in
her position, nothing less than entire constant absorption in
petty money matters could have scraped together a provision.

"Of course artists and authors stood high with Charlotte, and the
best thing after their works would have been their company.  She
used very inconsistently to rail at money and money-getting, and
then wish she was able to visit all the large towns in Europe, see
all the sights and know all the celebrities.  This was her notion
of literary fame,--a passport to the society of clever people . .
. When she had become acquainted with the people and ways at
Brussels her life became monotonous, and she fell into the same
hopeless state as at Miss W-'s, though in a less degree.  I wrote
to her, urging her to go home or elsewhere; she had got what she
wanted (French), and there was at least novelty in a new place, if
no improvement.  That if she sank into deeper gloom she would soon
not have energy to go, and she was too far from home for her
friends to hear of her condition and order her home as they had
done from Miss W-'s.  She wrote that I had done her a great
service, that she should certainly follow my advice, and was much
obliged to me.  I have often wondered at this letter.  Though she
patiently tolerated advice, she could always quietly put it aside,
and do as she thought fit.  More than once afterwards she
mentioned the 'service' I had done her.  She sent me 10L. to New
Zealand, on hearing some exaggerated accounts of my circumstances,
and told me she hoped it would come in seasonably; it was a debt
she owed me 'for the service I had done her.'  I should think 10L.
was a quarter of her income.  The 'service' was mentioned as an
apology, but kindness was the real motive."

The first break in this life of regular duties and employments
came heavily and sadly.  Martha--pretty, winning, mischievous,
tricksome Martha--was taken ill suddenly at the Chateau de
Koekelberg.  Her sister tended her with devoted love; but it was
all in vain; in a few days she died.  Charlotte's own short
account of this event is as follows:-

"Martha T.'s illness was unknown to me till the day before she
died.  I hastened to Koekelberg the next morning--unconscious that
she was in great danger--and was told that it was finished.  She
had died in the night.  Mary was taken away to Bruxelles.  I have
seen Mary frequently since.  She is in no ways crushed by the
event; but while Martha was ill, she was to her more than a
mother--more than a sister:  watching, nursing, cherishing her so
tenderly, so unweariedly.  She appears calm and serious now; no
bursts of violent emotion; no exaggeration of distress.  I have
seen Martha's grave--the place where her ashes lie in a foreign
country."

Who that has read "Shirley" does not remember the few lines--
perhaps half a page--of sad recollection?


"He has no idea that little Jessy will die young, she is so gay,
and chattering, and arch--original even now; passionate when
provoked, but most affectionate if caressed; by turns gentle and
rattling; exacting yet generous; fearless . . . yet reliant on any
who will help her.  Jessy, with her little piquant face, engaging
prattle, and winning ways, is made to be a pet.

* * *

"Do you know this place?  No, you never saw it; but you recognise
the nature of these trees, this foliage--the cypress, the willow,
the yew.  Stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you, nor
are these dim garlands of everlasting flowers.  Here is the place:
green sod and a grey marble head-stone--Jessy sleeps below.  She
lived through an April day; much loved was she, much loving.  She
often, in her brief life, shed tears--she had frequent sorrows;
she smiled between, gladdening whatever saw her.  Her death was
tranquil and happy in Rose's guardian arms, for Rose had been her
stay and defence through many trials; the dying and the watching
English girls were at that hour alone in a foreign country, and
the soil of that country gave Jessy a grave.

* * *

"But, Jessy, I will write about you no more.  This is an autumn
evening, wet and wild.  There is only one cloud in the sky; but it
curtains it from pole to pole.  The wind cannot rest; it hurries
sobbing over hills of sullen outline, colourless with twilight and
mist.  Rain has beat all day on that church tower" (Haworth):  "it
rises dark from the stony enclosure of its graveyard:  the
nettles, the long grass, and the tombs all drip with wet.  This
evening reminds me too forcibly of another evening some years ago:
a howling, rainy autumn evening too--when certain who had that day
performed a pilgrimage to a grave new made in a heretic cemetery,
sat near a wood fire on the hearth of a foreign dwelling.  They
were merry and social, but they each knew that a gap, never to be
filled, had been made in their circle.  They knew they had lost
something whose absence could never be quite atoned for, so long
as they lived; and they knew that heavy falling rain was soaking
into the wet earth which covered their lost darling; and that the
sad, sighing gale was mourning above her buried head.  The fire
warmed them; Life and Friendship yet blessed them:  but Jessy lay
cold, coffined, solitary--only the sod screening her from the
storm."

This was the first death that had occurred in the small circle of
Charlotte's immediate and intimate friends since the loss of her
two sisters long ago.  She was still in the midst of her deep
sympathy with "Mary," when word came from home that her aunt, Miss
Branwell, was ailing--was very ill.  Emily and Charlotte
immediately resolved to go home straight, and hastily packed up
for England, doubtful whether they should ever return to Brussels
or not, leaving all their relations with M. and Madame Heger, and
the pensionnat, uprooted, and uncertain of any future existence.
Even before their departure, on the morning after they received
the first intelligence of illness--when they were on the very
point of starting--came a second letter, telling them of their
aunt's death.  It could not hasten their movements, for every
arrangement had been made for speed.  They sailed from Antwerp;
they travelled night and day, and got home on a Tuesday morning.
The funeral and all was over, and Mr. Bronte and Anne were sitting
together, in quiet grief for the loss of one who had done her part
well in their household for nearly twenty years, and earned the
regard and respect of many who never knew how much they should
miss her till she was gone.  The small property which she had
accumulated, by dint of personal frugality and self-denial, was
bequeathed to her nieces.  Branwell, her darling, was to have had
his share; but his reckless expenditure had distressed the good
old lady, and his name was omitted in her will.

When the first shock was over, the three sisters began to enjoy
the full relish of meeting again, after the longest separation
they had had in their lives.  They had much to tell of the past,
and much to settle for the future.  Anne had been for some little
time in a situation, to which she was to return at the end of the
Christmas holidays.  For another year or so they were again to be
all three apart; and, after that, the happy vision of being
together and opening a school was to be realised.  Of course they
did not now look forward to settling at Burlington, or any other
place which would take them away from their father; but the small
sum which they each independently possessed would enable them to
effect such alterations in the parsonage-house at Haworth as would
adapt it to the reception of pupils.  Anne's plans for the
interval were fixed.  Emily quickly decided to be the daughter to
remain at home.  About Charlotte there was much deliberation and
some discussion.

Even in all the haste of their sudden departure from Brussels, M.
Heger had found time to write a letter of sympathy to Mr. Bronte
on the loss which he had just sustained; a letter containing such
a graceful appreciation of the daughters' characters, under the
form of a tribute of respect to their father, that I should have
been tempted to copy it, even had there not also been a proposal
made in it respecting Charlotte, which deserves a place in the
record of her life.

"Au Reverend Monsieur Bronte, Pasteur Evangelique, &c, &c.

"Samedi, 5 Obre.

"MONSIEUR,

"Un evenement bien triste decide mesdemoiselles vas filles e
retourner brusquement en Angleterre, ce depart qui nous afflige
beaucoup a cependant ma complete approbation; il est bien naturel
qu'elles cherchent e vous consoler de ce que le ciel vient de vous
oter, on se serrant autour de vous, poui mieux vous faire
apprecier ce que le ciel vous a donne et ce qu'il vous laisse
encore.  J'espere que vous me pardonnerez, Monsieur, de profiter
de cette circonstance pour vous faire parvenir l'expression de mon
respect; je n'ai pas l'honneur de vous connaitre personnellement,
et cependant j'eprouve pour votre personne un sentiment de sincere
veneration, car en jugeant un pere de famille par ses enfants on
ne risque pas de se tromper, et sous ce rapport l'education et les
sentiments que nous avons trouves dans mesdemoiselles vos filles
n'ont pu que nous donner une tres-haute idee de votre merite et de
votre caractere.  Vous apprendrez sans doute avec plaisir que vos
enfants ont fait du progres tresremarquable dans toutes les
branches de l'enseignenient, et que ces progres sont entierement
du e leur amour pour le travail et e leur perseverance; nous
n'avons eu que bien peu e faire avec de pareilles eleves; leur
avancement est votre oeuvre bien plus que la notre; nous n'avons
pas eu e leur apprendre le prix du temps et de l'instruction,
elles avaient appris tout cela dans la maison paternelle, et nous
n'avons eu, pour notre part, que le faible merite de diriger leurs
efforts et de fournir un aliment convenable e la louable activite
que vos filles ont puisees dans votre exemple et dans vos lecons.
Puissent les eloges meritees que nous donnons e vos enfants vous
etre de quelque consolation dans le malheur que vous afflige;
c'est le notre espoir en vous ecrivant, et ce sera, pour
Mesdemoiselles Charlotte et Emily, une douce et belle recompense
de leurs travaux.

"En perdant nos deux cheres eleves, nous ne devons pas vous cacher
que nous eprouvons e la fois et du chagrin et de l'inquietude;
nous sommes affliges parce que cette brusque separation vient
briser l'affection presque paternelle que nous leur avons vouee,
et notre peine s'augmente e la vue de tant de travaux
interrompues, de tant de choses bien commencees, et qui ne
demandent que quelque temps encore pour etre menees e bonne fin.
Dans un an, chacune de vos demoiselles eut ete entierement
premunie contre les eventualites de l'avenir; chacune d'elles
acquerait e la fois et l'instruction et la science d'enseignement;
Mlle Emily allait apprendre le piano; recevoir les lecons du
meilleur professeur que nous ayons en Belgique, et deje elle avait
elle-meme de petites eleves; elle perdait donc e la fois un reste
d'ignorance et un reste plus genant encore de timidite; Mlle
Charlotte commencait e donner des lecons en francais, et
d'acquerir cette assurance, cet aplomb si necessaire dans
l'enseignement; encore un an tout au plus et l'oeuvre etait
achevee et bien achevee.  Alors nous aurions pu, si cela vous eut
convenu, offrir e mesdemoiselles vos filles ou du moins e l'une
des deux une position qui eut ete dans ses gouts, et qui lui eut
donne cette douce independance si difficile e trouver pour une
jeune personne.  Ce n'est pas, croyez le bien, Monsieur, ce n'est
pas ici pour nous une question d'interet personnel, c'est une
question d'affection; vous me pardonnerez si nous vous parlons de
vos enfants, si nous nous occupons de leur avenir, comme si elles
faisaient partie de notre famille; leurs qualites personnelles,
leur bon vouloir, leur zele extreme sont les seules causes qui
nous poussent e nous hasarder de la sorte.  Nous savons, Monsieur,
que vous peserez plus murement et plus sagement que nous la
consequence qu'aurait pour l'avenir une interruption complete dans
les etudes de vos deux filles; vous deciderez ce qu'il faut faire,
et vous nous pardonnerez notre franchise, si vous daignez
considerer que le motif qui nous fait agir est une affection bien
desinteressee et qui s'affligerait beaucoup de devoir deje se
resigner e n'etre plus utile e vos chers enfants.

"Agreez, je vous prie, Monsieur, l'expression respectueuse de mes
sentiments de haute consideration.

"C. HEGER."


There was so much truth, as well as so much kindness in this
letter--it was so obvious that a second year of instruction would
be far more valuable than the first, that there was no long
hesitation before it was decided that Charlotte should return to
Brussels.

Meanwhile, they enjoyed their Christmas all together
inexpressibly.  Branwell was with them; that was always a pleasure
at this time; whatever might be his faults, or even his vices, his
sisters yet held him up as their family hope, as they trusted that
he would some day be their family pride.  They blinded themselves
to the magnitude of the failings of which they were now and then
told, by persuading themselves that such failings were common to
all men of any strength of character; for, till sad experience
taught them better, they fell into the usual error of confounding
strong passions with strong character.

Charlotte's friend came over to see her, and she returned the
visit.  Her Brussels life must have seemed like a dream, so
completely, in this short space of time, did she fall back into
the old household ways; with more of household independence than
she could ever have had during her aunt's lifetime.  Winter though
it was, the sisters took their accustomed walks on the snow-
covered moors; or went often down the long road to Keighley, for
such books as had been added to the library there during their
absence from England.



CHAPTER XII



Towards the end of January, the time came for Charlotte to return
to Brussels.  Her journey thither was rather disastrous.  She had
to make her way alone; and the train from Leeds to London, which
should have reached Euston-square early in the afternoon, was so
much delayed that it did not get in till ten at night.  She had
intended to seek out the Chapter Coffee-house, where she had
stayed before, and which would have been near the place where the
steam-boats lay; but she appears to have been frightened by the
idea of arriving at an hour which, to Yorkshire notions, was so
late and unseemly; and taking a cab, therefore, at the station,
she drove straight to the London Bridge Wharf, and desired a
waterman to row her to the Ostend packet, which was to sail the
next morning.  She described to me, pretty much as she has since
described it in "Villette," her sense of loneliness, and yet her
strange pleasure in the excitement of the situation, as in the
dead of that winter's night she went swiftly over the dark river
to the black hull's side, and was at first refused leave to ascend
to the deck.  "No passengers might sleep on board," they said,
with some appearance of disrespect.  She looked back to the lights
and subdued noises of London--that "Mighty Heart" in which she had
no place--and, standing up in the rocking boat, she asked to speak
to some one in authority on board the packet.  He came, and her
quiet simple statement of her wish, and her reason for it, quelled
the feeling of sneering distrust in those who had first heard her
request; and impressed the authority so favourably that he allowed
her to come on board, and take possession of a berth.  The next
morning she sailed; and at seven on Sunday evening she reached the
Rue d'Isabelle once more; having only left Haworth on Friday
morning at an early hour.

Her salary was 16L. a year; out of which she had to pay for her
German lessons, for which she was charged as much (the lessons
being probably rated by time) as when Emily learnt with her and
divided the expense, viz., ten francs a month.  By Miss Bronte's
own desire, she gave her English lessons in the CLASSE, or
schoolroom, without the supervision of Madame or M. Heger.  They
offered to be present, with a view to maintain order among the
unruly Belgian girls; but she declined this, saying that she would
rather enforce discipline by her own manner and character than be
indebted for obedience to the presence of a GENDARME.  She ruled
over a new school-room, which had been built on the space in the
play-ground adjoining the house.  Over that First Class she was
SURVEILLANTE at all hours; and henceforward she was called
MADEMOISELLE Charlotte by M. Heger's orders.  She continued her
own studies, principally attending to German, and to Literature;
and every Sunday she went alone to the German and English chapels.
Her walks too were solitary, and principally taken in the allee
defendue, where she was secure from intrusion.  This solitude was
a perilous luxury to one of her temperament; so liable as she was
to morbid and acute mental suffering.

On March 6th, 1843, she writes thus:-

"I am settled by this time, of course.  I am not too much
overloaded with occupation; and besides teaching English, I have
time to improve myself in German.  I ought to consider myself well
off, and to be thankful for my good fortunes.  I hope I am
thankful; and if I could always keep up my spirits and never feel
lonely, or long for companionship, or friendship, or whatever they
call it, I should do very well.  As I told you before, M. and
Madame Heger are the only two persons in the house for whom I
really experience regard and esteem, and of course, I cannot be
always with them, nor even very often.  They told me, when I first
returned, that I was to consider their sitting-room my sitting-
room also, and to go there whenever I was not engaged in the
schoolroom.  This, however, I cannot do.  In the daytime it is a
public room, where music-masters and mistresses are constantly
passing in and out; and in the evening, I will not, and ought not
to intrude on M. and Madame Heger and their children.  Thus I am a
good deal by myself, out of school-hours; but that does not
signify.  I now regularly give English lessons to M. Heger and his
brother-in-law.  They get on with wonderful rapidity; especially
the first.  He already begins to speak English very decently.  If
you could see and hear the efforts I make to teach them to
pronounce like Englishmen, and their unavailing attempts to
imitate, you would laugh to all eternity.

"The Carnival is just over, and we have entered upon the gloom and
abstinence of Lent.  The first day of Lent we had coffee without
milk for breakfast; vinegar and vegetables, with a very little
salt fish, for dinner; and bread for supper.  The Carnival was
nothing but masking and mummery.  M. Heger took me and one of the
pupils into the town to see the masks.  It was animating to see
the immense crowds, and the general gaiety, but the masks were
nothing.  I have been twice to the D.'s" (those cousins of
"Mary's" of whom I have before made mention).  "When she leaves
Bruxelles, I shall have nowhere to go to.  I have had two letters
from Mary.  She does not tell me she has been ill, and she does
not complain; but her letters are not the letters of a person in
the enjoyment of great happiness.  She has nobody to be as good to
her as M. Heger is to me; to lend her books; to converse with her
sometimes, &c.

"Good-bye.  When I say so, it seems to me that you will hardly
hear me; all the waves of the Channel heaving and roaring between
must deaden the sound."


From the tone of this letter, it may easily be perceived that the
Brussels of 1843 was a different place from that of 1842.  Then
she had Emily for a daily and nightly solace and companion.  She
had the weekly variety of a visit to the family of the D.s; and
she had the frequent happiness of seeing "Mary" and Martha.  Now
Emily was far away in Haworth--where she or any other loved one,
might die, before Charlotte, with her utmost speed, could reach
them, as experience, in her aunt's case, had taught her.  The D.s
were leaving Brussels; so, henceforth, her weekly holiday would
have to be passed in the Rue d'Isabelle, or so she thought.
"Mary" was gone off on her own independent course; Martha alone
remained--still and quiet for ever, in the cemetery beyond the
Porte de Louvain.  The weather, too, for the first few weeks after
Charlotte's return, had been piercingly cold; and her feeble
constitution was always painfully sensitive to an inclement
season.  Mere bodily pain, however acute, she could always put
aside; but too often ill-health assailed her in a part far more to
be dreaded.  Her depression of spirits, when she was not well, was
pitiful in its extremity.  She was aware that it was
constitutional, and could reason about it; but no reasoning
prevented her suffering mental agony, while the bodily cause
remained in force.

The Hegers have discovered, since the publication of "Villette,"
that at this beginning of her career as English teacher in their
school, the conduct of her pupils was often impertinent and
mutinous in the highest degree.  But of this they were unaware at
the time, as she had declined their presence, and never made any
complaint.  Still it must have been a depressing thought to her at
this period, that her joyous, healthy, obtuse pupils were so
little answerable to the powers she could bring to bear upon them;
and though from their own testimony, her patience, firmness, and
resolution, at length obtained their just reward, yet with one so
weak in health and spirits, the reaction after such struggles as
she frequently had with her pupils, must have been very sad and
painful.

She thus writes to her friend E.:-


"April, 1843.

"Is there any talk of your coming to Brussels?  During the bitter
cold weather we had through February, and the principal part of
March, I did not regret that you had not accompanied me.  If I had
seen you shivering as I shivered myself, if I had seen your hands
and feet as red and swelled as mine were, my discomfort would just
have been doubled.  I can do very well under this sort of thing;
it does not fret me; it only makes me numb and silent; but if you
were to pass a winter in Belgium, you would be ill.  However, more
genial weather is coming now, and I wish you were here.  Yet I
never have pressed you, and never would press you too warmly to
come.  There are privations and humiliations to submit to; there
is monotony and uniformity of life; and, above all, there is a
constant sense of solitude in the midst of numbers.  The
Protestant, the foreigner, is a solitary being, whether as teacher
or pupil.  I do not say this by way of complaining of my own lot;
for though I acknowledge that there are certain disadvantages in
my present position, what position on earth is without them?  And,
whenever I turn back to compare what I am with what I was--my
place here with my place at Mrs. -'s for instance--I am thankful.
There was an observation in your last letter which excited, for a
moment, my wrath.  At first, I thought it would be folly to reply
to it, and I would let it die.  Afterwards, I determined to give
one answer, once for all.  'Three or four people,' it seems, 'have
the idea that the future EPOUX of Mademoiselle Bronte is on the
Continent.'  These people are wiser than I am.  They could not
believe that I crossed the sea merely to return as teacher to
Madame Hegers.  I must have some more powerful motive than respect
for my master and mistress, gratitude for their kindness, &c., to
induce me to refuse a salary of 50L. in England, and accept one of
16L. in Belgium.  I must, forsooth, have some remote hope of
entrapping a husband somehow, or somewhere.  If these charitable
people knew the total seclusion of the life I lead,--that I never
exchange a word with any other man than Monsieur Heger, and seldom
indeed with him,--they would, perhaps, cease to suppose that any
such chimerical and groundless notion had influenced my
proceedings.  Have I said enough to clear myself of so silly an
imputation?  Not that it is a crime to marry, or a crime to wish
to be married; but it is an imbecility, which I reject with
contempt, for women, who have neither fortune nor beauty, to make
marriage the principal object of their wishes and hopes, and the
aim of all their actions; not to be able to convince themselves
that they are unattractive, and that they had better be quiet, and
think of other things than wedlock."

The following is an extract, from one of the few letters which
have been preserved, of her correspondence with her sister Emily:-


"May 29, 1843

"I get on here from day to day in a Robinson-Crusoe-like sort of
way, very lonely, but that does not signify.  In other respects, I
have nothing substantial to complain of, nor is this a cause for
complaint.  I hope you are well.  Walk out often on the moors.  My
love to Tabby.  I hope she keeps well."

And about this time she wrote to her father,

"June 2nd, 1818,

"I was very glad to hear from home.  I had begun to get low-
spirited at not receiving any news, and to entertain indefinite
fears that something was wrong.  You do not say anything about
your own health, but I hope you are well, and Emily also.  I am
afraid she will have a good deal of hard work to do now that
Hannah" (a servant-girl who had been assisting Tabby) "is gone.  I
am exceedingly glad to hear that you still keep Tabby"
(considerably upwards of seventy).  "It is an act of great charity
to her, and I do not think it will be unrewarded, for she is very
faithful, and will always serve you, when she has occasion, to the
best of her abilities; besides, she will be company for Emily,
who, without her, would be very lonely."

I gave a DEVOIR, written after she had been four months under M.
Heger's tuition.  I will now copy out another, written nearly a
year later, during which the progress made appears to me very
great.

"31 Mai, 1843.

"SUR LA MORT DE NAPOLEON.

"Napoleon naquit en Corse et mourut e Ste. Helene.  Entre ces deux
iles rien qu'un vaste et brulant desert et l'ocean immense.  Il
naquit fils d'un simple gentilhomme, et mourut empereur, mais sans
couronne et dans les fers.  Entre son berceau et sa tombe qu'y a-
t-il? la carriere d'un soldat parvenu, des champs de bataille, une
mer de sang, un trone, puis du sang encore, et des fers.  Sa vie,
c'est l'arc en ciel; les deux points extremes touchent la terre,
la comble lumi-neuse mesure les cieux.  Sur Napoleon au berceau
une mere brillait; dans la maison paternelle il avait des freres
et des soeurs; plus tard dans son palais il eut une femme qui
l'aimait.  Mais sur son lit de mort Napoleon est seul; plus de
mere, ni de frere, ni de soeur, ni de femme, ni d'enfant!!
D'autres ont dit et rediront ses exploits, moi, je m'arrete e
contempler l'abandonnement de sa derniere heure!

"Il est le, exile et captif, enchaine sur un ecueil.  Nouveau
Promethee il subit le chatiment de son orgueil!  Promethee avait
voulu etre Dieu et Createur; il deroba le feu du Ciel pour animer
le corps qu'il avait forme.  Et lui, Buonaparte, il a voulu creer,
non pas un homme, mais un empire, et pour donner une existence,
une ame, e son oeuvre gigantesque, il n'a pas hesite e arracher la
vie e des nations entieres.  Jupiter indigne de l'impiete de
Promethee, le riva vivant e la cime du Caucase.  Ainsi, pour punir
l'ambition rapace de Buonaparte, la Providence l'a enchaine,
jusqu'e ce que la mort s'en suivit, sur un roc isole de
l'Atlantique.  Peut-etre le aussi a-t-il senti lui fouillant le
flanc cet insatiable vautour dont parle la fable, peut-etre a-t-il
souffert aussi cette soif du coeur, cette faim de l'ame, qui
torturent l'exile, loin de sa famille et de sa patrie.  Mais
parler ainsi n'est-ce pas attribuer gratuitement e Napoleon une
humaine faiblesse qu'il n'eprouva jamais?  Quand donc s'est-il
laisse enchainer par un lien d'affection?  Sans doute d'autres
conquerants ont hesite dans leur carriere de gloire, arretes par
un obstacle d'amour ou d'amitie, retenus par la main d'une femme,
rappeles par la voix d'un ami--lui, jamais!  Il n'eut pas besoin,
comme Ulysse, de se lier au mat du navire, ni de se boucher les
oreilles avec de la cire; il ne redoutait pas le chant des
Sirenes--il le dedaignait; il se fit marbre et fer pour executer
ses grands projets.  Napoleon ne se regardait pas comme un homme,
mais comme l'incarnation d'un peuple.  Il n'aimait pas; il ne
considerait ses amis et ses proches que comme des instruments
auxquels il tint, tant qu'ils furent utiles, et qu'il jeta de cote
quand ils cesserent de l'etre.  Qu'on ne se permette donc pas
d'approcher du sepulcre du Corse avec sentiments de pitie, ou de
souiller de larmes la pierre qui couvre ses restes, son ame
repudierait tout cela.  On a dit, je le sais, qu'elle fut cruelle
la main qui le separa de sa femme et de son enfant.  Non, c'etait
une main qui, comme la sienne, ne tremblait ni de passion ni de
crainte, c'etait la main d'un homme froid, convaincu, qui avait su
deviner Buonaparte; et voici ce que disait cet homme que la
defaite n'a pu humilier, ni la victoire enorgueiller.  'Marie-
Louise n'est pas la femme de Napoleon; c'est la France que
Napoleon a epousee; c'est la France qu'il aime, leur union enfante
la perte de l'Europe; voile la divorce que je veux; voile l'union
qu'il faut briser.'

"La voix des timides et des traitres protesta contre cette
sentence.  'C'est abuser de droit de la victoire!  C'est fouler
aux pieds le vaincu!  Que l'Angleterre se montre clemente, qu'elle
ouvre ses bras pour recevoir comme hote son ennemi desarme.'
L'Angleterre aurait peut-etre ecoute ce conseii, car partout et
toujours il y a des ames faibles et timorees bientot seduites par
la flatterie ou effrayees par le reproche.  Mais la Providence
permit qu'un homme se trouvat qui n'a jamais su ce que c'est que
la crainte; qui aima sa patrie mieux que sa renommee; impenetrable
devant les menaces, inaccessible aux louanges, il se presenta
devant le conseil de la nation, et levant son front tranquille en
haut, il osa dire:  'Que la trahison se taise! car c'est trahir
que de conseiller de temporiser avec Buonaparte.  Moi je sais ce
que sont ces guerres dont l'Europe saigne encore, comme une
victime sous le couteau du boucher.  Il faut en finir avec
Napoleon Buonaparte.  Vous vous effrayez e tort d'un mot si dur!
Je n'ai pas de magnanimite, dit-on?  Soit! que m'importe ce qu'on
dit de moi?  Je n'ai pas ici e me faire une reputation de heros
magnanime, mais e guerir, si la cure est possible, l'Europe qui se
meurt, epuisee de ressources et de sang, l'Europe dont vous
negligez les vrais interets, pre-occupes que vous etes d'une vaine
renommee de clemence.  Vous etes faibles!  Eh bien! je viens vous
aider.  Envoyez Buonaparte e Ste. Helene! n'hesitez pas, ne
cherchez pas un autre endroit; c'est le seul convenable.  Je vous
le dis, j'ai reflechi pour vous; c'est le qu'il doit etre et non
pas ailleurs.  Quant e Napoleon, homme, soldat, je n'ai rien
contre lui; c'est un lion royal, aupres de qui vous n'etes que des
chacals.  Mais Napoleon Empereur, c'est autre chose, je
l'extirperai du sol de l'Europe.'  Et celui qui parla ainsi
toujours sut garder sa promesse, celle-le comme toutes les autres.
Je l'ai dit, et je le repete, cet homme est l'egal de Napoleon par
le genie; comme trempe de caractere, comme droiture, comme
elevation de pensee et de but, il est d'une tout autre espece.
Napoleon Buonaparte etait avide de renommee et de gloire; Arthur
Wellesley ne se soucie ni de l'une ni de l'autre; l'opinion
publique, la popularite, etaient choses de grand valeur aux yeux
de Napoleon; pour Wellington l'opinion publique est une rumeur, un
rien que le souffle de son inflexible volonte fait disparaitre
comme une bulle de savon.  Napoleon flattait le peuple; Wellington
le brusqne; l'un cherchait les applau-dissements, l'autre ne se
soucie que du temoignage de sa conscience; quand elle approuve,
c'est assez; toute autre louange l'obsede.  Aussi ce peuple, qui
adorait Buonaparte s'irritait, s'insurgeait contre la morgue de
Wellington:  parfois il lui temoigna sa colere et sa haine par des
grognements, par des hurlements de betes fauves; et alors, avec
une impassibilite de senateur romain, le moderne Coriolan toisait
du regard l'emeute furieuse; il croisait ses bras nerveux sur sa
large poitrine, et seul, debout sur son seuil, il attendait, il
bravait cette tempete populaire dont les flots venaient mourir e
quelques pas de lui:  et quand la foule, honteuse de sa rebellion,
venait lecher les pieds du maitre, le hautain patricien meprisait
l'hommage d'aujourd'hui comme la haine d'hier, et dans les rues de
Londres, et devant son palais ducal d'Apsley, il repoussait d'un
genre plein de froid dedain l'incommode empressement du peuple
enthousiaste.  Cette fierte neanmoins n'excluait pas en lui une
rare modestie; partout il se soustrait e l'eloge; se derobe au
panegyrique; jamais il ne parle de ses exploits, et jamais il ne
souffre qu'un autre lui en parle en sa presence.  Son caractere
egale en grandeur et surpasse en verite celui de tout autre heros
ancien ou moderne.  La gloire de Napoleon crut en une nuit, comme
la vigne de Jonas, et il suffit d'un jour pour la fletrir; la
gloire de Wellington est comme les vieux chenes qui ombragent le
chateau de ses peres sur les rives du Shannon; le chene croit
lentement; il lui faut du temps pour pousser vers le ciel ses
branches noueuses, et pour enfoncer dans le sol ces racines
profondes qui s'enchevetrent dans les fondements solides de la
terre; mais alors, l'arbre seculaire, inebranlable comme le roc ou
il a sa base, brave et la faux du temps et l'effort des vents et
des tempetes.  Il faudra peut-etre un siecle e l'Angleterre pour
qu'elle connaise la valeur de son heros.  Dans un siecle, l'Europe
entiere saura combien Wellington a des droits e sa
reconnaissance."


How often in writing this paper "in a strange land," must Miss
Bronte have thought of the old childish disputes in the kitchen of
Haworth parsonage, touching the respective merits of Wellington
and Buonaparte!  Although the title given to her DEVOIR is, "On
the Death of Napoleon," she seems yet to have considered it a
point of honour rather to sing praises to an English hero than to
dwell on the character of a foreigner, placed as she was among
those who cared little either for an England or for Wellington.
She now felt that she had made great progress towards obtaining
proficiency in the French language, which had been her main object
in coming to Brussels.  But to the zealous learner "Alps on Alps
arise."  No sooner is one difficulty surmounted than some other
desirable attainment appears, and must be laboured after.  A
knowledge of German now became her object; and she resolved to
compel herself to remain in Brussels till that was gained.  The
strong yearning to go home came upon her; the stronger self-
denying will forbade.  There was a great internal struggle; every
fibre of her heart quivered in the strain to master her will; and,
when she conquered herself, she remained, not like a victor calm
and supreme on the throne, but like a panting, torn, and suffering
victim.  Her nerves and her spirits gave way.  Her health became
much shaken.


"Brussels, August 1st, 1843.

"If I complain in this letter, have mercy and don't blame me, for,
I forewarn you, I am in low spirits, and that earth and heaven are
dreary and empty to me at this moment.  In a few days our vacation
will begin; everybody is joyous and animated at the prospect,
because everybody is to go home.  I know that I am to stay here
during the five weeks that the holidays last, and that I shall be
much alone during that time, and consequently get downcast, and
find both days and nights of a weary length.  It is the first time
in my life that I have really dreaded the vacation.  Alas!  I can
hardly write, I have such a dreary weight at my heart; and I do so
wish to go home.  Is not this childish?  Pardon me, for I cannot
help it.  However, though I am not strong enough to bear up
cheerfully, I can still bear up; and I will continue to stay (D.
V.) some months longer, till I have acquired German; and then I
hope to see all your faces again.  Would that the vacation were
well over! it will pass so slowly.  Do have the Christian charity
to write me a long, long letter; fill it with the minutest
details; nothing will be uninteresting.  Do not think it is
because people are unkind to me that I wish to leave Belgium;
nothing of the sort.  Everybody is abundantly civil, but home-
sickness keeps creeping over me.  I cannot shake it off.  Believe
me, very merrily, vivaciously, gaily, yours,

"C.B."

The GRANDES VACANCES began soon after the date of this letter,
when she was left in the great deserted pensionnat, with only one
teacher for a companion.  This teacher, a Frenchwoman, had always
been uncongenial to her; but, left to each other's sole
companionship, Charlotte soon discovered that her associate was
more profligate, more steeped in a kind of cold, systematic
sensuality, than she had before imagined it possible for a human
being to be; and her whole nature revolted from this woman's
society.  A low nervous fever was gaining upon Miss Bronte.  She
had never been a good sleeper, but now she could not sleep at all.
Whatever had been disagreeable, or obnoxious, to her during the
day, was presented when it was over with exaggerated vividness to
her disordered fancy.  There were causes for distress and anxiety
in the news from home, particularly as regarded Branwell.  In the
dead of the night, lying awake at the end of the long deserted
dormitory, in the vast and silent house, every fear respecting
those whom she loved, and who were so far off in another country,
became a terrible reality, oppressing her and choking up the very
life-blood in her heart.  Those nights were times of sick, dreary,
wakeful misery; precursors of many such in after years.

In the day-time, driven abroad by loathing of her companion and by
the weak restlessness of fever, she tried to walk herself into
such a state of bodily fatigue as would induce sleep.  So she went
out, and with weary steps would traverse the Boulevards and the
streets, sometimes for hours together; faltering and resting
occasionally on some of the many benches placed for the repose of
happy groups, or for solitary wanderers like herself.  Then up
again--anywhere but to the pensionnat--out to the cemetery where
Martha lay--out beyond it, to the hills whence there is nothing to
be seen but fields as far as the horizon.  The shades of evening
made her retrace her footsteps--sick for want of food, but not
hungry; fatigued with long continued exercise--yet restless still,
and doomed to another weary, haunted night of sleeplessness.  She
would thread the streets in the neighbourhood of the Rue
d'Isabelle, and yet avoid it and its occupant, till as late an
hour as she dared be out.  At last, she was compelled to keep her
bed for some days, and this compulsory rest did her good.  She was
weak, but less depressed in spirits than she had been, when the
school re-opened, and her positive practical duties recommenced.

She writes thus:-

"October 13th, 1843

"Mary is getting on well, as she deserves to do.  I often hear
from her.  Her letters and yours are one of my few pleasures.  She
urges me very much to leave Brussels and go to her; but, at
present, however tempted to take such a step, I should not feel
justified in doing so.  To leave a certainty for a complete
uncertainty, would be to the last degree imprudent.
Notwithstanding that, Brussels is indeed desolate to me now.
Since the D.s left, I have had no friend.  I had, indeed, some
very kind acquaintances in the family of a Dr. -, but they, too,
are gone now.  They left in the latter part of August, and I am
completely alone.  I cannot count the Belgians anything.  It is a
curious position to be so utterly solitary in the midst of
numbers.  Sometimes the solitude oppresses me to an excess.  One
day, lately, I felt as if I could bear it no longer, and I went to
Madame Heger, and gave her notice.  If it had depended on her, I
should certainly have soon been at liberty; but M. Heger, having
heard of what was in agitation, sent for me the day after, and
pronounced with vehemence his decision, that I should not leave.
I could not, at that time, have persevered in my intention without
exciting him to anger; so I promised to stay a little while
longer.  How long that will be, I do not know.  I should not like
to return to England to do nothing.  I am too old for that now;
but if I could hear of a favourable opportunity for commencing a
school, I think I should embrace it.  We have as yet no fires
here, and I suffer much from cold; otherwise, I am well in health.
Mr.--will take this letter to England.  He is a pretty-looking and
pretty behaved young man, apparently constructed without a back-
bone; by which I don't allude to his corporal spine, which is all
right enough, but to his character.

"I get on here after a fashion; but now that Mary D. has left
Brussels, I have nobody to speak to, for I count the Belgians as
nothing.  Sometimes I ask myself how long shall I stay here; but
as yet I have only asked the question; I have not answered it.
However, when I have acquired as much German as I think fit, I
think I shall pack up bag and baggage and depart.  Twinges of
homesickness cut me to the heart, every now and then.  To-day the
weather is glaring, and I am stupified with a bad cold and
headache.  I have nothing to tell you.  One day is like another in
this place.  I know you, living in the country, can hardly believe
it is possible life can be monotonous in the centre of a brilliant
capital like Brussels; but so it is.  I feel it most on holidays,
when all the girls and teachers go out to visit, and it sometimes
happens that I am left, during several hours, quite alone, with
four great desolate schoolrooms at my disposition.  I try to read,
I try to write; but in vain.  I then wander about from room to
room, but the silence and loneliness of all the house weighs down
one's spirits like lead.  You will hardly believe that Madame
Heger (good and kind as I have described her) never comes near me
on these occasions.  I own, I was astonished the first time I was
left alone thus; when everybody else was enjoying the pleasures of
a fete day with their friends, and she knew I was quite by myself,
and never took the least notice of me.  Yet, I understand, she
praises me very much to everybody, and says what excellent lessons
I give.  She is not colder to me than she is to the other
teachers; but they are less dependent on her than I am.  They have
relations and acquaintances in Bruxelles.  You remember the letter
she wrote me, when I was in England?  How kind and affectionate
that was? is it not odd?  In the meantime, the complaints I make
at present are a sort of relief which I permit myself.  In all
other respects I am well satisfied with my position, and you may
say so to people who inquire after me (if any one does).  Write to
me, dear, whenever you can.  You do a good deed when you send me a
letter, for you comfort a very desolate heart."


One of the reasons for the silent estrangement between Madame
Heger and Miss Bronte, in the second year of her residence at
Brussels, is to be found in the fact, that the English
Protestant's dislike of Romanism increased with her knowledge of
it, and its effects upon those who professed it; and when occasion
called for an expression of opinion from Charlotte Bronte, she was
uncompromising truth.  Madame Heger, on the opposite side, was not
merely a Roman Catholic, she was DEVOTE.  Not of a warm or
impulsive temperament, she was naturally governed by her
conscience, rather than by her affections; and her conscience was
in the hands of her religious guides.  She considered any slight
thrown upon her Church as blasphemy against the Holy Truth; and,
though she was not given to open expression of her thoughts and
feelings, yet her increasing coolness of behaviour showed how much
her most cherished opinions had been wounded.  Thus, although
there was never any explanation of Madame Heger's change of
manner, this may be given as one great reason why, about this
time, Charlotte was made painfully conscious of a silent
estrangement between them; an estrangement of which, perhaps, the
former was hardly aware.  I have before alluded to intelligence
from home, calculated to distress Charlotte exceedingly with fears
respecting Branwell, which I shall speak of more at large when the
realisation of her worst apprehensions came to affect the daily
life of herself and her sisters.  I allude to the subject again
here, in order that the reader may remember the gnawing, private
cares, which she had to bury in her own heart; and the pain of
which could only be smothered for a time under the diligent
fulfilment of present duty.  Another dim sorrow was faintly
perceived at this time.  Her father's eyesight began to fail; it
was not unlikely that he might shortly become blind; more of his
duty must devolve on a curate, and Mr. Bronte, always liberal,
would have to pay at a higher rate than he had heretofore done for
this assistance.

She wrote thus to Emily:-

"Dec.1st, 1843.

"This is Sunday morning.  They are at their idolatrous 'messe,'
and I am here, that is in the Refectoire.  I should like
uncommonly to be in the dining-room at home, or in the kitchen, or
in the back kitchen.  I should like even to be cutting up the
hash, with the clerk and some register people at the other table,
and you standing by, watching that I put enough flour, not too
much pepper, and, above all, that I save the best pieces of the
leg of mutton for Tiger and Keeper, the first of which personages
would be jumping about the dish and carving-knife, and the latter
standing like a devouring flame on the kitchen-floor.  To complete
the picture, Tabby blowing the fire, in order to boil the potatoes
to a sort of vegetable glue!  How divine are these recollections
to me at this moment!  Yet I have no thought of coming home just
now.  I lack a real pretext for doing so; it is true this place is
dismal to me, but I cannot go home without a fixed prospect when I
get there; and this prospect must not be a situation; that would
be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire.  YOU call yourself
idle! absurd, absurd! . . . Is papa well?  Are you well? and
Tabby?  You ask about Queen Victoria's visit to Brussels.  I saw
her for an instant flashing through the Rue Royale in a carriage
and six, surrounded by soldiers.  She was laughing and talking
very gaily.  She looked a little stout, vivacious lady, very
plainly dressed, not much dignity or pretension about her.  The
Belgians liked her very well on the whole.  They said she
enlivened the sombre court of King Leopold, which is usually as
gloomy as a conventicle.  Write to me again soon.  Tell me whether
papa really wants me very much to come home, and whether you do
likewise.  I have an idea that I should be of no use there--a sort
of aged person upon the parish.  I pray, with heart and soul, that
all may continue well at Haworth; above all in our grey half-
inhabited house.  God bless the walls thereof!  Safety, health,
happiness, and prosperity to you, papa, and Tabby.  Amen.

"C. B."

Towards the end of this year (1843) various reasons conspired with
the causes of anxiety which have been mentioned, to make her feel
that her presence was absolutely and imperatively required at
home, while she had acquired all that she proposed to herself in
coming to Brussels the second time; and was, moreover, no longer
regarded with the former kindliness of feeling by Madame Heger.
In consequence of this state of things, working down with sharp
edge into a sensitive mind, she suddenly announced to that lady
her immediate intention of returning to England.  Both M. and
Madame Heger agreed that it would be for the best, when they
learnt only that part of the case which she could reveal to them--
namely, Mr. Bronte's increasing blindness.  But as the inevitable
moment of separation from people and places, among which she had
spent so many happy hours, drew near, her spirits gave way; she
had the natural presentiment that she saw them all for the last
time, and she received but a dead kind of comfort from being
reminded by her friends that Brussels and Haworth were not so very
far apart; that access from one place to the other was not so
difficult or impracticable as her tears would seem to predicate;
nay, there was some talk of one of Madame Heger's daughters being
sent to her as a pupil, if she fulfilled her intention of trying
to begin a school.  To facilitate her success in this plan, should
she ever engage in it, M. Heger gave her a kind of diploma, dated
from, and sealed with the seal of the Athenee Royal de Bruxelles,
certifying that she was perfectly capable of teaching the French
language, having well studied the grammar and composition thereof,
and, moreover, having prepared herself for teaching by studying
and practising the best methods of instruction.  This certificate
is dated December 29th 1843, and on the 2nd of January, 1844, she
arrived at Haworth.

On the 23rd of the month she writes as follows:-

"Every one asks me what I am going to do, now that I am returned
home; and every one seems to expect that I should immediately
commence a school.  In truth, it is what I should wish to do.  I
desire it above all things.  I have sufficient money for the
undertaking, and I hope now sufficient qualifications to give me a
fair chance of success; yet I cannot yet permit myself to enter
upon life--to touch the object which seems now within my reach,
and which I have been so long straining to attain.  You will ask
me why?  It is on papa's account; he is now, as you know, getting
old, and it grieves me to tell you that he is losing his sight.  I
have felt for some months that I ought not to be away from him;
and I feel now that it would be too selfish to leave him (at
least, as long as Branwell and Anne are absent), in order to
pursue selfish interests of my own.  With the help of God, I will
try to deny myself in this matter, and to wait.

"I suffered much before I left Brussels.  I think, however long I
live, I shall not forget what the parting with M. Heger cost me.
It grieved me so much to grieve him who has been so true, kind,
and disinterested a friend.  At parting he gave me a kind of
diploma certifying my abilities as a teacher, sealed with the seal
of the Athenee Royal, of which he is professor.  I was surprised
also at the degree of regret expressed by my Belgian pupils, when
they knew I was going to leave.  I did not think it had been in
their phlegmatic nature . . . I do not know whether you feel as I
do, but there are times now when it appears to me as if all my
ideas and feelings, except a few friendships and affections, are
changed from what they used to be; something in me, which used to
be enthusiasm, is tamed down and broken.  I have fewer illusions;
what I wish for now is active exertion--a stake in life.  Haworth
seems such a lonely, quiet spot, buried away from the world.  I no
longer regard myself as young--indeed, I shall soon be twenty-
eight; and it seems as if I ought to be working and braving the
rough realities of the world, as other people do.  It is, however,
my duty to restrain this feeling at present, and I will endeavour
to do so."

Of course her absent sister and brother obtained a holiday to
welcome her return home, and in a few weeks she was spared to pay
a visit to her friend at B.  But she was far from well or strong,
and the short journey of fourteen miles seems to have fatigued her
greatly.

Soon after she came back to Haworth, in a letter to one of the
household in which she had been staying, there occurs this
passage:- "Our poor little cat has been ill two days, and is just
dead.  It is piteous to see even an animal lying lifeless.  Emily
is sorry."  These few words relate to points in the characters of
the two sisters, which I must dwell upon a little.  Charlotte was
more than commonly tender in her treatment of all dumb creatures,
and they, with that fine instinct so often noticed, were
invariably attracted towards her.  The deep and exaggerated
consciousness of her personal defects--the constitutional absence
of hope, which made her slow to trust in human affection, and,
consequently, slow to respond to any manifestation of it--made her
manner shy and constrained to men and women, and even to children.
We have seen something of this trembling distrust of her own
capability of inspiring affection, in the grateful surprise she
expresses at the regret felt by her Belgian pupils at her
departure.  But not merely were her actions kind, her words and
tones were ever gentle and caressing, towards animals:  and she
quickly noticed the least want of care or tenderness on the part
of others towards any poor brute creature.  The readers of
"Shirley" may remember that it is one of the tests which the
heroine applies to her lover.


"Do you know what soothsayers I would consult?" . . . "The little
Irish beggar that comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals
out of the cranny in my wainscot; the bird in frost and snow that
pecks at my window for a crumb; the dog that licks my hand and
sits beside my knee.  I know somebody to whose knee the black cat
loves to climb, against whose shoulder and cheek it likes to purr.
The old dog always comes out of his kennel and wags his tail, and
whines affectionately when somebody passes."  [For "somebody" and
"he," read "Charlotte Bronte" and "she."]  "He quietly strokes the
cat, and lets her sit while he conveniently can; and when he must
disturb her by rising, he puts her softly down, and never flings
her from him roughly:  he always whistles to the dog, and gives
him a caress."


The feeling, which in Charlotte partook of something of the nature
of an affection, was, with Emily, more of a passion.  Some one
speaking of her to me, in a careless kind of strength of
expression, said, "she never showed regard to any human creature;
all her love was reserved for animals."  The helplessness of an
animal was its passport to Charlotte's heart; the fierce, wild,
intractability of its nature was what often recommended it to
Emily.  Speaking of her dead sister, the former told me that from
her many traits in Shirley's character were taken; her way of
sitting on the rug reading, with her arm round her rough bull-
dog's neck; her calling to a strange dog, running past, with
hanging head and lolling tongue, to give it a merciful draught of
water, its maddened snap at her, her nobly stern presence of mind,
going right into the kitchen, and taking up one of Tabby's red-hot
Italian irons to sear the bitten place, and telling no one, till
the danger was well-nigh over, for fear of the terrors that might
beset their weaker minds.  All this, looked upon as a well-
invented fiction in "Shirley," was written down by Charlotte with
streaming eyes; it was the literal true account of what Emily had
done.  The same tawny bull-dog (with his "strangled whistle"),
called "Tartar" in "Shirley," was "Keeper" in Haworth parsonage; a
gift to Emily.  With the gift came a warning.  Keeper was faithful
to the depths of his nature as long as he was with friends; but he
who struck him with a stick or whip, roused the relentless nature
of the brute, who flew at his throat forthwith, and held him there
till one or the other was at the point of death.  Now Keeper's
household fault was this.  He loved to steal upstairs, and stretch
his square, tawny limbs, on the comfortable beds, covered over
with delicate white counterpanes.  But the cleanliness of the
parsonage arrangements was perfect; and this habit of Keeper's was
so objectionable, that Emily, in reply to Tabby's remonstrances,
declared that, if he was found again transgressing, she herself,
in defiance of warning and his well-known ferocity of nature,
would beat him so severely that he would never offend again.  In
the gathering dusk of an autumn evening, Tabby came, half-
triumphantly, half-tremblingly, but in great wrath, to tell Emily
that Keeper was lying on the best bed, in drowsy voluptuousness.
Charlotte saw Emily's whitening face, and set mouth, but dared not
speak to interfere; no one dared when Emily's eyes glowed in that
manner out of the paleness of her face, and when her lips were so
compressed into stone.  She went upstairs, and Tabby and Charlotte
stood in the gloomy passage below, full of the dark shadows of
coming night.  Down-stairs came Emily, dragging after her the
unwilling Keeper, his hind legs set in a heavy attitude of
resistance, held by the "scuft of his neck," but growling low and
savagely all the time.  The watchers would fain have spoken, but
durst not, for fear of taking off Emily's attention, and causing
her to avert her head for a moment from the enraged brute.  She
let him go, planted in a dark corner at the bottom of the stairs;
no time was there to fetch stick or rod, for fear of the
strangling clutch at her throat--her bare clenched fist struck
against his red fierce eyes, before he had time to make his
spring, and, in the language of the turf, she "punished him" till
his eyes were swelled up, and the half-blind, stupified beast was
led to his accustomed lair, to have his swollen head fomented and
cared for by the very Emily herself.  The generous dog owed her no
grudge; he loved her dearly ever after; he walked first among the
mourners to her funeral; he slept moaning for nights at the door
of her empty room, and never, so to speak, rejoiced, dog fashion,
after her death.  He, in his turn, was mourned over by the
surviving sister.  Let us somehow hope, in half Red Indian creed,
that he follows Emily now; and, when he rests, sleeps on some soft
white bed of dreams, unpunished when he awakens to the life of the
land of shadows.

Now we can understand the force of the words, "Our poor little cat
is dead.  Emily is sorry."



CHAPTER XIII



The moors were a great resource this spring; Emily and Charlotte
walked out on them perpetually, "to the great damage of our shoes,
but I hope, to the benefit of our health."  The old plan of
school-keeping was often discussed in these rambles; but in-doors
they set with vigour to shirt-making for the absent Branwell, and
pondered in silence over their past and future life.  At last they
came to a determination.

"I have seriously entered into the enterprise of keeping a school-
-or rather, taking a limited number of pupils at home.  That is, I
have begun in good earnest to seek for pupils.  I wrote to Mrs.--"
(the lady with whom she had lived as governess, just before going
to Brussels), "not asking her for her daughter--I cannot do that--
but informing her of my intention.  I received an answer from Mr.-
-expressive of, I believe, sincere regret that I had not informed
them a month sooner, in which case, he said, they would gladly
have sent me their own daughter, and also Colonel S.'s, but that
now both were promised to Miss C.  I was partly disappointed by
this answer, and partly gratified; indeed, I derived quite an
impulse of encouragement from the warm assurance that if I had but
applied a little sooner they would certainly have sent me their
daughter.  I own I had misgivings that nobody would be willing to
send a child for education to Haworth.  These misgivings are
partly done away with.  I have written also to Mrs. B., and have
enclosed the diploma which M. Heger gave me before I left
Brussels.  I have not yet received her answer, but I wait for it
with some anxiety.  I do not expect that she will send me any of
her children, but if she would, I dare say she could recommend me
other pupils.  Unfortunately, she knows us only very slightly.  As
soon as I can get an assurance of only ONE pupil, I will have
cards of terms printed, and will commence the repairs necessary in
the house.  I wish all that to be done before winter.  I think of
fixing the board and English education at 25L. per annum."

Again, at a later date, July 24th, in the same year, she writes:-

"I am driving on with my small matter as well as I can.  I have
written to all the friends on whom I have the slightest claim, and
to some on whom I have no claim; Mrs. B., for example.  On her,
also, I have actually made bold to call.  She was exceedingly
polite; regretted that her children were already at school at
Liverpool; thought the undertaking a most praiseworthy one, but
feared I should have some difficulty in making it succeed on
account of the SITUATION.  Such is the answer I receive from
almost every one.  I tell them the RETIRED SITUATION is, in some
points of view, an advantage; that were it in the midst of a large
town I could not pretend to take pupils on terms so moderate (Mrs.
B. remarked that she thought the terms very moderate), but that,
as it is, not having house-rent to pay, we can offer the same
privileges of education that are to be had in expensive
seminaries, at little more than half their price; and as our
number must be limited, we can devote a large share of time and
pains to each pupil.  Thank you for the very pretty little purse
you have sent me.  I make to you a curious return in the shape of
half a dozen cards of terms.  Make such use of them as your
judgment shall dictate.  You will see that I have fixed the sum at
35L., which I think is the just medium, considering advantages and
disadvantages."

This was written in July; August, September, and October passed
away, and no pupils were to be heard of.  Day after day, there was
a little hope felt by the sisters until the post came in.  But
Haworth village was wild and lonely, and the Brontes but little
known, owing to their want of connections.  Charlotte writes on
the subject, in the early winter months, to this effect -

"I, Emily, and Anne, are truly obliged to you for the efforts you
have made in our behalf; and if you have not been successful, you
are only like ourselves.  Every one wishes us well; but there are
no pupils to be had.  We have no present intention, however, of
breaking our hearts on the subject, still less of feeling
mortified at defeat.  The effort must be beneficial, whatever the
result may be, because it teaches us experience, and an additional
knowledge of this world.  I send you two more circulars."

A month later, she says:-

"We have made no alterations yet in our house.  It would be folly
to do so, while there is so little likelihood of our ever getting
pupils.  I fear you are giving yourself too much trouble on our
account.  Depend upon it, if you were to persuade a mamma to bring
her child to Haworth, the aspect of the place would frighten her,
and she would probably take the dear girl back with her,
instanter.  We are glad that we have made the attempt, and we will
not be cast down because it has not succeeded."


There were, probably, growing up in each sister's heart, secret
unacknowledged feelings of relief, that their plan had not
succeeded.  Yes! a dull sense of relief that their cherished
project had been tried and had failed.  For that house, which was
to be regarded as an occasional home for their brother, could
hardly be a fitting residence for the children of strangers.  They
had, in all likelihood, become silently aware that his habits were
such as to render his society at times most undesirable.
Possibly, too, they had, by this time, heard distressing rumours
concerning the cause of that remorse and agony of mind, which at
times made him restless and unnaturally merry, at times rendered
him moody and irritable.

In January, 1845, Charlotte says:- "Branwell has been quieter and
less irritable, on the whole, this time than he was in summer.
Anne is, as usual, always good, mild, and patient."  The deep-
seated pain which he was to occasion to his relations had now
taken a decided form, and pressed heavily on Charlotte's health
and spirits.  Early in this year, she went to H. to bid good-bye
to her dear friend "Mary," who was leaving England for Australia.

Branwell, I have mentioned, had obtained the situation of a
private tutor.  Anne was also engaged as governess in the same
family, and was thus a miserable witness to her brother's
deterioration of character at this period.  Of the causes of this
deterioration I cannot speak; but the consequences were these.  He
went home for his holidays reluctantly, stayed there as short a
time as possible, perplexing and distressing them all by his
extraordinary conduct--at one time in the highest spirits, at
another, in the deepest depression--accusing himself of blackest
guilt and treachery, without specifying what they were; and
altogether evincing an irritability of disposition bordering on
insanity.

Charlotte and Emily suffered acutely from his mysterious
behaviour.  He expressed himself more than satisfied with his
situation; he was remaining in it for a longer time than he had
ever done in any kind of employment before; so that for some time
they could not conjecture that anything there made him so wilful,
and restless, and full of both levity and misery.  But a sense of
something wrong connected with him, sickened and oppressed them.
They began to lose all hope in his future career.  He was no
longer the family pride; an indistinct dread, caused partly by his
own conduct, partly by expressions of agonising suspicion in
Anne's letters home, was creeping over their minds that he might
turn out their deep disgrace.  But, I believe, they shrank from
any attempt to define their fears, and spoke of him to each other
as little as possible.  They could not help but think, and mourn,
and wonder.

"Feb. 20th, 1845.

"I spent a week at H., not very pleasantly; headache, sickliness,
and flatness of spirits, made me a poor companion, a sad drag on
the vivacious and loquacious gaiety of all the other inmates of
the house.  I never was fortunate enough to be able to rally, for
as much as a single hour, while I was there.  I am sure all, with
the exception perhaps of Mary, were very glad when I took my
departure.  I begin to perceive that I have too little life in me,
now-a-days, to be fit company for any except very quiet people.
Is it age, or what else, that changes me so?"

Alas! she hardly needed to have asked this question.  How could
she be otherwise than "flat-spirited," "a poor companion," and a
"sad drag" on the gaiety of those who were light-hearted and
happy!  Her honest plan for earning her own livelihood had fallen
away, crumbled to ashes; after all her preparations, not a pupil
had offered herself; and, instead of being sorry that this wish of
many years could not be realised, she had reason to be glad.  Her
poor father, nearly sightless, depended upon her cares in his
blind helplessness; but this was a sacred pious charge, the duties
of which she was blessed in fulfilling.  The black gloom hung over
what had once been the brightest hope of the family--over
Branwell, and the mystery in which his wayward conduct was
enveloped.  Somehow and sometime, he would have to turn to his
home as a hiding place for shame; such was the sad foreboding of
his sisters.  Then how could she be cheerful, when she was losing
her dear and noble "Mary," for such a length of time and distance
of space that her heart might well prophesy that it was "for
ever"?  Long before, she had written of Mary T., that she "was
full of feelings noble, warm, generous, devoted, and profound.
God bless her!  I never hope to see in this world a character more
truly noble.  She would die willingly for one she loved.  Her
intellect and attainments are of the very highest standard."  And
this was the friend whom she was to lose!  Hear that friend's
account of their final interview:-

"When I last saw Charlotte (Jan. 1845), she told me she had quite
decided to stay at home.  She owned she did not like it.  Her
health was weak.  She said she should like any change at first, as
she had liked Brussels at first, and she thought that there must
be some possibility for some people of having a life of more
variety and more communion with human kind, but she saw none for
her.  I told her very warmly, that she ought not to stay at home;
that to spend the next five years at home, in solitude and weak
health, would ruin her; that she would never recover it.  Such a
dark shadow came over her face when I said, 'Think of what you'll
be five years hence!' that I stopped, and said, 'Don't cry,
Charlotte!'  She did not cry, but went on walking up and down the
room, and said in a little while, 'But I intend to stay, Polly.'"

A few weeks after she parted from Mary, she gives this account of
her days at Haworth.

"March 24th, 1845.

"I can hardly tell you how time gets on at Haworth.  There is no
event whatever to mark its progress.  One day resembles another;
and all have heavy, lifeless physiognomies.  Sunday, baking-day,
and Saturday, are the only ones that have any distinctive mark.
Meantime, life wears away.  I shall soon be thirty; and I have
done nothing yet.  Sometimes I get melancholy at the prospect
before and behind me.  Yet it is wrong and foolish to repine.
Undoubtedly, my duty directs me to stay at home for the present.
There was a time when Haworth was a very pleasant place to me; it
is not so now.  I feel as if we were all buried here.  I long to
travel; to work; to live a life of action.  Excuse me, dear, for
troubling you with my fruitless wishes.  I will put by the rest,
and not trouble you with them.  You must write to me.  If you knew
how welcome your letters are, you would write very often.  Your
letters, and the French newspapers, are the only messengers that
come to me from the outer world beyond our moors; and very welcome
messengers they are."

One of her daily employments was to read to her father, and it
required a little gentle diplomacy on her part to effect this
duty; for there were times when the offer of another to do what he
had been so long accustomed to do for himself, only reminded him
too painfully of the deprivation under which he was suffering.
And, in secret, she, too, dreaded a similar loss for herself.
Long-continued ill health, a deranged condition of the liver, her
close application to minute drawing and writing in her younger
days, her now habitual sleeplessness at nights, the many bitter
noiseless tears she had shed over Branwell's mysterious and
distressing conduct--all these causes were telling on her poor
eyes; and about this time she thus writes to M. Heger:-

"Il n'y a rien que je crains comme le desoeuvrement, l'inertie, la
lethargie des facultes.  Quand le corps est paresseux l'esprit
souffre cruellement; je ne connaitrais pas cette lethargie, si je
pouvais ecrire.  Autrefois je passais des journees, des semaines,
des mois entiers e ecrire, et pas tout-e-fait sans fruit, puisque
Southey et Coleridge, deux de nos meilleurs auteurs, e qui j'ai
envoye certains manuscrits, en ont bien voulu temoigner leur
approbation; mais e present, j'ai la vue trop faible; si
j'ecrivais beaueoup je deviendrais aveugle.  Cette faiblesse de
vue est pour moi une terrible privation; sans cela, savez-vous ce
que je ferais, Monsieur?  J'ecrirais un livre et je le dedierais e
mon maitre de litterature, au seul maitre que j'aie jamais eu--e
vous, Monsieur!  Je vous ai dit souvent en francais combien je
vous respecte, combien je suis redevable e votre bonte, e vos
conseils.  Je voudrais le dire une fois en anglais.  Cela ne se
peut pas; il ne faut pas y penser.  La carriere des lettres m'est
fermee . . . N'oubliez pas de me dire comment vous vous portez,
comment Madame et les enfants se portent.  Je compte bientot avoir
de vos nouvelles; cette idee me souris, car le souvenir de vos
bontes ne s'effacera jamais de ma memoire, et tant que ce souvenir
durera, le respect que vous m'avez inspire durera aussi.  Agreez,
Monsieur," &c.


It is probable, that even her sisters and most intimate friends
did not know of this dread of ultimate blindness which beset her
at this period.  What eyesight she had to spare she reserved for
the use of her father.  She did but little plain-sewing; not more
writing than could be avoided, and employed herself principally in
knitting.

"April 2nd, 1845.

"I see plainly it is proved to us that there is scarcely a draught
of unmingled happiness to be had in this world.  -'s illness comes
with -'s marriage.  Mary T. finds herself free, and on that path
to adventure and exertion to which she has so long been seeking
admission.  Sickness, hardship, danger are her fellow travellers--
her inseparable companions.  She may have been out of the reach of
these S. W. N. W. gales, before they began to blow, or they may
have spent their fury on land, and not ruffled the sea much.  If
it has been otherwise, she has been sorely tossed, while we have
been sleeping in our beds, or lying awake thinking about her.  Yet
these real, material dangers, when once past, leave in the mind
the satisfaction of having struggled with difficulty, and overcome
it.  Strength, courage, and experience are their invariable
results; whereas, I doubt whether suffering purely mental has any
good result, unless it be to make us by comparison less sensitive
to physical suffering . . . Ten years ago, I should have laughed
at your account of the blunder you made in mistaking the bachelor
doctor for a married man.  I should have certainly thought you
scrupulous over-much, and wondered how you could possibly regret
being civil to a decent individual, merely because he happened to
be single, instead of double.  Now, however, I can perceive that
your scruples are founded on common sense.  I know that if women
wish to escape the stigma of husband-seeking, they must act and
look like marble or clay--cold, expressionless, bloodless; for
every appearance of feeling, of joy, sorrow, friendliness,
antipathy, admiration, disgust, are alike construed by the world
into the attempt to hook a husband.  Never mind! well-meaning
women have their own consciences to comfort them after all.  Do
not, therefore, be too much afraid of showing yourself as you are,
affectionate and good-hearted; do not too harshly repress
sentiments and feelings excellent in themselves, because you fear
that some puppy may fancy that you are letting them come out to
fascinate him; do not condemn yourself to live only by halves,
because if you showed too much animation some pragmatical thing in
breeches might take it into his pate to imagine that you designed
to dedicate your life to his inanity.  Still, a composed, decent,
equable deportment is a capital treasure to a woman, and that you
possess.  Write again soon, for I feel rather fierce, and want
stroking down."

"June 13th, 1845.

"As to the Mrs. -, who, you say, is like me, I somehow feel no
leaning to her at all.  I never do to people who are said to be
like me, because I have always a notion that they are only like me
in the disagreeable, outside, first-acquaintance part of my
character; in those points which are obvious to the ordinary run
of people, and which I know are not pleasing.  You say she is
'clever'--'a clever person.'  How I dislike the term!  It means
rather a shrewd, very ugly, meddling, talking woman . . . I feel
reluctant to leave papa for a single day.  His sight diminishes
weekly; and can it be wondered at that, as he sees the most
precious of his faculties leaving him, his spirits sometimes sink?
It is so hard to feel that his few and scanty pleasures must all
soon go.  He has now the greatest difficulty in either reading or
writing; and then he dreads the state of dependence to which
blindness will inevitably reduce him.  He fears that he will be
nothing in his parish.  I try to cheer him; sometimes I succeed
temporarily, but no consolation can restore his sight, or atone
for the want of it.  Still he is never peevish; never impatient;
only anxious and dejected."


For the reason just given, Charlotte declined an invitation to the
only house to which she was now ever asked to come.  In answer to
her correspondent's reply to this letter, she says:-

"You thought I refused you coldly, did you?  It was a queer sort
of coldness, when I would have given my ears to say Yes, and was
obliged to say No.  Matters, however, are now a little changed.
Anne is come home, and her presence certainly makes me feel more
at liberty.  Then, if all be well, I will come and see you.  Tell
me only when I must come.  Mention the week and the day.  Have the
kindness also to answer the following queries, if you can.  How
far is it from Leeds to Sheffield?  Can you give me a notion of
the cost?  Of course, when I come, you will let me enjoy your own
company in peace, and not drag me out a visiting.  I have no
desire at all to see your curate.  I think he must be like all the
other curates I have seen; and they seem to me a self-seeking,
vain, empty race.  At this blessed moment, we have no less than
three of them in Haworth parish--and there is not one to mend
another.  The other day, they all three, accompanied by Mr. S.,
dropped, or rather rushed, in unexpectedly to tea.  It was Monday
(baking day), and I was hot and tired; still, if they had behaved
quietly and decently, I would have served them out their tea in
peace; but they began glorifying themselves, and abusing
Dissenters in such a manner, that my temper lost its balance, and
I pronounced a few sentences sharply and rapidly, which struck
them all dumb.  Papa was greatly horrified also, but I don't
regret it."


On her return from this short visit to her friend, she travelled
with a gentleman in the railway carriage, whose features and
bearing betrayed him, in a moment, to be a Frenchman.  She
ventured to ask him if such was not the case; and, on his
admitting it, she further inquired if he had not passed a
considerable time in Germany, and was answered that he had; her
quick ear detected something of the thick guttural pronunciation,
which, Frenchmen say, they are able to discover even in the
grandchildren of their countrymen who have lived any time beyond
the Rhine.  Charlotte had retained her skill in the language by
the habit of which she thus speaks to M. Heger:-


"Je crains beaucoup d'oublier le francais--j'apprends tous les
jours une demie page de francais par coeur, et j'ai grand plaisir
e apprendre cette lecon, Veuillez presenter e Madame l'assurance
de mon estime; je crains que Maria-Louise et Claire ne m'aient
deje oubliees; mais je vous reverrai un jour; aussitot que
j'aurais gagne assez d'argent pour alter e Bruxelles, j'y irai."


And so her journey back to Haworth, after the rare pleasure of
this visit to her friend, was pleasantly beguiled by conversation
with the French gentleman; and she arrived at home refreshed and
happy.  What to find there?

It was ten o'clock when she reached the parsonage.  Branwell was
there, unexpectedly, very ill.  He had come home a day or two
before, apparently for a holiday; in reality, I imagine, because
some discovery had been made which rendered his absence
imperatively desirable.  The day of Charlotte's return, he had
received a letter from Mr. -, sternly dismissing him, intimating
that his proceedings were discovered, characterising them as bad
beyond expression, and charging him, on pain of exposure, to break
off immediately, and for ever, all communication with every member
of the family.

Whatever may have been the nature and depth of Branwell's sins,--
whatever may have been his temptation, whatever his guilt,--there
is no doubt of the suffering which his conduct entailed upon his
poor father and his innocent sisters.  The hopes and plans they
had cherished long, and laboured hard to fulfil, were cruelly
frustrated; henceforward their days were embittered and the
natural rest of their nights destroyed by his paroxysms of
remorse.  Let us read of the misery caused to his poor sisters in
Charlotte's own affecting words:-


"We have had sad work with Branwell.  He thought of nothing but
stunning or drowning his agony of mind.  No one in this house
could have rest; and, at last, we have been obliged to send him
from home for a week, with some one to look after him.  He has
written to me this morning, expressing some sense of contrition .
. . but as long as he remains at home, I scarce dare hope for
peace in the house.  We must all, I fear, prepare for a season of
distress and disquietude.  When I left you, I was strongly
impressed with the feeling that I was going back to sorrow."

"August, 1845.

"Things here at home are much as usual; not very bright as it
regards Branwell, though his health, and consequently his temper,
have been somewhat better this last day or two, because he is now
FORCED TO abstain."

"August 18th, 1845.

"I have delayed writing, because I have no good news to
communicate.  My hopes ebb low indeed about Branwell.  I sometimes
fear he will never be fit for much.  The late blow to his
prospects and feelings has quite made him reckless.  It is only
absolute want of means that acts as any check to him.  One ought,
indeed, to hope to the very last; and I try to do so, but
occasionally hope in his case seems so fallacious."

"Nov. 4th, 1845.

"I hoped to be able to ask you to come to Haworth.  It almost
seemed as if Branwell had a chance of getting employment, and I
waited to know the result of his efforts in order to say, dear -,
come and see us.  But the place (a secretaryship to a railway
committee) is given to another person.  Branwell still remains at
home; and while HE is here, YOU shall not come.  I am more
confirmed in that resolution the more I see of him.  I wish I
could say one word to you in his favour, but I cannot.  I will
hold my tongue.  We are all obliged to you for your kind
suggestion about Leeds; but I think our school schemes are, for
the present, at rest."

"Dec. 31st, 1845.

"You say well, in speaking of -, that no sufferings are so awful
as those brought on by dissipation; alas! I see the truth of this
observation daily proved. --and--must have as weary and burdensome
a life of it in waiting upon their unhappy brother.  It seems
grievous, indeed, that those who have not sinned should suffer so
largely."

In fact, all their latter days blighted with the presence of
cruel, shameful suffering,--the premature deaths of two at least
of the sisters,--all the great possibilities of their earthly
lives snapped short,--may be dated from Midsummer 1845.

For the last three years of Branwell's life, he took opium
habitually, by way of stunning conscience; he drank moreover,
whenever he could get the opportunity.  The reader may say that I
have mentioned his tendency to intemperance long before.  It is
true; but it did not become habitual, as far as I can learn, until
after he was dismissed from his tutorship.  He took opium, because
it made him forget for a time more effectually than drink; and,
besides, it was more portable.  In procuring it he showed all the
cunning of the opium-eater.  He would steal out while the family
were at church--to which he had professed himself too ill to go--
and manage to cajole the village druggist out of a lump; or, it
might be, the carrier had unsuspiciously brought him some in a
packet from a distance.  For some time before his death he had
attacks of delirium tremens of the most frightful character; he
slept in his father's room, and he would sometimes declare that
either he or his father should be dead before the morning.  The
trembling sisters, sick with fright, would implore their father
not to expose himself to this danger; but Mr. Bronte is no timid
man, and perhaps he felt that he could possibly influence his son
to some self-restraint, more by showing trust in him than by
showing fear.  The sisters often listened for the report of a
pistol in the dead of the night, till watchful eye and hearkening
ear grew heavy and dull with the perpetual strain upon their
nerves.  In the mornings young Bronte would saunter out, saying,
with a drunkard's incontinence of speech, "The poor old man and I
have had a terrible night of it; he does his best--the poor old
man! but it's all over with me."



CHAPTER XIV



In the course of this sad autumn of 1845, a new interest came up;
faint, indeed, and often lost sight of in the vivid pain and
constant pressure of anxiety respecting their brother.  In the
biographical notice of her sisters, which Charlotte prefixed to
the edition of "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey," published in
1850--a piece of writing unique, as far as I know, in its pathos
and its power--she says:-


"One day in the autumn of 1845, I accidentally lighted on a MS.
volume of verse, in my sister Emily's hand-writing.  Of course, I
was not surprised, knowing that she could and did write verse:  I
looked it over, and something more than surprise seized me--a deep
conviction that these were not common effusions, nor at all like
the poetry women generally write.  I thought them condensed and
terse, vigorous and genuine.  To my ear they had also a peculiar
music, wild, melancholy, and elevating.  My sister Emily was not a
person of demonstrative character, nor one on the recesses of
whose mind and feelings even those nearest and dearest to her
could, with impunity, intrude unlicensed:  it took hours to
reconcile her to the discovery I had made, and days to persuade
her that such poems merited publication . . . Meantime, my younger
sister quietly produced some of her own compositions, intimating
that since Emily's had given me pleasure, I might like to look at
hers.  I could not but be a partial judge, yet I thought that
these verses too had a sweet sincere pathos of their own.  We had
very early cherished the dream of one day being authors.  We
agreed to arrange a small selection of our poems, and, if
possible, get them printed.  Averse to personal publicity, we
veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell;
the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious
scruple at assuming Christian names, positively masculine, while
we did not like to declare ourselves women, because--without at
the time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not
what is called 'feminine,' we had a vague impression that
authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we noticed
how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of
personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true
praise.  The bringing out of our little book was hard work.  As
was to be expected, neither we nor our poems were at all wanted;
but for this we had been prepared at the outset; though
inexperienced ourselves, we had read the experience of others.
The great puzzle lay in the difficulty of getting answers of any
kind from the publishers to whom we applied.  Being greatly
harassed by this obstacle, I ventured to apply to the Messrs.
Chambers, of Edinburgh, for a word of advice; THEY may have
forgotten the circumstance, but I have not, for from them I
received a brief and business-like, but civil and sensible reply,
on which we acted, and at last made way."

I inquired from Mr. Robert Chambers, and found, as Miss Bronte
conjectured, that he had entirely forgotten the application which
had been made to him and his brother for advice; nor had they any
copy or memorandum of the correspondence.

There is an intelligent man living in Haworth, who has given me
some interesting particulars relating to the sisters about this
period.  He says:-

"I have known Miss Bronte, as Miss Bronte, a long time; indeed,
ever since they came to Haworth in 1819.  But I had not much
acquaintance with the family till about 1843, when I began to do a
little in the stationery line.  Nothing of that kind could be had
nearer than Keighley before I began.  They used to buy a great
deal of writing paper, and I used to wonder whatever they did with
so much.  I sometimes thought they contributed to the Magazines.
When I was out of stock, I was always afraid of their coming; they
seemed so distressed about it, if I had none.  I have walked to
Halifax (a distance of ten miles) many a time, for half a ream of
paper, for fear of being without it when they came.  I could not
buy more at a time for want of capital.  I was always short of
that.  I did so like them to come when I had anything for them;
they were so much different to anybody else; so gentle and kind,
and so very quiet.  They never talked much.  Charlotte sometimes
would sit and inquire about our circumstances so kindly and
feelingly! . . . Though I am a poor working man (which I have
never felt to be any degradation), I could talk with her with the
greatest freedom.  I always felt quite at home with her.  Though I
never had any school education, I never felt the want of it in her
company."

The publishers to whom she finally made a successful application
for the production of "Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell's poems,"
were Messrs. Aylott and Jones, Paternoster Row.  Mr. Aylott has
kindly placed the letters which she wrote to them on the subject
at my disposal.  The first is dated January 28th, 1846, and in it
she inquires if they will publish one volume octavo of poems; if
not at their own risk, on the author's account.  It is signed "C.
Bronte."  They must have replied pretty speedily, for on January
31st she writes again:-

"GENTLEMEN,

"Since you agree to undertake the publication of the work
respecting which I applied to you, I should wish now to know, as
soon as possible, the cost of paper and printing.  I will then
send the necessary remittance, together with the manuscript.  I
should like it to be printed in one octavo volume, of the same
quality of paper and size of type as Moxon's last edition of
Wordsworth.  The poems will occupy, I should think, from 200 to
250 pages.  They are not the production of a clergyman, nor are
they exclusively of a religious character; but I presume these
circumstances will be immaterial.  It will, perhaps, be necessary
that you should see the manuscript, in order to calculate
accurately the expense of publication; in that case I will send it
immediately.  I should like, however, previously, to have some
idea of the probable cost; and if, from what I have said, you can
make a rough calculation on the subject, I should be greatly
obliged to you."

In her next letter, February 6th, she says:-

"You will perceive that the poems are the work of three persons,
relatives--their separate pieces are distinguished by their
respective signatures."

She writes again on February 15th; and on the 16th she says:-

"The MS. will certainly form a thinner volume than I had
anticipated.  I cannot name another model which I should like it
precisely to resemble, yet, I think, a duodecimo form, and a
somewhat reduced, though still CLEAR type, would be preferable.  I
only stipulate for CLEAR type, not too small, and good paper."

On February 21st she selects the "long primer type" for the poems,
and will remit 31L. 10S. in a few days.

Minute as the details conveyed in these notes are, they are not
trivial, because they afford such strong indications of character.
If the volume was to be published at their own risk, it was
necessary that the sister conducting the negotiation should make
herself acquainted with the different kinds of type, and the
various sizes of books.  Accordingly she bought a small volume,
from which to learn all she could on the subject of preparation
for the press.  No half-knowledge--no trusting to other people for
decisions which she could make for herself; and yet a generous and
full confidence, not misplaced, in the thorough probity of Messrs.
Aylott and Jones.  The caution in ascertaining the risk before
embarking in the enterprise, and the prompt payment of the money
required, even before it could be said to have assumed the shape
of a debt, were both parts of a self-reliant and independent
character.  Self-contained also was she.  During the whole time
that the volume of poems was in the course of preparation and
publication, no word was written telling anyone, out of the
household circle, what was in progress.

I have had some of the letters placed in my hands, which she
addressed to her old school-mistress, Miss W-.  They begin a
little before this time.  Acting on the conviction, which I have
all along entertained, that where Charlotte Bronte's own words
could be used, no others ought to take their place, I shall make
extracts from this series, according to their dates.

"Jan. 30th, 1846.

"MY DEAR MISS W-,

"I have not yet paid my visit to -; it is, indeed, more than a
year since I was there, but I frequently hear from E., and she did
not fail to tell me that you were gone into Worcestershire; she
was unable, however, to give me your exact address.  Had I known
it, I should have written to you long since.  I thought you would
wonder how we were getting on, when you heard of the railway
panic; and you may be sure that I am very glad to be able to
answer your kind inquiries by the assurance that our small capital
is as yet undiminished.  The York and Midland is, as you say, a
very good line, yet, I confess to you, I should wish, for my own
part, to be wise in time.  I cannot think that even the very best
lines will continue for many years at their present premiums; and
I have been most anxious for us to sell our shares ere it be too
late, and to secure the proceeds in some safer, if, for the
present, less profitable investment.  I cannot, however, persuade
my sisters to regard the affair precisely from my point of view;
and I feel as if I would rather run the risk of loss than hurt
Emily's feelings by acting in direct opposition to her opinion.
She managed in a most handsome and able manner for me, when I was
in Brussels, and prevented by distance from looking after my own
interests; therefore, I will let her manage still, and take the
consequences.  Disinterested and energetic she certainly is; and
if she be not quite so tractable or open to conviction as I could
wish, I must remember perfection is not the lot of humanity; and
as long as we can regard those we love, and to whom we are closely
allied, with profound and never-shaken esteem, it is a small thing
that they should vex us occasionally by what appear to us
unreasonable and headstrong notions.

"You, my dear Miss W-, know, full as well as I do, the value of
sisters' affection to each other; there is nothing like it in this
world, I believe, when they are nearly equal in age, and similar
in education, tastes, and sentiments.  You ask about Branwell; he
never thinks of seeking employment, and I begin to fear that he
has rendered himself incapable of filling any respectable station
in life; besides, if money were at his disposal, he would use it
only to his own injury; the faculty of self-government is, I fear,
almost destroyed in him.  You ask me if I do not think that men
are strange beings?  I do, indeed.  I have often thought so; and I
think, too, that the mode of bringing them up is strange:  they
are not sufficiently guarded from temptation.  Girls are protected
as if they were something very frail or silly indeed, while boys
are turned loose on the world, as if they, of all beings in
existence, were the wisest and least liable to be led astray.  I
am glad you like Broomsgrove, though, I dare say, there are few
places you would NOT like, with Mrs. M. for a companion.  I always
feel a peculiar satisfaction when I hear of your enjoying
yourself, because it proves that there really is such a thing as
retributive justice even in this world.  You worked hard; you
denied yourself all pleasure, almost all relaxation, in your
youth, and in the prime of life; now you are free, and that while
you have still, I hope, many years of vigour and health in which
you can enjoy freedom.  Besides, I have another and very
egotistical motive for being pleased; it seems that even 'a lone
woman' can be happy, as well as cherished wives and proud mothers.
I am glad of that.  I speculate much on the existence of unmarried
and never-to-be-married women now-a-days; and I have already got
to the point of considering that there is no more respectable
character on this earth than an unmarried woman, who makes her own
way through life quietly, perseveringly, without support of
husband or brother; and who, having attained the age of forty-five
or upwards, retains in her possession a well-regulated mind, a
disposition to enjoy simple pleasures, and fortitude to support
inevitably pains, sympathy with the sufferings of others, and
willingness to relieve want as far as her means extend."


During the time that the negotiation with Messrs. Aylott and Co.
was going on, Charlotte went to visit her old school-friend, with
whom she was in such habits of confidential intimacy; but neither
then nor afterwards, did she ever speak to her of the publication
of the poems; nevertheless, this young lady suspected that the
sisters wrote for Magazines; and in this idea she was confirmed
when, on one of her visits to Haworth, she saw Anne with a number
of "Chambers's Journal," and a gentle smile of pleasure stealing
over her placid face as she read.

"What is the matter?" asked the friend.  "Why do you smile?"

"Only because I see they have inserted one of my poems," was the
quiet reply; and not a word more was said on the subject.

To this friend Charlotte addressed the following letters:-

"March 3rd, 1846.

"I reached home a little after two o'clock, all safe and right
yesterday; I found papa very well; his sight much the same.  Emily
and Anne were going to Keighley to meet me; unfortunately, I had
returned by the old road, while they were gone by the new, and we
missed each other.  They did not get home till half-past four, and
were caught in the heavy shower of rain which fell in the
afternoon.  I am sorry to say Anne has taken a little cold in
consequence, but I hope she will soon be well.  Papa was much
cheered by my report of Mr. C.'s opinion, and of old Mrs. E.'s
experience; but I could perceive he caught gladly at the idea of
deferring the operation a few months longer.  I went into the room
where Branwell was, to speak to him, about an hour after I got
home:  it was very forced work to address him.  I might have
spared myself the trouble, as he took no notice, and made no
reply; he was stupified.  My fears were not in vain.  I hear that
he got a sovereign while I have been away, under pretence of
paying a pressing debt; he went immediately and changed it at a
public-house, and has employed it as was to be expected. --
concluded her account by saying he was a 'hopeless being;' it is
too true.  In his present state it is scarcely possible to stay in
the room where he is.  What the future has in store I do not
know."

"March 31st, 1846.

"Our poor old servant Tabby had a sort of fit, a fortnight since,
but is nearly recovered now.  Martha" (the girl they had to assist
poor old Tabby, and who remains still the faithful servant at the
parsonage,) "is ill with a swelling in her knee, and obliged to go
home.  I fear it will be long before she is in working condition
again.  I received the number of the 'Record' you sent . . . I
read D'Aubigne's letter.  It is clever, and in what he says about
Catholicism very good.  The Evangelical Alliance part is not very
practicable, yet certainly it is more in accordance with the
spirit of the Gospel to preach unity among Christians than to
inculcate mutual intolerance and hatred.  I am very glad I went
to--when I did, for the changed weather has somewhat changed my
health and strength since.  How do you get on?  I long for mild
south and west winds.  I am thankful papa continues pretty well,
though often made very miserable by Branwell's wretched conduct.
THERE--there is no change but for the worse."


Meanwhile the printing of the volume of poems was quietly
proceeding.  After some consultation and deliberation, the sisters
had determined to correct the proofs themselves, Up to March 28th
the publishers had addressed their correspondent as C. Bronte,
Esq.; but at this time some "little mistake occurred," and she
desired Messrs. Aylott and Co. in future to direct to her real
address, "MISS Bronte," &c.  She had, however, evidently left it
to be implied that she was not acting on her own behalf, but as
agent for the real authors, since in a note dated April 6th, she
makes a proposal on behalf of "C., E., and A. Bell," which is to
the following effect, that they are preparing for the press a work
of fiction, consisting of three distinct and unconnected tales,
which may be published either together, as a work of three
volumes, of the ordinary novel size, or separately, as single
volumes, as may be deemed most advisable.  She states, in
addition, that it is not their intention to publish these tales on
their own account; but that the authors direct her to ask Messrs.
Aylott and Co. whether they would be disposed to undertake the
work, after having, of course, by due inspection of the MS.,
ascertained that its contents are such as to warrant an
expectation of success.  To this letter of inquiry the publishers
replied speedily, and the tenor of their answer may be gathered
from Charlotte's, dated April 11th.


"I beg to thank you, in the name of C., E., and A. Bell, for your
obliging offer of advice.  I will avail myself of it, to request
information on two or three points.  It is evident that unknown
authors have great difficulties to contend with, before they can
succeed in bringing their works before the public.  Can you give
me any hint as to the way in which these difficulties are best
met?  For instance, in the present case, where a work of fiction
is in question, in what form would a publisher be most likely to
accept the MS.?  Whether offered as a work of three vols., or as
tales which might be published in numbers, or as contributions to
a periodical?

"What publishers would be most likely to receive favourably a
proposal of this nature?

"Would it suffice to WRITE to a publisher on the subject, or would
it be necessary to have recourse to a personal interview?

"Your opinion and advice on these three points, or on any other
which your experience may suggest as important, would be esteemed
by us as a favour."


It is evident from the whole tenor of this correspondence, that
the truthfulness and probity of the firm of publishers with whom
she had to deal in this her first literary venture, were strongly
impressed upon her mind, and was followed by the inevitable
consequence of reliance on their suggestions.  And the progress of
the poems was not unreasonably lengthy or long drawn out.  On
April 20th she writes to desire that three copies may be sent to
her, and that Messrs. Aylott will advise her as to the reviewers
to whom copies ought to be sent.

I give the next letter as illustrating the ideas of these girls as
to what periodical reviews or notices led public opinion.

"The poems to be neatly done up in cloth.  Have the goodness to
send copies and advertisements, AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE, to each of
the undermentioned periodicals.

"'Colburn's New Monthly Magazine.'

"'Bentley's Magazine.'

"'Hood's Magazine.'

"'Jerrold's Shilling Magazine.'

"'Blackwood's Magazine.'

"'The Edinburgh Review.'

"'Tait's Edinburgh Magazine.'

"'The Dublin University Magazine.'

"Also to the 'Daily News' and to the 'Britannia' papers.

"If there are any other periodicals to which you have been in the
habit of sending copies of works, let them be supplied also with
copies.  I think those I have mentioned will suffice for
advertising."

In compliance with this latter request, Messrs. Aylott suggest
that copies and advertisements of the work should be sent to the
"Athenaeum," "Literary Gazette," "Critic," and "Times;" but in her
reply Miss Bronte says, that she thinks the periodicals she first
mentioned will be sufficient for advertising in at present, as the
authors do not wish to lay out a larger sum than two pounds in
advertising, esteeming the success of a work dependent more on the
notice it receives from periodicals than on the quantity of
advertisements.  In case of any notice of the poems appearing,
whether favourable or otherwise, Messrs. Aylott and Co. are
requested to send her the name and number of those periodicals in
which such notices appear; as otherwise, since she has not the
opportunity of seeing periodicals regularly, she may miss reading
the critique.  "Should the poems be remarked upon favourably, it
is my intention to appropriate a further sum for advertisements.
If, on the other hand, they should pass unnoticed or be condemned,
I consider it would be quite useless to advertise, as there is
nothing, either in the title of the work, or the names of the
authors, to attract attention from a single individual."

I suppose the little volume of poems was published some time about
the end of May, 1846.  It stole into life; some weeks passed over,
without the mighty murmuring public discovering that three more
voices were uttering their speech.  And, meanwhile, the course of
existence moved drearily along from day to day with the anxious
sisters, who must have forgotten their sense of authorship in the
vital care gnawing at their hearts.  On June 17th, Charlotte
writes:-

"Branwell declares that he neither can nor will do anything for
himself; good situations have been offered him, for which, by a
fortnight's work, he might have qualified himself, but he will do
nothing except drink and make us all wretched."

In the "Athenaeum" of July 4th, under the head of poetry for the
million, came a short review of the poems of C., E., and A. Bell.
The reviewer assigns to Ellis the highest rank of the three
"brothers," as he supposes them to be; he calls Ellis "a fine,
quaint spirit;" and speaks of "an evident power of wing that may
reach heights not here attempted."  Again, with some degree of
penetration, the reviewer says, that the poems of Ellis "convey an
impression of originality beyond what his contributions to these
volumes embody."  Currer is placed midway between Ellis and Acton.
But there is little in the review to strain out, at this distance
of time, as worth preserving.  Still, we can fancy with what
interest it was read at Haworth Parsonage, and how the sisters
would endeavour to find out reasons for opinions, or hints for the
future guidance of their talents.

I call particular attention to the following letter of
Charlotte's, dated July 10th, 1846.  To whom it was written,
matters not; but the wholesome sense of duty in it--the sense of
the supremacy of that duty which God, in placing us in families,
has laid out for us, seems to deserve especial regard in these
days.


"I see you are in a dilemma, and one of a peculiar and difficult
nature.  Two paths lie before you; you conscientiously wish to
choose the right one, even though it be the most steep, strait,
and rugged; but you do not know which is the right one; you cannot
decide whether duty and religion command you to go out into the
cold and friendless world, and there to earn your living by
governess drudgery, or whether they enjoin your continued stay
with your aged mother, neglecting, FOR THE PRESENT, every prospect
of independency for yourself, and putting up with daily
inconvenience, sometimes even with privations.  I can well
imagine, that it is next to impossible for you to decide for
yourself in this matter, so I will decide it for you.  At least, I
will tell you what is my earnest conviction on the subject; I will
show you candidly how the question strikes me.  The right path is
that which necessitates the greatest sacrifice of self-interest--
which implies the greatest good to others; and this path, steadily
followed, will lead, I believe, in time, to prosperity and to
happiness, though it may seem, at the outset, to tend quite in a
contrary direction.  Your mother is both old and infirm; old and
infirm people have but few sources of happiness--fewer almost than
the comparatively young and healthy can conceive; to deprive them
of one of these is cruel.  If your mother is more composed when
you are with her, stay with her.  If she would be unhappy in case
you left her, stay with her.  It will not apparently, as far as
short-sighted humanity can see, be for your advantage to remain at
-, nor will you be praised and admired for remaining at home to
comfort your mother; yet, probably, your own conscience will
approve, and if it does, stay with her.  I recommend you to do
what I am trying to do myself."


The remainder of this letter is only interesting to the reader as
it conveys a peremptory disclaimer of the report that the writer
was engaged to be married to her father's curate--the very same
gentleman to whom, eight years afterwards, she was united; and
who, probably, even now, although she was unconscious of the fact,
had begun his service to her, in the same tender and faithful
spirit as that in which Jacob served for Rachel.  Others may have
noticed this, though she did not.

A few more notes remain of her correspondence "on behalf of the
Messrs. Bell" with Mr. Aylott.  On July 15th she says, "I suppose,
as you have not written, no other notices have yet appeared, nor
has the demand for the work increased.  Will you favour me with a
line stating whether ANY, or how many copies have yet been sold?"

But few, I fear; for, three days later, she wrote the following:-

"The Messrs. Bell desire me to thank you for your suggestion
respecting the advertisements.  They agree with you that, since
the season is unfavourable, advertising had better be deferred.
They are obliged to you for the information respecting the number
of copies sold."

On July 23rd she writes to the Messrs. Aylott:-

"The Messrs. Bell would be obliged to you to post the enclosed
note in London.  It is an answer to the letter you forwarded,
which contained an application for their autographs from a person
who professed to have read and admired their poems.  I think I
before intimated, that the Messrs. Bell are desirous for the
present of remaining unknown, for which reason they prefer having
the note posted in London to sending it direct, in order to avoid
giving any clue to residence, or identity by post-mark, &c."

Once more, in September, she writes, "As the work has received no
further notice from any periodical, I presume the demand for it
has not greatly increased."

In the biographical notice of her sisters, she thus speaks of the
failure of the modest hopes vested in this publication.  "The book
was printed; it is scarcely known, and all of it that merits to be
known are the poems of Ellis Bell.

"The fixed conviction I held, and hold, of the worth of these
poems, has not, indeed, received the confirmation of much
favourable criticism; but I must retain it notwithstanding."



Footnotes:

{1}  A reviewer pointed out the discrepancy between the age
(twenty-seven years) assigned, on the mural tablet, to Anne Bronte
at the time of her death in 1849, and the alleged fact that she
was born at Thornton, from which place Mr. Bronte removed on
February 25th, 1820.  I was aware of the discrepancy, but I did
not think it of sufficient consequence to be rectified by an
examination of the register of births.  Mr. Bronte's own words, on
which I grounded my statement as to the time of Anne Bronte's
birth, are as follows:-

"In Thornton, Charlotte, Patrick Branwell, Emily Jane, and Anne
were born."  And such of the inhabitants of Haworth as have spoken
on the subject say that all the children of Mr. and Mrs. Bronte
were born before they removed to Haworth.  There is probably some
mistake in the inscription on the tablet.

{2}  In the month of April 1858, a neat mural tablet was erected
within the Communion railing of the Church at Haworth, to the
memory of the deceased members of the Bronte family.  The tablet
is of white Carrara marble on a ground of dove-coloured marble,
with a cornice surmounted by an ornamental pediment of chaste
design.  Between the brackets which support the tablet, is
inscribed the sacred monogram I.H.S., in old English letters.

{3}  With regard to my own opinion of the present school, I can
only give it as formed after what was merely a cursory and
superficial inspection, as I do not believe that I was in the
house above half an hour; but it was and is this,--that the house
at Casterton seemed thoroughly healthy and well kept, and is
situated in a lovely spot; that the pupils looked bright, happy,
and well, and that the lady superintendent was a most
prepossessing looking person, who, on my making some inquiry as to
the accomplishments taught to the pupils, said that the scheme of
education was materially changed since the school had been opened.
I would have inserted this testimony in the first edition, had I
believed that any weight could be attached to an opinion formed on
such slight and superficial grounds.

{4}  "Jane Eyre," vol. I., page 20.

{5}  Scott describes the sport, "Shooting at the Popinjay," "as an
ancient game formerly practised with archery, but at this period
(1679) with firearms.  This was the figure of a bird decked with
parti-coloured feathers, so as to resemble a popinjay or parrot.
It was suspended to a pole, and served for a mark at which the
competitors discharged their fusees and carbines in rotation, at
the distance of seventy paces.  He whose ball brought down the
mark held the proud title of Captain of the Popinjay for the
remainder of the day, and was usually escorted in triumph to the
most respectable change-house in the neighbourhood, where the
evening was closed with conviviality, conducted under his
auspices, and if he was able to maintain it, at his expense."--Old
Mortality.

{6}  In this Gutenberg eText M. Heger's comments are given in {}
at approximately the place where they occur--DP.





End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Life of Charlotte Bronte by Gaskell V 1