Author: insearchofannebronte@hotmail.com

Two hundred years ago today, in the village of Thornton near Bradford, a happy event was growing ever closer. A Cornish woman in her thirties and her forty something Irish husband were looking forward to the birth of their fifth child, now less than two months away. That woman, of course, was Maria Brontë and the child to come was the enigmatic genius Emily Jane Brontë.

Back in our present day, that occasion will be marked joyously on July 30^th, but this weekend another summer occasion will be dominating Haworth: the annual summer festival of the Brontë Society.

Many of the events are open to members and non-members of the society alike, and there’s a real variety of events that should appeal to all tastes: a sibling fused smorgasbord. The Brontë Society annual lecture is being given by author and historian Carol Dyhouse who will examine ‘The Eccentricities of ‘Woman’s Fantasy’… And Heathcliff’. According to the promotional material Carol will start the lecture by asking why Heathcliff is looked upon as a romantic figure when the author herself explicitly warned against this. It’s an interesting and oft asked question, although of course in truth Emily made no comment on this whatsoever, or on her masterpiece as a whole, other than what’s contained within its pages. It should certainly be a thought provoking lecture from a foremost expert in her field.

Friday night sees ‘History Wardrobe: Gothic For Girls’ take a look at the evolution of gothic literature and fashion from the 18^th century to the present day, calling at Charlotte and Emily’s work en route. Also on Friday, Ann Dinsdale, head curator of the Brontë Parsonage Museum and a woman who probably knows more about the museum and the people who lived there than anyone else, looks at the Brontë Parsonage Museum at 90. It’s certainly changed a lot since then, so it should make for an informative and enlightening tale.

Saturday night is quiz night in Haworth, as celebrated journalist, presenter and self professed Anne Brontë fan Lucy Mangan hosts ‘The Great Who Wants To Be A Brontë Mastermind Challenge’. Quizzes are always lots of fun (says the man who won Thornton’s Brontë quiz and still has the beer tokens to prove it, ahem – I don’t like to boast) but the competition should be fierce at this one! Brilliant author Rowan Coleman, of ‘The Summer Of Impossible Things’ fame, is just one of the team leaders who will be pitting their wits.

Of course there will also be the perennial delights available to visitors to Haworth this weekend and beyond, not least of which are the wide stretching moors so loved by Anne and Emily, and the Parsonage itself which now has Branwell’s portrait of his three sisters on loan from the National Portrait Gallery.

I’m very much looking forward to returning to Haworth this weekend, but if you’re a little further afield there’s also an exciting event approaching in South Wales. Brontë expert Catherine Paula Han and others are part of a panel discussing Wuthering Heights on 11^th June at Cardiff University and it should be an absolutely fascinating talk.

June 1848 saw the publication of Anne Brontë’s brilliant, if at the time controversial, second novel, ‘The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall‘, but she wasn’t the first Brontë sibling to be published in this month. That honour goes to her often maligned and misunderstood brother, Branwell.

Patrick Branwell Brontë was a complex man who undoubtedly had some issues that contributed to his decline and death later in the year 1848, but he also undoubtedly was a man of talent. Branwell’s addictions were in all probability linked to issues relating to the childhood losses he suffered – the devastating early deaths of his mother and then his eldest sisters Maria and Elizabeth; we should not, however, let the form of his end cloud our impression of his life as a whole.

Branwell could be a happy, generous brother – it was he after all who shared the gift of twelve toy soldiers with Charlotte, Emily and Anne in July 1826, a gift that was to prove pivotal in unlocking the childhood creativity within the Brontës. Patrick had brought other gifts for his daughters, including a paper doll for Anne, but the soldiers he bought for his son were shared immediately among his siblings as a young Branwell himself remembered:

‘I carried them [the soldiers] to Emily, Charlotte and Anne. They each took up a soldier, gave them names, which I consented to, and I gave Charlotte Twemy, to Emily Pare, to Anne Trot to take care of them, although they were to be mine and I to have the disposal of them as I would.’

These twelve soldiers became the young men who populated their childhood world of the Great Glasstown Confederacy, which in turn became Angria. This is the land behind the incredibly tiny and intricate little books that can still be seen at Harvard University and in the Brontë Parsonage Museum today. It is Branwell that took the lead role in this early creative outburst, as evidenced by the initial name of their books being ‘Branwell’s Blackwood Magazine.’

Branwell was possibly the most enthusiastic early poet of the four remaining siblings, and he was not lacking in ambition, as the conclusion to his letter to Blackwood’s Magazine of Edinburgh in December 1837 showed:

‘Now, sir, do not act like a commonplace person, but like a man willing to examine for himself. Do not turn from the naked truth of my letters, but prove me – and if I do not stand the proof, I will not further press myself upon you. If I do stand it, why, you have lost an able writer in James Hogg, and God grant you may gain one in Patrick Branwell Brontë’

Branwell was also not lacking in talent as a poet, and we do well to remember that Branwell was the first of the Brontë siblings to find themselves in print (Anne was the only other sibling who had her poetry published without paying for it). His verse appeared in a number of local publications under the pseudonym of ‘Northangerland’, a complex character from the Angrian saga, one readily identified with by his creator. Under this guise his work appeared in publications ranging from the Yorkshire Gazette and Leeds Intelligencer to the Halifax Guardian which on June 5^th 1841 published his poem ‘Heaven and Earth’.

Branwell had twelve poems published by the Halifax Guardian alone, and this was no mean feat as they took their poetry very seriously, and the standard was very high. Reading Branwell’s poetry today reinforces the impression of a good poet with a real love of verse. It is sad, therefore, that by 1846 his addictions made him unable to be considered for inclusion within ‘Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell‘.

Branwell was a talented man in many areas; a skilled musician from an early age, a fine artist (his painting ‘The Lonely Shepherd’ adorns this post), and a loving brother who drew sketches for his baby sister Anne – a kindness she never forgot. He could write with both hands at once, composing a Greek letter with his left hand and a Latin letter with his right – an incredible testimony to the talents that lay within him. If Branwell had reached creative maturity I have little doubt that the results would have been brilliant, but certainly for much of his life he was a loving and positive influence on his sisters and on their work.

I will leave you with an extract from Branwell Brontë’s long, moving and brilliant poem ‘Caroline’, in which many see a tribute to the eldest sister he loved, Maria, whose loss cast a life long shadow over his years to come:

‘I stooped to pluck a rose that grew
Beside this window, waving then;
But back my little hand withdrew,
From some reproof of inward pain;
For she who loved it was not there
To check me with her dove-like eye,
And something bid my heart forbear
Her favourite rosebud to destroy.
Was it that bell — that funeral bell,
Sullenly sounding on the wind?
Was it that melancholy knell
Which first to sorrow woke my mind?
I looked upon my mourning dress,
Till my heart beat with childish fear,
And frightened at my loneliness,
I watched, some well-known sound to hear.
But all without lay silent in
The sunny hush of afternoon,
And only muffled steps within
Passed slowly and sedately on.
There lay she then, as now she lies —
For not a limb has moved since then —
In dreamless slumber closed, those eyes
That never more might wake again.
She lay, as I had seen her lie
On many a happy night before,
When I was humbly kneeling by —
Whom she was teaching to adore:
Oh, just as when by her I prayed,
And she to heaven sent up my prayer,
She lay with flower about her head —
Though formal grave-clothes hid her hair!
Still did her lips the smile retain
Which parted them when hope was high,
Still seemed her brow as smoothed from pain
As when all thought she could not die.
And, though her bed looked cramped and strange,
Her too bright cheek all faded now,
My young eyes scarcely saw a change
From hours when moonlight paled her brow.
And yet I felt — and scarce could speak —
A chilly face, a faltering breath,
When my hand touched the marble cheek
Which lay so passively beneath.
And thus it brought me back the hours
When we, at rest together,
Used to lie listening to the showers
Of wild December weather;
Which, when, as oft, they woke in her
The chords of inward thought,
Would fill with pictures that wild air,
From far-off memories brought ;
So, while I lay, I heard again
Her silver-sounding tongue,
Rehearsing some remembered strain
Of old times long agone!’

Anne Brontë died on 28th May 1849, 169 years ago to this day. Her resting place still brings literary pilgrims from across Britain and beyond to the auxiliary churchyard of St. Mary’s Church and in many ways its location is perfect.

Anne Brontë loved Scarborough, the sea air, the sound of seagulls, the crashing of wave upon rock, the sand beneath her feet; these were the very essence of life to her; now they surround her physical form in its rest.

She lies below Scarborough Castle, where Reverend Weston proposed to Agnes Grey, and above the sea that she had dreamed of since childhood stories of Penzance told to her by Aunt Branwell.

Yes, Anne Brontë will forever be associated with Haworth, like her sisters, but it was to Scarborough that she chose to travel in her final days. We have a very moving record of these final days thanks to a woman who was alongside her, the great Brontë friend Ellen Nussey. Ellen wrote a short description of these days for Elizabeth Gaskell. She entitled it, ‘A Short Account Of The Last Days Of Dear A.B.’

I leave you with it now, but whether you remember Anne in Scarborough, Haworth or in your home, we will miss her, and mourn what she could have achieved given time, but we don’t mourn Anne, for in a very real sense she is still among us.

‘She left her home May 24th, I849 – died May 28th. Her life was calm, quiet, spiritual such was her end. Through the trials and fatigues of the journey, she evinced the pious courage and fortitude of a martyr. Dependence and helplessness were ever with her a far sorer trial than hard, racking pain.

The first stage of our journey was to York; and here the dear invalid was so revived, so cheerful, and so happy, we drew consolation, and trusted that at least temporary improvement was to be derived from the change which she had so longed for, and her friends had so dreaded for her.

By her request we went to the Minster, and to her it was an overpowering pleasure; not for its own imposing and impressive grandeur only, but because it brought to her susceptible nature a vital and overwhelming sense of omnipotence. She said, while gazing at the structure, ‘If finite power can do this, what is the…?’ and here emotion stayed her speech, and she was hastened to a less exciting scene. Her weakness of body was great, but her gratitude for every mercy was greater. After such an exertion as walking to her bed-room, she would clasp her hands and raise her eyes in silent thanks, and she did this not to the exclusion of wonted prayer, for that too was performed on bended knee, ere she accepted the rest of her couch.

On the 25th we arrived at Scarborough; our dear invalid having, during the journey, directed our attention to every prospect worthy of notice.

On the 26th she drove on the sands for an hour; and lest the poor donkey should be urged by its driver to a greater speed than her tender heart thought right, she took the reins, and drove herself. When joined by her friend, she was charging the boy-master of the donkey to treat the poor animal well. She was ever fond of dumb things, and would give up her own comfort for them.

On Sunday, the 27th, she wished to go to church, and her eye brightened with the thought of once more worshipping her God amongst her fellow-creatures. We thought it prudent to dissuade her from the attempt, though it was evident her heart was longing to join in the public act of devotion and praise. She walked a little in the afternoon, and meeting with a sheltered and comfortable seat near the beach, she begged we would leave her, and enjoy the various scenes near at hand, which were new to us but familiar to her. She loved the place, and wished us to share her preference.It closed with the most glorious sunset ever witnessed. The castle on the cliff stood in proud glory gilded by the rays of the declining sun. The distant ships glittered like burnished gold; the little boats near the beach heaved on the ebbing tide, inviting occupants. The view was grand beyond description. Anne was drawn in her easy chair to the window to enjoy the scene with us. Her face became illuminated almost as much as the glorious sun she gazed upon. Little was said, for it was plain that her thoughts were driven by the imposing view before her to penetrate forwards to the region of unfading glory.

The night was passed without any apparent accession of illness. She rose at seven o’clock, and performed most of her toilet herself, by her expressed wish. Her sister always yielded such points, believing it was the truest kindness not to press inability when it was not acknowledged. Nothing occurred to excite alarm till about 11 a.m. She then spoke of feeling a change. She believed she had not long to live. Could she reach home alive, if we prepared immediately for departure? A physician was sent for. Her address to him was made with perfect composure. She begged him to say how long he thought she might live ; not to fear speaking the truth, for she was not afraid to die. The doctor reluctantly admitted that the angel of death was already arrived, and that life was ebbing fast. She thanked him for his truthfulness, and he departed to come again very soon. She still occupied her easy chair, looking so serene, so reliant: there was no opening for grief as yet, though all knew the separation was at hand. She clasped her hands, and reverently invoked a blessing from on high ; first upon her sister, then upon her friend, to whom she said, ‘ Be a sister in my stead. Give

Charlotte as much of your company as you can.’ She then thanked each for her kindness and attention. Ere long the restlessness of approaching death appeared, and she was borne to the sofa ; on being asked if she were easier, she looked gratefully at her questioner, and said, ‘It is not you who can give me ease, but soon all will be well through the merits of our Redeemer.’ Shortly after this, seeing that her sister could hardly restrain her grief, she said, ‘Take courage, Charlotte; take courage.’ Her faith never failed, and her eye never dimmed till about two o’clock, when she calmly and without a sigh passed from the temporal to the eternal. So still, and so hallowed were her last hours and moments. There was no thought of assistance or of dread. The doctor came and went two or three times. The hostess knew that death was near, yet so little was the house disturbed by the presence of the dying, and the sorrow of those so nearly bereaved, that dinner was announced as ready, through the half-opened door, as the living sister was closing the eyes of the dead one.

She could now no more stay the welled-up grief of her sister with her emphatic and dying ‘ Take courage,’ and it burst forth in brief but agonising strength. Charlotte’s affection, however, had another channel, and there it turned in thought, in care, and in tenderness. There was bereavement, but there was not solitude; – sympathy was at hand, and it was accepted. With calmness, came the consideration of the removal of the dear remains to their home resting-place. This melancholy task, however, was never performed; for the afflicted sister decided to lay the flower in the place where it had fallen. She believed that to do so would accord with the wishes of the departed. She had no preference for place. She thought not of the grave, for that is but the body’s goal, but of all that is beyond it.

“Her remains rest,
Where the south sun warms the now dear sod,
Where the ocean billows lave and strike the steep and turf-covered rock.'”

Emily was a brilliant and prolific poet, a genius born in the early nineteenth century. Her writing dazzled with invention and soaring thoughts, but it also often dealt with themes of death. Emily never had a lover and as she grew older she became increasingly reclusive, often refusing to meet or talk to guests, and spending most of her later years confined to her bedroom with only pen and paper for company. She kept her poems to herself, and it was only after the accidental discovery of them by her sister that they came to the world’s attention. You may think I’m talking about Emily Brontë, but in fact this is Emily Dickinson – in my opinion America’s greatest ever poet, and a woman who died 132 years ago this week, aged 55.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts in December 1830 into a comfortable, if not overly wealthy, family and had one brother William Austin (always known by his middle name) and a sister Lavinia. At age nine she was sent to the Amherst Academy, where she stayed for seven years, and she excelled at her learning. She particularly loved to play the piano, which she was proficient at from an early age. Even at this age, however, Emily knew that she did not fit in with the regimented life others followed:

‘They shut me up in Prose –
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet –
Because they liked me “still” –
Still! Could themself have peeped –
And seen my Brain – go round –
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason – in the Pound –’

In 1844 a tragedy struck that changed Emily’s life for ever. Her cousin and best friend Sophia Holland contracted typhoid and died. From that moment melancholia settled upon Emily Dickinson, and she was often consumed by thoughts of death, illness and dying; thoughts that inevitably found their way onto the page.

By 1858 Emily had become a recluse, and in the privacy of her own room she began to edit and collect the poems she had been writing over the years into four notebooks. They contained over 800 poems, many of them as brilliant as anything written that century and stylistically way ahead of their time as Emily often cut up her poetry with dashes or a strange use of capitalisation. These books were discovered by Lavinia after Emily Dickinson’s death, and it was only then that it was realised what she had truly been. Emily never wanted fame or even recognition, as her poem ‘Fame Is A Fickle Food’ shows:

‘Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set
Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the
Farmer’s corn
Men eat of it and die.’

Emily’s faith was unique to herself, she attended church for but a few years, but she believed in a universal power and in the immortal, unbreakable soul. By 1867 her isolation was complete, so that she would only talk to people on the opposite side of her door. In these last 20 years she continued to write incredible poems that became darker and darker, like ‘Because I Could Not Stop For Death’:

‘Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –’

On May 15^th 1886, Emily Dickinson died suddenly with her brother by her side. She had imagined her own funeral many times,and featured it in her verse:

‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My mind was going numb –
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here –
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then -‘

Emily Dickinson found immense fame after her death, as Emily Brontë did, and the poems of both Emilys have astonished the world ever since. There are huge, some would say strange, similarities between the two women, but did Emily Dickinson know of the Brontës? She certainly knew, and loved, their work. In 1849 we know that Emily Dickinson read the first American edition of ‘Jane Eyre‘. It made such an impact on her that she later named her new puppy ‘Carlo’, after St. John’s dog in Charlotte Brontë’s great novel. At Emily Dickinson’s funeral a solitary poem was read; it had been specifically requested by her: it was ‘No Coward Soul Is Mine’ by Emily Brontë!

We celebrated the United Kingdom’s marking of Mother’s Day two months ago with a look at the depiction of motherhood in Anne Brontë’s great novels, and we have also rightly celebrated the life of Maria Brontë, nee Branwell, recently, who although her life was cut tragically short gave her children an abundance of love and support while she was with them.

In the United States of America, however, today is Mother’s Day, so let’s take a quick look at whether Anne herself ever dreamed of motherhood. Others may dispute it, and they’re perfectly within their rights to do so, but it’s clear in my heart that Anne Brontë and William Weightman loved each other, and if cholera hadn’t snatched this kind and brilliant clergyman away in 1842 then I believe they would eventually have married. After all, a young clergyman such as Weightman would have been expected to take a wife, and it would have been normal for him to choose one who was the daughter of a more experienced priest, such as Patrick Brontë. Anne was close to him in temperament, kindness and in depth of religious feelings, and it has been said that she was the prettiest Brontë, so to me they would have been a perfect match.

Certainly Anne’s succession of powerful mourning poetry after Weightman’s passing, and his undoubted appearance as Reverend Edward Weston in ‘Agnes Grey’ is testimony to her undying feelings for him. At the end of her first novel she, very movingly, gives herself the happy ending that real life had denied her – marriage to Weightman, and a chance to be a loving mother:

‘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.’

There is one other touching account of Anne’s dreams of being a mother, hidden under the guise of Gondalian characters in her poem ‘A Voice From The Dungeon’, written when she was just 17 years of age:

‘It was a pleasant summer’s day,
The sun shone forth with cheering ray,
Methought a little lovely child,
Looked up into my face and smiled.
My heart was full, I wept for joy,
It was my own, my darling boy;
I clasped him to my breast and he,
Kissed and laughed in childish glee.’

Anne Brontë would have made a wonderful mother, as her skill as governess to the Robinson children shows, and as demonstrated by the love they felt for her long after she left their service.

I dedicate this post to all the mothers out there, God bless you all for the selfless work you do and the heartfelt love you give – it certainly doesn’t go unnoticed!

The sixth of May and fifteenth of June are difficult days for lovers of the Brontë family, as it was on these dates 193 years ago that the eldest siblings Maria Brontë and Elizabeth Brontë died of consumption, what we now know as tuberculosis. Their loss was dreadful to their family, and can still be felt by us today. Certainly they remained ever on third sister Charlotte’s mind, as we can see from her letter of 13^th June 1849, sent from Filey to W.S. Williams:

‘A year ago had a prophet warned me how I would stand in June 1849, how stripped and bereaved, had he foretold the autumn, the winter, the spring of sickness and suffering to be gone through I should have thought this can never be endured. It is over. Branwell, Emily, Anne are gone like dreams – gone as Maria and Elizabeth went twenty years ago. One by one I have watched them fall asleep on my arm and closed their glazed eyes – I have seen them buried one by one.’

Maria and Elizabeth Brontë were sent to the Clergy Daughter’s School in Cowan Bridge in Westmorland in July 1824, with Charlotte joining them there two months later. They already had some taste of school, having earlier attended the exclusive Crofton Hall School at Wakefield for a term. Cowan Bridge, however, was a very different school run on very different lines by the calvinist minister Carus Wilson.

Wilson sued Elizabeth Gaskell after the publication of her biography of Charlotte Brontë, and had many references to him removed. It has been said that the deaths that claimed Maria and Elizabeth were due to the errors of a cook, but Wilson himself cannot be fully exonerated.

He was, by any standards, a hell-fire preacher of extreme views and extreme ferocity. An arch Calvinist, he believed that one sin would condemn a person to eternal torture in Hell, with no opportunity to escape this fate but for a group of people called the ‘Elect’, which he was of course one of.

He attacked society, his congregation and less severe clergy alike. One sermon of his began:

‘The worldliness even of the most moral and (in the general acceptance of the term) respectable Clergyman, oh! How it eats as a canker at the roots of his pastoral usefulness, and discourages many a young disciple who was beginning to turn his face Zionwards.’

Who was the target of this sermon of Wilson’s? It was delivered to mark a visit from the Bishop of Chester.

Of the 53 pupils at the school at the time of the Brontës, seven died, and others were sent home severely ill who may also have died. This wasn’t the end of deaths during Wilson’s career as a headmaster, indeed they occurred continually throughout his decades in this role. By 1840, 15 years after the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth Brontë, Wilson had moved his school to Casterton in Westmorland. The Leeds Intelligencer of 25^th January 1840 reports that 70 pupils at the school were now suffering from typhoid, and that three had recently died.

In 1857, Wilson appointed a new head at Casterton, Dorothea Beale. She was a very different person to Wilson, and later became known as a suffragist and social reformer. Beale was horrified at what she found at the school, and resigned a year later. She complained about ‘the low moral tone of the school’, and ‘the want of sympathy and love’, as ‘nothing can flourish if love be not the ruling incentive.’

It seems that Carus Wilson had learned little in the 40 years after the Brontës’ deaths. Perhaps the defining verdict on the school should be left to Charlotte, who famously described it as Lowood in ‘Jane Eyre’: ‘That forest-dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and fog-bred pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the seminary into a hospital’

Charlotte was adamant in later years that Cowan Bridge had in fact been much worse than the Lowood of her novel, insisting that: ‘Had I told all the truth, I might indeed have made it far more exquisitely painful.’

As it is we have to read the painful depiction of Maria Brontë as Helen Burns, the kind, bright, uncomplaining young woman who is singled out for especially harsh treatment for being disorganised, and who eventually dies with Jane by her side.

In reality, Charlotte could not be by Maria’s side as she breathed her last breath on May the sixth 1825, as she, Elizabeth and Emily were still at the school. It was Patrick who had to close her glazed eyes, just as a month later he had to do for his second daughter Elizabeth who was sent home to Haworth on 31^st May 1825 in ‘ill health’, along with a bill for her stay at the school.

It was a tragic event that should never have been allowed to happen, and the Brontës suffered two huge losses. We Brontë lovers suffer too, for who knows what they could have achieved if they had lived longer? They would surely have provided support and companionship to Anne, then just five years old, as she grew up.

Let us think no longer of the cruelties of Cowan Bridge, but instead picture two kind, bright and happy children full of promise who would always be remembered by their father and siblings, always loved. Even so, it is impossible on this day not to also think of Charlotte’s mournful yet beautiful verdict on Emily, and apply it to Maria Brontë and Elizabeth Brontë too:

‘She has died in a time of promise – we saw her torn from life in its prime.’

The world will always, rightly, remember Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell Brontë – let us also take a moment of silence to remember Maria and Elizabeth.