Author: insearchofannebronte@hotmail.com

Vegetarianism and veganism are becoming increasingly popular. Whilst these terms were unheard of in the first half of the nineteenth century, there surely were people who followed these diets. In today’s post we’re going to look at whether the Brontës really did have a meat free diet, something that was first suggested in this passage from Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life Of Charlotte Brontë:

‘But there never were such good children. I used to think them spiritless, they were so different to any children I had ever seen. In part, I set it down to a fancy Mr. Brontë had of not letting them have flesh-meat to eat. It was from no wish for saving, for there was plenty and even waste in the house, with young servants and no mistress to see after them; but he thought that children should be brought up simply and hardily; so they had nothing but potatoes for their dinner.’

There were a number of passages in the first edition of Gaskell’s book which showed Patrick in a less than favourable light, but it was this one in particular that he took umbrage with, as we see in a letter published by the ‘Daily News’ on this week in 1857, just five months after the biography of Charlotte Brontë was published. On 21^st August 1857 the newspaper published a response from William Dearden, the indefatigable defender of Patrick Brontë who we’ve encountered in a previous post, in which he denied many of the books claims:

‘With regard to the statement that Mr. Brontë, in his desire to bring up his children simply and hardily, refused to permit them to eat flesh meat, he asserts that Nancy Garrs alleges that the children had meat daily, and as much other food as they chose. The only article from which they were restrained was butter, but its want was compensated for by what is known in Yorkshire as “spice-cake,” a description of bread which is the staple food at Christmas for all meals but dinner.’

The article also includes a quote attributed directly to Patrick himself:

‘I did not know that I had an enemy in the world, much less one who would traduce me before my death. Everything in that book which relates to my conduct to my family is either false or distorted. I never did commit such acts as are ascribed to me. I stated this in a letter which I sent to Mrs Gaskell, requesting her at the same time to cancel the false statements made about me in her next edition of her book. To this I received no answer than that Mrs Gaskell was unwell, and unable to write.’

For corroboration of Dearden’s words we can turn to an interview with Nancy Garrs herself to the Leeds Mercury and which was published in 1893:

‘The assertion that Mr Brontë would not allow his children butter, and that they had little animal food provided, Nancy also stated to be false. “Why,” said she, laughing derisively, “I was the cook, and if at any time they had no butter on their bread it was because there were good currants in it. Meat the children had every day of their lives, cooked on that very meat-jack you see above your heads, gentlemen. That was Mr Brontë’s jack, and after his death it was sent to me. Aye,” continued she, with a look which showed she was thinking of the chequered past in her youthful home, “Mr Brontë was one the kindest husbands I ever knew, except my own, and an Irishman, you will know Mr Brontë was.’

It seems that Patrick Brontë had indeed an enemy, although one he may well have forgotten, and that it was they who had fed false tales to Elizabeth Gaskell who then took them in good faith – the passages were later removed from later editions of the biography. The informant in question was a Martha Heaton, nee Wright, who had worked as a nursemaid in the parsonage during the final illness of Patrick’s wife Maria. She was dismissed soon after the arrival from Cornwall of Elizabeth ‘Aunt’ Branwell in Haworth, and may have held a grudge against both Patrick and Elizabeth.

A letter from Elizabeth Gaskell to her friend Charlotte Froude in August 1850, shortly after her first encounter with Charlotte Brontë, reveals that Charlotte stated that she had endured a poor diet not at home in Haworth Parsonage but at school in Cowan Bridge:

This recollection did not make its way into Gaskell’s biography but one that did is a recollection by Mary Taylor of the Charlotte Brontë she had known at Roe Head school:

‘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.’

A typically blunt assessment from Mary, and it seems to point to Charlotte avoiding meat at this point in her life because of a lifestyle choice. Nevertheless we know that Charlotte did resume eating meat again; the reason why was outlined in Ellen Nussey’s memoir, ‘Reminiscences of Charlotte Bronte’:

‘Her appetite was of the smallest; for years she had not tasted animal food; she had the greatest dislike to it; she always had something specially provided for her at our midday repast. Towards the close of the first half-year she was induced to take, by little and little, meat gravy with vegetable, and in the second half-year she commenced taking a very small portion of animal food daily. She then grew a little bit plumper, looked younger and more animated, though she was never what is called lively at this period.’

If Charlotte had had access to the information we have today on nutritional content, and with today’s dietary supplements, it seems possible, even probable, that Charlotte Brontë would have remained vegetarian.

The greatest proof that the Brontës did eat meat comes from the Brontës themselves. The 1834 diary paper composed jointly by Emily and Anne Brontë provides a snapshot of a day in the life of the two teenage sisters, and it also reveals what they were having for dinner:

‘It is past Twelve o’clock Anne and I have not tided ourselves, done our bed work done our lessons and we want to go out to play. We are going to have for dinner boiled beef, turnips, potato’s and apple pudding, the kitchin is in a very untidy state.’

All in all that sounds like a fine, balanced meal, and certainly disproves Martha Wright’s tale that the Brontë children were given spartan dinners. Whatever you are having for your Sunday lunch I hope you enjoy it, and I hope to see you here next week for another new Brontë blog post.

This week marks the 173rd anniversary of the publication of the second edition of The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. The second edition was necessitated because it had proved hugely popular, with the first edition selling faster than even her sister Charlotte’s Jane Eyre had. In today’s new post we’re going to look at Charlotte Bronte’s opinion of The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, and why she may have held it.

One reason for the huge popularity that Anne’s second novel enjoyed after it’s launch was of course that it’s a fabulous novel executed brilliantly, but it was also because it had a whiff of controversy about it. Some critics had been damning of the subject matter of the book, and unsurprisingly that made a lot of people want to read it for themselves.

‘The Atlas’, for example, were most concerned with the depiction of the upper classes, who in the reviewer’s eyes seem to be beyond reproach: ‘This, perhaps, is the passage which of all others in the book the general reader will be most inclined to describe “powerful.” But it is power of a bad kind. It is sheer exaggeration. These creatures are supposed to belong to the class “gentlemen” – to have moved in good society, to have been subject to humanising influences. They appear, too, in a story illustrative of modern life. We need not take any trouble to explain why we pronounce them essentially unreal.’

It was criticism such as this which led Anne Brontë to compose her famous preface to the second edition of The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall. In it she effectively shot down those who had criticised the authenticity of her work:

‘My object in writing the following pages, was not simply to amuse the Reader, neither was it to gratify my own taste, nor yet to ingratiate myself with the Press and the Public: I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it… When we have to deal with vice and vicious characters, I maintain it is better to depict them as they really are than as they would wish to appear. To represent a bad thing in its least offensive light, is doubtless the most agreeable course for a writer of fiction to pursue; but is it the most honest, or the safest? Is it better to reveal the snares and pitfalls of life to the young and thoughtless traveller, or to cover them with branches and flowers? O Reader! if there were less of this delicate concealment of facts – this whispering ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace, there would be less of sin and misery to the young of both sexes who are left to wring their bitter knowledge from experience.’

Nevertheless, many discerning critics had praised Anne’s novel. ‘The Athenaeum’, for example, called it, ‘the most interesting novel which we have read for a month past’, whilst the ‘Morning Herald’ hailed it as ‘a thorough racy English novel’ (which probably helped sales no end.)

What did Charlotte make of Anne’s latest work? From pronouncements she made after Anne’s death, which tragically came just a year after she found success with ‘Tenant’, we can see that she was less than enamoured with the work. In a letter of 5^th September 1850 to W.S. Williams (her publisher Smith, Elder was talking of publishing new editions of her sisters’ work), she pronounced:

‘“Wildfell Hall” it hardly appears desirable to preserve. The choice of subject in that work is a mistake – it was too little consonant with the character, tastes and ideas of the gentle, retiring, inexperienced writer. She wrote it under a strange, conscientious, half-ascetic notion of accomplishing a painful penance and a severe duty.’

Charlotte returned to this theme a year later when she wrote her ‘biographical notice’ of Acton Bell (Anne’s pseudonym of course): ‘The choice of subject was an entire mistake… She had in the course of her life, been called on to contemplate, near at hand and for a long time, the terrible effects of talents misused and faculties abused; hers was naturally a sensitive, reserved and dejected nature; what she saw sank very deeply into her mind; it did her harm. She brooded over it till she believed it to be a duty to reproduce every detail as a warning to others.’

Were these views shaped by Anne’s passing? We have letters showing what Charlotte thought of the book at the time of its publication. On 31^st July 1848 she wrote (once again to W.S. Williams):

‘The fact is neither she [Anne] nor any of us expected that view to be taken of the book which has been taken by some critics: that it had its faults of execution, faults of art was obvious; but faults of intention or feeling could be suspected by none who knew the writer. For my own part I consider the subject unfortunately chosen – it was one the author was not qualified to handle at once vigorously and truthfully; the simple and natural, quiet description and simple pathos are, I think, Acton Bell’s forte. I liked Agnes Grey better than the present work.

In reply to this, it seems that Williams countered that he thought Huntingdon, the central villain of The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, reminded him of Rochester. Predictably, Charlotte wasn’t happy at that assessment, and on 14^th August 1848 replied with a fascinating assessment of some of the male protagonists of Brontë novels:

It’s quite clear that Charlotte Brontë was far from a fan of The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, but why was this? There are many hypotheses; could it be that Charlotte was jealous of the success of Anne’s second novel, and felt that it had eclipsed her own Jane Eyre? Sibling rivalry is as old as Cain and Abel after all. Could it be that Charlotte did indeed think her youngest sister was simply too meek to write such a book, and to endure the consequences of writing it? I personally think that the subject matter hit too close to home for Charlotte to bear. Huntingdon was not based on Branwell Brontë (although Lowborough in the novel may be closer to him), but the episodes of drunken and drug-fuelled behaviour may have seemed familiar to Charlotte – perhaps she worried that Anne’s novel was placing Branwell’s frailties in front of the world?

Without a time machine we shall never know, but Charlotte’s pronouncement on the novel had a long lasting effect. It was not re-published alongside Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, and in fact it was ten years after Anne’s death, and four after Charlotte’s own exit, that another edition saw the light of day – by which time the novel had been all but forgotten.

The effect was long lasting, it seemed like it might do the novel and author eternal damage, but as we see in The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall itself, Anne was aware that ‘eternal’ doesn’t really mean forever:

‘”How will it be in the end, when you see yourselves parted for ever; you, perhaps, taken into eternal bliss, and he cast into the lake that burneth with unquenchable fire – there for ever to -”

“Not for ever,” I exclaimed, “‘only till he has paid the uttermost farthing;’ for ‘if any man’s work abide not the fire, he shall suffer loss, yet himself shall be saved, but so as by fire;’ and He that ‘is able to subdue all things to Himself will have all men to be saved,’ and ‘will, in the fulness of time, gather together in one all things in Christ Jesus, who tasted death for every man, and in whom God will reconcile all things to Himself, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven.’”

“Oh, Helen! where did you learn all this?”

“In the Bible, aunt. I have searched it through, and found nearly thirty passages, all tending to support the same theory.”

“And is that the use you make of your Bible? And did you find no passages tending to prove the danger and the falsity of such a belief?”

“No: I found, indeed, some passages that, taken by themselves, might seem to contradict that opinion; but they will all bear a different construction to that which is commonly given, and in most the only difficulty is in the word which we translate ‘everlasting’ or ‘eternal.’ I don’t know the Greek, but I believe it strictly means for ages, and might signify either endless or long-enduring.”

Long-enduring though the reputational damage to ‘Tenant’ was, it did not last forever. Today it is rightly hailed as a masterpiece, a book well ahead of its time that has a message as important today as it has ever been.

Before I go, I have to say a big thank you for all the kind messages you sent in response to last week’s post. Thank you. Such kind words and thoughts certainly make writing this blog worthwhile, and I’m sure they will do me a world of good. I hope to see you again next week for another new Brontë blog post.

Last week we celebrated the 203^rd birthday of the wonderful Emily Brontë, but there was another Brontë anniversary taking place for it also marked the return from honeymoon of Charlotte Brontë in 1854 – or Charlotte Brontë Nicholls as she then styled herself.

In this week’s post we’re going to take a look at Charlotte Brontë’s honeymoon, and thankfully we have a great source for our information – the letters of Charlotte herself. As many people have been finding over the last year, there are many great places to see in the British Isles, and Charlotte enjoyed her month long honeymoon in Ireland, birthplace of her husband Arthur Bell Nicholls, after travelling through Wales.

We also have a report of Charlotte and Arthur setting off on their honeymoon on 29^th June 1854 thanks to the recollection of James Robinson, a young trainee teacher who was present at their wedding:

‘Directly the ceremony was over, and the interested parties had gone to the parsonage, a carriage and pair drove up from Keighley. There was no station at Haworth then. I remember there was a bay horse and a grey one, and in a few moments Miss Brontë and Mr. Nicholls, now married, were away on their honeymoon.’

We can be thankful that Charlotte found time on her honeymoon to write some detailed and enlightening letters, for they give us a fascinating insight into this happy time for her. There are five such letters, and the first was written to her great friend, and bridesmaid, Ellen Nussey:

Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey, 29^th June 1854

As we shall see, Charlotte sailed from Wales to Ireland. Whilst in Wales she found time to draw this beautiful sketch of Conwy Castle.

Charlotte Brontë to Margaret Wooler, 10^th July 1854

Charlotte is fascinated by the home and family of her new husband, Hill House in Banagher, County Offaly, around 80 miles west of Dublin. She is particularly charmed by Arthur’s cousin Mary who is a ‘pretty, lady-like girl with gentle English manners.’ This cousin was like a sister to Arthur, they were brought up together after his uncle the Reverend Bell of Banagher became his guardian. Ten years after this meeting, and nine after Charlotte’s tragic death, Mary Bell and Arthur Bell Nicholls were married.

Charlotte Brontë to Catherine Wooler, 18^th July 1854

Catherine Wooler was younger sister to Margaret, and had also taught Charlotte at Roe Head school. Charlotte and Arthur loved the wild Atlantic coastline of Kilkee, and the resort still remembers Charlotte. She is mentioned here on this sign, underneath a picture of a rather different visitor to Kilkee: Che Guevara.

 

Charlotte Brontë to Catherine Winkworth, 27^th July 1854

Catherine Winkworth, or Katie as she was known to Charlotte, was a close friend of Elizabeth Gaskell and had met Charlotte at Gaskell’s Plymouth Grove home in Manchester. In this letter we get an account of an incident that could have ended Charlotte’s life. Thrown from her horse at the  spectacularly beautiful Gap of Dunloe, a sometimes treacherous passageway in the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks, she narrowly avoids being trampled to death. It seems strangely reminiscent of a scene which Charlotte had written seven years earlier: Rochester being thrown from his horse at his first encounter with Jane Eyre.

Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey, 28^th July 1854

Charlotte’s Irish adventure has come to an end, and she is once more in Dublin (that’s Dublin Castle at the head of this post) waiting to sail back to Wales. From these letters we see that Charlotte has had a hugely enjoyable, and certainly memorable, honeymoon. She loved Ireland, the land of her father, and her love for her new husband was growing by the day.

There is a sadder note, however, as we hear of Charlotte’s concern for her father’s health. Unfortunately, I found a little over a week ago that my own health is not as ship shape as I thought it was. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I hope to be able to continue writing these Brontë blog posts for a long time yet, but if I have to miss some weeks or if posts are late then I hope you will understand. Anyway, let’s end on a happier note and remember the happy moments that Charlotte spent in Ireland. I hope to see you all again next week for another new Brontë blog post.

I’m back from my holiday in Scarborough – and what a wonderful town it is; it’s easy to see why it held such appeal for Anne Brontë. In today’s new post we take a look at a special anniversary this week for Anne’s beloved sister Emily Brontë.

Emily wrote possibly the greatest novel of them all, Wuthering Heights, but her person has attracted almost as much legend as her novel. Today many people see Emily as aloof, mystical, a creature completely at one with nature. Certainly Emily was very shy, but was there more to her than that? The 30^th of July marked the 203^rd birthday of Emily Brontë, so let’s celebrate by looking at what the people who actually met and knew Emily actually thought of her. Here are some illuminating first person accounts of Emily Brontë:

Constantin Heger

‘She should have been a man – a great navigator. 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.’

A Haworth Church-goer

‘Emily made a lasting impression. One who saw her many times told of “the stolid stoical manner of Emily as she sat bolt upright in the corner of the pew, as motionless as a statue. Her compressed mouth and drooping eyelids, and indeed her whole demeanour, appeared to indicate strong innate power”.’

Sarah Wood

‘“And Miss Emily?” Miss Parry asked. “Oh, you see, ma’am, I don’t know much about Miss Emily, she was very shy; but Martha loved her: she said she was so kind.”’

Tabitha Ratcliffe

‘I believe Charlotte was the lowest and the broadest, and Emily was the tallest. She’d bigger bones and was stronger looking and more masculine, but very nice in her ways.’

John Greenwood

‘Patrick had such unbounded confidence in his daughter Emily that he resolved to learn her to shoot too. They used to practice with pistols. Let her be ever so busy in her domestic duties, whether in the kitchen baking bread at which she had such a dainty hand, or at her studies, rapt in a world of her own creating – it mattered not; if he called upon her to take a lesson, she would put all down. His tender and affectionate “Now, my dear girl, let me see how well you can shoot today”, was irresistible to her filial nature and her most winning and musical voice would be heard to ring through the house in response, “Yes, papa” and away she would run with such a hearty good will taking the board from him, and tripping like a fairy to the bottom of the garden, putting it in its proper position, then returning to her dear revered parent, take the pistol which he had primed and loaded for her. “Now my girl” he would say, “take time, be steady”. “Yes papa” she would say taking the weapon with as firm a hand, and as steady an eye as any veteran of the camp, and fire. Then she would run to fetch the board for him to see how she had succeeded. And she did get so proficient, that she was rarely far from the mark. His “how cleverly you have done, my dear girl”, was all she cared for. “Oh!” He would exclaim, “she is a brave and noble girl. She is my right-hand, nay the very apple of my eye!”’

Ellen Nussey

‘Emily had by this time acquired a lithesome, graceful figure. She was the tallest person in the house, except her father. Her hair, which was naturally as beautiful as Charlotte’s, was in the same unbecoming tight curl and frizz, and there was the same want of complexion. She had very beautiful eyes, kind, kindling, liquid eyes; but she did not often look at you: she was too reserved. She talked very little. She and Anne were like twins – inseparable companions, and in the very closest sympathy, which never had any interruption.’

‘Her extreme reserve seemed impenetrable, yet she was intensely loveable. She invited confidence in her moral power. Few people have the gift of looking and smiling, as she could look and smile – one of her rare expressive looks was something to remember through life, there was such a depth of soul and feeling, and yet shyness of revealing herself, a strength of self-containment seen in no other. She was in the strictest sense a law unto herself, and a heroine in keeping to her law.’

‘A spell of mischief also lurked in her [Emily] on occasions. When out on the moors she enjoyed leading Charlotte where she would not dare to go of her own free will. C. had a mortal dread of unknown animals and it was Emily’s pleasure to lead her into close vicinity and then to tell her of what she had done, laughing at her horror with great amusement.’

‘She could be really vivacious in conversation, taking pleasure in giving pleasure.’

‘I have at this time before me the history of a mighty and passionate soul, whom every adventure that makes for the sorrow or gladness of man would seem to have passed by with averted head. It is of Emily Brontë I speak, than whom the first 50 years of this century produced no woman of greater or more incontestable genius.’

Martha Brown

‘Many’s the time that I have seen Miss Emily put down the tally-iron as she was ironing the clothes to scribble something on a piece of paper. Whatever she was doing, ironing or baking, she had her pencil and paper by her. I know now that she was then writing Wuthering Heights. Poor Emily, we always thought her to be the best-looking, the cleverest, and the bravest-spirited of the three. Little did we dream that she would be the first to be taken away.’

Charlotte Brontë

‘In Emily’s nature the extremes of vigour and simplicity seemed to meet. Under an unsophisticated culture, inartificial tastes, and an unpretending outside, lay a secret power and fire that might have informed the brain and kindled the veins of a hero.’

Now we see a different picture of Emily Brontë, a truer one because these descriptions come from those who were lucky enough to know her. We see that Emily was shy, without doubt, but that she also enjoyed playing jokes and could be very vivacious. She was noted not only for her practical skills in life, such as baking, but for her kindness and for her loving nature. Above all, those who knew Emily Brontë knew that they were in the presence of someone completely unique, a one-off genius.

Happy belated birthday Emily Brontë, and Happy Yorkshire Day to all those who share with me in hailing from this wonderful county that gave us the inimitable Brontës. I hope to see you again next week for another new Brontë blog post.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë has rightly taken its place in the canon of great works of literature. It was loved from the moment it was published in 1847, but whilst the public took the novel to their hearts, some of the snootier critics weren’t always so impressed (it has ever been thus). In a previous post we looked at Elizabeth Rigby’s incredibly unperceptive take on the novel, but today we’re going to look at a Jane Eyre pronouncement from someone Charlotte knew well: Mary Taylor.

Charlotte Brontë and Mary Taylor were very close friends from the moment they met at Roe Head school in 1831. By the time of Jane Eyre’s publication in late 1847, however, they were over 11,000 miles apart. Mary Taylor emigrated to New Zealand in March 1845, following the path of her brother Waring Taylor who had moved there three years earlier. In a letter of October 1844, Charlotte Brontë revealed the news of Mary’s plans to their mutual friend Ellen Nussey:

‘Mary Taylor is going to leave our hemisphere. To me it is something as if a great planet fell out of the sky. Yet unless she marries in New Zealand she will not stay there long.’

Mary, as Charlotte surely knew, was not the marrying kind, but she was a determined and entrepreneurial woman, and she remained in New Zealand running a successful business until 1859. Being in New Zealand then meant that communication with England was difficult, with letters and parcels taking weeks or months to reach their destination. Nevertheless Mary did keep up correspondence with Charlotte, Ellen and others, and so it was that Charlotte Brontë sent Mary a copy of Jane Eyre written under her pseudonym of Currer Bell.

Unfortunately we don’t have Charlotte’s original letter, sent with the book, to Mary, but we do have Mary’s response to it. She began writing it in June 1848, and completed and sent it on July 24^th due to the difficulty in sending mail at the time – as we shall see. Here is Mary Taylor’s letter containing her opinion on Jane Eyre and more:

‘Dear Charlotte, About a month since I received and read Jane Eyre. It seemed to me incredible that you had actually written a book. Such events did not happen while I was in England. I begin to believe in your existence much as I do in Mr. Rochester’s. In a believing mood I don’t doubt either of them. After I had read ‘it’ I went to the top of Mt. Victoria & looked for a ship to carry a letter to you. There was a little thing with one mast, & also H.M.S. Fly & nothing else. If a cattle vessel came from Sydney she would probably return in a few days & would take a mail, but we have had east wind for a month & nothing can come in – ‘July 1’ The Harlequin has just come from Otago and is to sail for Singapore when the wind changes & by that route (which I hope to take myself sometime) I send you this. Much good may it do you.

Your novel surprised me by being so perfect as a work of art. I expected something more changeable & unfinished. You have polished to some purpose. If I were to do so I should get tired & weary every one else in about two pages. No sign of this weariness is in your book – you must have had abundance, having kept it all to yourself!

You are very different from me in having no doctrine to preach. It is impossible to squeeze a moral out of your production. Has the world gone so well with you that you have no protest to make against its absurdities? Did you never sneer or declaim in your first sketches? I will scold you well when I see you. I don’t believe in Mr Rivers. There are no good men of the Brocklehurst species. A missionary either goes into his office for a piece of bread, or he goes from enthusiasm, & that is both too good & too bad a quality for St. John. It’s a bit of your absurd charity to believe in such a man. You have done wisely in choosing to imagine a high class of readers. You never stop to explain or defend anything & never seem bothered with the idea – if Mrs. Fairfax or any other well intentioned fool gets hold of this what will she think? And yet you know the world is made up of such, & worse.

Once more, how you have written through 3 vols. without declaring war to the knife against a few absurd doctrines each of which is supported by a “large and respectable class of readers”? Emily seems to have had such a class in her eye when she wrote that strange thing Wuthering Heights. Ann [sic.] too stops repeatedly to preach commonplace truths. She has had a still lower class in her mind’s eye. Emily seems to have followed the bookseller’s advice. As to the price you got it was certainly Jewish. But what could the people do? If they had asked you to fix it, do you know yourself how many cyphers your sums would have had? And how should they know better? And if they did, that’s the knowledge they get their living by. If I were in your place the idea of being bound in the sale of 2! more would prevent me from ever writing again. Yet you are probably now busy with another. It is curious for me to see among the letters one from Aunt Sarah sending a copy of a whole article on the currency question written by Fonblanque! I exceedingly regret having burnt your letters in a fit of caution , & I’ve forgotten about the names. Was the reader Albert Smith? What do they all think of you? I perceive I’ve betrayed my habit of only writing on one side of the paper. Go onto the next page.

I mention the book to no one & hear no opinions. I lend it a good deal because it’s a novel & it’s as good as another! They say it “makes them cry”. They are not literary enough to give an opinion. If ever I hear one I’ll embalm it for you.

As to my own affair I have written 100 pages & lately 50 more. It’s no use writing faster. I get so disgusted I can do nothing. I have sent 3 or 4 things to Joe for Tait. Troup (Ed.) never acknowledges them though he promised either to pay or send them back. Joe sent one to Chambers who thought it unsuitable in which I agree with them…

I have now told you everything I can think of except that the cat’s on the table & that I’m going to borrow a new book to read. No less than an account of all the systems of philosophy of modern Europe. I have lately met with a wonder, a man who thinks Jane Eyre would have done better to marry Mr Rivers! He gives no reasons – such people never do. Mary Taylor’

I have missed out the long middle section dealing with Mary’s life in New Zealand in which she talks about the price of cows and her dream of buying and riding a horse, among many other things. What we have above, though, is a fascinating glimpse into Mary’s mind, her friendship with Charlotte and her views on Jane Eyre.

At first, some of Mary’s opinions may seem a little harsh, but she shared with Charlotte a complete forthrightness and a determination to give an honest opinion in all things, not to mention a sometimes waspish way with words.

It is clear that Mary was very proud of Charlotte and her book, especially as her own dream of being a writer was not proving fruitful. The 150 pages that Mary talks of having written were probably from an early draft of her own novel Miss Miles, which was not published until 42 years after Mary wrote this letter.

Mary Taylor did however become a relatively successful writer of articles for magazines, of which some are seen as early examples of feminist journalism. It’s interesting to note however that despite Mary’s admonishment of Charlotte for not preaching a doctrine, her own Miss Miles is itself free of obvious preaching.

What do we make of Mary’s opinion of St. John Rivers? Not many people reading the book today would think that Charlotte had sugar coated him, or see him as a relentlessly ‘good’ character. We can, however, share Mary’s astonishment that a reader thought that Jane should have married the hectoring preacher.

We can also see that Charlotte has previously given Mary notice of her writing, and of her dealings with the publishers Smith, Elder & Co. We see that she has signed a contract to deliver two more novels after Jane Eyre; alas, two more novels were all that Charlotte did write after signing that contract.

Above all, this is a letter that a friend would write to someone who knows her very well; she has no need to fear that Charlotte will take offence at her comments. It is a letter full of love, although that love and kindness is hidden beneath a veneer that both Mary and Charlotte could coat their letters with.

The great thing about a great novel such as Jane Eyre is that we can all read it and form our own opinions, and all are as valid as the next. I hope to see you again next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.

Apologies in advance, but today’s will be a very short post, if indeed it can be called that at all.

I’m on holiday this weekend; I’ve travelled to Anne Bronte’s beloved Scarborough on Yorkshire’s east coast. Of course, one of the first things I did was visit Anne’s grave in the shadow of Scarborough Castle. I’m pleased to say that while we sat there, there were plenty of visitors to see Anne. She remains ever popular with fans from far and wide.

I hope to see you next Sunday when normal Bronte blog service will be resumed.

 

On this day in 1848 two tired yet happy sisters boarded a steam train at Euston Station (that’s it at the head of this post) en route to Leeds, Keighley and finally Haworth. They were Charlotte and Anne Brontë, and they had just completed a four day sojourn in London which changed literary history forever.

Charlotte and Anne had travelled hastily to London in an attempt to clear their name from a scam being perpetuated by Anne’s ever unscrupulous publisher Thomas Cautley Newby. In previous posts we’ve looked at the Brontës’ time in London, but we haven’t heard from somebody who can explain it from a unique viewpoint: Charlotte Brontë herself. In today’s post I reproduce in full a letter sent by Charlotte to her friend Mary Taylor (at that time living in New Zealand); written two months after the London journey, it nevertheless gives a fulsome account of the days the Brontës spent there. I’ve also added some notes after the letter which here follows:

To Mary Taylor

Haworth, September 4th, 1848.

‘Dear Polly¹, I write you a great many more letters than you write me, though whether they all reach you, or not, Heaven knows! I dare say you will not be without a certain desire to know how our affairs get on; I will give you therefore a notion as briefly as may be. Acton Bell has published another book; it is in three volumes, but I do not like it quite so well as Agnes Grey the subject not being such as the author had pleasure in handling; it has been praised by some reviews and blamed by others. As yet, only 25 have been realised for the copyright, and as Acton Bell’s publisher is a shuffling scamp, I expected no more.

About two months since I had a letter from my publishers Smith and Elder saying that Jane Eyre had had a great run in America, and that a publisher there had consequently bid high for the first sheets of a new work by Currer Bell, which they had promised to let him have.

Presently after came another missive from Smith and Elder; their American correspondent had written to them complaining that the first sheets of a new work by Currer Bell had been already received, and not by their house, but by a rival publisher, and asking the meaning of such false play; it enclosed an extract from a letter from Mr. Newby (A. and C. Bell’s publisher) affirming that to the best of his belief Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (the new work) were all the production of one author.

This was a lie, as Newby had been told repeatedly that they were the production of three different authors, but the fact was he wanted to make a dishonest move in the game to make the public and the trade believe that he had got hold of Currer Bell, and thus cheat Smith and Elder by securing the American publisher’s bid.

The upshot of it was that on the very day I received Smith and Elder’s letter, Anne and I packed up a small box, sent it down to Keighley, set out ourselves after tea, walked through a snow-storm to the station², got to Leeds, and whirled up by the night train to London with the view of proving our separate identity to Smith and Elder, and confronting Newby with his lie.

We arrived at the Chapter Coffee House (our old place, Polly, we did not well know where else to go) about eight o’clock in the morning³. We washed ourselves, had some breakfast, sat a few minutes, and then set off in queer inward excitement to 65 Cornhill. Neither Mr. Smith nor Mr. Williams knew we were corning, they had never seen us they did not know whether we were men or women, but had always written to us as men.

We found 65 to be a large bookseller’s shop, in a street almost as bustling as the Strand. We went in, walked up to the counter. There were a great many young men and lads here and there; I said to the first I could accost : ‘May I see Mr. Smith?’ He hesitated, looked a little surprised. We sat down and waited a while, looking at some books on the counter, publications of theirs well known to us, of many of which they had sent us copies as presents. At last we were shown up to Mr. Smith. ‘Is it Mr. Smith?’ I said, looking up through my spectacles at a tall young man. ‘It is.’ I then put his own letter into his hand directed to Currer Bell. He looked at it and then at me again. ‘Where did you get this?’ he said. I laughed at his perplexity a recognition took place. I gave my real name: Miss Brontë. We were in a small room ceiled with a great skylight and there explanations were rapidly gone into; Mr. Newby being anathematised, I fear, with undue vehemence. Mr. Smith hurried out and returned quickly with one whom he introduced as Mr. Williams, a pale, mild, stooping man of fifty, very much like a faded Tom Dixon⁴. Another recognition and a long, nervous shaking of hands. Then followed talk talk talk; Mr. Williams being silent, Mr. Smith loquacious.

Mr. Smith said we must come and stay at his house, but we were not prepared for a long stay and declined this also; as we took our leave he told us he should bring his sisters to call on us that evening. We returned to our inn, and I paid for the excitement of the interview by a thundering headache and harassing sickness. Towards evening, as I got no better and expected the Smiths to call, I took a strong dose of sal volatile⁵. It roused me a little; still, I was in grievous bodily case when they were announced. They came in, two elegant young ladies, in full dress, prepared for the Opera Mr. Smith himself in evening costume, white gloves, etc. We had by no means understood that it was settled we were to go to the Opera, and were not ready. Moreover, we had no fine, elegant dresses with us, or in the world. However, on brief rumination I thought it would be wise to make no objections. I put my headache in my pocket, we attired ourselves in the plain, high-made country garments we possessed, and went with them to their carriage, where we found Mr. Williams. They must have thought us queer, quizzical-looking beings, especially me with my spectacles. I smiled inwardly at the contrast, which must have been apparent, between me and Mr. Smith as I walked with him up the crimson-carpeted staircase of the Opera House and stood amongst a brilliant throng at the box door, which was not yet open. Fine ladies and gentlemen glanced at us with a slight, graceful superciliousness quite warranted by the circumstances. Still, I felt pleasantly excited in spite of headache and sickness and conscious clownishness, and I saw Anne was calm and gentle, which she always is.

The performance was Rossini’s opera of the Barber of Seville, very brilliant, though I fancy there are things I should like better. We got home after one o’clock; we had never been in bed the night before, and had been in constant excitement for twenty-four hours. You may imagine we were tired.

The next day, Sunday, Mr. Williams came early and took us to church⁶. He was so quiet, but so sincere in his attentions, one could not but have a most friendly leaning towards him. He has a nervous hesitation in speech, and a difficulty in finding appropriate language in which to express himself, which throws him into the background in conversation; but I had been his correspondent and therefore knew with what intelligence he could write, so that I was not in danger of undervaluing him. In the afternoon Mr. Smith came in his carriage with his mother, to take us to his house to dine. Mr. Smith’s residence is at Bayswater, six miles from Cornhill; the rooms, the drawing-room especially, looked splendid to us. There was no company only his mother, his two grown-up sisters, and his brother, a lad of twelve or thirteen, and a little sister, the youngest of the family, very like himself. They are all dark-eyed, dark-haired, and have clear, pale faces. The mother is a portly, handsome woman of her age, and all the children more or less well-looking one of the daughters decidedly pretty. We had a fine dinner, which neither Anne nor I had appetite to eat, and were glad when it was over. I always feel under an awkward constraint at table. Dining out would be hideous to me.

Mr. Smith made himself very pleasant. He is a practical man, I wish Mr. Williams were more so, but he is altogether of the contemplative, theorising order. Mr. Williams has too many abstractions.

On Monday we went to the Exhibition of the Royal Academy and the National Gallery, dined again at Mr. Smith’s, then went home with Mr. Williams to tea and saw his comparatively humble but neat residence and his fine family of eight children. A daughter of Leigh Hunt’s was there⁷. She sang some little Italian airs which she had picked up among the peasantry in Tuscany, in a manner that charmed me.

On Tuesday morning we left London laden with books which Mr. Smith had given us, and got safely home, A more jaded wretch than I looked when I returned it would be difficult to conceive. I was thin when I went, but was meagre indeed when I returned; my face looked grey and very old, with strange, deep lines ploughed in it; my eyes stared unnaturally. I was weak and yet restless. In a while, however, the bad effects of excitement went off and I regained my normal condition. We saw Mr. Newby, but of him more another time⁸. Good-bye. God bless you. Write. C B.’

Notes to Charlotte’s letter:

1. Polly was Charlotte’s nickname for Mary Taylor. It was also the name given to one of the central characters of Villette: Polly Home, later encountered in the novel as the grand Countess Paulina de Bassompierre. When we first meet Polly she is a pretty, precocious child. Charlotte first met Mary Taylor at school at Roe Head, Mirfield where Mary was described by headmistress Margaret Wooler as ‘too pretty to live’.

2. Charlotte and Anne set out on the evening of July 7^th 1848; even amidst the wuthering moorlands of Haworth it would seem unlikely to have a snowstorm on that day.

3. The Chapter Coffee House was on Paternoster Row behind St. Paul’s Cathedral; it was where Charlotte, Emily and Patrick Brontë had stayed there in 1842 en route to Brussels, accompanied by Mary Taylor and her brother Joe.

4. Tom Dixon was the youngest son of Abraham Dixon, an inventor and entrepreneur originally from Leeds but who moved with his family to Brussels. Tom Dixon was a cousin of Mary Taylor, and Charlotte often met Tom and his brother George, who later became MP for Birmingham, in Brussels.

5. Smelling salts; the ornate smelling salts bottles of Elizabeth and Maria Branwell (aunt and mother to the Brontës) are in the Brontë Parsonage Museum collection. Maria’s salts bottle became the property of Anne, but it seems likely that Charlotte also had a bottle.

6. Although staying in the shadow of the mighty St. Paul’s, Anne requested that they be taken to St. Stephen Walbrook church in the nearby City of London. This beautiful church was noted at the time for its preacher Reverend George Croly, whose views on religious salvation chimed with those of Anne.

7. Leigh Hunt was a poet and publisher, most known today for having been a great friend of John Keats. In 1813 Hunt’s newspaper called Prince George (later George IV) ‘corpulent’; this led to Hunt being arrested and jailed for two years.

8. If only we had an account of Charlotte and Anne’s meeting with Thomas Newby! Surprisingly the meeting didn’t end with Anne transferring her rights from Newby to the altogether more honest George Smith, possibly because Emily Brontë wasn’t there to discuss the matter with.

 

A charming and revealing letter, as so many of Charlotte’s are. Storm clouds were looming over Haworth when she and Anne returned, but these four days had been days of joy and happiness for them. I wish you all joy and happiness, and I hope to see you next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.

When happy anniversaries come along in the Brontë story, we simply have to celebrate them. This week marks the 167^th anniversary of the marriage of Charlotte Brontë to Arthur Bell Nicholls, and their marriage was a happy (if brief, but we won’t dwell on that today) one.

In previous years we’ve looked at events leading up to Charlotte Bronte’s wedding, and at an in-depth account of the big day itself given by one of the few people who were there: apprentice teacher James Robinson. The wedding was kept a secret from Haworth villagers, but we hear that those who saw Charlotte in her wedding dress said that she looked like a snowdrop.

In today’s post we’re going to keep the romantic theme going by looking at weddings in the Brontë novels. They don’t always go to plan, as we see from our first excerpt:

Jane Eyre I

‘I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives to wait for or marshal: none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax stood in the hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but my hand was held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I could hardly follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester’s face was to feel that not a second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I wonder what other bridegroom ever looked as he did – so bent up to a purpose, so grimly resolute: or who, under such steadfast brows, ever revealed such flaming and flashing eyes.

I know not whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the drive, I gazed neither on sky nor earth: my heart was with my eyes; and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester’s frame. I wanted to see the invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose force he seemed breasting and resisting.

At the churchyard wicket he stopped: he discovered I was quite out of breath. “Am I cruel in my love?” he said. “Delay an instant: lean on me, Jane.”

And now I can recall the picture of the grey old house of God rising calm before me, of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a ruddy morning sky beyond. I remember something, too, of the green grave-mounds; and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of strangers straying amongst the low hillocks and reading the mementoes graven on the few mossy head-stones. I noticed them, because, as they saw us, they passed round to the back of the church; and I doubted not they were going to enter by the side-aisle door and witness the ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not observed; he was earnestly looking at my face, from which the blood had, I daresay, momentarily fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips cold. When I rallied, which I soon did, he walked gently with me up the path to the porch.

We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was still: two shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had been correct: the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault of the Rochesters, their backs towards us, viewing through the rails the old time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife.

Our place was taken at the communion rails. Hearing a cautious step behind me, I glanced over my shoulder: one of the strangers – a gentleman, evidently – was advancing up the chancel. The service began. The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then the clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly towards Mr. Rochester, went on.

“I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed), that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful.”

He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that sentence ever broken by reply? Not, perhaps, once in a hundred years. And the clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book, and had held his breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was already stretched towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to ask, “Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?” – when a distinct and near voice said –

“The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment.”

The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head or eyes, he said, “Proceed.”

Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep but low intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said –

“I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been asserted, and evidence of its truth or falsehood.”

“The ceremony is quite broken off,” subjoined the voice behind us. “I am in a condition to prove my allegation: an insuperable impediment to this marriage exists.”

Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid, making no movement but to possess himself of my hand. What a hot and strong grasp he had! and how like quarried marble was his pale, firm, massive front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful, and yet wild beneath!

Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. “What is the nature of the impediment?” he asked. “Perhaps it may be got over – explained away?”

“Hardly,” was the answer. “I have called it insuperable, and I speak advisedly.”

The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, uttering each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly –

“It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr. Rochester has a wife now living.”

Jane Eyre II

‘Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said –

“Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning.” The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one’s ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended in air; and for the same space of time John’s knives also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over the roast, said only –

“Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!”

A short time after she pursued – “I seed you go out with the master, but I didn’t know you were gone to church to be wed;” and she basted away. John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear.

“I telled Mary how it would be,” he said: “I knew what Mr. Edward” (John was an old servant, and had known his master when he was the cadet of the house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian name) – “I knew what Mr. Edward would do; and I was certain he would not wait long neither: and he’s done right, for aught I know. I wish you joy, Miss!” and he politely pulled his forelock.

“Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this.” I put into his hand a five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time after, I caught the words –

“She’ll happen do better for him nor ony o’ t’ grand ladies.” And again, “If she ben’t one o’ th’ handsomest, she’s noan faâl and varry good-natured; and i’ his een she’s fair beautiful, onybody may see that.”

Agnes Grey

‘Here I pause. My Diary, from which I have compiled these pages, goes but little further. I could go on for years, but I will content myself with adding, that I shall never forget that glorious summer evening, and always remember with delight that steep hill, and the edge of the precipice where we stood together, watching the splendid sunset mirrored in the restless world of waters at our feet – with hearts filled with gratitude to heaven, and happiness, and love – almost too full for speech.

A few weeks after that, when my mother had supplied herself with an assistant, I became the wife of Edward Weston; and never have found cause to repent it, and am certain that I never shall. We have had trials, and we know that we must have them again; but we bear them well together, and endeavour to fortify ourselves and each other against the final separation – that greatest of all afflictions to the survivor. But, if we keep in mind the glorious heaven beyond, where both may meet again, and sin and sorrow are unknown, surely that too may be borne; and, meantime, we endeavour to live to the glory of Him who has scattered so many blessings in our path.

Edward, by his strenuous exertions, has worked surprising reforms in his parish, and is esteemed and loved by its inhabitants – as he deserves; for whatever his faults may be as a man (and no one is entirely without), I defy anybody to blame him as a pastor, a husband, or a father.

Our children, Edward, Agnes, and little Mary, promise well; their education, for the time being, is chiefly committed to me; and they shall want no good thing that a mother’s care can give. Our modest income is amply sufficient for our requirements: and by practising the economy we learnt in harder times, and never attempting to imitate our richer neighbours, we manage not only to enjoy comfort and contentment ourselves, but to have every year something to lay by for our children, and something to give to those who need it.

And now I think I have said sufficient.’

The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall

‘To return, however, to my own affairs: I was married in summer, on a glorious August morning. It took the whole eight months, and all Helen’s kindness and goodness to boot, to overcome my mother’s prejudices against my bride-elect, and to reconcile her to the idea of my leaving Linden Grange and living so far away. Yet she was gratified at her son’s good fortune after all, and proudly attributed it all to his own superior merits and endowments. I bequeathed the farm to Fergus, with better hopes of its prosperity than I should have had a year ago under similar circumstances; for he had lately fallen in love with the Vicar of L – – ’s eldest daughter – a lady whose superiority had roused his latent virtues, and stimulated him to the most surprising exertions, not only to gain her affection and esteem, and to obtain a fortune sufficient to aspire to her hand, but to render himself worthy of her, in his own eyes, as well as in those of her parents; and in the end he was successful, as you already know. As for myself, I need not tell you how happily my Helen and I have lived together, and how blessed we still are in each other’s society, and in the promising young scions that are growing up about us. We are just now looking forward to the advent of you and Rose, for the time of your annual visit draws nigh, when you must leave your dusty, smoky, noisy, toiling, striving city for a season of invigorating relaxation and social retirement with us.’

Shirley

‘It is August. The bells clash out again, not only through Yorkshire, but through England. From Spain the voice of a trumpet has sounded long; it now waxes louder and louder; it proclaims Salamanca won. This night is Briarfield to be illuminated. On this day the Fieldhead tenantry dine together; the Hollow’s Mill workpeople will be assembled for a like festal purpose; the schools have a grand treat. This morning there were two marriages solemnized in Briarfield church – Louis Gérard Moore, Esq., late of Antwerp, to Shirley, daughter of the late Charles Cave Keeldar, Esq., of Fieldhead; Robert Gérard Moore, Esq., of Hollow’s Mill, to Caroline, niece of the Rev. Matthewson Helstone, M.A., rector of Briarfield.

The ceremony, in the first instance, was performed by Mr. Helstone, Hiram Yorke, Esq., of Briarmains, giving the bride away. In the second instance, Mr. Hall, vicar of Nunnely, officiated. Amongst the bridal train the two most noticeable personages were the youthful bridesmen, Henry Sympson and Martin Yorke.

I suppose Robert Moore’s prophecies were, partially at least, fulfilled. The other day I passed up the Hollow, which tradition says was once green, and lone, and wild; and there I saw the manufacturer’s day-dreams embodied in substantial stone and brick and ashes – the cinder-black highway, the cottages, and the cottage gardens; there I saw a mighty mill, and a chimney ambitious as the tower of Babel. I told my old housekeeper when I came home where I had been.

“Ay,” said she, “this world has queer changes. I can remember the old mill being built – the very first it was in all the district; and then I can remember it being pulled down, and going with my lake-lasses [companions] to see the foundation-stone of the new one laid. The two Mr. Moores made a great stir about it. They were there, and a deal of fine folk besides, and both their ladies; very bonny and grand they looked. But Mrs. Louis was the grandest; she always wore such handsome dresses. Mrs. Robert was quieter like. Mrs. Louis smiled when she talked. She had a real, happy, glad, good-natured look; but she had een that pierced a body through. There is no such ladies nowadays.”

What was the Hollow like then, Martha?”

“Different to what it is now; but I can tell of it clean different again, when there was neither mill, nor cot, nor hall, except Fieldhead, within two miles of it. I can tell, one summer evening, fifty years syne, my mother coming running in just at the edge of dark, almost fleyed out of her wits, saying she had seen a fairish in Fieldhead Hollow; and that was the last fairish that ever was seen on this countryside (though they’ve been heard within these forty years). A lonesome spot it was, and a bonny spot, full of oak trees and nut trees. It is altered now.”

The story is told. I think I now see the judicious reader putting on his spectacles to look for the moral. It would be an insult to his sagacity to offer directions. I only say, God speed him in the quest!’

The world has changed greatly since the time of the Brontës, but you still can’t beat a good wedding! On an unrelated note, I hope that many of you got the chance to see the new documentary ‘Brontë’s Britain with Gyles Brandreth on Channel 5’ on Tuesday. I was lucky enough to appear in it myself, and I loved filming it and watching the finished show. If you live in the UK you can watch it at the following link, and hopefully it should be available in other countries soon: https://www.my5.tv/bronte-s-britain-with-gyles-brandreth/season-1/bronte-s-britain-with-gyles-brandreth

I hope to see you again next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.

This weekend marks the 204^th anniversary of Patrick Branwell Brontë, born in Thornton, Bradford on 26^th June 1817. Okay, it’s a day after the day itself, but we’re sure that Branwell would still be celebrating.

What do we know about Branwell Brontë? He was the fourth of six Brontë siblings, born a year and two months after Charlotte Brontë. He and Charlotte were particularly close in childhood, and it was they who led the way into the kingdoms of Glass Town and Angria, leading to an explosion of youthful creativity and the little books which we can still see at Haworth Parsonage Museum today.

He was a man who found life a challenge, who was hit hard by the childhood losses of his mother and two eldest sisters, and then by failures in his artistic and literary dreams, and in love. Somehow, Branwell has taken on a Byronic twist for many, he is seen as ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know’ but is that a true and complete picture? I don’t think so, and nor did the people who knew him. In today’s post we’re going to delve into the archives and look at first person encounters with Branwell Brontë!

Chamber’s Journal, 22 February 1868

‘To his mind, Mr Branwell was the cleverest of the family. A wonderful talker he was, and able to do things which nobody he had ever seen could do. He had seen Branwell sitting in the vestry, talking to his father, and writing two different letters at the same time. He could take a pen in each hand, and write a letter with each at once. He had seen him do that many times, and had afterwards read the letters written in that way. Yes; it was true that he had come to a sad end, but Mrs Gaskell had not stated the case about him correctly. Haworth people did not like Mrs Gaskell at all. There was a deal of feeling against her for what she had said about Mr Branwell, and the villagers encouraging him to drink. Mrs Gaskell said that he had learned to drink as a boy, and had gone on strengthening his habit; but that was not true. When he was nineteen years old he was secretary to the temperance society in the village, and it was not until after that that he learned to drink. It was not correct that the landlord of the Bull had anything to do with teaching him, though it was quite true that he used to sit in the back parlour there and drink almost constantly of an evening when he was older. But if he could not have got drink there, he would have been sure to have got it somewhere else. But, oh, he was a fine talker Branwell; and such a talker! Ay, and when he was at the worst, he never missed coming to the Sunday school with his sisters. They all used to come regularly.’

Francis Leyland, Leeds Times, 28 July 1883

‘Although the biographers of the Brontë family have done their best to destroy the reputation of Branwell for any mental gifts or manly virtues he might at any time have had, there was a better side of his nature, with which the readers of Brontë literature are unacquainted, but which they may know ere long. There can be no doubt that the irregularities of Branwell’s young life clashed with the formal manners of the parsonage. It is not surprising that Miss Brontë, in correspondence with a friend, should inform her of the apprehensions she felt respecting her brother. It is certain that Miss Brontë never intended the private concerns of the parsonage to be made known to others. Mr Brontë expressed to me his sorrow that his son’s irregularities were made known to the world. That Branwell was miserable I admit; but I deny that his misery was caused by drink, although he sometimes – and towards the close of his life too often – sought oblivion from his own woes in society and indulgence. Yet he was too worthy a member, on many accounts, of the Brontë family to be excluded from it as entirely worthless, reprobate, and lost. I speak from personal knowledge of him, I possess many of his writings in letters and poems, and I hope at no distant day to demonstrate his power, and to dispose of many of the calumnies with which a hasty and ill-considered judgment has overshadowed his memory.’

Nancy de Garrs, Pall Mall Gazette, 12 December 1884

‘“Branwell was a good lad enough,” she says, “until the serpent beguiled him,” and she thinks he has been “made out to be a good deal worse than he really was.” Nancy could “manage him” better than any one else when his fits of fury were upon him, and Branwell seemed to have a real affection for his old nurse. He often wanted to paint her portrait, but she declined on the score that she did not consider herself good looking enough.’

J. S. Horsfall, Leeds Mercury, 15 September 1897

‘My most vivid remembrances are of Branwell Brontë, who was a great friend of my father’s, and whom I distinctly remember one evening at our house reciting from ‘Childe Harold,’ Byron’s fine address to the ocean. I never forgot it. It made a great impression on my mind, and I can remember him now, a little man (compared with my father, who was tall) with light, reddish hair, and wearing spectacles.’

Charles Hall, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 7 February 1908

‘Branwell died in my childhood, but one heard a good many stories about his appearances at the ‘Black Bull’. He was a merry, well read, interesting boy, and it was not surprising that the men who gathered at the ‘Black Bull’ for liquor and entertainment enjoyed his gay company and made him welcome; nor was it surprising that he went there, considering that there was not a lad in the village, of his own social standing, with whom he could have consorted. It was a pity he was not sent away in early life, then all might have been different.’

Batley Reporter and Guardian, 30 June 1877

‘The room in which this lively scene occurs has no doubt witnessed many still more lively, for it was the sanctum sanctorum of the company that gathered round Branwell Brontë while he kept the table in a roar with his lively sallies of wit, or astonished and dazzled the more intelligent portion of his friends by his eloquent and thoughtful discourse. There in the corner is “Mr. Branwell’s chair,” old and curious enough to be placed in some museum, and there he would sit with his “great tawny mane” dishevelled, and his bright eyes turned to the ceiling, talking most eloquently to the admiring villagers, with whom anyone who visits Haworth will soon find he was a firm favourite. Poor Branwell! What a pity that a life of such promise should have been so cruelly wasted. Every elderly man you meet knew Branwell. Charlotte and her sisters they were also familiar with, but they were very reserved, and kept apart. Branwell, however, was free and open. They will all give you anecdotes of him.”

Francis Grundy, Pictures Of The Past: Memories of Men I Have Met And Places I Have Seen

‘Soon after I came to Halifax, I made the acquaintance of a genius of the highest order, Patrick Branwell Bronte, who was at least as talented as any member of that wonderful family. Much my senior, Bronte took an unusual fancy to me, and I continued, perhaps, his most confidential friend through good and ill until his death. Poor, brilliant, gay, moody, moping, wildly excitable, miserable Bronte! No history records your many struggles after the good, – your wit, brilliance, attractiveness, eagerness for excitement, – all the qualities which made you such ‘good company,’ and dragged you down to an untimely grave. But you have had a most unnecessary scandal heaped upon you by the author of your sister’s Biography by which that scandal does its best to spoil.

This generous gentleman in all his ideas, this madman in many of his acts died at twenty-eight of grief for a woman. But at twenty-two, what a splendid specimen of brain power running wild he was! what glorious talent he had still to waste! That Rector of Haworth little knew how to bring up and bring out his clever family, and the boy least of all. He was a hard, matter-of-fact man. So the girls worked their own way to fame and death, the boy to death only! I knew them all.

The father, – upright, handsome, distantly courteous, white-haired, tall ; knowing me as his son’s friend, he would treat me in the Grandisonian fashion, coming himself down to the little inn to invite me, a boy, up to his house, where I would be coldly uncomfortable until I could escape with Patrick Branwell to the moors…

Branwell was very like them [Charlotte, Emily and Anne], almost insignificantly small – one of his life’s trials. He had a mass of red hair, which he wore brushed high off his forehead, – to help his height, I fancy ; a great, bumpy, intellectual forehead, nearly half the size of the whole facial contour ; small ferrety eyes, deep sunk, and still further hidden by the never removed spectacles ; prominent nose, but weak lower features. He had a downcast look, which never varied, save for a rapid momentary glance at long intervals. Small and thin of person, he was the reverse of attractive at first sight.

This plain specimen of humanity, who died unhonoured, might have made the world of literature and art ring with the name of which he was so proud…

He would discourse with wondrous knowledge upon subjects, moral, intellectual, philosophical, for hours, and afterwards accompany his audience to the nearest public-house, and recruit his exhausted powers by copious libations. He was proud of his name, his strength, and his abilities. In his fits of passion I have seen him drive his doubled fist through the panel of a door: it seemed to soothe him; it certainly bruised his knuckles. At times we would drive over in a gig to Haworth (twelve miles), and visit his people. He was then at his best, and would be eloquent and amusing, although sometimes he would burst into tears when returning, and swear that he meant to amend. I believe, however, that he was half mad, and could not control himself…

Poor fellow! this short story by a weak hand is all the biography his memory will know. His age was twenty-eight. I have always been of opinion that it remained for me to clear his name from the weight of accusation heaped upon it. I knew him, and indeed, I believe, all the family, better than Mrs. Gaskell did. He was a dear old friend, who from the rich storehouse of his knowledge taught me much. I make my humble effort to do my duty to his memory. His letters to me revealed more of his soul’s struggles than probably was known to any other. Patrick Branwell Bronte was no domestic demon – he was just a man moving in a mist, who lost his way. More sinned against, mayhap, than sinning, at least he proved the reality of his sorrows.’

A man moving in a mist indeed, but with the passage of time those mists clear. We can now see that Branwell Brontë was a talented man, a kind hearted man, but one who needed help that simply wasn’t available at that time. Nevertheless, we can say, ‘Happy 204^th birthday Branwell Brontë.’

I leave you now with exciting news of a new Brontë documentary being shown next week! ‘Brontë’s Britain with Gyles Brandreth‘ is being broadcast here in the UK on Channel 5 at 9pm on Tuesday, 29th June (after the England match is over, so there’s no excuse not to watch). It should be both entertaining and informative, especially as Gyles is a passionate fan of literature and the Brontës himself. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope to see you next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.

The Brontës are probably the most famous writing siblings of them all, which will make Grimm reading for two of their rivals, and their work continues to be enjoyed around the globe. Reading a Brontë novel can be moving, cathartic, and thought provoking, and it’s certainly enjoyable, but what did the Brontës think of the writers they read? That’s the subject of today’s new post.

When I say ‘the Brontës’, on this occasion I specifically mean Charlotte Brontë; unfortunately we don’t have the written pronouncements of Anne and Emily on this subject. Nevertheless, they were avid readers and we can see the influence of writers such as Scott in particular on Emily’s novel Wuthering Heights. It was Charlotte who gave her always frank and honest opinions on many of our greatest writers, however, including perhaps the greatest of them all: William Shakespeare.

As an eighteen year old, Charlotte famously wrote of the great bard:

‘If you like poetry let it be first rate, Milton, Shakespeare, Thomson, Goldsmith, Pope (if you will though I don’t admire him), Scott, Byron, Campbell, Wordsworth and Southey. Now Ellen don’t be startled at the names of Shakespeare, and Byron. Both these were great men and their works are like themselves. You will know how to choose the good and 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 Shakespeare.’

It seems, however, that in later years Charlotte had a keen interest in, or at least knowledge of, Shakespeare. We know this from the testimony of a Frank Peel, an aspiring actor who called upon Charlotte Brontë as he didn’t have any boots – Charlotte seemingly being well known in the area for her acts of philanthropy. He got the boots, but he also got a lesson in Shakespeare:

‘By the time I had finished my breakfast the lady had returned to the kitchen and put some old boots before me, bidding me to try to fit a pair on. I did so, and found a pair which fitted pretty well. By this time the younger lady also returned into the kitchen. Both sat down, and Miss Charlotte then said, “I have given you breakfast, found you boots, and I am now going to talk to you a bit.” She did talk to me, and in a way that made me wish I had never gone. She said that in nine cases out of ten people adopted my course of life from sheer idleness or gipsy instinct, and not because they had any special talent for theatricals. Did I think I had any talent? I told her I thought I had. Would I give her a specimen? Here was a dilemma! How could I refuse after the kindness with which I had been treated? In great pain, I said I would try to comply with her request. I gave, first, ‘Young Lochinvar,’ in my best style, and then her look of motherly severity seemed to relax a little. She then began to ask a number of questions about my family and other matters, which I answered as well as I could. Amongst other things, I told her I had relations at Cleckheaton. and described it and the neighbourhood to her. The younger lady then asked me if I knew any more recitations, and I replied I could give one or two from Shakespeare. Feeling more at ease, I at once recited one or two selections from ‘Hamlet’, without any remark being made. Miss Charlotte then asked me if I would give the dialogue between Hamlet and his mother, where the Queen says, “Do not for ever with thy veiled lids seek for thy noble father in the dust; thou know’st ’tis common, all that live must die—passing through nature to eternity.” I complied as well I could; gave the whole scene without the ladies displaying any special interest in it, until I came to the line where Hamlet says, “I have that within which passeth show; these, but the trappings and the suits of woe,” when they both burst out into good-humoured laugh. I dared not ask the cause of this, but I suppose my looks showed my anxiety, and Charlotte said, “I’ve seen Hamlet played at Bradford, and they made the same mistake you have made in the word ‘suite.’ Shakespeare never could have used it in that sense – namely, a dress – but in a wider sense, ‘suite,’ pronounced ‘sweet,’ meaning that the King, Queen, and all about them were only acting the part of mourners, making their conduct match or harmonise with their supposed recent bereavement – the death of Hamlet’s father.” I did not venture on any opinion, but said I believed it was in the book. Miss Charlotte said it was, but only showed the ignorant, shortsightedness of those who tampered with Shakespeare’s works.’

One writer whom Charlotte Brontë always gave a glowing tribute to was Walter Scott. In the first letter we saw, Charlotte praised Scott’s poetry, but in the same 1834 missive she also praised his prose:

‘For Fiction – read Scott alone, all novels after his are worthless.’

By 1848, when Charlotte herself was a published and much praised writer, it was still Scott who held the position of supremacy in her mind, as we see in this letter to W. S. Williams:

‘The standard heroes and heroines of novels, are personages in whom I could never, from childhood upwards, take an interest, believe to be natural, or wish to imitate; were I obliged to copy these characters, I would simply not write at all. Were I obliged to copy any former novelist, even the greatest, even Scott, in anything, I would not write.’

Ask people today to name the greatest writer of ‘classic’ literature, and Jane Austen would be sure to figure highly, but Charlotte Brontë had contrasting views of this brilliant novelist. On 12^th January 1848 she wrote the critic G. H. Lewes:

‘’Why do you like Miss Austen so very much? I am puzzled on that point. What induced you to say that you would rather have written Pride & Prejudice or Tom Jones [Henry Fielding] than any of the Waverley novels [by Walter Scott]? I had not seen Pride & Prejudice till I read that sentence of yours, and then I got the book and studied it. And what did I find? An accurate daguerreotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers – but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy – no open country – no fresh air – no blue hill – no bonny beck. I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.’

This, however, shouldn’t be taken purely as a critique upon Austen. Charlotte had little knowledge of Jane’s writing, and from the letter to Williams we looked at, we can see how Charlotte was determined to differentiate herself from the style and characters of preceding novelists. Two years later, however, Charlotte is expressing praise, in her unique way, for Jane Austen’s Emma:

‘I have likewise read one of Miss Austen’s works Emma – read it with interest and with just the degree of admiration which Miss Austen herself would have thought sensible and suitable – anything like warmth or enthusiasm; anything energetic, poignant, heart-felt, is utterly out of place in commending these works: all such demonstrations the authoress would have met with a well-bred sneer, would have calmly scorned as outré and extravagant. She does her business of delineating the surface of the lives of genteel English people curiously well; there is a Chinese fidelity, a miniature delicacy in the painting: she ruffles her reader by nothing vehement, disturbs him by nothing profound.’

After Scott, perhaps the most enduring literary love of Charlotte was William Makepeace Thackeray. Charlotte dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to her hero with extravagantly fulsome praise:

‘There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital-a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of “Vanity Fair” admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time-they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Rimoth-Gilead.

Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day-as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent. They say he is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humour, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to him – if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger – I have dedicated this second edition of “JANE EYRE.”’

Thanks to Charlotte’s growing fame, and their shared publisher George Smith, it wasn’t long before she met Thackeray; they got on well, all things considered, despite Thackeray’s large physical size and exuberant character being a sharp contrast to Charlotte herself.

Writing to George Smith in 1852, giving a critique of Henry Esmond (a work in progress by Thackeray which she’d been sent), her praise of the writer is undiminished:

‘Many other things I noticed that, for my part, grieved and exasperated me as I read, but then again came passages so true, so deeply thought, so tenderly felt, one could not help forgiving and admiring…I wish there was one whose word he cared for to bid him good speed – to tell him to go on courageously with the book; he may yet make it the best thing he has ever written… Some people have been in the habit of terming him the second writer of his day; it just depends on himself whether or not these critics shall be justified in their award. He need not be second. God made him second to no man.’

Who then is the number one in popular critical opinion alluded to by Charlotte? It was Charles Dickens, already by 1852 at the age of 40 a national treasure. Perhaps it was a perceived rivalry with Thackeray that led to Charlotte being rather cool on works by Dickens that are now regarded among the greatest novels of all time. In 1852, for example, Charlotte remarked:

‘Is the 1^st number of Bleak House generally admired? I liked the Chancery part – but where it passes into the autobiographic form and the young woman who announces that she is not “bright” begins her history – it seems to me too often weak and twaddling; an amiable nature is caricatured not faithfully rendered in Miss Esther Summerson.’

Charlotte Brontë, like her sisters, loved reading books and forming opinions on them; she was a voracious and astute reader. I could fill another dozen posts with her views on other writers including Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Julia Kavanagh and many more, but I will finish with her October 1852 praise of a contemporary novelist whose work shook society on both sides of the Atlantic, and whose great novel sold more than a million copies in England in that year alone – Harriet Beecher Stowe:

‘I cannot write books handling the topics of the day – it is of no use trying. Nor can I write a book for its moral. Nor can I take up a philanthropic scheme though I honour Philanthropy, and voluntarily and sincerely veil my face before such a mighty subject as that handled in Mrs. Beecher Stowe’s work – Uncle Tom’s Cabin. To manage these great matters rightly they must be long and practically studied – their bearings known intimately and their evils felt genuinely – they must not be taken up as a business-matter and a trading-speculation. I doubt not Mrs. Stowe had felt the iron of slavery enter her heart from childhood upwards long before she ever thought of writing books. The feeling throughout her work is sincere and not got up.’

The bottom line, of course, is that any book is a good book as long as you enjoy reading it. I wish Happy Father’s Day to all fathers out there, and for those for whom this day is a sad one may you find comfort in happy memories. This week also witnessed a sad anniversary for Elizabeth Brontë died on 15^th June 1825 aged just ten years old. She was not forgotten then or now.

I leave you all with happier tidings. On Thursday morning I received an email from Sotheby’s – the July auction of the Honresfield Library containing Brontë treasures (and Scott and Austen items) has been suspended. They are instead helping to negotiate a plan to buy the items for the nation, with support from government funds, organisations such as the British Library and the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and from some wealthy philanthropists who are choosing to carry out their good work in private. Charlotte would surely have approved. It’s great news, and it now seems very likely that the items will soon be in public ownership and on view in locations such as Haworth and Euston Road. Many people have messaged me on this, thanks to all and especially to Amber Elby of Texas who has been undertaking fund raising ventures to help bring the Brontës home.

I will see you again next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post – until then, happy reading!